Wizard of the Abyss – Ch. 180

Wizard of the Abyss

[Extra Novels]

Chapter 180 - Oblivion (5)

Immediately after our departure. Inside the carriage.

If it were just Dercia and Brimdal, the journey would have been more comfortable than expected, but…

Unfortunately, there was an unpleasant traveling companion among us.

"..."

A companion who showed an excessive amount of interest in me.

-Clatter, clatter

Inside the moving carriage, Balkan kept staring at me.

Thinking he might have something to say, I briefly met his gaze. He immediately threw out a question.

"So, you’re a Fallen, are you?”

"Yes."

"What were you before that?”

"What?"

"Where did you live before you came to be called a Fallen? You must have had a family, right?”

"I didn’t. I was an orphan.”

"...Then who raised you?”

"I grew up in an orphanage. Ah, an orphanage is a place where orphans…”

"That’s not what I’m asking. No, rather, do you seriously expect me to believe that?”

Balkan frowned and looked at my shoulders.

"No matter how I look at it, you clearly endured the brutal training of a first-rate Knight. Your body itself isn’t much to look at, but…your mastering of Strengthening is absurd.”

"...Huh?"

"How strange. Even though you possess the body of an immature boy, your mastery over Strengthening is that of a Knight who’s lived at least a hundred years…and it’s not even the normal Strengthening.”

Faced with Balkan’s unsettling stare, something came back to me. Strengthening. Right, there was that.

One of the Knight techniques that grew by consuming pain. Considering the suffering I had endured, it wouldn’t be surprising if it had grown abnormally strong.

"Who taught you? And how?”

"I’m sorry. It’d be difficult to disclose my master’s name.”

"Hmm..."

While Balkan stared at me with suspicion, Brimdal, who sat behind me, awkwardly downed his rum.

At the very least, during this expedition, I couldn’t openly show that Brimdal and I knew each other.

The princess had strongly urged me to do so.

Before we departed…

Sharmia had called me aside and warned me, her expression uneasy.

"Jern. You must not let Sir Balkan know that you and Sir Brimdal know each other.”

"Is there some kind of problem?”

"Sir Balkan is, well…one of the few who are openly pro-Emperor.”

"What does that mean?”

"He believes it’s improper for me to hold all authority and control the Empire myself…to put it another way, he’s part of the Lumia faction…?”

"Wait, that faction actually exists?”

I asked, genuinely surprised.

Anyone with eyes and a sane mind would never choose Lumia over Sharmia. I didn’t particularly dislike Lumia, but the difference between them was like a diamond and cut glass.

Sharmia averted her gaze as she continued as if she were somehow feeling guilty.

"To be precise, they’re a faction opposed to me. There used to be quite a lot of them, but after I carried out a very slight, tiny purge, there aren’t many left. That’s not the important part, though. Anyway, Sir Balkan probably doesn’t like you very much, Jern.”

"I-I see.”

"And not just Sir Brimdal, you shouldn’t look too friendly with Dercia either. It seems Sir Balkan is really grinding his teeth over this expedition. I don’t really care, but I’d hate for it to negatively affect the two of you later…”

"Understood. That doesn’t sound too difficult.”

I deliberately forgot about the word ‘purge.’

Returning to the present, all that remained was the horribly rattling blackwood carriage.

They called it an expeditionary force, but in truth it was closer to an assassination squad.

The Empire’s finest Knights and Wizard. An incredibly sharp blade.

Extra personnel would only get in the way. Especially in this winter, when supplying provisions was insanely difficult.

As a result, Dercia had prepared a small mana-powered carriage, barely large enough for four people.

Supplies were stored in our workshops, and the only weapons with us were two swords and a single fountain pen.

A laughable lineup at a glance, yet they were a group of broken monsters capable of killing anyone in the world.

-Creak, rattle…

The carriage window rattled. My Tide Sense caught nothing but endless white snowfields.

I slumped back and sighed, wondering if I could really endure this suffocating silence the whole way.

"—Hm."

Something got caught in my Tide Sense.

I sprang to my feet, while Balkan looked at me with a puzzled expression.

I immediately reported to Dercia.

"Mas…Lady Mage. Something’s there.”

"What is it?”

"Sit down. Stop making a fuss.”

Balkan cut in sharply, crossing his legs.

As I wondered what he meant, he turned to Brimdal and spoke.

"My senses aren’t picking up anything. Sir Brimdal, what about you?”

"Hm…Doesn’t seem like anything’s there.”

"And Dercia is a far more capable mage than you think. Do you really believe you’ve noticed something we didn’t? Your role is just to guide the way…”

“It’s a strange-looking lifeform.”

Ignoring Balkan’s words, I focused on the thing writhing just beneath my perception.

"An insect…yes, it seems to be some kind of insect. The protrusions inside its mouth all appear to be teeth. It’s holding its breath and watching us, likely identifying us through the vibrations of the carriage.”

"Can’t you keep quiet, you brat?”

"How big is it?”

"?"

Dercia, also ignoring Balkan, addressed me directly.

"If it stood up, it’d be about the size of a small fortress. How does something like that even exist?”

"A Snow Guardian, perhaps…”

Brimdal cracked his neck as he gripped the hilt of the sword on his back.

"I used to hunt them a lot in my youth. They’re supposed to live only in the snowy mountains in the far east, but looks like they came all the way down here, riding the blizzard. The world really is going to hell.”

"...Wait, do you two seriously believe this kid? It sounds like nonsense to me.”

"We have nothing to lose. If believing him turns out to be wrong, we just won’t do it again.”

"You foolish bastards…”

Grumbling, Balkan still took up his sword and climbed out of the halted carriage.

-Wooooosh!! 

Outside the carriage, the blizzard was dozens of times fiercer than anything I’d imagined, sitting inside.

Snow poured down so thickly that visibility was nearly zero, and Balkan clenched his teeth.

"Just as I thought. I don’t sense anything.”

"A Snow Guardian suppresses its presence to the absolute limit. Failing a hunt means starvation, after all. You, a Guardian Knight, wouldn’t know, having never left the capital.”

"What did you just—”

Before Balkan could blow his top, Brimdal suddenly fixed his gaze on something and charged forward, driving his sword straight into the ground.

-Screeeeeeeeech!!

"?!"

"What a disgustingly built creature.”

At Dercia’s scathing remark, a massive worm-like thing with something dangling from its mouth writhed, spewing blue blood.

It seemed to be trying to endure the pain and fight back, but it had picked the wrong opponent.

As the Snow Guardian was sliced into five pieces in an instant, Dercia asked casually,

"Do you sense any others?”

"Quite a lot. Looks like they migrated here in large numbers.”

"I see. If we stop to deal with all of them, we’ll be delayed too much. But leaving them alone risks damage to the carriage. Inform me of their exact locations as you detect them. I’ll deal with them remotely.”

"Understood."

"...No, w–wait. How…?”

Leaving behind a genuinely stunned Balkan with his mouth wide open, the carriage was ready to move again.

But compared to what happened inside the carriage afterward, that was nothing.

"Two of them, 5 minutes away, to the right of the carriage.”

"Handled."

"Ten just went into hiding 7 minutes ahead, directly in front.”

"Yes. Handled.”

"10 minutes away, they’re waiting in the snowy mountain next to us. They seem to have detected us.”

"That’s outside my range. I’ll deal with them if they come closer.”

"Wait…”

I relayed coordinates to Dercia, and she intercepted them with long-range magic.

It was an efficient method that minimized the use of water pressure, but Balkan couldn't take it anymore, staring at me with a strange look.

"10 minutes away by carriage is well beyond a person’s visual range. You detected insects with camouflage so perfect even I couldn’t sense them? And beyond the range of a 9-star wizard, no less?”

"My world specializes in detection.”

"...Even so, that defies reason. That's practically one person surveying an entire city.”

"That’s precisely why I was entrusted with the vital role of guide.”

"..."

There was no hiding the nature of my Tide Sense anymore.

Avoiding Brimdal’s approving gaze as best I could, I continued calling out the Snow Guardian’s positions until Brimdal suddenly grabbed my shoulder.

He looked uncomfortable.

"Hmm, it’s getting chilly.”

"It is a bit cold. Would you like to go into the workshop?”

"That’s not it. The strange thing is that I feel cold.”

"Huh?"

"...Yes, you’re right.”

Balkan rubbed his arms, his face suddenly showing that he realized something.

"I can feel the cold. How is that even possible?”

"Hmm…We’re in the middle of a blizzard, right?”

Carefully chiming in, thinking everyone had lost their minds, Brimdal added an explanation.

"Balkan and I have our blood boiling.”

"?"

"I mean it literally. We vibrate our muscles to forcibly generate heat. If anything, we should feel hot. There’s no reason we should be cold. Our bodies are burning up right now.”

In other words, they had turned themselves into human heating packs.

Knights really weren’t human. As I clicked my tongue inwardly, Brimdal looked out the window with a puzzled expression.

"I don’t know what’s going on here. Do you have any idea?”

"I do. I have a pretty good guess actually.”

I nodded, recalling the time I lit a fire in the deep sea.

"The reason you Knights feel cold right now isn’t because the outside is cold. You’re cold because it is cold."

"What kind of wordplay is that?”

"Didn’t you see that this snow doesn’t melt?”

"...I did."

I explained patiently to Balkan, who seemed to get increasingly more irritated.

"That isn’t snow. If it were real now, it would melt when exposed to heat. What you’re seeing is a negative concept that merely takes the form of snow. Cold, piling up, heavy, stuff like that.”

"Snow that isn’t snow?”

"Yes. The fact that you feel cold is also because you’re being affected by Decay’s world. No matter how much you heat your bodies, even if you pour boiling oil over yourselves, you’ll continue to feel cold. Because this space is a frigid space. It has to be cold.”

"...What?"

"This place right now is Decay’s world. That world is cold, so you feel cold. That’s the simplest way to understand it.”

"Is that all?”

"No. What do you think happens when a human stands naked in a snowfield?”

"..."

"The closer we get to the origin point, the stronger that sensation will become. I’d appreciate it if you prepared yourself…”

As I said that, I noticed something odd.

'But why don’t I feel cold?'

To be precise, I was cold, but not to the point where it bothered me.

It had been like that for a while now. Ever since I underwent a certain procedure to escape the cold of the Abyssal Sea…

That procedure had been done by Dercia. What had she called it again? A relatively harmless adjustment.

When I looked at her, she strangely avoided my gaze.

"Hmm…”

I’d felt it back then too, but she hadn’t done anything strange to me, right?

With a faint suspicion in my heart, we continue moving in the carriage. Then, I detected something other than the Snow Guardians.

"...Hm."

"Faster than expected.”

"Haah..."

This time, it wasn’t just me.

Balkan, Dercia, and Brimdal all let out low murmurs at the exact same moment, each gripping their weapons.

They had seen it. That structure.

"...We’ve arrived."

I’d been following my memory to get here, and it seemed we’d gotten here a lot easier than I expected.

Clenching my fist, I confirmed the towering spire that seemed to pierce the sky through my Tide Sense.

For the second time—

We had reached one of Scarlet Abyss’ headquarters.

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