WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 128 - Turbidity (4)

"..."

I cautiously approached the corpse.

Not knowing what kind of method it might use to attack, I stayed as alert as I could, sweeping over it with my Tide Sense—

But no matter how many times I checked, it was just a corpse.

"Why is this here?”

I felt really confused. Was it possible that everyone I had killed so far was inside this place?

With that thought in mind, I searched the Abyssal Sea for quite a while, but there was only Nightfall. Illusory Flower and the others were nowhere to be seen.

After confirming that it was only Nightfall, I examined the corpse more closely.

The deep-sea creatures drifted about, showing no interest in Nightfall’s floating body. They passed by as if they hadn’t even perceived its existence.

Rubbing my chin, I recalled how the battle with Puppet had differed from my other fights.

"...She died inside my Abyss Realm.”

But that had also been the case for Illusory Flower.

So what was different about that battle?

"She had unfolded her Realm as well…I guess.”

If that was the only difference, then I could roughly grasp what had happened.

Unfolding one’s Abyss Realm was the act of overlapping the Reality Realm with one’s own world.

But since Puppet had done the same, then three worlds had overlapped at once.

My Abyssal Sea. Her Puppet. And the Reality Realm.

In that three-way collision, the victor had been my Abyssal Realm.

The problem was Nightfall herself. She had been fused with Puppet. But Puppet, a world in which she should have existed, had been destroyed. As a result, she was transferred to the world that had overlapped with her the most—

Which was my Abyssal Sea.

In other words, if I had to put it into words…

"She's a refugee."

The residue left behind by a defeated world.

More precisely, calling her a refugee corpse would be more accurate.

With a slightly uncomfortable expression, I poked it experimentally. If my guess was right, it wouldn’t cause any particular harm.

But it wasn’t exactly useful either…

"...?"

That was when it happened.

Something glinted in the water. It was on my finger, to be exact.

I slowly lifted my hand to see that there was a ring.

A ring made of threads.

"Don’t tell me…”

Horrified, I stretched a thread out from the ring.

At the same time, a burning sensation tore through my head.

"...Ugh."

Knowledge from an entirely different Realm shook my mind.

This thread was a contract. A world’s power used to control puppets.

The same kind of thread Puppet had handed me at the very beginning. Something that imposed an unbreakable contract.

It was too short to draw out more than a few dozen centimeters, but this undoubtedly was Puppet’s ability.

I gritted my teeth. This was absolutely not a good thing.

"So you’re still alive, you bastard.”

I immediately kicked Nightfall’s corpse.

Puppet hadn’t been completely annihilated. She was still lingering in my world in Nightfall’s form.

Even this thing, weakly swaying from my kick, wasn’t truly dead.

If I had to describe this situation, then she would be a refugee, but instead of a normal refugee, she came here as the king of a world. Unless I completely finished her off, she would keep affecting me like this.

Of course, being able to use Puppet’s ability wasn’t a bad thing. Its ability to control the deep-sea creatures matched my Abyssal Sea extremely well.

The problem was that it would most certainly come with burdens as well.

Even just the Abyssal Sea’s burdens were enough to kill me several times over, so I wouldn’t be able to endure it if they were piled on top of that as well.

I wanted to crush her immediately with water pressure, but I felt like that would be a terrible move.

Even if a world loses its physical form, it doesn’t die. If I crush her here, she’d simply dissolve into the Abyssal Sea, making the situation far more complicated.

As long as she still had a form, I had to find a way to expel her.

"Hey, wake up.”

In the end, I decided to try and wake the corpse, poking it repeatedly.

"I don’t need this crap, so wake up. Can’t you hear me?”

"...”

"Don’t pretend to be asleep.”

"..."

I tried strangling her, prodding her limbs, even shoving her head into a shark’s mouth and pulling it back out—but there was no reaction.

After trying for a long time, just as I was about to carefully tear her apart bit by bit so she wouldn’t dissolve into the Abyssal Sea…

—I felt warmth against my chest.

It wasn't just simple heat. It felt like a small hand resting on my chest.

Only then did I realize that my own body was nearly devoid of warmth. With something warm touching it, I could even feel the shape of it vividly.

By the time I could distinguish each individual joint of the fingers, I finally let out a sigh.

It seemed I wasn’t destined to melt away and die just yet.

* * *

In the pitch-black depths, an outline slowly came into view.

A ceiling made of oak gradually appeared above my head, and I felt something soft touching my fingertips.

Then came the sensation of gravity restricting me. My body was gently tugged downward, and I realized I was lying down.

"Cough."

A cough escaped me instinctively.

I lifted the blanket and raised my upper body. My entire body felt like it was on fire. Fighting the headache, I turned my head to the side…

"?"

Someone who absolutely shouldn’t have been there came into my view.

A small young lady, snoring softly in her sleep.

This girl—

"Elisia?”

No, this wasn’t right.

Only after searching through the dazzling room did an uneasy feeling hit me, and I hurried to the window.

-Shrraak!

Instead of the horrific hellscape of Manganji, a beautiful and familiar fortress and spires filled my vision.

The Imperial Capital.

"...What?"

I was completely speechless for a moment out of sheer disbelief.

Even flying on a dragon, it should have taken a long time to get from Manganji to the Empire.

Did Master do something? No, she shouldn’t have…

First, I carefully laid Elisia, who’d been lying quite uncomfortably, properly onto the bed I had been using.

"Mmh…Jer…?”

"It’s alright. Get some proper rest.”

It seemed Elisia hadn’t been able to sleep out of worry for me.

The dark circles under her eyes were so severe she didn’t look much different from Dercia.

After roughly taking off the patient’s clothes I was wearing and throwing on the robe hanging nearby, the throbbing in my head finally eased a little.

But I still couldn’t understand what was going on. When I hurriedly opened the door, I nearly shouted, but…

"Ah."

"Hmm?"

A maid was standing right in front of it.

It was Ciel. She looked surprised as well, lightly covering her mouth as she spoke.

"Sir Jern?? You’re already awake. Are you feeling alright?”

"I think so. Erm, so, why am I in the Empire?”

That was the most urgent question.

I had barely managed to get a grip on the Upper Tier and found a way to approach those bastards. Coming back to the Empire would undo all that progress.

Ciel replied calmly, as if trying to reassure me.

"I understand your concern. But it hasn’t even been three days yet, so your plans shouldn’t be affected.”

"Ah, that’s a relief…”

Letting out a sigh of relief, another question arose.

"Then—why was I brought here in the first place?”

"Because the only physician capable of treating your condition was in the capital.”

"You mean Master?”

"No. Weren’t they just in the room with you a moment ago?”

"...?"

There’d only been Elisia in the room.

As I tilted my head in confusion, Ciel shook hers, as if this wasn’t the time.

"Regardless, my Lady instructed me to bring you to her the moment you awoke.”

"Umm, if it’s not urgent, could it wait until later?”

Three days wasn’t long, but there was still a lot I had to do.

I needed to manage Vile Blood now that he had regained consciousness, and if Scarlet Abyss tried to approach me to make me a new Upper Tier, they absolutely couldn’t find out I was in the capital.

Ciel, who surely understood all that, answered firmly.

"It’s urgent.”

"In that case, understood.”

If she said that knowing all this, it clearly wasn’t anything trivial.

Following behind Ciel, who was walking quite briskly, I looked around the corridor.

Only then did it hit me. This was the Imperial Palace. Why was I receiving treatment in the palace?

When we opened the doors to a meeting hall and stepped inside—

"No matter what happens, everything must be sealed off. This is a direct order from me! Remember, Her Highness Sharmia personally instructed this!”

"It doesn’t matter. If supplies run low, open every warehouse! For one full month, the residents must absolutely not be allowed to leave!”

I was greeted by utter chaos.

Haggard-looking nobles were stamping seal after seal onto stacks of documents, urgently handing them off to messengers with repeated instructions. It was so crowded and loud that I felt like I was standing in the middle of a marketplace.

"Damn it…! Can’t we use the mountain path?”

"Moving without lighting fires would be too dangerous. One wrong step and…”

Seeing them stamp documents with bloodshot eyes, paying no attention to anything else, it was clear that calling this an emergency was no exaggeration.

After passing through the meeting hall and opening an even larger door, did I finally see Dercia.

"...Jern.”

"Ah, you’re here.”

Sharmia was there as well.

Seeing the two of them seated at the same desk made me feel slightly dizzy, but judging by their serious expressions, this clearly wasn’t the time to think about that. I quickly went over and sat down.

"What exactly is going on? Should I abandon the Scarlet Abyss infiltration and help here?”

"No. Quite the opposite.”

Dercia shook her head with a troubled expression.

"It seems…your work is about to become a lot more difficult."

"Huh?"

"First of all, we’ve heard that you defeated an Upper Tier. You did very well.”

"Ah, yes. There were quite a few follow-up matters to handle, though…”

"I’ve taken care of those on my end.”

Dercia replied with a shrug.

"You have brought in some rather peculiar things. Sunken Mire, for instance?”

"Yes. She helped me during the Nightfall subjugation.”

"Using her, we’ve spread word throughout the Lower Tier that you were the one who defeated Nightfall. Someone called Vile Blood has also publicly declared support for you, so the information should soon reach the Upper Tiers.”

"They haven’t found out that I’m here, right?”

"I wouldn’t handle matters that sloppily. I fabricated a story that you suffered serious injuries and are lying low for now. I also arranged that anyone who wishes to contact you must go through Sunken Mire—”

Dercia lifted a small orb.

"If she receives contact from the Upper Tiers, I’ll know immediately."

"Has Sunken Mire…been cooperating well?”

"She resisted a little. It wasn’t significant.”

Looking at Dercia’s completely disinterested eyes, I offered Sunken Mire a silent prayer.

At least she was still alive.

"That’s not the real problem."

Dercia glanced briefly at Sharmia, the look in her eyes unchanged.

"I'll explain from here.”

Sharmia spoke up, her expression showing a slight frown instead of her usual cheer.

"A disaster came too soon.”

"...Disaster?"

"Yes."

With a serious expression, she casually blurted out something rather absurd.

"Have you noticed that the nights have gotten slightly longer lately?”

"??"

"Ah, well, I suppose it’s only been accelerating recently…”

"Wait a moment. What did you say the night is?”

"It’s gotten longer. Physically.”

"Umm..."

Faced with something that defied both science and common sense, I fell silent. She handed me a sheet of paper.

"This is a timetable organizing day and night lengths over the past 10 years. If you look here, you’ll see that starting this year, the nights gradually began to lengthen… and in just the past three days, sunset has come three hours earlier, and sunrise three hours later.”

"That’s…Hmm.”

I gave up on understanding it and asked instead,

"I get that it’s a serious problem, but…is there anything else?”

"Of course, during these extended nights, things that should not move begin to move."

"?"

"It’ll be faster to show you. We captured one.”

Sharmia raised her hand, holding it beneath a lantern.

The light cast a shadow. At first, it was nothing more than the shadow of her hand.

Then, it started to twitch.

Sharma didn’t move her hand at all. The shadow writhed on its own, then suddenly sprang out and grabbed her wrist.

Before I could leap up to react, Dercia slashed through the air.

The shadow was severed, then crumbled into dust and vanished.

Sharmia, whose wrist had been seized just moments ago, casually shook her hand.

"This has never happened even once in the Empire’s history. I asked Lady Dercia about it, and…”

"Jern, I believe you already know.”

"...Yes."

I answered, teeth clenched. As Fallen, I couldn’t not know.

Even that aside…

"They have chosen differently.”

Scarlet Abyss had imposed their burdens upon the real world.

Earlier than we had expected.

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