There's Not Much Time Left. (1)
Esti nodded her head obediently.
"I don't mind if you kill me by mistake."
Her voice sounded faintly expectant.
She was clearly not a normal person.
I frowned.
"...I told you. I wasn’t going to kill you."
At the unfamiliar sensation at the back of her neck, Esti flinched.
"It stings a little."
Bzzzzzt!
Sparks scattered into the air like embers.
[Skill 'Thunder Bolt' activated.]
The interior brightened in an instant. By the time the flash subsided, Esti was unconscious, her head dropped to the floor. The way she was crumpled showed she wasn't feigning collapse.
She was definitely out cold.
"..."
But even after I waited for a while, the notification window telling me Esti had been subdued did not appear.
That could only mean one thing.
I clicked my tongue.
"...As expected, it came to this."
I'd hoped it would go easily this time, but that hope had been wishful thinking.
Esti couldn't be subdued by simply knocking her out.
Because of the binding inscribed on her soul, Esti could never rest until every 'enemy' was defeated.
And with that last attack, I had just become one of Esti's 'enemies.'
Swaaash!
A wave crashed against the rocks with an eerie sound. The movement was abnormal for an ordinary wave.
The waves grew fiercer and fiercer. In a single instant, they transformed into a razor-edged vortex. The vortex indiscriminately sucked in nearby fish, then ground them to pieces.
In the blink of an eye, the sea was dyed red.
Woooo.
That was when Esti's body began to tremble.
With a sound of twisting bones, Esti's head slowly turned. Her deeply sunken pupils and the killing intent that seemed to crush the air plainly showed that she had lost all reason.
[Kill...]
I clicked my tongue and activated the magic circle I had prepared in advance.
[Skill 'Teleport' activated.]
The place where I reappeared was the middle of the great ocean, far from Ikail.
A notification window rose before my eyes.
['Wave Catcher Esti' uses 'Tidal Wave'!]
From far away, a wave like a tsunami was surging closer.
No—could this even be called a wave?
Even at a glance, it easily seemed to surpass hundreds of meters.
Rrrrrumble!
That was the reason Esti became notorious across the entire continent.
No matter who the opponent was, if they were an enemy of Ikail, she fought without regard for her own death.
Even if she wanted to stop, she couldn't. Even if she wanted to show mercy, she couldn't.
That was the binding carved into her soul.
- Aaaaaaah!
- P-please, have mercy...!
Even the vicious pirates trembled in terror at its overwhelming height.
[Die.]
With a cracking sound, the wave swallowed the ships whole.
It was a chilling spectacle, but I did not step back.
Instead, I stepped forward.
[Mana is becoming disrupted!]
The closer the tidal wave came, the faster the ominous notification windows appeared.
I didn't bother trying to control my scattered mana.
Trying to control mana in front of that wave would only backfire.
A wave that swallowed magic power.
A calamity that no mage could resist.
[Die!]
The 'voice' that had turned Esti into this probably thought the same.
And then, the next moment, I stretched both arms forward.
[Ancient Magic 'Absolute Zero' activated.]
That magic—which had once instantly driven a Great Demon to the brink of death—unfurled once more from my fingertips.
An immeasurable cold engulfed the world.
The wave began to freeze from its edges inward.
Crack, crack-crack-crack!
The tidal wave seemed to hesitate for a moment, then pushed forward, shattering the glacier.
Only then did I see that the wave was more than a single layer.
It was at least dozens of layers thick.
[This alone won't stop it!]
Perhaps the words got on my nerves, because my eyebrows twitched.
[Ancient Magic, 'Extinction Lightning' activated.]
Bzzzzzt!
And then, in the next instant, the color of the sky changed.
Countless bolts of lightning formed a wall and advanced.
It was as if the world was meeting its end.
"This was going to hurt quite a bit."
The wall of waves and the wall of lightning collided.
[Mere lightning like this...!]
This time too, the 'voice' seemed to endure. But only for a moment.
The total amount of mana was on a completely different level than before. Even after the magic was deployed, I hadn't stopped supplying mana.
The mana heart of a mage who had touched true knowledge was, in itself, a world.
No matter how much the wave was called a calamity, it could not hope to oppose an entire world.
[...!]
The 'voice' let out an agonized scream, but it was buried by the thunder and couldn't be heard.
Even though Esti's entire body had been scorched black, I didn't stop the magic.
After all, while controlled by that 'voice,' Esti wouldn't die from something like this.
KABOOM!
When the surface of the sea was completely covered in dead fish...
[Regressor ‘Esti Aquar’ has been subdued without being killed.]
[Acquired Clue #4.]
The notification window I had been waiting for appeared.
'...Finally.'
I staggered for a moment. Maintaining ancient magic for several minutes was taxing even for me.
'Damn it.'
Esti's resistance had been fiercer than I'd expected. A single bolt might have gone unnoticed, but hundreds had poured down like rain. Had the other regressors really missed it?
Especially since, just this morning, Kiel's sword strike had reached all the way to the sky above the holy kingdom.
'...'
Before my youthened face, the reward appeared.
[Reward for acquiring 4 Clues]
- Once per Clue, you may gather all of your remaining time limits and use them all at once.
Fortunately, my reward luck was good.
I gritted my teeth.
'Half. No, even less than that, I had to get at least one person on my side quickly.'
Now, there truly was no time left.
*****
There was a princess.
Beloved by the sea from birth, the princess went on a rampage on the day she came of age.
That day, half the capital was submerged.
*****
Esti watched me with her arms crossed.
- Give me one hundred days, and I will resolve that voice for you.
Today was the first day. But from time to time, I only stared intently at the sea's surface and took no other special action.
"...Just what are you looking for? The only things down there are wrecked pirate ships. We get the occasional merchant vessel too, but you won't find whatever it is you want."
No answer came.
"..."
Perhaps, from the very beginning, I had come not to help her but to find something submerged beneath the sea.
'...In the end, this one was the same.'
Of course, she had nothing to lose. She'd already extracted an oath that I would use the emperor's token for Ikail.
But she couldn't help the disappointment that seeped in. Esti watched me a while longer after that. But faced with my continued scrutiny of the sea's surface, she gave up and turned away.
"I'll head back first. And for your information, there are now ninety-nine days left."
"..."
I gave no answer. Only after Esti had vanished beyond the horizon did I let out my breath and look around.
[Clue #4]
[Memory of April, Imperial Year 993]
- Remaining Time: 82:49:00
"...Good."
Whether it was thanks to the new reward, the time limit was spacious. That didn't mean I had leisure, but it was far better than having only five minutes.
'The timing fell into place nicely too.'
The third rule of using Clues:
When two Clues conflict, the one used later overwrites the earlier.
Therefore, if I used this Clue well, I could make the Ikail Massacre an event that never happened.
I had to make it so.
'I had to find a way.'
As long as Rebekah was staying in Ikail, I couldn't use extreme methods. But I also couldn't leave Esti's 'voice' as it was.
Because no matter what method I used, eliminating that 'voice' was probably one of the reasons that the 'present' Esti had become more favorably inclined toward me.
'...Was that really the only way?'
A method whose effect was definite, but I'd avoided using it because its success rate was low.
And this new method needed to be carried out when Esti wasn't nearby.
I descended as close to the surface of the sea as possible. Then, the ocean slowly began to freeze around me.
Bzzzzzt!
The cold spread out widely and rapidly, claiming its own domain.
The cold, which had been expanding without end, stopped at a certain point as if it had struck something.
It wasn't because I lacked magical power. A human capable of creating a barrier the size of a city wouldn't tire out just from freezing some seawater.
It felt, somehow, as though my mana was being scattered exactly as it felt when it made contact with Esti's waves.
"I found it."
I smiled.
The sunken city, Aquar—the Water Demon Realm.
The place where countless vengeful spirits submerged by Esti lay.
Swooosh.
The surroundings were enveloped in a black mist in an instant.
From within the water, human-like shapes began to rise one by one.
Wraiths wearing the masks of fishmen.
Facing a wraith draped in knight's armor, I spoke with a smile.
"Wraiths of Aquar."
Phantasmal gazes pierced me sharply.
"Lead me to your king."