Wizard of the Abyss – Ch. 175

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 175 - Resident (11)

One question still remained.

How did this thing even awaken its Water Partition to begin with?

"Hey, don’t put it back on…No. Don’t ever do that.”

Seeing black currents slowly starting to coil around the Slow Fish’s body made a wave of PTSD wash over me.

If it started rampaging, commands or not, I’d be completely screwed.

Squeezing out what little strength I had left, I moved to the spot where I could pierce the Slow Fish’s belly the easiest and stood directly in front of the eyeless creature.

[...!!]

It raised its pincers, as if trying to attack me.

But it was slow.

So slow that even the tiny protrusions on its carapace were clearly caught in my Tide Sense. It was a stark contrast to its near-light-speed movements it had shown just moments ago.

It would probably take 30 seconds for those pincers to reach my head.

I calmly watched, then formed a pressure blade.

I wasn’t cruel enough to toy with an opponent that could no longer fight.

[...nfair.]

"?"

A pressure blade that could cut even steel.

The moment it saw it, the creature suddenly made a sound.

It could speak?.

[U-unfair, so I won’t give up…]

"...What?"

[Unfair, so, I , won’t, give, up.]

It wasn’t just noise.

Like that enormous octopus before, this thing was in a state where conversation seemed possible.

Startled, I dismissed the blade and replied quickly.

"Wait, can you talk? Can you understand what I’m saying…?”

[Unfair, so…]

"Do you understand…?”

[I won’t give up…]

"..."

No.

Was it just like the other deep-sea creatures, spewing random words that happened to match the situation?

Sighing, I summoned some blades again.

[U-unfair.]

-Crack.

Exactly three times.

That was how many strikes it took to punch holes through the Slow Fish’s vulnerable belly.

It writhed in pain. As its body twisted and curled inward, cracks began to spread across its carapace.

Even without its Water Partition, its exterior couldn’t be called soft. If anything, it looked tougher than the Water Partition. Rather than just protecting it, it had given the Slow Fish speed.

That explained it. When one thought about it, it did make some sense.

Originally, it should have paid for its absurdly hard carapace and crushing pincers with a slow body. But the Water Partition removed that penalty, turning all that raw power directly into speed. And that was how this monster was born.

'...But if that’s the case, doesn’t that mean it’s not even worth eating?"

Swallowing my unease, I waited until the Slow Fish fully compressed into a Slow Fish ball.

Other creatures had collapsed almost instantly—but because of its absurd toughness, this one took some time.

In the end, it became a relatively light ball about 5 centimeters in diameter.

"Let’s see..."

Holding the Slow Fish ball in my hand, I fell into thought.

This was a decision that had to be made before eating it.

"Is it even possible for a deep-sea creature to awaken magic…?”

A world created by something born in the Abyssal Realm of a Fallen.

A world that was supposed to only belong to wizards. Which meant this fish had somehow awakened magic. But it didn’t even have eyes, so I couldn't confirm if it had stars in them.

And the world it had been using was unmistakably the Water Partition.

It looked a little different, but it was the same as mine. I didn’t want to believe that a world so specialized in defending against the Abyssal Sea like the Water Partition could exist outside of me.

Just how? What method did it use to get it?

'If this really is a mage’s body…I don’t exactly want to put it in my mouth.'

Even setting that aside, without certainty that it would help me, I couldn’t just eat something whose nature I didn’t understand. Just because one was thirsty didn’t mean one could just drink seawater.

If I ended up gaining useless traits, like becoming as slow as that thing, or having my hands turned into pincers, this would be a huge loss. I’d only challenged the Slow Fish because I thought its traits, which I didn’t know came from the Water Partition, seemed like they might help me withstand the pressure better.

But if I didn’t eat it, then the entire hunt would have been pointless… While hesitating, something crunched under my foot.

A white bone.

"This is still here?”

This was the area where I had first encountered the Slow Fish.

The place where that weird whale, which had been spewing out countless corpses of deep-sea creatures from its mouth, had been hunted. The bones of those creatures were still scattered about here.

Normally, they should have been crushed into powder by the pressure and dissolved into the sea.

As I stared at the bones, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind.

'Come to think of it, that thing was pretty strange, too.’

I’d been so focused on the Slow Fish that I hadn’t properly considered it, but the sight of that whale pulling out corpses from its mouth to make them steal food had been no less bizarre.

At the time, the Slow Fish had consumed all my attention...

Crouching atop the canyon and touching the bones, I traced the tentacles that had manipulated them with my Tide Sense.

"...Huh?"

Something felt off.

I lightly split one of the tentacles with a pressure blade and looked inside.

At its center was a thread.

...A white thread, the exact same color as the one bound to my finger.

"Don’t tell me—”

As I touched it, I felt a chill run down my spine. The sensation was all too familiar to me.

There was no doubt about it. This was Puppet’s ability.

That whale had been using Puppet to control the deep-sea creatures, just like I had. It was so obvious that it was strange I hadn’t realized this sooner.

...But then how had it acquired it?

As I pondered, a single possibility flashed through my mind.

Puppet and the Water Partition. If they were completely different worlds, that’d be one thing, but they shared one crucial commonality.

They existed in the Abyssal Sea.

"..."

Fusion.

The Abyssal Sea sank everything. If something sank into it, then that thing would become part of the Abyssal Sea.

Deep-sea creatures could handle the Abyssal Sea because they were residents of that world.

Which meant that anything submerged in the Abyssal Sea was something even the deep-sea creatures would gradually come to realize…

-It would turn into a trait.

"Fuck."

A curse escaped me.

It was a hypothesis bordering on a mere guess, but if this wasn’t the answer, then it made no sense that out of countless possible worlds, the deep-sea creatures specifically used Puppet and the Water Partition.

Once I reached that point, the ball in front of me started to feel like a random loot box.

'So basically, if I eat this, there’s some chance I’d get the Water Partition.'

Some chance.

It wasn’t a really comforting phrase. A carapace could grow on my skin. My eyes could disappear.

"Not that it matters, right?”

That was good enough.

I’d long abandoned any desire to survive with an intact body a long time ago.

-Crunch.

I chewed and swallowed the ball.

The moment it slid down my throat, an intensely unpleasant sensation spread through my entire body, as if something inside my stomach was dissolving.

Then my body began to boil.

"Ugh..."

As if my already-shattered body wasn’t enough, the sudden heat made my mind blurry.

Still, I clenched my teeth and endured. If I collapsed here, everything I had done would go to waste.

Fortunately, the fever faded almost as quickly as it had come.

And then—my vision vanished.

"?"

I still had a magical light lit in my other hand. But despite that, everything visible to my naked eyes disappeared.

Tilting my head, I realized what had happened and twisted my face into a grimace.

"Wait, do I not have eyes anymore? That trait?”

A dud. And the worst possible one.

It seemed the Slow Fish’s eyelessness had manifested in me, which was completely useless.

At least I still had my Tide Sense, so maybe it was just that I couldn’t see with my eyes anymore? Letting out a sigh, I pushed my Tide Sense harder.

Then I realized that that wasn’t the case.

"...Huh?”

Something around my body felt kind of different.

It was filled with dark water or something.

I hurriedly walked to where the Slow Fish had been.

One step, two steps, three steps… Even after walking quite a distance, I felt no resistance at all, and then it clicked.

"...The color changed."

My once-transparent Water Partition had turned black. As if it were declaring that my physical vision was no longer necessary.

Would it still have this color when I go outside? That would be a problem. Frowning, I cautiously raised my hand.

The Water Partition was still my world. Which meant I should be able to control it.

Once I confirmed that the Water Partition was truly mine, I was able to drain the black water. In an instant, the dark coloration that was characteristic of the Slow Fish vanished, and my vision returned.

At the same time, the pressure around me felt different.

My body felt light.

This wasn’t a sensation one should feel in the deepest part of the ocean.

A sense of release I had never felt even outside the Abyssal Sea wash over me while I was still in these depths.

"Haah…”

A sigh mixed with relief escaped me. My gamble had paid off.

What I gained by hunting and killing the Slow Fish was the Water Partition it wielded.

It seemed the world had no intention of letting me die that easily. I slumped down on the canyon floor for a while, barely able to catch my breath, let alone celebrate.

In the end, I had survived by charging in headfirst without understanding anything and somehow reaching the right answer.

Of course, that didn’t mean all my problems had been solved.

No. If anything, there were more now.

'So, does this mean the deep-sea creatures are going to start running around with the Water Partition and Puppet attached to them?’

There didn’t seem to be many yet, but starting with the Slow Fish and that whale, more and more of them would awaken worlds and become even more vicious.

And all the while, I would continue sinking deeper into the Abyssal Sea. I probably still was at this very moment.

'I seriously want to rest…’

Time spent in the Abyssal Sea was just too suffocating. I hadn’t slept, and all I wanted was to lie down on a bed and rest for a while—

But there was something I had to confirm now.

What kind of hell awaited me further down?

If there were more creatures with Water Partitions. Whether I could hunt them the same way and survive at even greater depths.

Only then could I return and search for a more efficient solution. Forcing my stiff body upright, I headed deeper into the canyon.

Deeper. Even deeper—

-Blublublub...

The deeper I went, the fewer deep-sea creatures there were.

And the more my jaw dropped.

'...This is insane!’

Until now, I’d compared the Water Partition to a diving suit.

But after consuming the Slow Fish, it felt closer to a submarine.

Of course, the pressure was still increasing the deeper I went. But before, it felt like the diving suit itself was being crushed, the pressure getting transmitted directly to my body. Now, it felt like being inside a submarine that slowly narrowed, being squished against its walls, which hurt.

That was still horrifying, but compared to having my entire body be squeezed by a hydraulic press, this was nothing. It almost made me think I could reach the deepest depths of this place.

Of course, that was just an illusion.

"Hmm…”

I had descended for quite a while, but the abyss seemed endless. At some point, I became certain that going any deeper would damage my Water Partition to a dangerous degree.

Still, a smile crept onto my face.

This was more than enough of a result.

'At this rate, I could probably last over half a year.'

I had descended for nearly two hours and only reached this far down. No matter how fast I was falling, there was no doubt that I’d been granted an enormous amount of time.

And with my backing being the Empire’s princess and its greatest wizard, given that much time, there was probably nothing we couldn’t do with this time.

'I think I finally see what I should be aiming for.’

Only now did a concrete method come into view.

A deep-sea creature possessing a Water Partition. I’d hunted just one, and the result was already this dramatic.

At first, I thought stronger deep-sea creatures would only be a disadvantage to me, but seeing the effect, my thinking couldn’t help but change.

If I could keep descending, find deep-sea creatures that were enduring those depths with the Water Partition, and hunt them one by one…

I might actually be able to survive even after reaching the very bottom of the Abyssal Sea.

The most reliable escape of all. Survival at a depth where no further descent was possible.

—For the first time, it felt like I could see some hope even in this deep and dark place.

[.......................]

Just as I clenched my fist, drunk on that exhilaration…

At the very edge of my Tide Sense’s range, in the deepest part of this abyss, I caught something.

"This is..."

The end of the canyon.

The very bottom.

I could feel it.

"...”

After a brief moment of hesitation, I swallowed a World-Sealing Elixir and forced myself to go down to the very bottom.

Just in case that really was the bottom of the Abyssal Sea.

The odds were low. I never thought conquering the Abyssal Sea would be that easy, but aside from the canyon, this was the first solid ground I had seen at all, so I couldn’t just dismiss it.

-Squish.

When my foot touched the ground, a sticky sensation spread beneath it.

Other than that, it was just normal ground with nothing special about it. I struck it a few times and tilted my head when it felt softer than expected.

Whatever made up this surface clearly wasn’t ordinary soil. After a moment’s thought, I formed a pressure blade.

'Could this soil be something different?'

The ground at the absolute bottom of the Abyssal Sea.

If I could bring some back, maybe Dercia could analyze it and produce something useful.

And then—

"?!”

-Shrrrrrrk...

The canyon wall on the opposite side suddenly began to move.

At an insane speed. I leapt upward reflexively, staring in disbelief at the canyon wall retreating from me.

"What the…hell is this?”

It wasn’t just the wall in front of me. The entire canyon wall was pulling back at tremendous speed, as if it were repulsed by something.

That wasn’t all. The entire Abyssal Sea began to tremble violently.

Unable to understand what was happening, I felt panic rising inside of me. I shot upward and spread my Tide Sense.

Gripping the bubble connected to the real world tightly, I readied myself to escape at any moment.

"...?"

After confirming what my Tide Sense was telling me…

I couldn’t even recognize what I was seeing at first.

I genuinely couldn’t comprehend it at all.

"...Huh?"

The bottom of the opened canyon.

That black surface was moving back and forth, restlessly.

"Thi-this…”

I clenched my trembling hand, utterly dumbfounded.

Of course it was alive.

-A colossal eye.

That was what formed the canyon floor.

The canyon itself was nothing more than that creature’s eyelid.

If I hadn’t seen it with my own Tide Sense, I would’ve dismissed it as some sort of metaphor or a joke. Its scale was so absurd that even when I spread my Tide Sense to its absolute limit, I could only grasp a tiny fraction of that eye.

[.............]

Only after the eye focused—precisely on me—and its purple narrowed into a vertical slit did I finally understand.

Just how stupid my assumption had been.

"...It’s deep..."

The Abyssal Sea was deep.

Far deeper than I had imagined.

Much, much deeper.

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