WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 115

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In the Abyss: Escaping

"Ahh. This feeling takes me back. It's been so long since I stood here and gave a lecture."

Was this the first time since Tyr went berserk? I sank into nostalgia for a moment, then tapped the chalk against the board and started class.

The regressor, shoved off the podium because of me, looked sulky.

"Ninety days? How does that work?"

"Now, now, don't rush."

It was time to get to work again. I dusted the tip of the chalk with alchemical powder and tapped the board.

The escape method I read from Lieutenant General Ebon. I was going to keep it locked away for myself, but I couldn't get out on my own, so I was making a special exception and sharing it.

I pulled out the paper box I'd prepared beforehand and spoke.

"Everyone. While you were all lazing around in this Abyss, I went through hell to find us a way out."

I clung to the golem and begged for supply requests, inspected every item sent down here, and even played mind games with the golem.

It may have looked like peaceful days were passing, but behind the scenes, I kept working. And finally.

I just read Lieutenant General Ebon's memories and found out.

...It made everything I'd done up to now feel pointless, but still, I wanted to believe my effort had meaning.

"After taking apart every single item sent down from the military state, I discovered one astonishing fact. Namely."

As I said that, I scattered what was inside the paper box over the podium. Fine grains rolled softly across the unfamiliar floor.

The regressor tilted her head.

"Dirt?"

"That's right. Dirt!"

I spread my arms and shouted as if I'd uncovered some grand truth.

"Every object the military state dropped down here, whether by parachute, on a person's body, or stuffed into tiny gaps, every single one contained surface dirt!"

That was what I found after painstakingly checking everything one by one.

While you all were just playing around.

"Originally, not even a speck of dust should fall in this place cursed by Mother Earth. Otherwise there is no way there wouldn't be collapsed earth around a hole this huge. Even if you throw a grain of sand into the Abyss, it sticks to the wall on its own and returns to Mother Earth's embrace... but! That is exactly why this dust can become a catalyst!"

The regressor had at least some magical knowledge, so she caught my meaning right away.

"Catalyst?"

"Yes! The Abyss is a land of endless falling. But where in this world is truly infinite space? The earth is round, so if we fall forever, we should reach the other side. But we don't. Why!"

I drew two long lines on the board. To show they were infinite, I cut out the middle, drew Tantalus, and put down a huge question mark.

"Because in this Abyss, coordinates and space itself lose meaning! In here, everyone becomes a lost soul that does nothing but fall forever!"

"...But if space itself has no meaning, then to reach something inside it..."

The regressor muttered to herself as she caught on. I nodded hard and marked Tantalus with a big star.

"Exactly. In the night sky, in a pitch-black open sea, lighthouse light becomes your target, your marker, your coordinates. Tantalus was also made to be a marker in the Abyss. How?"

From here on, this was what I figured out by combining my own guesses with the memories I read from Ebon. I shouted it in front of everyone.

"Because when this Tantalus was built, it received a blessing from a priest of Mother Earth, over this entire land!"

"...Amazing they agreed to that. To a priest of Mother Earth, the Abyss should be a place no one must ever approach."

Yeah, I thought the same thing.

The regressor deserved credit for uncovering this too. The "she" in the regressor's memories had to be a priest of Mother Earth.

"Even if the whole ground is concrete, its essence still comes from earth. They compacted the land and raised the structure with concrete made from blessed sand and gravel. But no matter its earthly origin, this concrete is still a man-made structure. Tantalus stood on the boundary between Mother Earth's flesh and a human building, and barely held that balance."

An infinite space, with the only land inside it.

They built a prison on a contradiction, something that should not exist, yet plainly did.

"There is only one thing needed to reach this place. A catalyst that can identify this location: dirt. If you carry that and fall, you'll naturally arrive here, the way rainwater eventually flows to the sea."

The bracelet that led Finlay here, the supply crates too, all had dirt inside.

Nabi was carrying dirt too. It was just that Nabi, the King of Cats promised a safe landing, didn't need something like a parachute.

Anyway, I understood the principle. Now all that remained was putting it to use.

"Now then, here's the question... We needed dirt to reach Tantalus down in this Abyss. So if we want to go up from this Abyss to the surface, what should we use as the catalyst?"

The first one to raise a hand was the immortal, but order is order, and even immortals have seniority. I pointed first to Tyr, who had only slightly lifted her parasol.

"Yes, Tyr!"

"...It would be."

Tyr hesitated for a moment, then frowned like she hated saying it and answered.

"The sun's light, I suppose."

"Oho. Correct! As expected of someone called the Sanctum's nightmare and a being that defied the heavens, you're remarkably well-informed!"

She got it right on the first try. What a shame.

"Oh! It wasn't a tree branch? It points toward the sky!"

'Wouldn't it be Skywarbler...? Is this space itself, so it can't be a catalyst...?'

I really wanted to hear those two wrong answers.

I still wanted to say something, but it was a hassle, so I let it go.

"Yes. The sun! If the Abyss's dirt is a lighthouse, then the sky's lighthouse is the sun. We can only escape this Abyss by climbing while holding sunlight!"

I clapped vigorously for Tyr for getting it right. Tyr waited for the applause to die down, then asked calmly.

"But this Abyss should be a place sunlight cannot enter. How could one receive sunlight here and rise?"

I thought that too. But I had discovered Tantalus's blind spot.

Tantalus was brighter than expected. As if imitating the sky, bright day lights and dark night lights took turns lighting the prison, so by daytime your eyes naturally opened and grew used to bright light.

So I didn't notice either, not until Ebon looked up at the sky.

Far above this Abyss. That place wasn't always pitch black.

"It's not that sunlight never enters. Sunlight comes in sometimes, and we just fail to notice."

The golem ordered me to persuade Tyr. It said it still wasn't time to go up, and that "you can't go up that way."

But if the Abyss were a place no one could ever escape, no matter what, that warning would be very strange. Whether they tried to climb or not, they'd fail anyway, so there would be no reason to stop them.

That question was answered when Ebon appeared.

Ebon waited on the rooftop for the "right time" to run to the surface. In other words, the door opened at a fixed time.

That was probably why the golem tried to stop those two. A vampire who neither eats nor drinks and barely feels boredom might keep climbing until the door opened, until sunlight touched them.

It was worried Tyr might force an escape, so it told me to stop her.

"When the noon sun stands directly overhead. When even in a place this deep, endlessly stretching rays of light are bound to reach it."

Every puzzle piece fell into place. I declared it confidently.

"That moment is exactly three months from now. Three months from now, at noon, when the sun briefly passes above the Abyss, only that moment is our one and only chance to escape."

It was a huge discovery, but the reaction was smaller than expected.

The regressor had just declared she could leave even after nine months anyway. Cutting that to a third didn't cause much of a stir.

"Amazing, Hyu. You even grasped the Abyss's secrets?"

Only Tyr, who had genuinely been interested in what I was saying, looked purely delighted.

Still, being able to get out in 90 days was encouraging. Now that we understood the Abyss's structure, even if we missed the next chance, we could always escape later. We no longer had to cling to "her," who might or might not come.

I couldn't do it alone, since I couldn't climb against gravity, but with Tyr and the regressor, it should be possible...

"Huh? Right."

Then the regressor asked, as if the thought had just occurred to her.

"How did you know? Did you pry it out of the lieutenant general?"

More precisely, I read the lieutenant general's thoughts.

Lieutenant General Ebon only knew what time the "door" opened, not the exact principle. He only knew that climbing when sunlight hit would work.

Well, sure. A general only needs the password, not mastery of cryptography.

I had simply gathered the information they had and connected it into a conclusion.

But explaining that was a hassle, so I gave a vague nod.

"Right..."

"Probably not! When he took my punch, he was nearly dead! He couldn't even speak!"

The immortal answered before I could.

The regressor's expression grew more suspicious. I gaped and glared at the immortal.

You clueless idiot! Why do you think I told you to cover your ears!

The immortal saw my expression and widened his eyes.

'Was I not supposed to say that? Hah. You sure have a lot of secrets. Fine. I'll smooth it over.'

Please do. It'll be a problem if I look any more suspicious.

I need to remain nothing more than a mysterious figure they happened to meet while passing through the Abyss.

That's exactly how I want to be remembered.

That's why I'm trying to leave the Abyss as soon as possible.

"Then? What did you do to someone who couldn't even speak?"

When the regressor pressed him, the immortal thought for a moment, then raised a thumbs-up and shouted.

"Teacher spent most of the time muttering alone! I had my ears covered, so I can't be certain! But teacher probably found the answer about the Abyss independently, then confirmed it with the lieutenant general!"

'There, done! Now teacher should look even greater!'

...Now I look even more suspicious!

Just say I extracted information from the lieutenant general. That's closer to the truth!

"You figured out how to escape the Abyss on your own? Wow. Impressive."

The regressor muttered like she didn't care, while focusing all her senses on me.

"But I get it now. You're definitely not an officer."

"Haha. Right. I'm a laborer..."

"An ordinary laborer can't kill a colonel. Can't flick away Skywarbler either. Everyone already knows you're not some normal laborer, so how long do you plan to keep hiding it?"

Her movements were slow, like she was probing me. She didn't seem to expect much, but she asked with a sliver of hope anyway.

"Are you really not going to reveal who you are?"

'If you'd just give me certainty... whether I can trust you, or should never trust you... just enough to judge...'

To the terminally paranoid regressor, my existence seemed unbearable.

Part of her wanted to trust me, and part of her couldn't trust me at all. Even she couldn't make sense of it.

But it couldn't be helped.

I had survived, so it was about time I started preparing for myself in the next cycle.

So I had to get through this somehow.

I let out a long sigh and said.

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