Look up.
That's what he said. I looked at the ceiling. The cavern was so large that the distance from the floor to the ceiling seemed a little less than 10 meters, and I couldn't see any holes.
The easiest way would be to make a large hole with Thunder Wind and climb up.
However.
"... That would be dangerous."
I rolled on the floor a few times and confirmed that the damp soil was holding together more firmly than I thought. It’s something you’d know if you’d ever done construction, or even if you’d just played in the dirt on a hill behind your house. Wet soil, no matter how tightly packed and compressed, collapses easily.
All the more so in this deep underground, in such a massive cavern—it should have caved in at any moment, yet it remained stable even with roots bursting out like that. When I rubbed the floor, I confirmed, just as I expected, that a net of very thin and fine rootlets was holding it all together.
These things were gripping the soil. If, in the process of making a hole with my Thunder Wind, I were to damage that structure... My escape attempt could end with me being buried alive.
"Hmm."
But I let a smile grace my lips. It was the perfect environment to test my abilities. I closed my eyes and spread my Tide Sense deep and wide, and a map of the cavern—and the underground tunnels beyond it—gradually revealed itself.
"!"
The result was shocking. There were far more rootlets than soil. Those rootlets—like a net, they played the role of keeping this deep, deep tunnel from collapsing.
Dersia had made it all. I was beginning to get a slight sense of just how far her abilities reached. A realm of miracles, far beyond magic.
If one who wields magic is called a mage, what do you call one who bends miracles to their will? Without bothering to recognize an answer, I thrust my hand into the cavern wall, and the rootlets came away with the soil. I focused on them intently.
All roots have a crown. I don't know what means Dersia uses to control the roots, but if there was anything I could meddle with, it was this. I sent currents flowing through the crown of a captured root. -Snap, crack...
The roots broke on their own and gathered around my hand. I narrowed my brow. They shouldn't be breaking.
After a few failures, I finally seized control of far more roots than I'd thought—tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of strands. -Rustle, rustle...
"Did it work..."
Clutching my dizzy head, I looked at the very small hole that had formed in the wall. A small space, just over a meter, but it was a space I had made. I stepped inside and walked.
As soon as I started walking, the path leading back to the cavern collapsed and was blocked, but it didn't matter much. All I needed was to maintain this 1-meter space. Then there would be no problem with the escape.
Breath?
I don't breathe. If there was one point of concern, it was managing hundreds of thousands of rootlets while maintaining Tide Sense over a range of several hundred meters for any unexpected situations. It was so easy, it was strange.
The precise Tide Sense training I'd gained while learning the magic-reinforced body from Brimdal. And the overall reduced burden from becoming a 2-Star mage. Thanks to that, I could now perform feats with ease that I couldn't before.
However.
[...??...]
"Oh."
There was just one thing. There was one burden that hadn't lessened. Although, it had changed.
The eel with eyes all over its body, which had been swimming around, stopped by my ear. As if it had found something.
[...?]
It was a truly brief moment. The eel was soon pushed away, its swimming a mix of gliding and being carried along. I watched with an unsettled gaze where the eel had drifted away.
Was this the third time? When I let my blood flow into the Deep Sea, when I entered the Deep Sea myself, and now. To dismiss it as a coincidence was to ignore the fact that the eel's eyes had clearly looked right where I was every single time. ...
It seemed the first thing I would have to ask Dersia, once she was returned to normal, was already decided.
"Hah..."
Once you cross one mountain, there's another. I let out a deep sigh but continued to walk steadily. How many minutes had I been walking?
A sense of unease began to creep in. There was no end in sight.
"...?"
You might think I was complaining after walking for only a few minutes, but the expanded range of my Tide Sense was roughly 500 meters by my estimation. The deepest subway in the world is Yeonggwang Station in Pyongyang.
150 meters.
Wasn't the tallest building in Korea 550 meters? A few minutes, no. Even if I had just spread my senses from the cavern, I should have reached the surface by now. The abnormal one was Dersia.
"Damn it-" At the halfway point, my previously quiet Tide Sense began to pick up a whole lot of something.
If this were radar, I might have seen a terrifying display of red dots covering the screen, the console gradually turning red. Hurriedly focusing my Tide Sense on the targets, I learned two things.
One.
They were indeed roots.
Two.
Dersia was 'definitely' a shaman's disciple.
"Mandragora... or something."
I didn't know if that was their actual name. But from the arms and legs of the roots, which looked like small babies, thousands of net-like rootlets were rustling and covering the soil, expanding the space.
Efficient.
That was my first thought. Rather than controlling all the roots herself, she put a controllable lifeform under her command to manage them. Indeed, this kind of tunnel work is best left to the experts.
If she had received help from things that lived underground in the first place, it made sense how she could create a tunnel this deep. Feeling a desire to learn this later, I moved past them as carefully as possible. They didn't seem to have any interest in me, which was a relief.
They seemed to be doing something... what was it? I tried to extend my Tide Sense a little further. -Snap.
"... Ah.."
In the process, I made a small mistake. It was a really small thing. A root I was moving connected with a single rootlet they were emitting, and I accidentally snapped it.
In that instant.
[--- -!!!!!!]
Thousands of Mandragoras turned in a flash to look at me. I frowned slightly, but if they were just going to emit rootlets, it might be fine- [Geok- geok-geok~] They immediately retracted all their rootlets. And then, they began to slowly extend the large roots Dersia had used to bind me—roots bigger than their own bodies.
For fuck's sake. I sighed and began to chant for Thunder Wind. Breaking through all thousands of them was next to impossible.
For now, I needed to retreat to the cavern and, even if it took some time, find another route. -Ruuuumble...! There were so many of those roots that the ground trembled as if there were an earthquake. -Thud, thud, ruuumble...!! And it was continuous...?
"Damn-" As I was checking my escape route, something was detected in the upper part of my Tide Sense.
Above the Mandragoras. Some part of it. At first, I thought I was mistaken.
Because I could see the ground's surface. A surface that wasn't there before had suddenly appeared, so naturally, I thought it was an error. But as I watched the surface get closer and closer, I narrowed my brow.
"What in the...?"
It was an unprecedented situation that even I couldn't comprehend. Something was carving away the ground. It was blowing away, every second, an amount of earth that would take dozens of excavators a full day to dig up.
[...?????????????]
The Mandragoras seemed to feel something similar to me. They no longer paid any mind to the existence of an intruder like me and hurriedly created a barrier of roots to block the invader—the phenomenon—from above. Reinforced roots, harder than sedimentary soil.
The speed at which it was being carved away was the same. -Kraaaack!
[.....]
Only the sound was different. Having lost their arms and legs—presumably—in an instant, the Mandragoras made a swift decision.
Escape.
You might wonder how a plant could escape, but these were creatures that created space with their roots; moving through the soil was probably like a fish moving through water for them. They hastily extended rootlets to grab onto nearby stones or other roots and evacuated. Simply to avoid that phenomenon.
I was still preparing to escape. To be honest, I didn't think Azrael was capable of something like this. And it wasn't Brimdal either, since he would have gone to face Dersia.
A being that could create such a thing was far more terrifying than any Mandragora. But, I was too slow. I sensed someone standing on the surface above.
By the time I sensed it, I had already been 'struck down upon.' -Kwa-aaaaaaah!!! Not an impact that dug out a surface, but a movement that carved out a line. Not blowing away hundreds of meters of earth, but a single point strike focused on the area of one person.
With a single stomp of the foot, that being was standing right in front of me.
"... Hmph."
No time to escape. Tide Sense, not working. The height of the foot is off by no more than 1 cm.
Perfect control.
The only thing separating me from this unknown monster was a 3 cm thick wall of soil that would crumble if I just reached out my hand. It was already crumbling. As a last resort, I was contemplating whether to send Dersia a message saying, 'Hey, I get it.
Let's try making that thing called Azure Flame,' when I saw a face through the crumbling wall of soil.
"...?"
Blond hair, slightly torn clothes and ill-fitting armor, around twenty years of age. A strange knight from whom I couldn't read any emotion, but I found something familiar in that face. So familiar it was hard to recognize.
For about 30 seconds, we locked eyes and looked at each other.
"Lin..."
"Oh, young mage."
Suddenly, the knight spoke. Her tone was extremely solemn and serious.
"Huh?"
"I am a Divine Punishment Knight, summoned by a priestess to save you."
"??"
What was this nonsense? First of all, the knight in front of me, though a bit older, was definitely Linmel. Somehow, Azrael had summoned a future Linmel.
No, how?
Did he sacrifice the current Linmel as an offering? I had to find out.
"Who is this priestess?"
"A Dark Night's Black Thunder Punishment Knight by the name of Linmel."
Linmel showed not the slightest waver as she said that name. In fact, I could even glimpse a hint of pride in her expression.
I see.
This wasn't a future Linmel, but simply a grown-up Linmel. The only difference was that her mental age was still that of a child, and feeling a little relieved, I nodded.
"I see. Thank you for saving me, nameless knight."
"... Hmph! This is nothing. I am overflowing with power."
"What do you mean by that?"
Linmel (grown-up version) clenched and unclenched her fist with a proud look on her face.
"Literally. I'm so full of power... it's truly amazing. I feel like I know how much power I've been wasting all this time. Every one of my movements now is a precious lesson."
Does she even intend to hide it? She must have, because she muttered to herself, then saw me and shook her head in alarm.
"Ahem. It just means I'm that strong. I was telling you not to worry."
"I see. If it's not too much trouble, could you lend your aid in the coming battle? I have to fight a powerful enemy, and it would be good to have another way."
"... I am sorry. That is impossible."
Linmel suddenly lowered her voice and murmured as if vexed.
"I—that is, I paid a great price for borrowing a demon's power to come here. So, I can only be here for a few more minutes. Because, well, to protect the world, I must return early."
Translating her clumsy explanation: There's a time limit. I've almost used it up. After that, I can't move.
That was a shame, but she had already been a great help. I had avoided the Mandragoras and escaped so easily because of her.
"Is that so. It is nothing to be sorry for. I am so grateful just for you saving me."
I bowed my head deeply to express my gratitude. I would have done so even if it wasn't the grown-up Linmel. But the recipient of my thanks was flustered and grabbed my shoulders to make me stand up.
"Wh-what's with all this. It's fine, get up... please."
Her adherence to the persona was severely lacking. It seemed she had only learned the sword, and for the knight part, she had just winged it based on what she'd seen in novels.
"Yes, Sir Knight."
Still, it seemed Linmel wanted me to see some other knight she aspired to be, not herself, so I played along. At that, Linmel looked incredibly happy but unable to show it, pursing her lips and forcing back a smile, before finally returning to a solemn expression and nodding.
"I should be the one thanking you. For always being the priestess's goal."
"Yes... pardon?"
I tilted my head.
"I'm Linmel's goal?"
"Yes."
Linmel nodded without a hint of hesitation.
"Linmel, my disciple, wishes to become a knight like you."
"My personality is the least suited for a knight."
"That cannot be. The more she learns about knights, the more convinced she becomes that the word refers to a person like you."
"It seems she still doesn't quite know the meaning of the word."
"-A knight must be one who sacrifices. Did you know?"
Linmel suddenly brought up a strange topic.
"No." "It is the first thing one learns upon becoming a Divine Punishment Knight."
"That a person who can willingly lay down their life for someone else is the one most suited to be a knight."
"That's definitely not me."
I shook my head, disgusted.
"I am a person who can help others, but I cannot go so far as to offer my life."
"That is right. I think so too."
Linmel, who admitted it lightly, sheathed her sword. ... I only just realized it now. Her every action, not even a little bit, was not detected by Tide Sense at all.
Just like with Brimdal—no, in the finer details, it was a mix of better and worse. One who is completely separated from the world. A state that cannot be touched by any magic, not even the magic of the heart-realm.
Untouchable by anything. A weapon created to kill everything—mages, fallen ones, shamans, knights. -A perfect Divine Punishment Knight.
"I believe that being a knight requires ability, rather than a mindset of sacrifice."
"Ability... you say?"
"Yes. Not everyone can become a knight. A knight must be strong. A child with a stick and a young man with a sword must be distinguished by law."
"That's true."
"One with ability, who, with only the resolve to sacrifice, perfectly saves the weak."
Linmel smiled at me like a child.
"The priestess thinks that is what a knight is. A fact she learned by watching you."
A notion that could only be conceived by one who is young. It was an innocent and hopeful statement, unaware that sacrifice is called sacrifice because it comes upon you unavoidably. But perhaps Linmel could achieve it.
Emulating the illusion that is me, she might create a fairytale-like future where she saves everyone without losing a single person. I nodded as if entranced, then frowned deeply at the implications of that fact.
"No, wait, then that Dark Night's Black Thunder Punishment Knight thing is-" "Yes."
Again, a prompt reply.
"Doesn't it sound a lot like you? You know, that sort of, cold and aloof and..."
"It doesn't sound like me at all."
"Oh, huh?"
"Not even a little bit, so please tell her it would be better to stop immediately."
"... Huh?"
I felt a wave of guilt that pierced my chest. No, setting aside the fact that she thinks something like that resembles me... It seems the taste that accelerated Gwalan's hair loss was all my fault.
"Oh, oh my! A pressing matter has come up, so I must be on my way!"
The slightly dejected Linmel suddenly jumped in surprise, leaped up, and exited the hole. Her time limit must have been up. As I climbed the vertically dug hole, supporting it with roots, I saw Azrael cackling in the far distance.
He had a rather satisfied expression. Just as I was about to move to save my Master, he laughed even louder.
"What are you laughing at?"
"How could I not laugh? In less than twenty years, the title of the Empire's strongest will change hands."
"The hundreds of years that dwarf has built up will be reduced to nothing in a single moment."
"How amusing is that?"
"That foolish dwarf really chose you over that one? Kuhaha! What an incredibly foolish decision—and yet, the fact that I can relate is what's so marvelous!"
Azrael, who had been clutching his stomach and laughing as if a fit of madness had taken him, finally sat down on a tree stump and let out a sigh.
"Hah... when I see things like this, I find it amusing, yet also a pity."
"Our fate, that we can only live like this."
"That would be your fate, not ours."
It was a ridiculous thing to say. Azrael had no right to feel pity. What was he saying, after personally locking the elves up in a pen?
With that meaning in my expression, I shot him a venomous glare and was about to leave, but Azrael's laughter once again stopped me in my tracks.
"Hahaha! You foolish whelp. How old do you think those elves over there are."
"... Pardon?"
"I may be old, but that doesn't mean the others are young. Heh heh..."
"What was he talking about?"
As I tilted my head, I froze in shock. This was something I absolutely could not just let go.
"... It was consensual?"
"Well, I didn't want to do it. To be honest."
"You mean those primitive elves weren't like that from the start?"
"That's right. Not until they handed their memories over to me."
"... What were they doing before that?"
"Let's see..."
Azrael scratched his head and then, as if recalling something, looked up at the empty air and answered.
"Well... that one who tried to burn me was once the emperor of a nation that ruled a territory vaster than the Empire."
"The one next to him, who's now shouting as he pours water into a cracked bucket every day, wondering why the water is leaking out, was a high-level mage who had reached 7-Star, and the one next to him was..."
"That's enough."
So, this was one giant game of family. A game of family with only livestock and a master, with one shaman entrusted with their memories and management. There was only one thing for me to say.
"Why the hell do you live like that?"
I literally couldn't understand.
Why?
Why live like that? If a madman shaman, under the conviction that he must preserve his race, put a leash on all the elves—that would be understandable as the actions of a mad dictator who thinks he's a sage. You can find people like that anywhere, not just among elves.
But the fact that all the other elves had put on the leashes themselves and handed themselves over to the shaman to be managed had already transcended the realm of madness. Wouldn't it be better to just end their own lives than to live like that? This time, Azrael didn't brush it off with a 'You don't need to know.'
Instead, with a bitter expression, he let a passing insect play on his hand as he answered.
"It is the price of a challenge. Everyone has paid the price they rightfully deserved."
"A challenge? What did you challenge."
"Ourselves."
More riddles.
As I was thinking of giving him a good beating and summoned Thunder Wind, he finally confessed.
"Such a temper. The challenge was, are we a race worthy of living?"
"What kind of challenge is that? What reason is there to prove one's worth to live?"
"Elves are a good and peace-loving race."
"That's a load of bullshit."
"I can't deny that."
Azrael, Dersia.
Though my sample size was only two, it was a sufficient argument to prove that 'all elves are mad.' Azrael shrugged his shoulders as if in agreement.
"In the past, we used our near-infinite lifespans, overwhelming talent, and beautiful appearances that could bewitch any race to rise as the rulers of this continent."
"It was an age before magic even existed."
"At that time, yes... we committed quite a number of deeds."
"I won't describe them in detail, but they were so vile and disgusting even to our own eyes."
"All the races joined forces to try and kill us."
"We could have won."
"But—but their resentful cries held such a great echo that, what do you know, even we were persuaded."
"Someone said it. How did it come to this?"
"At first, we too were a peaceful race living in the forest. But when we went out into the world and raised our hands, we found the dried blood to be a bit sticky."
Azrael looked up at the sky as if looking at the very distant past. Despite being an elf, he had the appearance of an old man. If he wasn't doing it by choice, how many years would it take to wrinkle that skin?
"I became the overseer. The overseer to test the elves."
"I send one elf out from this pen. I check what they do, what actions they take."
"I judge."
"We don't want to live like this either. The conditions are very lenient."
"Just one person, if even just one person is satisfied with their life, if I judge that they are not broken—then maybe there is another choice for us besides becoming monsters crushed by infinite time."
"At that time, I will grant liberation. All elves shall regain all their memories."
After Azrael's murmured declaration, silence fell. Listening to all of it, I blinked my eyes and realized the obvious fact.
"So Master Dersia is this generation's elf."
"It's been hundreds of years, so it's a bit much to call it 'this generation,' but yes."
"Were you satisfied with my Master's actions in your judgment?"
"Not at all."
"What are your criteria for judgment?"
"My own subjectivity. My own subjectivity, having watched the rise and fall of all elves."
"!"
And Dersia had not met Azrael's criteria for judgment. Well, it didn't seem like Dersia was satisfied with her own life either. It seemed she didn't even properly know what she wanted herself.
Since Dersia herself wasn't satisfied, there was no way Azrael would give her a passing grade. After thinking for a moment, I asked.
"Why are you telling me these secrets of the elves?"
"Who knows?"
Azrael grinned.
It was a sinister smile.
"Why indeed. Try and guess."
"I'd rather not."
It was so obvious and transparent that it was a pain to even guess. Azrael had judged that I might be able to turn Dersia back to normal. That I might be of help in the so-called 'liberation' of the elves.
He could think whatever he wanted. Regardless of that, what I had to do was clear. It hadn't changed once from the beginning.
I needed Dersia to survive.
"Where is my Master fighting?"
"Hmph, see for yourself."
"?" -Rumble!!
As soon as he finished speaking, lightning struck from the clear sky. Drip, drip, drip, drip- then, a heavy rain began to fall. It definitely—was not artificial.
Azrael watched the scene and smiled playfully.
"Hmm, it might be dangerous if you don't go quickly."
"Who might be in danger?"
"You'll know when you get there."
"..."
The end was approaching.