The fact that no bubbles formed despite being underwater meant it was not breathing, and if it was not breathing, that meant it was not alive.
If the thing in question was a stark white skeleton without a shred of flesh on it, then calling it dead would be all the more fitting.
And yet, I existed with awareness.
I moved without eating, sleeping, or breathing.
A skeleton bearing the contradiction of being dead and alive at the same time.
In a world where death was meant to be part of a cycle, what should one call a form that defied the natural order of life?
Yes. Undead would be the proper word.
...Just how many long years had passed since I fell into the sea?
After being captivated by nature and plunging from a cliff, I let so much time drift away with the currents that my sense of it had grown vague.
The vast sea stretched on without end. Escaping it would have been easy, but I had not done so because I could find no reason to leave.
To me, the sea was as comforting as a mother's embrace.
Here, I did not have to rush to work.
I did not have to worry about money, and I did not have to listen to a superior's nagging. The relief of it was almost exhilarating.
Thinking that way, I found myself actually enjoying life beneath the waves.
To me, this undersea world was a mass of endless content.
It was a moment when my instincts as a gamer showed themselves without restraint.
As I drifted through the ocean over the long years, I found it overflowing with creatures unlike anything I knew from knowledge alone—beings I had never seen or even heard of.
I witnessed the birth of pure life, something I had never seen in my previous life.
Sometimes I settled on the floor of a calm shoreline and looked up at the marine creatures drifting past. At other times, I observed ancient beings from the dark bottom of the deep sea.
What a beautiful world this was.
A world stripped of machinery was filled with new things, and everything felt vividly stimulating.
That did not mean life beneath the sea was quieter than life outside it.
If anything, perhaps because it was the cradle where life had first begun, it was even more vibrant.
To be honest, yes. Nature was rawness itself.
I watched the creatures scattered throughout the sea as fish slipped through my ribs.
Enormous crabs strode across the sand, clacking their thick pincers.
With claws large enough to crush anything, they hammered open spiral shells and licked up the liquid inside.
Then, before the feeding crab's eyes, a squid glowing in five colors appeared and began shifting its hues back and forth, casting a hypnotic spell.
As the squid moved to wrap its tentacles around the defenseless crab and digest it, a fish behind it expelled the air it had drawn in, unleashing a sudden explosive burst that pierced the squid's core.
Watching that chain of predation, I found myself wondering:
Had creatures like these ever existed in the original world?
I did not know.
Earth's seas had been polluted into places where life could no longer survive.
Only the remnants of the internet remained to hint at what had once been there.
Even so, I knew these creatures were different from those of Earth.
From the days when they had still been immature cells to the forms they possessed now,
I had watched every step of their evolution as they struggled to survive in the savage sea.
As I watched these small lives over the ages of constant change, the thought that this world was Yggdrasil gradually faded from my mind.
I simply could not believe a system could reproduce an ecosystem this intricate.
And even if one assumed it somehow could exceed expectations and simulate something on this level, building data this detailed would be a kind of waste of resources.
As a consumer, I knew well that in games, even things that could be implemented were often abandoned for the sake of optimization.
Which suggested that this world was something entirely new, utterly unlike the one I had known.
The possibility that this was not merely a world inside a game, but a world in its own right.
It had taken an eternity to cast off my doubts and reach that realization, but I did not mind.
An Undead had time enough to rot away.
Whether I learned it sooner or later made no difference to my life.
So I shoved the thought into a corner of my mind and returned to exploring the sea.
I had described the ocean as though I were merely an observer, but over that vast stretch of time, it was not as if nothing ever turned its gaze on me.
There had been times when a giant whale opened its mouth and I was sucked in with the breath it drew, and times when fish entered my rib cage and built homes there.
Yet despite all that, I never retaliated or killed them.
Because [High-Tier Physical Nullification] was always active, there was no danger of my dying.
Though in the first place, could a skeleton even die? A troubling question.
From the perspective of an Undead removed from the struggle for survival, this ferocious sea was endlessly tranquil.
At this rate, I would likely drift through the ocean forever.
It was not a cruel fate.
Watching fish pass through my bones without fear, and observing new forms of life, was a rather pleasant amusement.
But life is bound to have its turns, and even eternal life cannot avoid them.
So perhaps it was only natural that an anomaly would arise.
Without warning, the seafloor trembled.
"What is this?"
Red lights flared in the skull that had long since lost all light, and I sharpened my senses toward the disturbance.
Looking around, I saw countless schools fleeing in alarm from the natural disaster.
I lifted my gaze toward the wavering surface of the sea.
"Could it be time for a volcanic eruption?"
If so, the situation made sense.
The sudden shifting of the earth, the creatures sensing danger—every sign pointed to volcanic activity.
But my senses as a magic caster overruled the common sense I had once possessed as a human.
The skeleton that had devoted its life to Magic cried out in delight at the familiar sensation flowing through its bones.
This was not the working of nature, but the operation of immense mana—Magic.
And not just any Magic, but a great spell worthy of being called Super-Tier.
"Magic that parts the sea."
A clear voice rang out.
Words imbued with mana were unraveled and struck my mind, and those words became phenomenon.
The sea split apart as cleanly as though cut by a blade.
In an instant, the surface barrier was torn open. Droplets scattered into the air, and air rushed into the severed sea.
Splash.
In the divided sea, footsteps splashed atop the walls of water where marine life still swam.
Small, delicate feet were walking on the water.
There was confidence in every step.
"Oh? I sensed immense mana beneath the sea and came to investigate, and it turns out you're an Undead?"
What revealed itself with that drawling voice was a girl.
A small, rounded face, languid eyes bearing the boredom of long years, golden hair and golden eyes that seemed to hold the sun within them.
And ears that tapered to sharp points.
The features before my eyes suggested only one possibility.
"...An elf?"
How long had it been since I last spoke?
Ordinarily, enough time had passed for my tongue to have dried to the roof of my mouth and for language itself to have been forgotten, but as I was a skeleton, speaking posed no problem.
Though the very fact that a skeleton could speak was strange enough.
For a brief moment I was moved by the sound of my own voice after so long, but the elf standing atop the water and looking down at Momonga soon showed a spark of interest.
"An Undead that not only speaks, but even recognizes my race."
The elf stroked her chin and curled her lips into a smile.
"How interesting."
Then she opened her mouth in a delighted voice, almost as though singing.
"Magic that commands water."
The walls of waves writhed into shape and came rushing at me like arrows.
At the manifestation of Magic, my body reacted.
"[Wall of Skeleton]."
On the land where the sea had vanished, skeletons rose clasping hands and formed a wall, diverting the bullets of water.
The immense water pressure was sharp enough to shatter diamond, but the spell was well suited to blocking the attack.
Its role fulfilled, the wall of skeletons crumbled away.
Through the rain of falling water, the elf burst into loud laughter.
"An Undead that uses Magic! No matter how long I live, the world is still overflowing with interesting things. Isn't that right?"
Recalling the memory of that day, Momonga said this:
His first meeting with Serie had been, in every sense, the worst.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register