CHAPTER~15
If I Could Become the Sea, Like You Said
It was a ridiculous rumor, and N’s thoughts went no further than that, as he was obsessed solely with saving Airi at any cost.
Despite praying through countless nights, Airi never opened her eyes, and now only one spell remained.
“I will try the final spell.
If the medicine leaks outside while the ritual is underway, its efficacy may be reduced, so you must never come looking for me before I return to the royal palace.”
After leaving his usual warning with the royal family before beginning the ritual, N returned to the cave.
He sealed the entrance with rocks to prevent the medicine from escaping, and as the potion brewed from sea foam filled the laboratory with inky darkness, N recited incantations without rest.
His low prayers were swallowed again and again by the raging whirlpool of water.
The prayer continued for a long time, only ceasing once even the thin light seeping through the cracks between the rocks vanished and complete darkness fell upon everything.
Though he chanted spells until his mouth felt parched even underwater, Airi’s closed eyelids did not twitch in the slightest.
It was another failure.
There were no spells left that he had not already tried.
After standing vacantly for a long time where the vortex had disappeared, N blindly grabbed an anglerfish drifting in the corner and headed toward the underground passage leading to the ruins.
— This is the account of the creation of heaven and earth, when the Lord made the heavens and the earth.
Along the wall of the passage closest to the laboratory, scriptures recording the words and deeds of God were inscribed in chronological order.
— The Lord formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, yet he did not move, so He released him into the sea, and in time he drank the water and lived and swam, and the Lord called the one formed of dust (adamah, אֲדָמָה) Adam (אדם).
The interpretation of these scriptures was the foundation and basis of all magic.
No matter how complex spells or potion-making techniques became, their roots ultimately lay in these texts.
— The Lord made a beautiful garden in the dark and cozy depths of the sea and placed Adam there, saying, “You may swim freely throughout this garden, but you must not go to the sea above where light enters, for on the day you go there, you shall surely die.”
As N groped his way forward in a daze, his hand slowed at one particular passage.
— The Lord said, “It is not good for man to be alone, so I will make a helper suitable for him.”
He had found it.
The passage that became the origin of all spells dealing with resurrection.
— The Lord caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep, then took one of his ribs and filled the place with flesh, and from that rib He made a woman and brought her to Adam…….
This passage, in which God creates a woman by removing a rib from the primordial man Adam, had served as the basis for countless spells and potion formulas throughout history.
— Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” and Adam called his wife’s name Heart (Eve, לֵב).
Because the name Eve was said to derive from the word “heart,” the hearts of beasts were commonly offered as sacrifices, and indeed, they proved to be the most effective offerings.
Sorcerers who had failed at resurrecting the dead began to see success after a certain man revived his beloved using his own heart, and thereafter, they claimed power in exchange for surplus hearts.
However, after the clan was annihilated due to his mother’s crime a century ago, N was the only sorcerer left in the sea.
If he used the last remaining heart and the spell failed, resulting in his own death, there would be no one left who could save Airi.
What should I do.
I, I… what am I supposed to do now…….
— Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
After reading and rereading the scripture so many times that the words were branded into his mind, the letters suddenly felt like the writing of an unfamiliar land.
Unable to grasp their meaning, N retraced the words he had read, yet his impression remained unchanged.
It felt as though he had been swept away by a flood of letters, utterly lost.
What am I even doing.
There is no way I could discover anything new by revisiting the scriptures now.
The more he fixed his eyes on the letters, the more tangled his thoughts became, an unpleasant sensation.
He had always despised troublesome things from the start, so how had he ended up like this.
Haven’t I done enough by now.
Two hearts are already gone, and surviving this long was a miracle in itself.
With each touch of his fingertips tracing the unfamiliar scar-like letters carved into the wall, memories of the past cut deep into him.
The sight of the princess’s back as she clenched a fist-sized stone and endlessly carved human letters into the wall.
Recalling even his own voice scolding her for persisting in such meaningless behavior, he let out a bitter laugh.
You, who practiced walking and speaking just to meet a human who might already be dead, were far wiser than I was.
Compared to me, who wasted years clinging to someone already gone, you were a hundred times wiser.
Who, truly, was the foolish one.
All the past events followed him as belated regrets.
No matter where he retraced his choices to find what went wrong, he was always by her side.
If he had to pinpoint the beginning, perhaps it was that day.
The day he noticed her gaze lingering endlessly on the shoreline, even after finally coming above the water.
I should have pretended not to notice.
Why did I take you to the ball instead of leaving you alone to meet whomever you wished.
If only I had not fabricated a princess’s identity for you, not given you legs, not taught you how to walk, not taught you the human language.
— I have a favor to ask, N.
If only I had never granted that request in the first place.
N’s unfocused gaze, fixed on letters that had long since lost their meaning, gradually blurred.
Should I just stop breathing like this.
Everything he had endured for suddenly felt worthless and exhausting.
With only one heart remaining, even thinking had become bothersome to him.
Continuing to breathe was nothing more than inertia.
Just as no living being questions why it breathes, he had been born with a purpose he was meant to follow.
And so he had merely lived by following it.
As N’s fingertips traced the rough grooves of the letters, fragments of the past pressed against him like old wounds.
‘Once you leave me, you’ll come to understand my words too.’
He replayed the princess’s final command, telling him to leave the imperial castle and return to the sea, her voice scattering in his ears like tinnitus.
If, as you said, I become the sea by following you, then after that.
‘You are free, N.’
Will I ever come to understand what that freedom you spoke of truly means.
N’s hand, which had been tracing the letters down the wall, stopped at a single point.
Though he knew it was meaningless, he read the words within his sight again and again.
Again, and again, and again…….
He chewed over countless times the letters scattering like incomprehensible noise, swallowing lives and principles he could not possibly understand.
Like foolish fish that indiscriminately devour everything they see until their bellies burst and they die.
After lingering there for a long time, tearing apart a single passage, N finally came to his senses as dawn’s light began to shine from the far end of the passage.
When even the glow of the anglerfish appeared faint in the light carried by the current, N blankly turned his head after watching the released fish swim toward the brightness.
A single ray of light from outside vividly illuminated the outline of the words he had been reading.
— The Lord caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep, then took one of his ribs and filled the place with flesh, and made a woman…….
As N stared spellbound at the letters soaked in light, his mouth fell slightly open.
Like a ritual awakening with the morning sun, realization surged through him as blood rushed through his body.
How had he not realized it before.
After attempting every sacrifice ever mentioned, N had gathered the hearts of all creatures living on land and offered them, yet none succeeded.
But perhaps it had been wrong from the very beginning.
N began to move along the wall.
Passing the long verses of scripture, his fingertips traced the lingering marks of failure left behind by sorcerers, and awareness seeped into him like a wound.
The reason the spells had failed.
One possibility he had never considered, trapped by the fixed idea that a sorcerer’s heart held special power, clicked into place like interlocking gears in his mind.
God had fashioned Eve from the body of a living Adam.
Then why had sorcerers attempted to create life from that which was already dead.
Keeping his hand against the wall, N retraced his steps exactly as he had come, returning to the laboratory.
After briefly surveying the cave cluttered with potion ingredients and overgrown seaweed, his gaze turned toward the entrance where light streamed in.
— You may swim freely throughout this garden, but you must not go to the sea above where light enters, for on the day you go there, you shall surely die.
N went outside, gathered several large rocks, and sealed the entrance tightly so that not a single ray of light could enter.
Then he stood before the princess.
