[There is a modifiable “quarantine force field” nearby. Would you like to activate the function of the mana diverter?]
Words floated up in the cockpit of the submersible Sphere.
To a question with a yes or no, my answer was already decided.
When I pressed the letters meaning yes, the text on the screen changed.
[The mana diverter is currently set to “automatic.” When the currently designated submersible approaches, its direction will change naturally.]
The mana diverter, set to automatic, changes direction according to my location.
After I go outside, when I want to come back into the city, all I have to do is turn the submersible toward it.
ㄴTruth Scholar: We can go out now, right? Let’s go out right away?? Please?
ㄴTreatmentIsViolence: As expected of a mage, he’s lost his mind over knowledge.
ㄴTruth Scholar: That’s true, but that still hurts my feelings?
I wanted to go out right away too, just as the Truth Scholar said, but there was still something I had to do.
It was too much for me to pilot this Sphere right now. Maybe Eosollujeun could manage it, but in the end, I needed to be able to stand on my own.
Fortunately, there was something that would allow even an ordinary person like me to pilot a giant submersible.
Click.
I connected the scanner at my waist to the submersible.
Just like the control facility I had climbed up to last time, there was a slot where the scanner could be inserted.
When I placed the scanner into that slot, the screen changed again.
[Updating… 2% (Sphere operating AI)]
When I first obtained it, I hadn’t known what it was for, but this was an AI that assisted with operating the Sphere.
It removed what was complicated and unfamiliar, and helped with intuitive and easy controls.
As I watched the regulars argue in the comments and waited, the update finished.
Once the update was complete, a clear sound rang out along with a pattern.
It was a pattern I felt like I had seen somewhere before.
Just as I was searching my memory, trying to recall where I had seen it, the control screen appeared immediately.
ㄴTruth Scholar: Oh! We can go out now, right? I’m so curious that—
“Yes, I’m going to step out for a moment.”
The pattern didn’t seem particularly important, so I let it go and focused on the screen.
On the screen were the rear view, a green underwater scanner, speed, and other interfaces.
I sat in the pilot’s seat and gripped the control stick.
Then I realized which button performed which function.
“The upper button on the left is forward?”
Following the guide on the screen, I pressed the button, and with an intense roar of the engine, it moved forward.
Through the rear camera, I could see sand kicking up from the crawler tracks.
The process of learning the controls by following the guide didn’t take very long.
Partly because the layout was intuitive, and partly because there wasn’t much to think about.
“Phew… here we go.”
Gripping the controls once more, I finished preparing to head outside the city.
Now, it was truly time to advance into the deep sea.
Wooooong!!
With an intense noise, the crawler tracks rolled.
The Sphere advanced, scattering sand, and soon faced the force field.
Just in case there was an impact, I closed my eyes.
But it passed through the force field smoothly, without the slightest resistance.
Clunk, clunk. Thoom.
Looking at the image of the Sphere displayed on the screen, the crawler tracks had been retracted inside and were no longer operating.
On the screens mounted in place of windows, nothing could be seen except the other city.
Darkness, in the literal sense.
I was floating above the darkness of the deep sea.
I was just about to turn on the lights by following the guide on the screen.
“Wait a moment.”
“…Why?”
Eosollujeun, who had come up beside me, stopped me.
Expressionless, Eosollujeun looked at the screen where the window would have been.
“Since this is the deep sea, there should be few creatures that follow light… but there are still some that do.”
Around the time Eosollujeun finished speaking, something clung to the force field visible in the distance.
A mass of flesh that, at a glance, looked like a dragon, or perhaps a snake. The thing I had seen on the day I opened my eyes in the deep sea.
I thought it might die to the “sky” like last time.
But it immediately detached itself from the force field and avoided death.
Why had it died last time, yet not now?
At that question, Eosollujeun spoke calmly.
“…Looking at the force field, there are several corpses similar to that one piled up.”
“There are.”
“That individual that survived is likely the product of evolution. The deep sea is a place where growth is faster than anywhere else, after all.”
And by the same token, if you fail to grow, you’ll be overtaken.
For some reason, Eosollujeun’s expression looked dark as she added those words.
Seeing that, I had no choice but to mute the broadcast for a moment.
Because if it wasn’t now, I felt it would be difficult to hear her true feelings properly.
“Eosollujeun, do you… remember the past?”
The past. From Eosollujeun’s perspective, it would be the era in which she was born.
From my perspective, it was what I called a vanished era.
At my question, Eosollujeun looked at me.
Her rose-red eyes seemed deeply submerged.
Eosollujeun awkwardly opened her mouth.
“I… think you can say I remember only about half.”
“Half?”
“Yes. Because I can only remember what you, Celestial One, have discovered and what is related to it.”
Looking at her face again, it was the face of someone who had lost something.
As if thick fog had settled over her, she could not show anything clearly.
Even in this situation, my intuition showed me the way.
It told me that what Eosollujeun had lost was something I could find for her.
If I obtained knowledge, Eosollujeun’s memories would return along with it.
It was something that would help both me and Eosollujeun.
In that sense, I said to Eosollujeun,
“Someday, I’ll make you whole.”
“…”
Feeling needlessly embarrassed, I couldn’t say it while properly looking her in the eye. But I didn’t think she disliked it.
I turned the broadcast sound back on, which I had kept muted until now, and explained myself.
After several minutes of explanations, I gripped the controls again.
I did not turn on the lights. There was a chance that thing might come to bite the Sphere.
If it bit me now, the future in which the Sphere was destroyed and I died in the deep sea was vivid.
Instead of looking out into the dark exterior, I looked at the underwater scanner displayed on the screen.
Ding… ding…
A green underwater scanner that showed the surrounding terrain with a faint sound.
Following that screen, I tried moving the Sphere.
Wooooong—
As it advanced, a faint engine sound rang out with it.
Unlike on land, where it had been closer to noise, underwater it produced a quiet sound like an electric car.
The surrounding terrain shown in green, and the constant sound of the scanner.
The appearance of the deep sea, where it was difficult to make out even an inch ahead, and the deep-sea creatures sometimes revealed by the light of the force field, made my heart pound with tension.
I hadn’t realized it while looking beyond the force field, but facing the deep sea without a reliable protective barrier brought about a fear greater than I had expected.
Even creatures that were occasionally picked up by the underwater scanner passed by as though brushing past us.
ㄴTruth Scholar: Wow, that one just now might’ve actually touched us.
ㄴDraw-Sword Saint: This is about as tense as robbing a dragon’s lair.
ㄴChooseGradSchoolCarefully: …Why did you rob a dragon’s lair?
ㄴDraw-Sword Saint: Because it looked fun.
…The state of the chat, unlike my own situation, was extremely bright.
At least I couldn’t join them there.
Even the terrain was vastly different from an ordinary sea.
Unlike a sea made of sand, coral, and rocks, this place had things that rose sharply, and bizarre things that bloomed and moved.
Because I wasn’t even seeing it directly with my eyes, but indirectly through the underwater scanner, it felt even more stifling.
Now that I had come a fair distance from the first city, I turned the controls.
“Without hitting anything else…”
Like when I first got my license, I paid attention to everything and moved toward the city once more.
The surroundings were still dark and still. What was truly frightening was the fear of not knowing what would emerge from the darkness.
Still, now I only had to go back, so I could relax—
Dingdingdingdingdingdingding!!
The underwater scanner rang violently. Without even having time to grasp the situation, I drove the Sphere at maximum speed.
The once-quiet engine produced a sudden roar as it moved forward.
ㄴTruth Scholar: Something is following about five meters behind you!
While looking at the city on the screen, I shifted my gaze for a moment to the underwater scanner, and saw something red chasing behind the Sphere.
Worse, it was gradually getting closer.
“Faster, faster!”
Contrary to my desperation, the bizarre creature was quickly catching up to the Sphere running at top speed.
If things went wrong, I would be torn apart by the bizarre creature before entering the city.
Gripping the controls even tighter, I constantly checked the underwater scanner.
Distance to the bizarre creature: 4m.
Distance to the city: 2km.
Dingdingdingdingding!!
Distance to the bizarre creature: 3m.
Distance to the city: 1.5km.
Dingdingdingdingding!!
“Please…!”
As I drew closer to the city, the bizarre creature also drew closer.
The sound of the underwater scanner kept ringing. More violently. More urgently.
Distance to the bizarre creature: 2m.
Distance to the city: 1km.
Dingdingdingdingding!!
Distance to the bizarre creature: 1m.
Distance to the city: 750m.
Beeeeep!!!!
Distance to the bizarre creature: 50cm.
Distance to the city: 50m.
Beeeeep!!!!!
Distance to the bizarre creature: 1cm.
Distance to the city: 1m.
Kwaaaang!!
“Haaah. Haaah.”
The breath that had been locked in tension burst out.
A red indicator light was on inside the Sphere.
[Damage warning!]
On the Sphere’s screen, the scenery of the city was visible.
After the end of the Sphere was bitten by the bizarre creature, we had immediately entered the city, so there was no accident of dying alone in the deep sea.
Calming my pounding heart, I got out of the Sphere.
Because if the bizarre creature was still alive, that would be bad.
When I walked toward the rear that had been damaged by the bizarre creature, I saw it.
ㄴTruth Scholar: Wow… this is…
ㄴDraw-Sword Saint: The deep sea truly is nothing if not grotesque.
A sharp-shaped face was biting down hard on the rear of the Sphere.
Its yellow fishlike eyes were open, making me flinch in surprise.
Fortunately, if it could be called fortunate, only the “head” was on the rear.
The body was…
ㄴTruth Scholar: It looks like it was blocked by the force field and split in half.
It existed outside the force field.
But there was something even more frightening.
That body was still swimming.
…It seemed I still had a long way to go before I could leave the city.