I learned the third form of the Battojutsu.
ㄴScholar of Truth: You simply swung it… and the sand in front of you was ground away.
ㄴDraw-Sword Saint: I didn’t think you would learn it this quickly. As expected… you truly are a genius.
It was an achievement so absurd that even the other regulars called it unbelievable talent.
I had even succeeded in distributing my mana in the process. From now on, I could worry less about being unable to control my mana.
Now, I no longer had to worry about the searing pain I felt every time I swung my sword.
And there was an unexpected gain as well.
ㄴScholar of Truth: Since you can now handle mana more delicately, you should be able to use precise magic too.
“…I think the magic I’m using now is already quite precise, though?”
ㄴScholar of Truth: More accurately, you’ll be subdividing it further.
That was the message the Scholar of Truth posted once I succeeded in the third form.
It was tutoring I hadn’t expected, but… there was no reason to refuse. In this deep sea, getting stronger was essential.
I sat on the sand that had become uneven from the aftermath of the third form and waited for the Scholar of Truth’s chat.
After a brief moment, the Scholar of Truth’s message appeared.
ㄴScholar of Truth: Your current magic is just a simple line. If we compare it, it’s a large hose.
“You’re saying I should subdivide that?”
ㄴScholar of Truth: Yes. It’s a method of making the hose thinner and weaving it together. I suppose tying several wires together would be the more accurate expression.
The Scholar of Truth was explaining a method that literally demanded precise mana control.
He told me to twist my mana like copper wire and cast it that way….
It was such precise magic that when I first tried it, I couldn’t even maintain its shape properly.
Honestly, I wondered if this was even meaningful.
As if he had read that thought, the Scholar of Truth threw out a message.
ㄴScholar of Truth: The precise magic you’re casting now is a kind often used in barriers. It lets you use a magic circle like a shield without issue.
“Then… ah.”
The Scholar of Truth never gave useless information.
What I lacked right now was defense. It was impossible to endure the Companion’s explosion with my bare body.
But a finely woven, spiderweb-like magic circle could become a shield all on its own.
I, who had been about to grumble, quietly followed the Scholar of Truth’s instructions and tried creating a magic circle.
‘Delicately, like weaving thread.’
I closed my eyes and focused on the sensation at the tips of my fingers. The divided mana soon flowed along my blood vessels and into my fingertips.
My senses sharpened. My intuition planted in me the certainty that I could do it.
Mana, now closer to warm sunlight than fire, began to take shape in my hand.
From my hand, like a loom, I made thin threads of mana and wove them one by one.
ㄴScholar of Truth: …As expected, you’re doing it right away.
ㄴHealingIsViolence: Even seeing it again, it’s absurd. It took me days to do something like that.
ㄴAlcoholIsLife: These bastards are all humblebragging freaks. Do you know how hard barrier magic circles like that are;;
Blue streaks of light flashed past my eyes and rose swiftly. But all my nerves were focused on my hand.
What I was drawing was a water-attribute piercing spell. Water—Single Thread.
The thin, ever-so-thin threads of mana had, at some point, transformed into lines of mana that felt like a single current.
I moved that line of mana and drew the magic circle.
Flash—!
Green light flashed. A magic circle like the Milky Way formed above my hand.
But….
“Uh, why is this so bright—”
The green light didn’t merely flash; it shone so brightly my eyes began to hurt.
At that moment, I realized it immediately.
“This thing’s going to explode!!”
I immediately stopped pouring mana into it and threw the disconnected magic circle as far away as I could.
And a moment later.
Boom!! Dripdripdrip….
A waterfall of water fell toward the sky. The explosion was so large that the water created by the magic poured down like rain.
ㄴScholar of Truth: It’s fortunate the structure was woven tightly enough that you could grab it and throw it.
ㄴKkukku: If the magic circle materialized and stayed fixed like that, it means it was woven extremely carefully.
“…Well, anyway, that means it’s good, right?”
ㄴScholar of Truth: Yes, as long as you control it.
Somehow, because I couldn’t control things, something kept exploding.
In the deep sea, something was always either lacking or excessive, so maybe I was starting to follow that trait too.
As I was thinking that and looking at the chat window—
Something felt strangely empty to my eyes. In other words… there weren’t enough messages.
“Where did the Sword Saint go?”
ㄴScholar of Truth: He’s been gone since he saw the third form.
The Draw-Sword Saint had disappeared from the chat window. …Well, he did say he had something to take care of, so maybe he had gone to handle that.
Thinking I might as well take a short rest, I sat down on the damp sand.
As I was catching my breath, Eosollujeun, who I didn’t know when she had come out, approached.
“What happened?”
“I just… failed while using magic.”
“Hmm…… Water magic?”
“Yeah.”
After hearing my answer, Eosollujeun immediately turned her head and looked somewhere.
When I followed her gaze, it was toward the area where the mine had been.
I shifted my eyes back to her, and her expression was somehow tense.
“……This is a major accident.”
“Wait….”
At Eosollujeun’s words, my intuition began ringing louder and louder. In the form of danger, that is.
My intuition was outstanding. Starting from the Reaper, that ability had grown even stronger.
That meant if there was a great danger, I could sense it from fairly far away.
The place where my intuition was ringing the bell of danger was… near the mining area. There.
“……No way, right?”
“No, that’s exactly it. Let’s prepare.”
The mining area—right next to it was—
The splitting jellyfish area.
What was the condition for the hibernating jellyfish to wake up? I had definitely triggered it once before.
The reason I ended up having no choice but to fight the Cyclops.
Back then, what touched the jellyfish was my shoe… but there had been sweat on it.
Then—
“…They wake from hibernation through moisture?”
“That’s right. So let’s quickly think about how to deal with them.”
The explosion of the water magic wasn’t enough to cover the entire jellyfish zone, but still, it must have reached around a hundred of them.
The sound grew louder and louder.
Slap, splat, splat-splat—!
Twice, four times, eight times. A sound that kept growing.
I took out the mana rifle and the magic-bullet pistol from the submersible.
“Haa… Why do I keep getting trials like this?”
“Let’s begin suppression instead of wasting time on that. I can support you with magic.”
Grabbing the small canister attached to my back, I ran in the direction where the jellyfish were surging.
At worst, all that would happen was I’d die.
***
Haijen, with his hood pulled low, was watching the riot unfolding before him.
Because no one paid him any mind, the riot continued.
Fuck!! Throw it all away! You think this shit has any meaning….
It’s meaningless… everything is meaningless….
Haijen narrowed his eyes, yet calmly observed the situation.
There were two main figures in the riot. One was showing rage, the other a sense of loss.
High-pitched voices flew back and forth, and it looked as if it would soon turn into violence.
Words full of emptiness burst from the mouth of a dwarf who wasn’t even drunk.
I said… it’s all meaningless!!
A fist was raised. In front of it stood a young dwarf who had done nothing wrong.
In that brief moment, which to the Sword Saint felt far too leisurely—
The light of mana flashed.
In an instant, with a massive blast of wind pressure, the rioting crowd was suppressed.
Thud—!
“Is that the end of it? For a riot, that was rather bland.”
For a riot the Imperial Family was supposedly keeping a close eye on, the scale was far too small.
Even so, Haijen was the sword of the Imperial Family, so unless an order was absurd, he followed it to the letter.
Haijen revealed the orange hair beneath his hood and walked forward.
The citizens who recognized the Sword Saint naturally stepped aside for him.
Soon, Haijen arrived at a place thick with the salty scent of the sea.
“I heard my luggage is here. Is that correct?”
S-Sword Saint! Yes, of course. We’ve been taking good care of it!
A place where countless goods flowed in and out—the dwarves’ largest port.
Haijen walked after the dwarf sailor who led the way.
Before long, they arrived at a building. From what he had heard, it was where the person in charge was.
When they arrived, a dwarf who obviously looked like the person in charge came out and offered a handshake.
“I’m Parago, the person in charge of this port.”
“Yes. I am the Sword Saint.”
“…But it seems the person you’re holding in your hand is one of our sailors.”
Parago, the manager, showed the Sword Saint a socialist smile, but his expression stiffened when he saw the sailor.
Thinking he seemed fairly decent, Haijen opened his mouth.
“He was causing a riot, so I merely knocked him out for a moment.”
“……Is that so.”
“Is there some problem?”
“Hmm….”
Parago frowned and fell into thought. It was the expression of someone who clearly had something bothering him.
After a short while, he finally spoke. Perhaps it was information Haijen had to know anyway.
Parago’s expression was grave. His voice came out lower than before.
“By any chance, did he use words like ‘meaningless’ and express lethargy or anger?”
“You know it well. Is that a characteristic of this team?”
“Of course not… This is an illness we call sea distortion. It’s been causing quite a headache lately.”
The moment Haijen heard that, he changed the riot into sea distortion in his mind.
Surely the Imperial Family wouldn’t have sent the Sword Saint merely to deal with a simple riot. Naturally, they must have sent him to resolve a serious problem.
Haijen listened to every word of Parago’s explanation, engraving it in his ears.
And then… he realized something.
‘……The time when they began digging into the deep sea in earnest overlaps with when sea distortion started occurring?’