WETRIED TRANSLATIONS
Wizard of the Abyss
[Translator – Aren]
Chapter 148 - Connection (9)
"Calm down and explain exactly what happened."
"Th-that’s…”
The man stammered as he began his explanation.
"After we found the raw materials for the World-Sealing Elixir last time, we tried to produce the pills using that white soil. We’d been preparing the facilities for a while, so we were able to make a prototype as well.”
"And then? Were you discovered by another Upper Tier?”
"That seems to be the case…”
Seems to be the case?
I raised an eyebrow and pressed him.
"I don’t understand what you’re saying at all. Are you telling me you don’t even know how Vile Blood died?”
"I was dispatched as soon as the situation was confirmed. Sir Vile Blood was collapsed in his office, coughing up blood…”
He hesitated, then added in an incredulous voice, highlighting his disbelief.
"He was holding poison in his hand.”
"...What?"
Collapsed in his office, blood at his mouth, poison in his hand.
It was shocking, but taken at face value, the scene looked disturbingly close to suicide.
As if he had guessed my thoughts, the subordinate violently shook his head.
"But that’s impossible! There’s just no way. You know better than anyone that Sir Vile Blood wasn’t that weak, don’t you, Lord Undercurrent?!”
"Of course, I know that much.”
If you were to list people farthest from suicide in this world, the Fallen of Scarlet Abyss would be at the top.
They were people like me, who chose to struggle instead of taking the far easier, simpler option of death.
Of course, their struggle often meant slaughtering others just to survive, but that only proved how strong their will to live truly was.
And among them, Vile Blood had been one of the most desperate to defy fate, clawing for any way to stand on equal ground with the Upper Tiers. For someone like him to finally find a way only to kill himself?
That was impossible.
"I need to see it for myself. Can you take me there?”
"Yes!”
The subordinate, who seemed to have come specifically to get me, hurriedly mounted a horse and led me toward the ruins of a nearby abandoned city.
Feeling if it had already been devoured by tension, I extended my Tide Sense, seeing several members standing guard at the entrance, their expressions sharp.
"It was so sudden, so everyone’s on edge.”
The member, riding his horse, whispered as a warning.
Well, it made sense. If it looked like their leader had suddenly taken his own life, it would be stranger if the atmosphere weren’t this tense.
Even so, there were no signs of internal fracture. That alone showed how well Vile Blood had handled his people.
We climbed into the old fortress ruins, arriving at a terrace where several members were gathered, speaking with grim expressions.
"You've arrived! Sorry to summon you so suddenly.”
"This is something none of us can accept as is…”
I raised a hand to stop them and pointed at the door they were guarding so tightly.
"Did you investigate the scene before I arrived?”
"After confirming Sir Vile Blood’s…condition, we didn’t touch anything.”
"Good. Make sure no one goes in.”
"Yes!”
There was no need to open the door. I had already grasped everything inside through my Tide Sense.
However, for the sake of the members who didn’t know that, I deliberately stepped inside.
"Hmm..."
Unlike the abandoned fortress’ corridor, which made me feel like a ghost might leap out at any moment, the room itself smelled lived in.
It seemed he had set up a base nearby after discovering the raw material for the World-Sealing Elixir. The walls were plastered with countless blueprints and papers filled with formulas and ratios, which proved how deeply they researched.
And in the center of it all…
Vile Blood lay slumped over his desk, dead.
"...Tsk."
Right then, I reached my conclusion.
I had hoped it wasn’t the case, but this was suicide by poison.
There wasn’t even the faintest footprint on the floor, and the windows were nailed shut. Nails that were still embedded, without any sign that they had been removed at one point.
Of course—in a world filled with tons of Fallen with bizarre powers, there were ways to enter without leaving any trace, force someone to drink poison, and make it look like suicide.
But if this had truly been an assassination carried out by one of Scarlet Abyss’ Upper Tier, there was no way they would’ve only killed Vile Blood and left.
Everyone here knew about the World-Sealing Elixir’s ingredient and its location, so why would they just kill no one but the leader and just walk away? They weren’t that merciful.
As an Upper Tier myself, I stepped up to the desk soaked in dark blood and did something that wasn’t exactly advisable.
Using my currents, I lifted Vile Blood’s corpse and forcibly opened his clenched hand.
"...Medicine?"
The raw material for the World-Sealing Elixir
He was tightly gripping what they called white soil in his hand.
I took a small amount, then checked the paper Vile Blood had been writing on last.
[This fucking shit.]
Hmm.
If this was his dying message, it couldn’t have been more fitting.
I searched thoroughly for anything else, but the short sentence was all there was.
In the end, I left the room with nothing but confirmation of his suicide and returned to the members waiting outside.
"D-did you discover anything…?”
"It wasn’t suicide. It was betrayal."
"...What???"
I met the incredulous stares of the members and causally averted my gaze.
These people didn’t just follow Vile Blood, they worshiped him. From what I had seen, I had assumed they’d be harboring some resentment from all the beatings and shouting, but apparently not.
In Scarlet Abyss, suicide was considered nothing more than a coward’s escape. If I told them the truth, they’d definitely reject it, saying stuff like, ‘Our leader would never do that. You’re lying!’
And I still needed to get answers from these people…
"There were marks on the hand he held the poison with. It looks like someone forcibly grabbed his wrist. Whoever did it tried to poison him and make it look like suicide, but they couldn’t fool my eyes. Go check it yourself.”
"Who the hell would do something like that…?!”
I chose to give them a common enemy.
As they rushed into the room and stared at the red marks I had just created, their faces gradually flushed with rage, I coldly pressed them further.
"One of you dared to assassinate my business partner. I’ll find that fearless bastard and make sure they pay the price.”
"Then why would the assassin kill Sir Vile Blood in the first place…?”
"Greed, after finding the raw material for the World-Sealing Elixir, most likely. If he hadn’t been discovered, they probably would’ve killed all of you as well and taken it for themselves. If it’s divided among many, the amount is lacking, but for a single person, this should be enough to last one a lifetime, right?”
"But isn’t that bottomless pit with the white soil impossible to enter unless you’re entering it, Lord Undercurrent?”
"It seems they found some way in. But you. You keep bringing up unrelated things ever since earlier… Feeling guilty about something?”
"N-No! Absolutely not!”
With the control over this situation firmly in my hands, I began issuing orders to the members whose faces were filled half with fury, and half with grief.
"Where do you keep the World-Sealing Elixir’s raw material, the white soil?”
"In the underground vault.”
These guys were crazy about underground spaces as well. As expected from someone from Scarlet Abyss.
"What about security?”
"There wasn’t any. Sir Vile Blood trusted all of us compeltely…”
"And who accessed it most frequently?”
"Sir Vile Blood himself.”
"Hmm…”
Reconstructing the situation…
Vile Blood committed suicide, leaving behind a crude, vulgar dying message saying, ‘This fucking shit.’
Judging by the scrawled handwriting, it was probably written in a fit of rage.
For a man who had clawed and struggled to survive no matter what, choosing death wasn’t because of pain or despair. He’d endured far worse countless times already.
So—the only explanation was that he’d lost the reason to keep living.
Why had that reason disappeared?
While pondering over that question, I causally asked,
"Did Vile Blood do anything unusual recently?”
"Hm…I don’t think so.”
"Think harder, even if it’s something trivial.”
"Well, it’s trivial, but he started drinking more. Ah, and he tested concentrating the white soil.”
"Concentrating it? What do you mean?”
"The white soil takes up a lot of space, right? Transporting it is a problem, so he tested compressing it under extreme pressure to see how the efficacy would change.”
That made sense. Even if the potency dropped a bit, it wasn’t like you could haul tens of tons of soil around without a workshop.
"But it failed."
"Failed? Did the effects reduce that much?”
"Yes. They didn’t just get reduced, they vanished entirely. Ah…”
The member tilted his head as if he were recalling something.
"Now that I think about it, Sir Vile Blood started drinking heavily right after that experiment failed.”
"...Is there any residue left from that failed experiment?”
I felt like there was something to be found there.
When I urged him, he nodded quickly.
"There’s a little. This way.”
I followed him to an open area filled with massive presses used to compress the white soil.
There lay a small amount of white soil, and beside it…
ordinary-looking brown soil.
"That soil is the result of compressing the white soil.”
It looked like barely a single sack’s worth of soil.
I stepped forward, put some in my mouth, and frowned.
It was just completely ordinary dirt, without even a hint of any effects.
"...”
Compressing the white soil had produced nothing but plain dirt.
And this fact alone had driven Vile Blood to suicide…
"Is that everything? Are there any more details you left out?”
"W-we tried everything. We made pills from it, melted it down into water, everything, but there was no effect at all. We even planted seeds in it, grew trees, ground those down into soil, and tested that too, thinking it might work. But absolutely nothing worked.”
"...Ah."
Nothing worked.
Nothing at all.
The moment I heard that, a deeply unpleasant feeling crawled up my spine.
"...Wait. Don’t tell me.”
"Yes?"
I immediately summoned the stars in my eyes to create wind.
The member screamed and threw himself flat on the ground, while the surrounding white soil was blown skyward, even making the massive presses rattle as the gale tore through the area.
But—the soil made by compressing the white earth didn’t move.
"What kind of world are you from?”
"M-Mine is one where everything I drink turns into poison…”
"Drink some water and spit it on that soil.”
"Y-yes."
He hurriedly gulped from his waterskin and spat onto the soil.
The soil absorbed the saliva and—
"...Huh?"
It didn’t dissolve.
Panicking, he drank again and spat onto the regular ground nearby.
-Fssssh!
This time, the earth itself melted away.
"Huh, that’s fascinating. So compressed white soil has this kind of special property.”
The member looked back and forth between the melted ground and the compressed soil in amazement.
"It seems neither my world nor magic works on it. It’s truly alien soil. If Sir Vile Blood had seen this, he would have been delighted, finding countless uses for it…”
I shook my head as I looked down at him muttering bitterly.
"He probably already knew. And you’re wrong.”
"Huh?”
I stared at the soil, recalling the words spoken by the skeleton guarding the underground where the white soil had been.
The only hope left in the world.
I finally understood what I had dismissed as the words of a madman.
"We were the alien ones.”
From the very beginning.
...Every single one.
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