TL/ED – Miso

“…No. It’s too dangerous.”

I slowly pushed the blood-soaked Elysia back and tried to dissuade her.

In the meantime, Dersia had wrapped me up in bandages.

It wasn’t just haphazard wrapping, though. She wound them around my wounds with remarkable precision.

“You don’t know yet how dangerous it is in there.”

“It’s fine. I’m confident I can handle it.”

“I’m not. I’m not confident I can protect you in there.”

My death would mean Elysia’s death.

I couldn’t fight while carrying that kind of penalty. I had no intention of backing down on this point, so I raised my voice slightly.

“Jern.”

Elysia’s eyes trembled as she closed the distance between us.

Surprisingly, she was far calmer than I had expected.

Her unwavering, clear gaze paired with her flowing silver hair stained with blood made for a picture chilling enough to send shivers down my spine.

“Look.”

“…!”

The moment Elysia’s hand touched my shoulder, the world fell silent in an instant.

I doubted my own ears. What I had always assumed was silence was actually the muffled environment of faint, ceaseless popping sounds, the kind heard when swimming through water.

But for just a brief moment, while Elysia’s hand rested on my shoulder, that noise vanished entirely.

My connection to the Deep Sea had been severed. Only for an instant, but it had definitely been cut.

“Ah, that really is tough, though.”

“You, how did you…”

How can you do something like that?

Elysia answered before I could even finish the question.

“When you first took me to that world…”

Elysia murmured, gazing at my blood-stained bandages.

“I could tell it was an incredibly harsh place to live. But more than all those details, there was just something I felt.”

“What was it?”

“Your world is so lonely.”

Elysia lifted her hand from my shoulder and looked up at me with sorrowful eyes.

“If it had been something else, I wouldn’t have known what to do. But loneliness, that’s something I can fix. So I thought if I could just cut something, keep you from leaving so alone…”

She rubbed her hands together, murmuring as if reflecting on a realization.

“Besides, there’s no one else who can go with you but me, right?”

“That’s…”

I had been about to answer that I still couldn’t take her, but my words trailed off weakly.

The truth was, if she could sever the connection to the Deep Sea like that, there would be no problem bringing Elysia along. No, I should be the one begging her to come.

Being able to escape the Deep Sea instantly would serve as a last resort to save me in a dire situation.

“We’re running out of time. And given that this girl’s resolve is this firm…”

Dersia, who had been watching me with concern the entire time, glanced at Elysia and asked.

“What will you do?”

After deliberating for a long while, I…

In the end, I let out a sigh and hung my head low.

***

…Truly, I felt like the worst kind of person.

Taking a child into a hell teeming with killing machines. If God existed, what was He doing instead of striking me down with lightning?

Regardless of the turmoil in my heart, Dersia was busy stuffing fist-sized black spheres into my Water Barrier.

“The objective is simple. Shove all of these near that creature’s mouth and tear this paper, and they’ll detonate after thirty seconds. No matter how mountain-like it is, as long as it’s a living creature, it won’t be able to stay conscious through that. Jern, you need to use that opening to shut down the Barnacle’s vital functions.”

“Got it!”

“…Elysia. You are to stay by Jern’s side and ensure the other Deep Sea Creatures don’t notice him. And if things go wrong…”

“Yes! I’ll grab Jern and get out immediately!”

“Good. Please keep in mind that this isn’t the only chance we’ll get.”

When the excited Elysia rattled off her answers without missing a beat, Dersia, having packed the Water Barrier with bombs to its limit, offered one final piece of advice.

“Handle it as quickly as possible, but if you can, it would be good to bring back a specimen. The Barnacle watching you, Jern… no, its eyes. They’re quite an interesting element.”

“If I can, I absolutely will. Though this might end up being the last chance.”

To make sure I wouldn’t be separated from Elysia under any circumstances, I gripped her hand tightly.

Then I inverted the world.

It was something Elysia had experienced a few times before, but the sudden darkness must have startled her, because she squeezed my hand a little harder. Still, she quickly steeled herself, looked at me, and asked.

“What should I do?”

“Can you detach me from the Deep Sea, just a little?”

“Yeah!”

Elysia immediately separated me from the Deep Sea.

The effect was instant. I was definitely still inside the Deep Sea, but unlike usual, it felt like being submerged in murky water.

I was about to ride the Current upward when I stopped short, noticing Elysia staring blankly at me from beside me.

Elysia couldn’t use Current. If I tried to swim through the sea while holding her hand, her wrist would snap. I thought about carrying her on my back, but it was already loaded with bombs.

With no other choice, I supported the back of her neck with one hand and held her waist with the other, lifting her gently.

“J-Jern?”

“It might get a little fast, so brace yourself.”

“Huh?…Kyaaaaaaah!!”

Elysia, whose face had flushed red enough to notice even in the Deep Sea, soon turned deathly pale as we tore through the water at tremendous speed, and she clung to me for dear life.

Part of me thought maybe I shouldn’t have brought her. But.

[…—……]

[…??]

Not just ordinary Deep Sea Creatures, but even ones with Barnacles attached to them failed to detect me.

That meant it had been worth the risk. Tracing my memory to where that Barnacle mountain had been, I found it still sitting in the same spot.

As if there was no reason, no point in running away.

[…Strange. No movement at all.]

“?! J-Jern. Your clothes are talking…”

“Hm? Oh, I thought you already knew.”

It seemed that when she had eavesdropped from outside, she hadn’t realized Mallo was my robe. I calmed the startled girl.

“This is Mallo. Think of it as, um… basically like an Artifact.”

“A-an Artifact…?”

[Greetings, young True Blood Bearer. If things had gone according to the original plan, I should have been bound to your body. Matters have grown quite complicated.]

“That’s creepy. Can’t you throw it away?”

“Later. So… are we safe right now?”

The Barnacle was disguised as a mountain, just as it had been before.

Of course, the moment I entered its crater, or rather its mouth, it would reveal its true nature.

[For now. But if you intend to destroy a mountain like that, even with bombs, you’ll need to detonate them deep inside. If you just toss them in, it’ll probably wake up and spit them out.]

“Should I try carefully sending them in with Current?”

[If that thing can use Current Sense too, don’t you think it would notice?]

“Good point…”

Approaching silently had worked, but no matter how much Elysia suppressed my presence, the thing would surely notice if I went all the way into its maw.

As I mulled it over, Mallo rubbed against my collar and offered a suggestion.

[Can’t be helped. I’ll deliver them and come back.]

“?”

Wondering what kind of bullshit that was, I tilted my head, and then…

The thing slid off my body on its own and hugged the bag packed full of bombs.

I stood there with my jaw hanging open, watching it flutter and move. Out of the countless questions in my head, I picked one.

“…You could move this whole time?”

[How did you think I was talking… well, to be fair, on flat ground I wouldn’t have been able to carry something this heavy.]

Mallo drifted toward the Barnacle’s mouth, bag in tow, undulating like a jellyfish.

[There are things that are only possible because this is the Deep Sea.]

Watching Mallo slowly enter the Barnacle’s mouth, Elysia asked with a puzzled look.

“Won’t that thing… that, um, Artifact get detected?”

“Well, it’s not technically alive, so…”

No matter how precise the Current Sense being used, it wouldn’t react to inorganic matter.

Before long, Mallo returned with empty hands.

Mission accomplished.

I held out my hand with a reluctant expression, and it coiled around me in a rush, fitting itself back onto my body perfectly before rubbing against my collar.

[I placed them in the deepest spot. When they go off, it will bleed, living creature that it is.]

“Preparations are done, then. So…”

When I carefully raised the paper, Mallo hastily stopped me.

[Wait. What’s the plan after that?]

“Plan?”

[It will bleed, sure, but the wounds won’t be fatal. If you’re thinking of bringing that Barnacle down with explosives alone, you’d need tens of thousands of times more.]

That was a fair point.

“For now, I’m going to try tearing into the wound as much as I can…”

Straining myself to generate Water Pressure, I looked at the Barnacle and assessed the situation.

“If you’re asking whether I can kill it for certain… it’s hard to say.”

[We rushed here because time was short, but thinking about it, we’re still not ready. For now, let’s be satisfied with having planted the bombs and…]

“That’s not an option.”

[Hm?]

When my voice took on an edge, I sensed Mallo flinch in surprise.

“The Deep Sea Creatures I know absorb each other’s traits by devouring one another.”

[If that’s all, isn’t it fine? The thing isn’t eating anything…]

“I think that True Blood stuff has mutated that condition slightly.”

I murmured as I scanned the Barnacle’s outer shell with Current Sense.

“This thing, it’s gotten bigger than before.”

[…What?]

“It’s multiplying its ice. The number of barnacles, their size… and even the range of its Current Sense.”

Being the same kind, I could tell.

That where I was standing right now was within that thing’s range.

I could feel it far more intensely than before. If it had been radiating this kind of pressure from the start, I never would have dared to even think about going in.

“Next time we come, it’ll probably be some unimaginable monster.”

All this growth from just shifting its eyes a little.

If it became the apex predator in this Deep Sea, capable of devouring every other Deep Sea Creature, it would transform into an overwhelming force beyond all control in the blink of an eye.

Ji-eo had been like that, and the colossal octopus on the seafloor had been like that. This thing was somewhere in that transitional stage.

“We have to kill it right now.”

Right now was when it was at its weakest.

When I said it that firmly, Mallo seemed to understand but tried to talk me down.

[I get what you’re saying, but what can you do here and now? Remember, you’re not just one body here.] [TL: 홀몸이 아니다 literally “not a single body,” but is a common Korean euphemism for being pregnant, hence Jern’s annoyed reaction to the phrasing.]

“No, why’d you have to phrase it like that…”

I was scowling hard at my collar when my thoughts suddenly landed on something.

I turned my gaze to Elysia, who had been nodding along as if she understood perfectly despite clearly not understanding a single thing.

“Elysia.”

“Wh-what?”

“Starting now, can you close your eyes and count to exactly five minutes?”

“Five minutes? And when it’s over?”

“Give it everything you’ve got to rip me away from the Deep Sea. Can you do that?”

Our eyes met. What crossed her face wasn’t hesitation, but rather an expression tinged with joy.

“Okay!”

She closed her eyes and began counting.

Seizing the moment, I reached out with all my strength and touched every Current in the Deep Sea.

Every last one within my reach.

[…What, what are you trying to do?]

The massive convergence of Current was something even Mallo could detect, and it asked in a flustered tone.

I gritted my teeth and answered while slowly enduring the Causality of the Water Pressure trying to crush me.

“Use everything I can, then bail.”

[…What?]

Ultimately, the strain of Water Pressure only applied because I was in the Deep Sea.

And Elysia’s ability could, if only briefly, pull me out of the Deep Sea.

Which meant…

“Hit it with everything, then run.”

The strain?

Go ahead and crush the space where I was standing all it wanted.

With that thought, I tore the paper.

The bombs would detonate, and while the thing was reeling, I would follow up with…

BOOOOOOOOM!!!

“?”

[??]

“4! 41! Was it 41? 40…”

The Barnacle that had been mimicking a volcano truly became one.

The pitch-black Deep Sea blazed with blinding light as the massive eruption of heat turned it radiant.

The sight of an ice volcano unleashing a baptism of fire was awe-inspiring enough that I nearly stopped gathering Current without realizing it.

Naturally, the Barnacle did not escape unscathed. It let out an enormous roar, broadcasting its agony for all to hear.

[……….?!!?!?!??!?!?!?!?]

[N-no, it was just, about one bag’s worth…]

Deep Sea Creatures fled in every direction, terrified by the groans reverberating through the Current.

Mallo, who had been stammering at the spectacle, stared as if mesmerized at the pillar of fire, then (somehow) let out a sigh and murmured.

[Elf-made, I see.]

“Mm.”

I thought of my mentor, whom I revered like the heavens, and swallowed hard.

…What on earth had she given me?

*****

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