WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 36: Tantalus, Castle of the Underground

──────

After leading the two trainees and one animal to the training room on the fourth floor, I began the lecture at once.

"All right, quiet down. Everyone, silence! Today's lesson will now begin."

As always, Azzy yawned by spinal reflex, then went behind the management office and lay flat on her belly. Honestly, far from understanding, she showed no willingness even to try. The difference in wisdom and intelligence conveyed through language was this clear, yet were the sounds people made to dogs really received the same way people received the sounds dogs made?

Still, a gentleman finds something to learn even from the rude. A dog might not know manners, but a human could not sink to the same level. I addressed the trainees as dignifiedly as possible.

"Today, I'll tell you an unbelievably awesome story, so prepare to be amazed. You should also get ready to give me a thunderous round of applause."

"If it isn't impressive, daggers will fly instead of applause. Go ahead."

The regressor snapped back sharply, apparently still unhappy about being dragged here. I couldn't even make a joke properly. How was I supposed to explain anything with the regressor scaring me like that?

Lamenting the authority of a teacher, which had fallen past the ground and into the Abyss, I began my explanation before one human and one corpse.

"To test your concentration, today's class will be an active-participation lesson. The Abyss. Does anyone know what that word means? Yes, trainee Tyrkanzyaka?"

The vampire lifted her parasol slightly and answered in a leisurely tone.

"Is it not a word the Church of the Earth Mother uses with a meaning similar to hell? A land cursed by Mother Earth, a land that has lost the support of the Earth Mother."

"Correct! Ten points for trainee Tyrkanzyaka! These points will later be reflected in the rankings inside my heart, so save them well!"

Having rewarded her answer with a worthless promise, I continued loudly.

"That's right. The Abyss is the hell commonly described by many religions, specifically the hell of the Church of the Earth Mother. When those mama's boys needed to describe the most terrible place for punishing sinners, this was the first concept that came to mind. Like proper mama's boys, they say a place without their mother is hell. My, how pathetic."

More than a purgatory where sulfur burned, more than an underworld where one suffered for eternity.

Those who believed in the Church of the Earth Mother feared having their feet leave the ground. They did not seek terror in distant places. Falling, the dizzying sensation of having one's feet touch no ground, and the terrible devastation it created. That was the hell of the Church of the Earth Mother.

"But you see, that land, which should only have existed in the doctrine of the Church of the Earth Mother, that hell which had been too simple to leave much of an impression no matter how hard they imagined it, appeared in reality because of a certain event. That place is here, Tantalus of the Abyss."

I tapped the floor with my foot to emphasize that all the ground we stood on belonged to the Abyss.

"Once the military state made plans to use the Abyss, the hell of a fairly major religion, as nothing more than a prison, Tantalus came to be seen as something like a prison for serious criminals. Still, its essence is not that of a prison. It is land where you cannot set foot. An abyss where you can do nothing but fall forever and die alone without time or space. That is the Abyss."

But.

There was something strange here. They should have noticed the incongruity and pointed out the flaw in my words.

Why could we, who were inside the Abyss, stand with our feet on the ground?

Unilaterally imparting knowledge was not real education. An educator's duty was to help those learning think and reason for themselves.

Having thrown out the question, I read the trainees' thoughts.

'Ohh. How interesting.'

'I already know this much. When will he explain Tantalus's structure?'

"Woof..."

I shouldn't expect anything. None of them had even the slightest desire to actively figure something out!

The last one was not even a thought! She was actually barking!

"Everyone, aren't you curious? How can we stand on the ground in an Abyss like this?"

"I am curious. Explain it."

What a bunch with no desire for improvement. Did I have to spoon-feed them like baby birds screaming in their nest?

I picked up a piece of white chalk and walked to the chalkboard. In the center of the green board, I drew two long vertical lines. The Abyss.

"Now, look. The Abyss is fundamentally land with no bottom, a deep pit where one falls forever. Therefore, if someone were to fall into the Abyss..."

I spun the chalk and caught it between my fingers, then drew up mana from my elbow and shaped it. A faint alchemical glow, proof that it held mystery, shimmered at the chalk's tip as though melting into the air. With the enchanted chalk, I drew a stick figure between the vertical lines.

The drawing spread its arms and legs wide, looked down once, then forward again. It fell comically, like something from an old cartoon.

"Since they would never reach the bottom, they would keep falling and falling. They would experience the rare event of death arriving before impact."

As if it had truly entered the Abyss, the drawing flailed its limbs as it fell to the bottom corner of the chalkboard... then disappeared below it.

Through a simple enchantment on the chalk, anything drawn with it could move as I willed. It took little mana, so even a mana runt like me could use it.

Military state chalkboards were double-sided. Having gone around the back of the board, the drawing now crawled up the chalkboard upside down. Before long, it appeared at the top again and repeated the same fall as before.

So? Pretty good technique, right?

'It seems moving pictures are common these days. It is interesting, but... since no one is surprised, it must not be all that remarkable.'

'His control of mana is quite delicate. Hmph. Yes, this much is basic, is it?'

Even after showing off the sort of technique only a top instructor would use, their reaction was terribly lukewarm. Nothing in return for the effort I put in. Even stocks, supposedly more fickle than anything, would be more honest than these people.

Tch. I should stop showing off and just explain.

"Still, the Abyss does not lack walls simply because it lacks a floor. There may be nowhere to stand, but there are cliffs surrounding it on every side. And if there were even a small ledge somewhere on those walls. Or if we made one."

I drew a protruding bump on one vertical line with the chalk. The drawing that had been falling continuously happened to collide with the bump and bounced upward. After flailing its arms, which were short compared to its head, it barely managed to plant its feet on the ledge.

"Like this, it could hold on and stand for a moment, right? Even in the Abyss, it would no longer fall."

Of course, it was not enough land to eat, sleep, and live on. Human life required at least a minimum amount of space.

The vampire, who only needed enough room to lie down in a coffin because she was a corpse, looked at the drawing in confusion.

"Hm? Would one not be able to live normally with that much?"

I shook my head at the vampire's question.

"Mother Earth's curse isn't that gentle. This is only a loophole. If it is soil one can stand on, it is land as well. In the Abyss, even land like that will eventually erode and disappear below."

The moment I finished speaking, the chalk-drawn ledge began to slowly flow downward as if melting. The drawing standing on it jumped anxiously and pressed itself tightly against the wall. There was nothing it could do, though. The Abyss was cursed land. The Mother of All did not permit anyone to stand here.

Soon, the space beneath its feet vanished. Having lost its tiny handspan of shelter, the drawing continued its endless fall once more...

"So countless adventurers threw themselves into the Abyss to search for legacies sleeping below, only for the possessions they left behind to become legacies themselves. They drove nails into the walls and tied themselves down with ropes, but when the entire land was sinking, they too became food for the Abyss. By stepping on the lives of idiots who only learn whether something is poison or food after tasting it, people finally gained the wisdom not to approach the Abyss. Our proud military state, though, decided to make use of that very trait of the Abyss."

Above the Abyss on the chalkboard, I drew a large disk. On top of it, I depicted a large five-story building and a tall light pole. Unless they were idiots, they would have immediately recognized what that building was.

The vampire let out a small sigh.

"This place."

"Yes. The military state built a massive structure. How massive? A circular structure large enough to cover the Abyss like a manhole cover."

"A manhole?"

"You are from a thousand years ago, so you don't know what a manhole is. Just think of it as a well cover. Anyway."

I waved a finger as if commanding it. The chalk drawing of Tantalus slowly descended over the Abyss with the sluggish yet heavy movement of a gigantic meteor.

It felt as if a heavy thud echoed in my ears. It was only a chalk drawing settling into place, so there was no way I could actually hear anything, but the weighty motion and the chalk dust scattering down made me imagine a sound that was not there.

Satisfied with my own presentation, I continued.

"To the military state engineer corps, concrete is an all-purpose stone. They shaped land from it and raised pillars with it, then placed the massive structure they built over the Abyss. They set prisoners loose on top of it. In a space cursed by Mother Earth, everyone who dared set foot somewhere should have sunk below."

But.

Land could sink. Concrete could not. It was not a collection of soil and sand, but a single, separate object.

"Humans excavated it, processed it, poured it into molds, packed it around steel frames for bones, and designed every part of this concrete structure. Even though it was made from the products of the earth, it could never become land. It was a massive structure that humans made, in other words, an object. An object should naturally fall into the Abyss, but because it was wider than the Abyss itself, both ends caught on the sides. As a result, Tantalus does not fall. It only sinks. Like this."

The walls of the Abyss flowed down like sticky mud. At the same time, the large structure covering the Abyss gradually sank lower.

Yet it did not fall. A manhole cover might turn over, but it would not drop through. Caught between both walls, it slid down slowly, barely keeping its balance as it descended.

"This is how we live on sinking ground. Like a piece of bread stuck in someone's throat."

I should thank Gamma.

If he had not tried to descend all the way below through the management office basement, I would never have learned this fact. Thanks to him, my knowledge had grown.

I will put your final knowledge to good use.

'This land, all of it is an artificial object... I thought it felt strange for rock, but this is astonishing.'

The vampire looked between the chalkboard and the ground with an excited expression. She even perched lightly on the edge of her coffin and tapped the floor with her toes.

No, don't just find it interesting. Feel something already.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried