WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 144 - Connection (5)

[Go.]

"...Linmel."

The moment Decay made his move, Carose’s expression hardened slightly as she pushed Linmel away.

"Huh?"

"Hm, could you go back to the lodging for a moment?”

"The lodging? Why?”

"I have something to take care of.”

Leaving the confused Linmel behind, Carose disappeared into the alley.

It seemed Decay had sent some kind of signal only she could understand.

Linmel tilted her head but still ran toward the lodging through a shortcut—

—And now it was my turn.

“Hup.”

I lightly leapt and blocked her path in an alley several blocks away.

Golden hair, golden eyes. A face that showed clear signs of her growth.

In a few years she’d undoubtedly steal the hearts of countless men. Of that I was sure. Linmel glared sharply at me, the one who had suddenly appeared to block her path.

"Who are you?”

I considered revealing myself, then shook my head.

Linmel wasn’t exactly tight-lipped. It’d be safer to be more indirect about this and tell her that I heard something from Jern, or—

I never managed to finish that thought.

"Move."

The moment she lowered her body and grabbed her sword hilt, she completely vanished from my Abyssal Sea.

"..."

I could still see her physically. But I had long known how narrow the world seen only by eyes really was.

Especially for my poor eyes. With the senses of an ordinary person, you couldn’t even catch the hem of a Knight’s clothes.

'Already…’

Was she already capable of breaking through my Tide Sense? That was something only true monsters like Brimdal could do.

Frowning, I jumped back, which turned out to be the wrong call.

"What a weird guy.”

"..."

Linmel’s blade had pierced empty air.

But when I came back to my senses, that empty air was less than one centimeter from my neck.

The movement was so absurdly fast that it could only be described as teleportation. As I stood there, stunned silent, she frowned and tilted her head.

"You can sense ‘pre-motions,’ so you know Knights, right? And you think jumping backward is enough to escape? Are you stupid?”

"...Hah."

Being called stupid by Linmel dealt some critical damage to my pride.

Still, as long as my throat wasn’t pierced, I wasn’t at a disadvantage.

No, more than that, Knights as a concept were ineffective against the Fallen. Without a word, I seized her sword with hydraulic pressure.

"Huh?"

Linmel tried to pull her sword free, panic flashing across her face as it remained frozen in midair.

It was impossible. As far as I could tell, my abilities, strengthened alongside my growing burdens, should have been more than enough to restrain even Linmel….

-Bang!

She probably didn’t see it, but the instant the pressure was released, a massive bubble of compressed water burst outward.

She wasn’t even serious… but she still managed to break through the pressure with pure physical strength.

...What the hell was this girl?

"You—”

Before I could process it, Linmel’s expression twisted as she adjusted her grip on the sword.

"So you were a wizard after all.”

At the same time, her presence completely changed.

Up until now, her goal had been to subdue me quickly and move on. Now, everything, from her stance to the way she breathed, was clearly showing that she saw me as an enemy.

It felt like the sky was collapsing. That lunatic Carose had turned my Linmel into nothing but a killing machine.

I swore to interrogate her about this later, but now wasn’t the time. As if to remind me of that, Linmel charged again.

This one was different from before. Taking her advice from earlier, I summoned the stars in my eyes.

What I created was a spear of wind.

-Boom!

A small explosion erupted in the alley, and she used the recoil to leap high into the air.

After spinning several times, Linmel landed on the wall. Not having moved that far away, Linmel then swung her sword down toward my head.

"What?!"

When did she get there?

I rolled backward instantly, slammed her away with a blast of my currents, and landed.

A chill ran down my spine. I crushed the area approximately 6 m² around me with water pressure, stopping Linmel’s sword just a handspan from my waist.

My waist. I almost gained the burden of having to be pushed around in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.

As I retreated, she broke free and closed the distance of my five steps in a single stride.

Watching her expression as she advanced without hesitation, I realized something.

Linmel was intentionally refusing to let the distance between us widen beyond a certain point.

'...Looks like she studied hard.'

Despite the situation, I felt an absurd sense of pride.

Keeping close to a wizard was the correct move.

Letting a wizard control the range was practically asking for death. It was probably Carose who taught her.

But Linmel seemed to have sensed something else.

"Thunder Gale…”

"Ah."

Seeing the high-tier magic I’d just used, she must have misjudged the number of stars I had.

It would have made sense for her to retreat, but instead she accepted it as fact and raised her sword from the blow, launching upward. She had clearly fought mages with a high star count before.

Given how unlikely it was for such a wizard to be hiding among bandits, she must have trained against them.

It seemed like Sharmia had invested quite heavily in her growth. At this point, I was genuinely curious how far she had come. So, I deliberately gathered swirling wind above my palm where she could see it.

"Come at me."

"..."

Linmel glared at the wind gathered in my hand.

I wasn’t actually forming anything, but to her, who believed I was a high-tier wizard, it would look very different.

Charging straight at a wizard who was preparing an unknown spell was a very poor choice for a Knight.

That was exactly why I wanted to see how Linmel would respond in a situation like this.

"Fine."

Linmel simply took a step forward.

Two steps.

Three steps.

"?"

She was just walking toward me, sword in hand.

Slowly, as if she thought I wouldn’t notice.

It was utterly absurd. In that situation, she could have stabbed me at any moment.

So in the end, the core of Linmel was still the same. I wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed—

-Tap.

"I’m here. What are you gonna do now?"

Her blade touched the back of my neck.

Cold steel pressed into my skin, and a thin line of blood slid down the blade.

"...Huh?"

It was a complete defeat.

And at the same time, it was a defeat I couldn’t understand at all. I was so confused that a question naturally arose in me.

...Why?

Just how?

I frowned, unable to accept the fact that I hadn’t done anything until the blade reached my neck, and Linmel who was now wearing a proud grin, pressed the sword harder as she spoke.

"How are you able to observe me?”

"..."

"Don’t bother hiding it! I know everything. When we first entered the city, I felt a weird gaze. And during the fight, I stabbed your blind spots from behind again and again, but you reacted every time! But when I saw you respond to pre-motions at the start, your reaction speed didn’t seem that fast.”

"So?"

"So that’s why you couldn’t move.”

Linmel smiled smugly.

"Ahem, information can be poison, you know! I don't know what kind of magic you can use. But you learned about me during the fight, didn’t you? If you fire that spell at me, you’ll definitely take a fatal hit in the opening it leaves. You knew that, so you kept watching me while looking for a chance to run. But I don’t have any gaps. Master said so.”

She was right.

Even now, I couldn’t find a single blind spot in her movements.

Thinking about it, it made sense. From the moment she entered the city, she had already sensed my Tide Sense with instinct alone.

I had been looking for a way out of this and ended up trapped instead.

At that point, my shock turned into admiration.

'She—figured all of that out on the spot?'

Brimdal once said Linmel’s talent was like gold.

But maybe comparing it to gold was actually an insult instead.

I should have realized something when I noticed just how absurd and ignorant that dwarven Knight was.

Calling her talent mere gold might be a huge understatement actually.

It wasn’t that the environment had been lacking or something. Linmel was actually extremely smart.

"But…”

-Sniff, sniff.

After securing her victory, Linmel tilted her head and stepped closer to me.

Her sword was still pressed against my neck.

"Why aren’t you getting hit? Your body feels smaller than it looks.”

"...What?”

"And something…something feels familiar about you.”

She stared at me for a moment and then suddenly ripped my mask off.

My real face was exposed, and her golden eyes met mine.

After a brief pause, I raised a hand and waved.

"Hi."

"...So I finally get to see your face.”

Linmel grinned, then shoved me down and stepped on my chest.

Well… I hadn’t expected her to immediately shout, ‘Jern?’ I missed you!’ the moment she saw me.

But I definitely hadn’t expected the hostility burning in her eyes either. I tilted my head, confused, and she glared down at me as she spat out,

"You’re a Fallen, aren’t you?”

"I mean, yeah, but…”

"I knew it! Master said Fallen use sorcery that’s different from magic, that they deceive the senses and pull off impossible things.”

She pressed the sword harder against my neck.

"You turned into the person I want to see most just to trick me!”

"..."

After a moment of thought, I said something only I could know.

"Do you remember when we were playing behind the orphanage mountain and you broke your leg, so I set that tree on fire?”

"...You can steal memories as well?!”

Hmm.

I take back the part about her being smart.

* * *

It took a while to convince her that I really was Jern.

A long while. Well, about 5 minutes.

"J-Jern? Are you really, really, really Jern???”

"Yeah. I even told you how many teeth I lost.”

The scary part was that Linmel was the one who had asked that.

Why did she remember how many teeth I had lost?

I frowned as her eyes welled up, suddenly hugging me tightly.

"Where have you been all this time…?!”

"Ugh, uh. I got a mission from the princess…”

"The princess gave you a mission? Really? Ah, wait! You’re hurt!”

Linmel pulled back in shock, then immediately pulled bandages out of her pocket and wrapped them around my neck.

"I’m sorry, it must’ve hurt a lot, right? I didn’t know it was you, so I just…”

The way she wrapped them tightly told me exactly how worried she was, which warmed my chest.

The problem was that the spot she was wrapping was my neck. If I didn’t already have that metal pipe embedded in my body, I would’ve suffocated to death.

It didn’t, so it was fine. Still, if she tightened it any more, it wouldn’t be suffocation but necrosis I would have to worry about, so I forced myself to gently push her away and hurriedly changed the subject.

"I’m fine. More importantly, why are you traveling with Carose?”

"Hmm, I wanted to get stronger, so I joined the Waxed Wings Unit.”

"That’s dangerous…is what I want to say, but I guess I shouldn’t.”

I patted Linmel’s head with a proud smile.

"You've gotten really strong.”

"Ehehe...Actually, I’m paying for my sins.”

"...What?"

"Well, when I heard you were imprisoned, I went to rescue you with a sword in my mouth.”

Was she insane—?

So that was what happened. As I stood there stunned, Linmel dropped another bomb.

"I ran into Master there, fought her, and got caught…but when I told her I’d come back every day if you weren’t released, she explained things to me.”

"Explained what?”

"That you weren’t really imprisoned, that you were just pretending for some reason, and that if I worked with her for a while, she’d help me find you.”

"..."

"So I’ve been training and going around like this, and then I actually met you here! I never thought it’d be like this!”

...The whole story filled itself in naturally.

From the princess’ perspective, there was no way she could let a child wander through places crawling with Scarlet Abyss members alone looking for me. And since Linmel’s talent was extraordinary, they probably compromised by letting her stay with Carose and learn properly.

Honestly, even from my perspective, it was the right call. I continued patting her head with a subtle expression, then realized there was still something I had to do.

"Linmel, I know this is a bad time to ask, but can you keep meeting me a secret?”

"Huh? Why?”

"I need it for the mission I’m on. Please.”

"Okay!”

"And also…”

This next request was hard to ask of her.

"Can you pretend to be injured and not hold a sword for a few months? Just in case, don’t even touch one.”

"Why?”

"...I’m sorry. I know how horrible that sounds to someone who lives as a knight, but…”

I bowed my head deeply.

I knew exactly how cruel that request was, so I needed to explain it properly even if I was short on time.

But Linmel just nodded like it was nothing.

"No, it’s fine.”

"It’s…fine?”

"Yeah. It’s not that big of a deal. Why?”

…This wasn’t the time for this, but…

For the first time, I caught a glimpse of how hard her master, Carose, must have had it.

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