Wizard of the Abyss – Ch. 176

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 176 - Oblivion (1)

I made my decision as fast as I possibly could.

The moment I saw that creature, I immediately inverted the world.

-Bubble…

I didn’t allow myself to think about anything else.

I forcefully amplified the real world, focusing on nothing but escaping the Abyssal Sea.

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

Faster.

Gritting my teeth as I felt that monster’s gaze on me, I hurried more.

Only after the Abyssal Sea blurred away and the sky came back into view…

-Thud!

"Kgh—"

Did I realize I was lying sprawled out on the ground.

I stayed there for a while, breathing while dazed, before brushing myself off and standing up.

"...Where the hell am I now?”

I briefly glanced around, filthy walls entering my view.

This wasn’t the forest where I had entered the Abyssal Realm.

I lightly spread my Tide Sense and caught faint human voices. I seemed to be in a quiet city located not far from the capital, inside some back alley within it.

After the silence of the Abyssal Sea, hearing people haggling and chatting for business made my head ring.

Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I forced myself to stand properly. Had I been moving in the real world while traveling through the Abyssal Sea?

No, that didn’t add up. If that were the case, I should’ve ended up much farther away. I quietly exited the alley and headed toward the main street.

First things first, I needed to return to the capital, report what I had seen, and ask for help.

"Haha, so what I was saying was…”

"...H-huh?”

Even while walking, my heart kept pounding uncontrollably.

The eye of that gigantic deep-sea creature simply wouldn’t leave my mind. 

'What the hell was that thing?'

I’d seen plenty of enormous beings before.

There was that deep-sea creature that seemed capable of swallowing an entire orphanage, a colossal octopus that couldn’t even be contained by that canyon. All of them had been terrifyingly huge.

But that thing. Just from its eye alone, I couldn’t even begin to imagine its full size. It was on an entirely different level.

The size of that single eye far exceeded the size of the capital itself.

If its pupil hadn’t moved, I might never have even considered the possibility that it was alive.

An area vast enough to encircle an entire continent. Could something like that really be called a living creature?

"Is it some kind of Leviathan?”

The term came from Earth, but the more I thought about it, the better it seemed to fit.

The king of all arrogant things that cover the world. Hadn’t it crushed my presumption, my belief that I’d reached the bottom of the Abyssal Sea, with nothing more than its gaze?

I let out a hollow laugh at my own thoughts. The bottom, my ass.

If something like that was living down there, then even if I spent my entire life hunting down every creature possessing a Water Partition, would I ever truly reach the bottom?

Absolutely impossible. Even if the sea was void of pressure, even if I descended nonstop without rest every single day, it would still take years.

It couldn’t end with hunting alone. Something else was needed…

With such thoughts in mind, I approached the city gate when…

A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me.

"...?”

Tilting my head slightly as I pondered for a moment—

I suddenly realized how quiet everything had become.

No, that wasn’t all.

"..."

"...Gulp."

The bustling weekday main road, a melting pot of merchants, mercenaries, pickpockets, guards, and more.

The shouts and haggling that usually pierced through even covered ears had fallen deathly silent.

Merchants subtly pulled their stalls back. Mercenaries retreated step by step. Guards, with urgent expressions, quietly issued orders to someone.

All while looking at me.

"What—?”

Only then did I notice that everyone was clearing the path I was walking down.

No, why? That wasn’t the reaction one should have when seeing a cute, young-looking kid like me.

I glanced around in confusion—then I saw it.

The footprints I had left on the ground.

Water was rising from the prints I’d left on the ground. Like how water tended to seep out of grass right after rain.

"What the hell is that…”

"D-don’t touch it!”

People recoiled in disgust from the footprints as water continued to bubble up, afraid to even brush against them.

...People these days had grown very accustomed to Scarlet Abyss.

To those bastards who treated human life as less valuable than flies.

Naturally, when someone who didn’t look like a mage displayed something resembling magic, they went into panic—

And seawater bubbling up from footprints like some grotesque miracle fit perfectly into what they defined as 'heretical.'

I had managed to sort out the situation in less than one second and realized I was handling my newly upgraded Water Partition far too conservatively.

It had grown far larger than before, yet I was treating it like the same weak, flimsy thing and restricted its range—leaving me standing overlapped between the Abyssal Sea and the real world, unable to fully disengage from the border between them.

A simple mistake. The moment I recognized that my Water Partition extended far wider than I thought, the water stopped seeping from my footprints.

But it was already far too late.

-Clatter, clatter!

"Where is he?”

"Th-there!”

Young Knights pushed through the fleeing crowd, approaching with stern expressions.

There were about five of them. Should I explain?

Well, it would be useless.

"..."

Confirming the guard pointing straight at me, one Knight dismounted cautiously, as if facing an unexploded bomb, and drew his sword.

This was my fault. It’d delay things a bit, but I raised my hands.

The Knight tilted his head, confused, which was when I tried to explain as calmly as possible.

"There seems to be a misunderstanding. Please, I won’t resist.”

"Everyone, cover your ears.”

The Knights smoothly pulled what looked like earplugs from their armor.

"Do not listen to a single word he says. Do not be deceived by anything he does. If a comrade blocks your path, cut them down without hesitation. Those things are demons steeped in deceit and mockery. Do not fear sacrifice!”

"Yes!"

Unfortunately, hatred toward Scarlet Abyss cut off any possibility of dialogue at the root.

In their burning eyes, nothing except killing intent seemed to exist. With a quiet sigh, I watched them advance.

They were people willing to throw away their lives to protect civilians.

And because of that, they were strong. Resolve and conviction always became power.

I didn’t want to hurt them, and I didn’t want to be hurt either. So I first cranked up my Tide Sense—

"Ugh?!"

A flood of sensations slammed into my brain.

I clutched my head at the sudden overload. Thump, thump… My own heartbeat felt dozens of times louder.

'Too…Much…’

Dropping to one knee, I curled forward and began to adapt, though it seemed more like resisting.

Until now, my Tide Sense had already brought in enormous amounts of information. I could distinguish individual strands of hair. I thought that was the limit.

It sure as hell wasn’t.

"...Captain. Something’s wrong…”

"I can’t hear you.”

The Knights, startled by my sudden collapse yet still moving to surround me, looked different now.

When they moved their arms, I felt the skin covering them.

I felt how the muscles beneath that skin contracted. From that, I sense the shape of the bones those muscles wrapped around.

Bones, flesh, blood. Everything that made up the human body.

I could even tell that the man they called captain had a small crack in his left kneecap.

It felt like having gained an impossibly precise X-ray machine for eyes.

'... I’m not actually seeing inside them…'

Yet the intensity of their killing intent, the texture of their skin, every sensation produced by their movement. All of it revealed the structure and order beneath, whether I wanted it or not.

The amount of information was incomparable to before. I had no choice but to dull my Tide Sense, lowering its precision back to something closer to what it used to be. Only then did the splitting headache ease enough for my head to function again.

"Kgh..."

Could this still even be called just Tide Sense?

As I clutched my head, shaking from the pain, I felt something I could sense even with my normal Tide Sense approaching.

"I don’t know what you’re doing, but if you think you’re buying time—!”

The Knight captain lunged, his face showing a frown, sword slashing out.

The blade snapped forward like a whip, mercilessly aiming for my neck right away.

-Cruuunch!

"...???"

It all happened in but an instant.

The sword crumpled as miserably as if paper had been driven into a stone.

So easily that no one who saw it could believe the blade had been made of steel.

But when the twisted sword glowed red-hot and molten metal began dripping from it that assumption should have changed.

The Knight captain and I stared at the sword at almost the exact same moment, equally stunned.

"No, how—”

Why was I still alive?

I’d applied enough pressure to crush a sword. It wouldn’t have been strange for me to be crushed by the backlash on the spot.

But I was fine. It wasn’t that I wasn’t getting pushed down by pressure, but it was a bearable amount. About the same level as when I’d broken a wooden chair before.

-It felt like I could do it again and again.

"Fall back!”

"Tsk, full assault!”

The other Knights reacted quickly in that brief moment of silence.

They were just as shocked, but when the captain staggered backward, they charged in with blades drawn to protect him.

After hesitating for just a moment, I applied pressure in a different way.

This time, a little less gently, binding them all at once.

"K-Kgh...!"

"...”

The Knights froze in the exact poses they’d been charging in.

All four of them. Like ice sculptures.

"...Tsk."

I’d gotten stronger.

I wasn’t sure whether it was because my pressure tolerance had increased after strengthening my Water Partition or because some kind of limiter had come off.

But if I wanted to, I could turn all of these Knights into scrap metal just like that sword.

It was unmistakable growth. But the moment I saw the ashen expression on their faces, I immediately released it.

Until now, using pressure on people had required the resolve to die myself.

But not anymore.

'Feels like holding a shotgun muzzle to someone’s head.'

That didn’t mean I was invincible. The world was vast, and if I ran into a truly strong Knight like Brimdal, my life could still be taken in an instant.

But no matter how strong Brimdal was, he couldn’t kill everyone within several hundred meters all at once.

—I could, though.

At any time, every day, even now.

I was living while constantly observing innocent people, metaphorically holding a gun to their heads.

"It’s starting to resemble that."

There was no helping it. The Abyssal Sea was dark, cold, and lonely. I had no allies there.

To survive while constantly clashing with deep-sea creatures that could come at me anytime, from anywhere, I had to keep sharpening my Tide Sense to be able to be ready to crush things with pressure at a moment’s notice.

But this power was completely unnecessary in the real world.

But today, tomorrow, and the day after.

Refining this horrific ability was the only way to stay alive.

"I apologize."

I bowed politely to the stunned Knights collapsed on the ground and showed them the key.

"I am Jern Aspandil, an apprentice of the Dark Magic Tower. My identity is guaranteed by Her Highness the Princess. Given that my magic is somewhat unorthodox, I understand why I might be suspected of being part of Scarlet Abyss, so I simply want to ask you to verify my status. I will remain here peacefully and do nothing. If you wish, you may restrain me.”

I’d already used currents to remove their earplugs.

At the mention of the princess, the Knight captain hesitated, then replied with an awkward expression.

"...Very well. But you said you’re an acquaintance of…Her Highness?”

"Yes. I was carrying out a confidential mission for Her Highness Princess Sharmia.”

"Hmm…Couldn’t we just kill him anyway?”

"Absolutely not."

Judging by the Knight captain's horrified expression…

...I could more or less guess what kind of image Sharmia had among the Knights.

* * *

The capital.

At the very heart of the imperial palace, inside a room buried under piles of documents, an elf with heavy dark circles under her eyes was scolding me.

"What in the world did you do? The Knights were begging me for quite some time to please understand their situation.”

After returning to the capital, Sharmia seemed swamped with the information I’d brought back, so I didn’t get an audience with her.

Naturally, that meant I ended up facing Dercia instead, receiving her cold gaze for the first time in a while.

Since this was clearly my fault, I shrugged and apologized.

"I'm sorry. I never imagined something as strange as water seeping out of my footprints would happen to me.”

"Haah...At least it happened near the capital. If the rumor that Her Highness is raising a Fallen spreads any further, it’ll be a serious problem.”

"...Huh?"

"So."

Dercia lightly changed the subject.

She looked me up and down, then muttered with a displeased expression.

"It seems like you’ve found some sort of method.”

"I was lucky.”

"Lucky."

She laughed incredulously, then sat down and nodded.

"Then tell me, what exactly is this ‘luck’ of yours?”

"Yes. My Abyssal Sea turned out to be far more horrific than I expected.”

I had no reason to hide anything from Dercia, so I explained everything in as much detail as possible, starting from the octopus all the way to the Slow Fish.

And how I managed to strengthen my Water Partition by consuming it, and even how strange things had begun to melt into my world.

By the time I finished, it was already early evening.

"Hmm..."

She listened intently, occasionally frowning and scolding me.

"So let me get this straight… You decided to hunt something called the Slow Fish just because it could withstand the pressure? Are you out of your mind? If it were me, I’d first observe how other deep-sea creatures endure pressure and then try consuming them one by one.”

"I felt it was pointless. And honestly, if my options are growing tentacles out of my body or risking my life in a fight, I’d rather gamble on the fight.”

"...I understand.”

Only after hearing everything did Dercia finally reach a conclusion, her expression uneasy.

"In other words, you’ve bought yourself time, but because the Abyssal Sea is far deeper than expected, you still haven’t found a fundamental solution.”

"Yes. It’s hard to believe, but I seem to merely be near the very entrance of the Abyssal Sea.”

"I understand what you mean.”

Deep.

Far too deep. This clearly wasn’t something that could be endured just by strengthening my Water Partition.

"For now, you’re safe…But in the end, it’s only a short reprieve. You might not even encounter another deep-sea creature with a Water Partition on your way down.”

In the end, it was nothing more than a stopgap.

Rather than using the time I had gained to search for yet another desperate measure, it felt right to set a clear goal.

Just maybe, Dercia might come up with a brilliant solution in this situation.

Thinking that, I looked up at her with an expectant look in my eyes. Dercia, seeming burdened, turned her head aside as she answered.

"I think I understand. However, I’m not sure you’ll like what I’ll say next.”

"I have no idea what you're talking about. What is it?”

"In the end, when you fought the Slow Fish, you borrowed the power of the world known as Puppet, right?”

"Yes, that’s right.”

"And it’s also true that Puppet—the world of that Upper Tier—led to deep-sea creatures acquiring those kinds of traits, correct?”

“...? Yes."

I tilted my head, still not understanding where she was going with this.

"Are you saying I should just get better at using Puppet?”

"Similar, but not quite.”

She replied as if it were obvious.

"Why not simply sink all the Upper Tiers into your Abyssal Sea?”

"What?"

"If you use the worlds of the Upper Tiers, they should help you descend to much deeper depths.”

I checked her expression, wondering if she was joking.

"If you killed the members of Scarlet Abyss one by one, wouldn’t you naturally get closer to your goal?”

But unfortunately…

...She was completely serious.

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