WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 115: In the Abyss: Escaping

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"Ah, what a nostalgic feeling. How long has it been since I stood here and lectured?"

Was this the first time since Tyr went berserk? I lingered in the feeling for a moment, then tapped the chalkboard with my chalk and began class.

The regressor, pushed away from the lectern because of me, looked rather disgruntled.

"Ninety days? How is that possible?"

"Now, now, don't be in such a hurry."

It was time to get to work for the first time in a while. I coated the tip of my chalk with alchemical light and tapped the board.

A method for escaping the Abyss, gleaned from Lieutenant General Ebon. I had planned to keep it tightly hidden so that only I would know it, but escaping would take more than my own strength, so I was revealing it as a special exception.

I took out the paper box I had prepared and said,

"Everyone. While all of you were loafing around in this Abyss, I went through every kind of hardship searching for a way out."

I clung stubbornly to the golems to request supplies, inspected every item brought down here, and even played mind games with them.

The days might have seemed peaceful, but I had been working steadily behind the scenes. Then, at last.

I found out by reading Lieutenant General Ebon's memories.

...Everything I had done until now suddenly felt meaningless, but I still hoped my efforts had been worth something.

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

As I spoke, I scattered the contents of the paper box across the lectern. Fine particles rolled across the unfamiliar surface.

The regressor tilted her head.

"Dirt?"

"That's right. Dirt!"

As though I had uncovered some incredible truth, I spread my arms wide and cried out,

"Every single thing the military state dropped down here! Whether it came with a parachute, was carried on someone's body, or was packed into a tiny gap! Every last one contained soil from the surface!"

That was the conclusion I had reached through careful, exhaustive inspection.

While you were all just lounging around.

"Normally, not a speck of dirt can fall into this place, which is cursed by Mother Earth. Otherwise, the ground around such a massive hole would have collapsed inward long ago. Even if you threw a grain of sand into the Abyss, it would cling to the wall on its own and return to Mother Earth's embrace... But! That is precisely why this dirt can become a catalyst!"

The regressor, who had some magical knowledge, immediately understood what I meant.

"A catalyst?"

"Yes! The Abyss is a land that falls forever. But where in the world is there truly infinite space? The world is round, so if you kept falling forever, you should reach the other side! Yet we do not. Why?"

I drew two long lines on the board. To show that they stretched infinitely, I left a gap in the middle, then drew Tantalus and marked it with a large question mark.

"Because coordinates and space itself lose all meaning in this Abyss! Everyone here becomes a lost traveler who can do nothing but fall forever!"

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

The regressor muttered to herself as she caught on. I nodded broadly and placed a large star on Tantalus.

"Exactly. In the night sky or on a vast, dark sea, a lighthouse becomes a destination, a landmark, and a coordinate. Tantalus was made to serve as the Abyss's landmark as well. How?"

This was where my own guesswork joined with the memories I had read from Ebon. I shouted the conclusion before everyone.

"Because when Tantalus was built, it received a blessing from an Earth Mother priest! A blessing upon this entire ground itself!"

"...It must have taken some doing to gain agreement for that. An Earth Mother priest would see the Abyss as a place they should never even approach."

Right. I had thought so too.

The regressor had played a part in uncovering this fact as well. The "she" in the regressor's memories had to have been an Earth Mother priest, no matter how I looked at it.

"Even if this entire floor is concrete, its essence comes from the earth. They laid foundations with concrete made from blessed sand and gravel, then raised buildings atop it. Still, even if its origin was earth, this concrete was ultimately a structure made by humans. Tantalus, standing on the boundary between Mother Earth's flesh and a human structure, was able to maintain a precarious balance."

An infinite space, with a single patch of land within it.

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

"Only one thing is needed to reach this place. A catalyst that can identify it... dirt. If you simply tie it to yourself and fall, you will naturally arrive here, just as rainwater eventually flows into the sea."

The bracelet that guided Finlay here and the supply crates all contained dirt.

Nabi had dirt tied to her as well. The only reason she did not need something as silly as a parachute was that she was the King of Cats, promised a safe landing.

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

"Now, a question. We needed dirt to reach Tantalus, which lies below in the Abyss. Then, if we wanted to climb from this Abyss to the surface, what should we use as our catalyst?"

The immortal raised a hand first, but even water has its hierarchy, and immortals have seniority too. I pointed to Tyr first when she slightly raised her parasol.

"Yes, Tyr!"

"...That would be..."

Tyr hesitated for a moment, then furrowed her brow as though she truly disliked the answer.

"Sunlight."

"Oh! Correct! As expected of the Sanctum's nightmare and a heaven-defying being, you are remarkably knowledgeable!"

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

"Oh! It was not a tree branch? It points toward the sky!"

'Could it be Skywarbler...? Since this is space itself, perhaps it cannot serve as a catalyst...?'

I should have heard those two wrong answers.

I wanted to say something even now, but it was too much trouble, so I let it pass.

"Yes. The sun! If the dirt in the Abyss is a lighthouse, then the sun is the lighthouse above. We must climb while carrying sunlight if we want to escape this Abyss!"

I gave Tyr an enthusiastic round of applause. She waited until it died down, then calmly asked,

"But this Abyss should be a place untouched by sunlight. How could we receive sunlight here and rise?"

I had thought the same. But I had discovered Tantalus's blind spot.

Tantalus was strangely bright. As though imitating the sky, bright day lamps and dim night lamps alternated over the prison. Naturally, I woke during the daytime and grew accustomed to the bright light.

That was why I had not noticed until Ebon looked up at the sky.

Far above in the Abyss, it was not always dark.

"It is not that sunlight never enters. Sunlight occasionally reaches this place, but we simply fail to notice it."

The golems had ordered me to persuade Tyr. They said it was not yet time to climb and that rising using such a method was impossible.

Yet if the Abyss were a space no one could escape by any means, those warnings would have been quite strange. Whether they tried to climb or not, they would fail to achieve what they wanted, so there would be no reason to stop them.

Ebon's appearance resolved that question.

Ebon waited for the right time on the rooftop to flee to the surface. That meant the door opened at a fixed time.

That was likely why the golems tried to stop them. They feared that vampires, who neither needed to eat nor drink and hardly grew bored, would keep climbing until the door opened and sunlight fell upon them.

They had worried Tyr might force her way out, so they told me to stop her.

"When the noon sun stands directly overhead. When even this deep place cannot help but be touched by rays that stretch out without end."

Every piece of the puzzle fit together. I confidently declared,

"That will happen three months from now. At noon three months from now, the sun will briefly pass over the Abyss. That single moment will be our only chance to escape."

It was an incredible discovery, but the reaction was smaller than expected.

The regressor had just declared that we could leave in nine months. Reducing that to a third did not cause much of a stir.

"You are amazing, Hyu. You have even grasped the secret of the Abyss?"

Only Tyr, who had been genuinely interested in my explanation, was purely delighted.

Either way, being able to leave in ninety days was encouraging. Now that we understood the structure of the Abyss, even if we missed the next chance, we could escape another time. We did not need to cling to the "she" who might or might not come.

I could not climb against gravity alone, but with Tyr and the regressor, it should be possible...

"Oh? You're right."

At that moment, the regressor asked as though something had just occurred to her.

"How did you find out? Did you get it out of the lieutenant general?"

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

Lieutenant General Ebon only knew when the "door" opened. He did not know the exact principle. He only knew that he had to climb when sunlight shone down.

Well, a general only needed to know the password. There was no need to master the principles of cryptography.

I had only gathered and connected the fragments of information they possessed to reach a conclusion.

Explaining all that would be tiresome, so I simply nodded.

"Yeah..."

"That is probably not the case! When he took my fist, he was nearly dead! He could not even speak!"

The immortal answered before I could.

The regressor's expression grew increasingly suspicious. I stared at the immortal with my mouth hanging open.

You oblivious idiot! Why did I tell you to cover your ears?

The immortal saw my expression and opened wide eyes.

'Was I not supposed to say that? Hah, you certainly have many secrets. Understood. I will make something up.'

Please. It would be a problem if I became any more suspicious.

I was only a mysterious person they had happened to encounter in the Abyss.

It would be best if they remembered me as no more than that.

That was why I was trying to leave the Abyss as quickly as possible.

"Then what did you do to someone who could not even speak?"

When the regressor pressed further, the immortal thought for a moment, then raised a thumb and shouted,

"Teacher spent most of the time muttering to himself! I had my ears covered, so I cannot say for sure! But Teacher likely found the answer to the Abyss alone, then confirmed it with the lieutenant general!"

'There, that should do! Teacher must seem even more impressive now!'

...That made me even more suspicious!

Please just say I got the information from the lieutenant general. That would have been closer to the truth!

"You found the way to escape the Abyss by yourself? Well, that is impressive."

The regressor muttered as though she did not care, though all her senses were focused entirely on me.

"But I understand now. You definitely are not an officer."

"Ha ha. That's right. I'm a laborer..."

"An ordinary laborer cannot kill a colonel. Nor can one deflect Skywarbler. Everyone knows you are not an ordinary laborer. How long are you going to keep hiding it?"

The regressor moved as though probing me. She did not expect much, but there was hope in her voice as she asked,

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

'If only you could give me certainty... If only I could decide whether I should trust you or not...'

To a regressor with a severe case of paranoia, someone like me must have been profoundly irritating.

She wanted to trust me, yet could not bring herself to do so. She was so torn that even she could not find her footing.

But what could I do?

Now that I had survived, I needed to start preparing for myself in the next cycle.

Then I had to get through this situation somehow.

I let out a long sigh and said,

Footnotes:

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