WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 149 - Connection (10)

"Sorry. Something suddenly came up, so I have to go.”

"Y-yes?”

I brushed it off and left, mounting my horse and riding straight for the spire.

The moment I arrived, I didn’t even bother tying the reins before heading to the basement.

"What brings you here at this hour?”

Heavenly Balance greeted me with her usual calm expression.

Dark circles shadowed her, Sharmia’s, face.

...It was probably nothing, but for a moment it felt as though she had known I would come.

"I have something I want to ask.”

"Is that so?”

She set down her pen completely unfazed, rose from her seat, and gently walked over.

She had always been rather tall for a woman, so I naturally ended up looking up at her.

After looking at me briefly, she reached for the teapot on the table beside me.

It looked as though it had just finished boiling.

"Sit. There’s a little time left, so keep me company.”

"..."

-Pour

As the cup filled, I clenched my fists and teeth.

I hesitated, still unsure. Asking this was almost the same as saying that this would end here.

But.

"I found something quite peculiar.”

I couldn’t turn back now.

I sprinkled white powder I had been holding onto the desk.

"This is…”

Heavenly Balance took a sip of her tea, then let out a slow sigh, scolding me.

"Where did you get this?”

"I found it under a nearby ruined city.”

"'Found it,' you say? Saying you picked up the Emperor’s crown while walking down the street would be more believable.”

"Yes. To be honest, I went in knowing it was there and stole it.”

"..."

Heavenly Balance glared at me briefly, then shook her head and swept the powder away.

"Keep this a secret. If anyone else knows, find them and make sure they never open their mouths again. I will not forgive this twice.”

"You’re just letting it go? Seems like I did something pretty serious, though.”

"You would have found out about this eventually. If you had cut down the cradle’s tree, I would have known at once. Just knowing you didn’t is enough.”

Cradle.

As expected, Heavenly Balance knew exactly what that place was.

"So is that all you wanted to say? What a foolish confession. Normally, when something like this happens, one hides it from their superior…”

"I’m not finished yet.”

Up until then, she had been only mildly irritated, almost amused. But the moment I scattered the brown soil with my other hand, her smile vanished completely, falling completely silent.

I could feel the atmosphere of the room change rapidly, but I had no intention of stopping.

"This white stuff, or white soil…how they called it. When it’s compressed, it becomes this brown soil you’re looking at now.”

"...So?”

"This soil doesn’t respond well to magic nor my world’s power. At first, I thought it simply had anti-magic properties, but it’s different.”

I clenched the soil tightly in my hand.

"I think this soil is material from another world.”

Just as the Abyssal Sea would have no influence on the real world if ‘I,’ a being that lives in both worlds, didn’t exist.

This soil was something like that. A product of another world.

From whose though?

From what world had this soil been pulled from?

The skeleton had already given me the answer.

"Miss Heavenly Balance."

"..."

"I knew that this organization, Scarlet Abyss…was hostile toward something called the Prophet. I actually thought you were obsessed with him at first.”

"And what of it?”

"As far as I know, a prophet is usually someone who receives revelations from a god.”

The Prophet. The mysterious existence that created Scarlet Abyss’ prophecy, yet was somehow also their enemy.

However, the strange thing was that despite being enemies, they still called him Prophet, meaning ‘someone who walks ahead.’

If the reason was—

If the prophecy he delivered ran counter to Scarlet Abyss’ purpose—

"Why do you call him the Prophet?”

Heavenly balance met my eyes.

"We call him that simply because there is no more fitting word that describes him. He did not serve any god.”

"...I see.”

It was a vague, evasive answer.

I gulped down my tea and started to leave, wondering why I even expected anything more—

When she quietly continued.

"Rather, he worshiped life.”

"...Huh?”

"You’re correct. You, me, us… all life living on the surface are nothing more than parasites, forcibly occupying a place that was never ours.”

"..."

When I failed to respond, Heavenly Balance asked with a weary smile.

"Would you like me to explain it in simpler terms?”

"No."

I already knew most of the answer.

If this soil was truly from another world, then who could have extracted it?

Which Fallen could have created it endlessly?

The skeleton?

I knew it was a late Fallen of the Abyssal Sea. I knew that I couldn’t do something like that at the very least.

If it wasn’t something brought from a world by a Fallen, then there was only one conclusion left.

"Humanity itself was life created in another world.”

A world that could exist without Fallen? Such a thing didn’t exist.

If it did, that would be the real world.

The truth was the opposite actually. All of these worlds were false…and we were no different from the deep-sea creatures swimming below.

That mound of soil alone had been the only place that could truly be called the ‘real world.’

"...Haah."

Heavenly Balance, who had been listening quietly, widened her eyes in surprise.

"You’ve even figured that out? Well, I knew you were sharp, but to that extent…”

"It wasn’t that difficult. And I wasn’t the only one who realized it.”

"?”

Vile Blood’s reason for suicide had been pride.

No matter what hell he had lived through, he took pride in the simple fact that he had survived. And it seemed he had reached the same conclusion I had.

I didn’t know how he’d done it with the knowledge he had. He probably had been hiding something.

But in the end, he couldn’t accept that even he was nothing more than a byproduct.

I let out a deep sigh as I looked at Heavenly Balance, who was tilting her head in confusion.

"I should have thought more carefully about how you knew all of this. That the Three Calamities were large enough that life could exist within them…that they could cover worlds.”

Scarlet Abyss had known many things long before they ever found one of the Three Calamities.

That they could envelop worlds.

That life could exist within them.

That they were enormous beyond comprehension.

I had never questioned how they knew. I had simply assumed they had their ways and let it slide.

But there was a reason. They already knew what the Three Calamities were.

More precisely, they had been living in a world that was already covered by one.

...We were the calamity that covered the world.

"So we were the example all along.”

"Not just humans. Did I not tell you? The deep-sea creatures are not of a single kind.”

Heavenly Balance shook her head.

"At the beginning, there were three calamities. Beyond them existed countless worlds. So many they could not be counted. The Abyssal Sea, the Boiling Darkness, the Endless Void. They were beautiful simply by existing.”

"...That’s beautiful to you?”

"That which exists without deceit or pretense is beautiful in its own right. Just as you are.”

I froze at the sudden out-of-place flattery. She continued calmly.

"Life did not yet exist, but the worlds mixed freely, and in that state there was no suffering, no sorrow, no pain. Such things could not exist. Until the advent of the ‘Heaven.’”

"The…Heaven?”

"That world devoured everything.”

Pain flickered across Heavenly Balance’s expression.

"The Heaven denied all other worlds. The land no longer boiled, the stars no longer collapsed, and the sun rose at the same hour each day. When a step burned the foot, it was called pain. Loneliness and cold were given names. Concepts that had never existed were invented, and selfish, dogmatic order was imposed upon all.”

"..."

"All chaos vanished. One step came to mean one step. Life was born and forced into cycles, following rules. And because of that, the worlds melted.”

They melted into the world.

At those words, I thought of Puppet sleeping in my Abyssal Sea.

A world in human form.

...Great Void had turned Puppet, which had fused with Nightfall, into a human.

As if he had always known it was possible.

My face twisted before I could stop myself.

"Is my guess right?”

"I don’t know what you’re thinking, but every life that lives in the ‘real’ world is merely a fragment of the worlds devoured by the Heaven. The only difference is their form.”

"...So I was the Abyssal Sea too, then?? Just pretending to be human?”

"Didn’t I tell you? They melted together.”

Heavenly Balance shook her head.

"Within the heart of every living being, hundreds of billions of worlds are melted together in fragments. You, too, contain the Great Void, Absolute Frost, and innumerable others. Among them, the essence of the Abyss Sea was stirred and awakened.”

"So the reason Scarlet Abyss tortured people was—”

"To awaken the essence. To rouse the dormant Three Calamities within them. It was a necessary cruelty.”

Only now did it make sense why those who suffered extreme pain would suddenly turn into monsters.

Becoming one with a world, and death…

I stared blankly for a moment, then hurriedly asked something else.

"Then why is it that only wizards can fall?”

"The Heaven was meant to collapse naturally.”

She explained calmly.

"It could be seen as one of the Three Calamities, but it wasn’t. Vast, yet incapable of digesting all worlds. It should have collapsed a thousand years ago.”

"Then why are we still alive?”

"Because someone acted before that.”

I had heard this name too many times already.

I didn’t even need to ask.

"That would be the Prophet."

"Yes. To prevent the world’s collapse, he carried that possibility through bloodlines so that all might create their own Heaven. So that, one day, a new Heaven might open that was capable of holding everything.”

Heaven—a familiar word. One Heavenly Balance had deliberately avoided replacing with another world.

...The Heavenly Realm.

The First Mage had already reached the Heavens.

Heaven was his world.

"...So the palace we’re standing on right now is already the Heaven.”

"Yes. The real world is nothing more than the tree you saw…and these fragments.”

Heavenly Balance looked down at the soil on the desk, her expression indifferent.

I couldn’t be, however. The truth was far too overwhelming.

"Then the world we’re living in is going to be destroyed?”

"It should have been long ago. If not for the Prophet. If he had not granted humans access to the Heaven so that by merely living and breathing, they could prevent collapse…”

Someone that reached Heaven wasn’t merely a title for an Archmage.

When the world was falling apart, someone had sought salvation.

Scarlet Abyss had called that man a prophet not out of reverence, but contempt. He tried to create a god of his own.

Heavenly Balance’s jaw tightened in clear disgust.

"It was meaningless. No one will ever create a new Heaven. But it is also true that the fragments he scattered have delayed liberation.”

"...So that’s why you’re killing all the Fallen of Heaven..."

"We collect the fragments of Heaven. The ones you call wizards.”

Her words were cold enough to chill the air.

"We’re using them against him. Humans, lowly as they are, could never awaken a world on their own. But those who inherited fragments of Heaven through bloodlines created small Heavens of their own. In one way or another, they touch the world. We inflict upon them the pain and despair they once carried as primordial worlds and force them to awaken.”

"Then..."

"The Prophet must have known the danger. That those who inherited his fragments would gain the right to ascend to Heaven, but at the cost of possibly falling. That is why he chose not all humans, but nobles, those who could live peaceful lives, to carry his blood.”

Only now could I finally see the purpose of those people. Something that had been utterly incomprehensible to me before.

The reason they were so desperate to kill mages, to make them fall.

It wasn’t just out of madness. It was deliberate. All for that thing they call liberation.

But then, a new question arose inside of me.

"Why do you do this?”

I looked at Heavenly Balance, who seemed like the only one I still could hold a conversation with.

There was no hostility in my voice. Only genuine curiosity.

For the first time since we began talking, she lowered her head.

"From what I hear, those primordial worlds without Heaven were nothing short of horrifying. Why would Scarlet Abyss want to return to such a place? Just because it is the essence? Because it’s beautiful?”

"...Pain is pain only because Heaven defined it as such.”

Heavenly Balance answered in her usual cold tone, but the strength behind it was completely drained.

"When everything ends and liberation comes, all life will return to its original world. No pain, no suffering, no despair—nothing will be perceived as negative anymore. In a world where everything is natural, no one will—”

"I see."

I swallowed the rest of my words and bowed my head slightly.

"I don’t want to go to a place where pain is considered normal.”

As I quietly stood up, Heavenly Balance clenched the edge of the table.

"Sit."

"I don’t think I can.”

"The moment this conversation began, I summoned Great Void.”

"...Why?"

"I may be a false shrine maiden, but that doesn’t mean I cannot use the shrine maiden’s power at all. Even degraded, I can still wield it.”

She wasn’t quite on the level of Sharmia, but she still had similar powers.

Well, I had seen it before.

And when I extended my Tide Sense, I could feel an ominous presence slowly descending toward this place.

"Whatever emotions you’re feeling, now is the time to bow your head…”

I looked down at Heavenly Balance’s anxious face, and before I knew it, I found myself chuckling softly.

"...Is this situation amusing to you?”

"No. Not at all.”

I answered as I turned my back on her puzzled expression.

"It’s just that you remind me too much of someone I knew.”

Next time I meet Sharmia, I think I’ll be able to face her with a lighter heart.

So—

"I’m done bowing.”

It was about time I went to meet her again.

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