Voluntary Escort (4)

'Nouvelle Vague? Don't even talk about it. It's a living hell. It's a place I never want to go back to.'

'We were lucky to get out of there alive.'

'... I never thought that monstrous old man would free us with his own hands.'

Vikir remembered a time before his regression.

During the war against the demons, Vikir had many comrades in arms who were prisoners.

The Demon War had united all of humanity.

Once categorized as human, criminal records didn't matter.

Everyone was on the same side, everyone was a comrade-in-arms.

Living and dying with the prisoners of Nouvelle Vague, Vikir had seen and heard many things.

In many ways, he was able to experience firsthand the horrific prison culture.

Just as a man who has been in the army can tell you endless stories about his time in the army, the prisoners at Nouvelle Vague would tell each other detailed, long, and lengthy stories about their time in prison, and Vikir never once found it boring.

'...So I know it well. What Nouvelle Vague is like.'

Vikir stepped into the coffin.

As the lid closed, the nails in the coffin pierced Vikir's body without warning.

But his flesh, hardened by the protection of the Styx River, his physical resistance stats from the Hell Tree, and his aura combined.

Thud!

The nails in the coffin were unable to pierce Vikir's skin and bent.

In the midst of it all, Vikir spoke through the upper layers of the coffin, through the eye and mouth openings of the Iron Maiden.

"Push."

A firm voice. No wavering.

Eventually, the coffin containing Vikir tilted toward the sea.

All the holes in the coffin were sealed with special wax, and a heavy additional weight was hung at the bottom.

Now the coffin would ride in the middle of the whirlpool and sink at a rapid pace.

Towards the bottom of the deep ocean, the deepest ocean below.

"...."

Isabella slipped her longsword onto the chain at the bow that connected to the coffin.

Her mission was essentially to get Vikir away, even if it meant killing everyone on board.

But what can she do, when the one she's supposed to get away from wants to go to Nouvelle Vague so badly?

Even Vikir seemed to have something else in mind.

Whatever it is, it's something in a higher realm that even she, Seven Counts, can't fathom.

Isabella, meanwhile, was quite surprised by the situation.

In all her years of sending many prisoners to Nouvelle Vague, it had never occurred to her that she would ever see them again.

... But now it was different.

Vikir seemed to realize that one day they would surely meet again.

'It's a strange thing. For someone going to the Nouvelle Vague to have such thoughts.'

Isabella let out a light sigh.

And soon, her black sword radiated anticipation.

Fit-

A drop of liquid aura, sticky as honey, descended, cutting cleanly through the coffin and the chains attached to the ship's bow.

…with a plop!

The coffin sank heavily beneath the water.

The white foam that rose to the surface of the black waters was the last reminder of Vikir's presence in this world.

Even that was soon swept away by the raging torrent.

The ship reeled in its anchor line and began to gradually move away from Malström's sphere of influence.

By midnight, the whirlpools had subsided and the currents were rapidly becoming milder.

Whirring.

The sound of sails flapping in the sea breeze is loud.

Each of the four surviving convoy officers maintained a heavy silence.

Finally, Lovebad of the Bourgeois was the first to speak.

"...Ha, I don't know what to tell my youngest sister. To the kid who was already sick from lovesickness."

"I agree, our young lady will have an uproar."

"I can't imagine how bitterly she'll feel...."

"I'm going to go back and be devastated by the patriarch."

Banshee of Morg, Mozgus of Quovadis, and Isabella of Baskerville also put their hands to their foreheads.

In the end, it was Banshee who faced reality first.

"For now, let's get back to the ship as soon as we can, and put those minions in the hold on trial, and shed some light on the mutiny on board."

"We should also demand a retrial for Vikir-kun."

Isabella nodded at Mozgus's words.

"That's not all. We need to investigate the testimony of Don Quixote La Mancha Passamonte, Usher Poe Madeline, and Hobbes De Leviathan."

"They're all powerful men, and if we get it wrong, we'll have a huge feud between the Seven Great Families...."

Lovebad's fears were confirmed.

Vikir was on his way to Nouvelle Vague.

Instead of just leaving, he planted a huge blue seed and left it behind.

It was so ominous and dangerous that it could shake the very foundations of the empire.

* * *

Meanwhile.

Vikir was in a coffin, sinking to the center of a long, vertical vortex.

Even though he is innocent and a retrial is nothing to worry about in the first place.

All that mattered now was getting down to Nouvelle Vague safely.

Purrrrr...

The water bubbles and the vision grows darker.

He could feel the water leaking through the narrow toe space, which was getting slightly damp.

The coffin was caught in a swirling wave, bobbing violently, then settling down.

Its weight made it sink faster.

After a while, a strange sound came from the lid of the coffin.

udeudeug-

The coffin is sinking rapidly, and the water pressure around it is getting higher and higher.

The coffin, made of an orthoharcon alloy, began to crack.

It will eventually crumple until it fits perfectly around Vikir's entire body.

Most prisoners would not survive this process and would either commit suicide or go insane from the claustrophobia.

"...."

However, Vikir endures this time in silence, keeping his mouth shut.

Crunch-clunk-clack-clack!

The Iron Maiden strongly embraces Vikir.

Aside from the pressure crushing his entire body, the lack of oxygen was a problem.

Then.

Sssssssss...

Oxygen flows from somewhere.

It was bubbling outward through a faint crack in his toes.

'Is this the power of these cuffs?'

Vikir lowered his gaze to the bindings that wrapped around his wrists, ankles, and the rest of his body.

The mysterious material was emitting a faint puff of oxygen, helping Vikir breathe.

'Absorbs mana, enforces physical force, and even emits oxygen? It's a strange substance.'

Vikir recalled stories he'd heard from his former comrades-in-arms before he'd regressed that, while the BDISSEM cuffs inhibited movement, they were an essential survival tool in the deep.

Crack! Puddeuddeuk!

The distortion of the coffin was getting worse and worse.

The depths of the ocean are now so deep that there is not even the slightest bit of light, and the world is pitch black.

An infinite void of nothingness.

A space that is both empty and full.

Being placed in a coffin and thrown into the depths of the ocean was no different than being buried alive in the depths of the earth.

An iron maiden guiding the way to death.

The journey to survive more than three thousand life sentences is a long and arduous one.

But Vikir endured it all.

The giant metal tubes that cling to his body like an uncomfortable garment, the endless sinking into the darkness of the lightless void, the giant, nameless monsters of the deep that prowl around him.

The only thing that helps is Decarabia embedded in his chest.

[Human. Are you okay?]

"It's worth holding on to."

[An impossibly large creature just passed in front of us, and it had a lot of legs].

"Is it as good as Shadowless King of the Black Sea?"

[That's right. Hehehe... You still have a lot of free time, right?]

"You shouldn't talk about dying like this, you've got a lot of work ahead of you."

Upon hearing Vikir's words, Dekarabia pouted, as if in good faith.

[Very well, human, then let me show you one of my many abilities, perhaps the one you need most at this point].

After speaking, Decarabia emitted a strange light from its only eye.

"...!"

Vikir was a little surprised.

As the Decarabia glowed, a vision of the outside of the coffin began to form in his head.

"Vision sharing. That's good."

[Is it worth using? Hmph- maybe it's because it's the sea, isn't it a bit salty for a compliment you receive in return for finding the light?].

Decarabia grumbled in dissatisfaction, but Vikir shrugged it off.

Eventually, Vikir's vision began to take in the landscape below the sinking coffin.

It looked like a forest.

A jungle. A giant forest.

A vast expanse of seaweed, each stalk as massive as the pillars of a mythical temple.

expanse

over an enormous area.

Colonies of seaweed.

Standing tall and flowing

The seaweed seems to have been forgotten

Giant soldiers of ancient civilization

Stand upright and stand guard

It seems like it exists.

The coffin containing Vikir

In the center of this seaweed forest,

To the top of the highest cliff

It was sinking.

kkuleuleuleug...

An awl-sharp cliff rose above the blackened forest of giant aquatic plants, and at the end of it stood a structure that emitted a dim light like a lantern.

An old castle with an old and gloomy atmosphere, built in a very ancient style, made of large bricks piled tightly on top of an extinct volcano in the deep sea.

Nouvelle Vague!

The world's worst prison

awaited Vikir.