TL/ED – Miso

Even granting that this was Dersia’s workshop…

…a human head sitting all alone on top of the desk was quite a bizarre sight.

“First off, I don’t know anything. This is just a waste of time.”

Especially when said head was talking.

Aksha responded more calmly than I would have expected, but regardless of that, Dersia neatly picked up a large needle that was clearly not intended for acupuncture and set it down beside him.

“The name Rakshasa is one I haven’t heard in a very long time. I didn’t think they were still around.”

“You know these guys?”

“Yes. They were already an assassin group back then, but they did rather peculiar things, so they stuck in my memory. Long ago, they tried to kidnap my Kin.”

“…What?”

They had tried to kidnap elves. The moment I heard that, I frowned.

Back when I hadn’t known any better, I might have thought someone just wanted to make slaves of them because of their pretty faces, but by now I knew that every elf, Dersia included, was a monster capable of wiping out entire nations single-handedly.

No matter how skilled, those were mere humans, and it wasn’t something they should have been reaching for. As I stared thinking they’d really done all sorts of strange things, he snorted and rolled his eyes.

“How many centuries ago was that? Probably ran into you lot in the middle of researching mages.”

“Researching mages? Why would you do that?”

“Well, wouldn’t it be nice if we could use magic too?”

“Why would an assassin group need magic?”

“Ignore him. They’ve always been like this.”

Dersia casually raised the needle – pressed it against Aksha’s scalp, and glanced at me.

“Please turn your head away for a moment.”

“…I was already planning to.”

“U-um. I don’t know much about this, but doesn’t the Empire have regulations concerning prisoners? Doesn’t Article 13, Clause 4 prohibit excessive torture?”

“So there is such a thing. If you have nothing more to say, I’ll proceed now.”

The moment I turned my head away, I heard the sound of the needle crushing bone.

-Squelch, crunch, crunch-crunch-crunch…

I had even turned off my Current Sense, but I couldn’t block out the sound. After roughly five minutes of torture that was closer to a medical procedure, Dersia sighed and peeled off her gloves.

Aksha had a vacant expression with no apparent external injuries, and he was drooling, but blood kept flowing from his ears.

Trying my best not to look at the blood-soaked gloves, I asked.

“What did you do?”

“For reasons I can’t fathom, these Rakshasa are a strange assassin group where every member pursues nothing but greater strength. Their restrictions are correspondingly severe: if he’d told us the details, his head would have burst and he would have died.”

“Ah. So you released that Binding Seal.”

“No? Why would I do that. I adjusted the Binding Seal so it will trigger if he doesn’t answer our questions.”

“…”

Only after a long while did Aksha come back to himself, and he clenched his teeth before speaking.

“I’ll say it again, I really don’t know. Crimson Circle or whatever. I’m just a grunt.”

“He’s telling the truth.”

It was a rather uncomfortable truth.

A grunt capable of kidnapping an imperial Princess. As I frowned, thinking things would get extremely troublesome if these guys were connected to the Crimson Circle, he clicked his tongue and muttered.

“Well, I did take a commission for a somewhat violent job. And on the side, they also told me to hunt any Fallen belonging to the Crimson Circle if I came across them.”

“Hunt? So you’re not connected to the Crimson Circle?”

“Well… we are connected, sort of? I guess…? We’ve been kidnapping their Fallen and reworking them into something a bit more useful.”

“Not cooperating with them?”

“The thing is, our goals don’t really line up. We’re assassins first and foremost. If everyone actually died, that would be a bit of a problem for us.”

Grinning at that, Aksha looked back and forth between me and Dersia and tossed out a proposal.

“Rather, wouldn’t it be the two of us who could cooperate? Hm?”

“Cooperate, my ass.”

“Come on. This isn’t the first time, you know. Put a Fallen through a little modification process – and you can borrow their abilities without paying a cost. Well, not entirely without cost… but with a bit more experimentation, who knows.”

Smiling smoothly and letting the moment hang, he drew out his words.

“Just one thing. The number of Crimson Circle Fallen we’ve captured so far isn’t even in the double digits. But you guys took down an executive of theirs, right? You should at least know roughly where their base is.”

“So you want us to supply you with materials.”

Seeing him try to strike a bargain even in this situation, he really was something else. I had no intention of humoring him, though.

“Now you’re talking. Of course, we’d help you in return. You get to hunt the Crimson Circle with ease, we get to gain Fallen abilities. Isn’t that a win-win?”

“No, I don’t really feel like it. For now, just shut up.”

“Fine, fine. But you’re not going to keep me… like this, are you?”

“We can’t let him loose, and it would be a waste to kill him. He’ll have to spend a few years inside a drawer.”

“W-wait! Now that I think about it, something might be coming back to me.”

Dangling there before being put into the drawer, Aksha brought something up.

“We’re in the middle of research, so it’s true we need a lot of Fallen… but we don’t just need the low-level ones, you know?”

“So what.”

“Thing is, we don’t know where the Crimson Circle is either, and it’s driving us nuts. On that note, there’s just one. One guy we know the location of who’s been marked as a target.”

“…Target?”

“A Fallen outside the Crimson Circle – but one who can rival them, and someone the Empire is treasuring.”

Aksha looked my way and pulled up the corners of his mouth.

“You’re Jern Aspandal, aren’t you?”

“…”

“We’ve got ties with a few nobles, see. The Fallen who took down a Crimson Circle executive – seeing how easily you crushed me, it’s gotta be you.”

“Correct. The Rakshasa are targeting me?”

“Yes. Even at this very moment. They might be making contact with you soon, in fact-”

-Crack!

Before he could continue, the glass jar holding his head was splattered with blood.

Startled, I turned to look behind me and saw Dersia glaring into the jar with an extremely displeased expression, before she ground her teeth and muttered.

“There’s no need to listen any further. We’ll only get dragged in.”

“Uh, um. Right.”

“I’ll investigate the details myself by examining his insides. Leave this matter to me. And… you said you’d awakened to the world of Extreme Ice?”

“Ah, yes.”

It was a glaringly obvious change of subject, but since Dersia didn’t seem to be in the best mood, I went along with it.

“Like this – I can freeze most things I can see.”

I turned a few of the encyclopedias on the desk into blocks of ice to demonstrate.

Dersia folded her arms and nodded.

“Hmm, anything else?”

“I know what you’re getting at. I tried a few experiments in the carriage on the way here with Linmel, but I don’t think I’ll be able to use anything that absurd.”

Thought Deceleration.

That monstrous ability, which turned anyone who merely existed in the vicinity into something like a thinking corpse, I could see absolutely no way to use.

However-

“But this much is possible. Let me borrow a book.”

I took one of the books Dersia was holding, gripped the first page, and riffled through to the last page.

It was incredibly thick, but flipping to the final page took less than four seconds.

“I’ve read it all. Try asking me a question.”

“What does the first sentence on page 359 begin with?”

“So… um…”

I wracked my brain and barely managed to dredge it up.

“Something about the connection between higher-tier magic and memory. Is that right?”

“…It’s Death’s Flashback.”

Without even opening the book, Dersia nodded, looking impressed.

“You read and memorized all of it in that short amount of time?”

“Not exactly. I just looked at it again.”

For less than 0.001 seconds, the instant each page entered my field of vision.

That registered in my mind as a fragment of memory. There was no information there in the moment, but the instant I tried to remember, it came back.

Literally a Death’s Flashback. Except that I could view it whenever I wanted.

“This seems to pair really well with my Current Sense.”

Even used with just the naked eye, it was a remarkable ability, but I could activate Current Sense on top of it.

If I used it well, I would be able to work around Current Sense’s main problem, the human limitation of having one’s head crushed from taking in too many senses at once.

“And this is also possible. One moment.”

I dove into the Deep Sea, roughly froze the first Deep Sea Creature I saw, and dropped it straight into my Water Barrier.

Anything too large couldn’t even be frozen in the first place – but something small like a jellyfish was perfectly doable.

Returning to reality, I set the fist-sized jellyfish on top of the desk.

“Now I can pull whatever I want out of the Deep Sea as much as I please. I might even be able to bring back something useful…”

I thought of Elysia, whose eyes had gone wide when she received the Deep Sea pearls.

Surely even a world filled only with death had items worth putting to use.

Just as my thoughts were about to land on something, Dersia lightly melted my ice and picked up the limp jellyfish.

“Hmm.”

“Ah, touching that with bare hands might not be a good idea.”

“There’s no poison. However…”

Dersia trailed off as she examined the jellyfish for a moment, then eventually shrugged.

“I’ll look into this on my own.”

“Thank you. But should I really not worry about what he said?”

I pointed at the blood-smeared glass jar as I asked.

An organization called Rakshasa was targeting me. If that was true, then given that even a grunt possessed that level of combat strength, it would be hard to brush off.

“For now, don’t leave the capital for a few days.”

“What? Why not?”

“There are a few methods I can use to make contact with them. It shouldn’t take too long, but there is one thing that concerns me slightly.”

“What is it?”

“…There’s no guarantee it’s still the case. It was a long time ago.”

Dersia shrugged with an uneasy expression.

“As it happened, my Kin, who had sworn never to set foot in the mortal world again, were living in seclusion deep within the forest, and naturally, that place was unknown to humans. So the Rakshasa set out to burn down every single forest on the continent.”

“…What?”

“It was only once half of every existing, living, breathing forest had been reduced to ash that we finally had no choice but to step in and drive them off. They’re rather peculiar people.”

To my eyes, Dersia, who could sum all of that up as “rather peculiar,” seemed even stranger.

“In any case, since they’re that kind of people, it would be better to be cautious.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Dersia had probably meant to warn me because they were that heinous.

‘Those guys have been researching Fallen…’

People who were obsessed with a single thing tended to produce meaningful results.

If anything, I found myself slightly intrigued.

***

While Dersia was dealing with the Rakshasa, I had something to try as a pastime.

Alletus’s estate’s massive backyard, big enough to raise sheep in.

“Hmm. Jern. It doesn’t seem to find it very tasty.”

That pastime was finding a use for the Deep Sea.

“Really? Could you bring something like a lion?”

“Hold on, I’ll go ask Father!”

Watching Elysia’s back as she scampered off, I pulled out more Deep Sea Creatures, and a horse foaming at the mouth lashed out viciously with its hind legs, trying to kill me.

-Neigh!

“…Sorry.”

The most useful thing to be gained from the Deep Sea.

That was acquiring similar physical capabilities by consuming Deep Sea Creatures.

If I used this well, wouldn’t I be able to create some truly absurd creatures – thinking that, I had been hauling up Deep Sea Creatures, diligently grinding them down, and feeding them to the livestock.

Unfortunately, the results so far weren’t much to speak of. Deep Sea Creatures apparently just made for foul-tasting feed, because no matter how I prepared and served them, horses, cows, dogs, chickens, even the cats harbored deep hostility toward me.

‘I guess this is a failure.’

With what I had thought would be the most useful option off the table, I sighed and lifted my pouch.

Inside were the high-quality pearls I had been picking up out of the shells whenever I spotted them. According to Elysia, they were genuinely rare pearls.

But even so, they were ultimately just one variety of expensive gem. They couldn’t be traded for anything other than money.

Having nothing to show beyond just this was… a bit of a letdown.

Was there really nothing else useful I could bring back from the Deep Sea?

As I was mulling this over, I heard footsteps behind me.

“Ah, Elysia…”

I don’t need the lion anymore. Or so I was about to say, until I saw an unexpected person and tilted my head.

Oddly enough, Karos was panting heavily and scanning her surroundings, and the moment she spotted me, she clenched her teeth and sprinted over.

“Karos?”

“So you really were here. I’ve been searching for quite a while…”

“…?”

“Did you hear nothing from Her Highness?”

“Ah, no.”

“Haah…”

Letting out a heavy sigh, she answered as if resigning herself to the situation.

“There’s been a minor incident within the Wax Wings Knight Order. Normally in a situation like this, you wouldn’t be summoned, but given the circumstances.”

“What kind of situation?”

“…”

After a pause, she muttered through gritted teeth.

“Several members of the Wax Wings Knight Order were found dead. Killed by an unknown assailant.”

“I see.”

As someone who nominally held the position of Vice Knight Commander, it was a fact I needed to know.

But I still didn’t understand why she had come rushing over like this, so as I tilted my head, she continued.

“One of the people who was attacked barely survived and gave testimony regarding the incident.”

“What did they say?”

“They said the attacker asked for the location of the Wax Wings Vice Knight Commander… in other words, you, Jern.”

Hmm.

It seemed Dersia had been a step too late.

As I frowned, Karos let out a sigh and added.

“We’re still trying to identify exactly who these people are. But they are clearly no ordinary group, so please take care with your actions for the time being.”

“No need to investigate. They’re the Rakshasa.”

“? Wait, Jern, how do you know about the Rak- hold on, the Rakshasa?”

Watching Karos’s expression contort oddly, I gave a wry smile.

Apparently, the Rakshasa wanted to meet me far more eagerly than I had imagined.

I fell into thought for a moment. My current situation, Aksha’s strength, the means available to me, the means an unknown enemy might have at their disposal, and so on.

A conclusion came quickly.

“It might be worth meeting them once.”

There was no reason to refuse.