WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 167 - Resident (3)

Thinking back on it, something had been strange.

Wherever one went in the world, language developed out of necessity. For example, would the people living on an island near the equator have words for snow or winter?

Even if one of the islanders traveled far away and walked across piles of snow, once they returned, how would they explain what they experienced?

Something cold fell from the sky and piled up on the ground. That would be the limit, right?

In that sense, the language system of these deep-sea creatures was full of clearly unnecessary things.

Things that didn’t need to be talked about in the Abyssal Sea. Concepts that never needed explanation.

Words that had no purpose.

And yet they uttered them so naturally.

"Am I overthinking this…?”

I quietly sat down on a chair, watching the shark twist its body.

Up until now, I had brushed off this issue, lazily thinking that they might just be born knowing this language. They didn’t seem close enough to teach or learn from each other, after all.

In reality, even among their own kind, the deep-sea creatures would devour one another without hesitation if pressure crushed one of them.

There was no way that these creatures would teach each other anything. Which meant that all of these words and sentences were learned while they lived in the Abyssal Sea.

So my thoughts returned to my starting point.

From whom did they learn?

If there existed a being intelligent enough to teach deep-sea creatures language or at least allow them to steal it…

Then perhaps that being knew how to survive in the Abyssal Sea.

"...Hmm."

I opened the bestiary more seriously and examined the faces of the deep-sea creatures one by one.

The fake shrine maiden of Scarlet Abyss, Heavenly Balance, seemed to have never realized until the very end that I was a traitor, judging by her actions at least.

Perhaps she simply hid her real thoughts well…but if she had known, then it might be that she did what she did in order to save me from the Abyssal Sea for simply my sake.

And if the result of that sentiment had been to observe the deep-sea creatures and learn their language…

And if that work had been cut short, leaving behind nothing but unanswered questions…

Then maybe this was the right direction after all.

After thinking about it over and over, I clicked my tongue and let out a sigh.

"I have no clue, dammit."

Honestly, right now the water pressure and currents didn’t feel that bad.

It wasn't that I didn't feel them. It just felt the same as usual, which made me wonder if the situation was really as dire as everyone said.

Dercia always worried too much. Maybe things weren’t actually that serious.

With that thought, I took a deep breath and headed to the library where Dercia was staying, knocking on the door.

She was buried behind stacks of books, searching for something, when she glanced at me with piercing, sunken eyes.

"...What is it? Please make it quick.”

"World Sealing Elixir. Give me everything that’s left.”

"?”

Since I hadn’t joined Scarlet Abyss, the World Sealing Elixirs Decay had given me were all I had left.

She must have read something in my expression, because her face gradually soured.

"So you’re planning to do something reckless again.”

"I have my reasons. And even if the worst happens, I’m confident I can ‘come back.’”

“...”

Dercia looked at me with suspicion for a moment, then took out every remaining World Sealing Elixir she had stored.

"...Before you do something that foolish, I’ll give you one piece of advice.”

"Huh?"

"Jern, I thought about what you said. That this world is already the Heavenly Realm, and that wizards temper themselves to become the one and only god.”

"...Is that so? That feels a bit different from what I said, though.”

"There is no other explanation. In essence, mages are beings meant to recreate a collapsing world. In other words, seeds for creating something as close to a god as possible.”

"Hmm…When you put it that way, it does sound plausible. So?”

"If that’s the case, then stopping Scarlet Abyss becomes quite simple.”

Her voice remained heavy, devoid of hope or confidence.

"If someone reaches the Heavenly Realm before they finish exterminating all mages, then everything will be over.”

"That is one way, I suppose."

I shrugged and agreed. It would completely destroy their objective and a valid victory condition.

But—at the same time, it was quite absurd.

Because the elf standing before me still hadn’t reached the Heavenly Realm.

"But even you haven’t reached it yet, Master. So who could possibly do it?”

"...Exactly."

I knew full well what it meant to reach the Heavens.

Maybe Dercia could do it someday. She was a member of a long-lived race, after all. But by then, even if I escaped the Abyssal Sea, I would have already died of natural causes.

Dercia fell silent for a moment.

Then she spoke calmly.

"Jern. I feel a kind of forced causality.”

"Causality?"

"Yes. As though all of this was constructed to lead to a single outcome. To the point that even my race feels like a tool created for that purpose.”

"..."

"If you find something there, it may shake your goal…”

She trailed off.

"...But for now, think only about your survival. Everything else comes after that.”

"Well, that’s the most comfortable for me anyway.”

Whatever she was trying to say, I could ask her properly after I came back.

I packed the World-Sealing Elixir tightly and left the palace, heading into a forest with no one around.

So no one else would get caught up in this.

"Phew..."

Only after spreading my Tide Sense and confirming there wasn’t a single herb gatherer around did I place a World-Sealing Elixir into my mouth and mutter…

"This world is located in the Abyssal Sea.”

In an instant, the world was eroded.

The forest before my eyes and the Abyssal Sea existed on the same layer.

They were merely maintaining a fragile balance. If I used my abilities too much and that balance collapsed, I would be trapped in the Abyssal Sea, slowly dissolving into it.

Fusion, something far more horrific than being crushed to death or drowned.

But.

"...Ugh."

I deliberately gave the Abyssal Sea more weight.

The surrounding trees blurred, and the air liquefied.

Raindrops that had suddenly begun to fall froze in midair. They were no longer raindrops, but cracks. Erosion of the world itself.

The surrounding forest was gradually swallowed.

Sinking deeper and deeper into the Abyssal Sea.

The world my Tide Sense knew and the world my eyes saw slowly began to overlap.

And then—

"Kgh."

With a sharp ache in my chest, the world inverted.

No forest, no trees, no grass, no ground to stand on.

There was nothing.

Nothing except the deep, pitch-black ocean in which I couldn't even see an arm’s length ahead of me and the horrifying sounds of bubbles occasionally rising and bursting near my ears.

And deep-sea creatures half-opening their eyes in the darkness, drifting about while exchanging meaningless words.

[...Cold, searching, —Falling. Soon.]

[Flowing…? Flowing. Why…]

The words were so disturbingly incoherent that I almost suspected I misinterpreted them.

I carefully examined them with my Tide Sense and quietly opened my fist.

-Pop.

"...Good."

A single, tiny bubble.

I let out a breath of relief and held it as delicately as possible.

It wasn’t for breathing. It was my lifeline.

I had succeeded in bringing air from the real world, the world I lived in, into the Abyssal Sea.

'If this hadn’t worked, I was prepared to chew through every World-Sealing Elixir I had just to escape.'

Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. Now, when it was time to return, I could simply reverse the process using this air as a guide.

From the Abyssal Sea to the real world. From the real world to the Abyssal Sea.

It was a compass that allowed travel between worlds, leaving behind only the smallest fragment.

In other words, the only means of escaping this pitch-black abyss.

The moment this bubble burst, I’d be completely doomed. Gritting my teeth, I prioritized maintaining the air bubble, even if it meant reducing my Tide Sense’s range.

Only after fixing it so solidly that even a steel arrow couldn’t pierce it did I finally start to move.

"Oh my.”

I nearly smashed my head into the ground, or at least I thought that was what it was, barely managing to stop.

I’d felt it last time too, but moving underwater was far more difficult than expected. This wasn’t like swimming in a pool and more like trying to walk with dozens of kilograms of steel plates strapped to my body.

I tried flailing my legs but soon realized that at this rate, even an hour of swimming wouldn’t get me more than a few hundred meters forward. As I searched for another method, I noticed a deep-sea creature passing overhead, twisting its body along a path that shouldn’t have been physically possible.

"...Oh?”

Seeing that, I realized something. I immediately wrapped my body in a current.

...My body lifted and moved with extreme ease.

I was more shocked at the naturalness of it than the ease, though. It was like a newborn gazelle being able to run immediately.

Then, a thought occurred to me.

I immediately kicked off with all my strength, straight upward.

Nothing blocked me. With the sensation that I might be able to escape the Abyssal Sea just like this, I shot upward like an arrow—

"Khugh!"

Midway through, my vision turned white, and it felt as if my heart had stopped.

-Beeeeep...

A piercing tinnitus flooded my ears. I writhed in pain for a long while before recalling another burden I suffered from.

Decompression sickness. Also known as barotrauma.

Staggering, I let myself sink back down to my original depth. It had been worth testing, but the Abyssal Sea clearly wasn’t that forgiving.

After taking some time to steady myself, I shook my head and slowly stood up, beginning to survey my surroundings.

However, the Abyssal Sea wasn’t exactly a pleasant tourist destination. In a cold place filled with eerie fish and silence, there wasn’t much to see, so I looked around without much expectation—

"What the hell is that?!”

I gasped in surprise when I spotted a human-shaped figure.

But after probing it more closely with my Tide Sense, I frowned.

It was Night Fall—or rather the shell of Puppet—drifting loosely as it sank somewhere below.

"Fucking hell…”

That thing still hadn’t been eaten yet? I kicked it away out of sheer irritation, sending it drifting elsewhere, and only then returned to my original purpose.

[...?...??]

[...]

A group of anglerfish that weren’t saying anything.

No, more precisely, a massive anglerfish, easily three times my size, was being swarmed by smaller ones that clung to it and gnawed at its flesh.

This was the first time I’d seen direct confrontation like this, but looking closely, the fish being eaten showed no reaction at all, and the chunks of flesh being torn away regenerated almost immediately.

Judging by its sluggish movements, I concluded that this one wasn’t particularly skilled at using currents. Keeping my distance, I cautiously spoke up.

[An enemy is coming.]

[...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

Its reaction was instantaneous.

The smaller anglerfish that had been feeding stopped at once and shot outward at incredible speed.

It wasn’t to attack, but to flee. Meanwhile, the anglerfish that had been gnawed lit the bioluminescent lure above its head with a red glow, green liquid beginning to seep from between its teeth.

I could instantly tell that it was venom, so I backed away, and the creature began to frantically sweep the area with its Tide Sense.

[Falling. Falling. Falling. Falling. Falling …]

After snapping its jaws and scanning the surroundings for a while, its Tide Sense brushed against me as well.

[...?]

But as if it was oblivious of me, it immediately checked elsewhere.

As expected, unless I actively provoked them, these deep-sea creatures couldn’t perceive me at all.

Realizing there was neither an enemy nor kin, the anglerfish flickered with a confused yellow light.

That was enough to confirm it.

'No intelligence?'

I had considered that they might possess some form of intelligence to make communication possible since they could speak and learn, but judging by that response, they were little more than beings that merely executed instructions they heard.

Just like before, when one bit on command. Rather than animals, they were closer to biological computers that simply processed input and executed it.

That didn't mean I could freely control them. If anything, acting purely on instinct meant that unless something was extremely simple, they probably wouldn’t even understand it.

"Bite yourself apart right now."

[...?]

As expected, when faced with even slightly difficult concepts, it didn’t even get angry and simply rejected the idea outright, like an idiot.

How the hell did these creatures even learn language? Puzzled, I tried issuing the anglerfish a series of different commands.

"Hmm…Find food.”

[...]

"Find teacher?"

[...]

"Find other creatures."

[...]

"Find enemies."

[...]

This fish-brained idiot.

The anglerfish just blinked its yellow light stupidly. Could creatures like this really be used to locate other beings in the Abyssal Sea?

I rubbed my chin and pondered. If these deep-sea creatures knew the ones who had taught them language, what would they even call them?

...Ah...

Something clicked in my mind after pondering some more.

"Find something that speaks."

If you had to explain someone’s parents to a newborn, wouldn’t one phrase it like that?

I couldn’t say I was confident about that, even as I said that, but—

[...Don’t come. Don’t come. Don’t come…]

The anglerfish’s light flickered orange as it began swimming off toward somewhere.

...muttering some extremely unsettling words while it did that.

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