WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 171 - Resident (7)

As if possessed by something, I moved forward.

-Creak...

"Tsk."

I snapped back to my senses almost immediately. Watching my Water Partition slowly distort like heated steel, it was obvious that the depth the lobster had moved into so casually was far beyond what I could endure.

Even the depth I was standing at now was hard for me to bear. Going any deeper would mean I wouldn’t be doing anything but getting crushed into human paste.

Forced to retreat, I kept glancing back, feeling pangs of regret.

Perfect resistance to pressure.

Not natural pressure, but pressure generated by another living being, far stronger than anything I could produce, and it shrugged it off effortlessly.

For all I knew, the reason it could move so naturally at that depth was because of that mysterious ability.

'So this is it, then.'

I silently gritted my teeth and steeled myself.

Of course, in this vast Abyssal Sea, there were probably more than one or two creatures with abilities like that.

But right now, the closest one was that lobster.

And I didn’t have the luxury of time to gamble on finding something easier to get.

Even after retreating far enough, I watched my Water Partition continue to shrink and hardened my resolve.

—If I had to eat something, it would be that.

After retreating far enough, I returned to a shallower depth where the barnacles were visible again.

There was no time to waste. I immediately turned my attention to the barnacles around me.

[Awaken from your illusions! Even if you know you will die tomorrow, if you lack the resolve to live another day—then you are deceiving yourself! Betraying yourself!]

I kept my distance from the barnacles, still spewing incomprehensible nonsense, and waved an anglerfish ball in front of them.

"Want this?”

[!!]

-Slurp

The barnacles greedily shot out their tongues, trying to snatch the food that had rolled before them after a long time.

"Not a chance."

I hadn’t lived a life light enough to lose to the likes of barnacles.

I casually swatted their tongues aside, teasing them. They snapped their shells shut in anger.

Their fluent speech had given me a bit of hope, but unlike the anglerfish, they didn’t seem to possess much intelligence.

But—well.

They were fluent.

And if they lived here, this was within the range that lobster appeared.

They must have seen it at least once.

In other words, they might know something. Rolling the anglerfish ball teasingly, I spoke again.

"If you want to eat, answer me. Do you know the lobster?”

[...?]

"Lobster. Crayfish. Crustacean. You don’t know?”

[...]

The barnacles showed not the slightest reaction.

As disappointment settled in, a rather brilliant idea flashed through my mind.

"How about this, then?”

These things had no eyes or ears. Ordinary clams might, but these were not that sort. Even now, they were perceiving the world solely through their Tide Sense.

I recalled when I carved wood with wind magic while I had first learned magic and used the current to shape a form.

After several attempts, the flowing current sculpted a single living shape.

It was the lobster I had just seen.

The moment the clams sensed the form through their Tide Sense, they went berserk, clacking wildly.

[Slow Fish! Slow Fish! Slow Fish! Slow Fish!]

"Slow Fish? Is that its name?”

[Slow Fish, Slow Fish!]

"?"

Puzzled, I thought back to how the whale had reacted when it saw the lobster. It was muttering something like ‘Slo, slo.’ Of course, it hadn’t pronounced it as clearly, since it was the Abyssal Sea language, and the nuance was somewhat different.

Still, it seemed that the lobster's name was Slow Fish.

'Really? Slow Fish?’

That was slow? It had been ridiculously fast, though.

And it wasn’t even a fish. The language of these deep-sea creatures really was weird. Setting that aside, I asked again in their language.

"Where does it live?”

[Bottom! Bottom! Bottom!]

"...What’s its weakness?”

[?]

"Do you know what it likes to eat?”

[??]

It seemed like these clams only knew that those things were called Slow Fish.

If even the clams living closest only had that much information, the others probably wouldn’t know much either. It would be easier to assume that everything I already knew was all there was and plan based on that.

"Hmm..."

I sat against the side of the canyon, lost in thought.

What I know was that it was a monster moving at a speed beyond what my Tide Sense could track.

Using pressure against it would be bordering on insanity. Even if I tried, I could only restrain it for a very brief moment.

If it got close to me, I might as well consider myself dead. I had no confidence I could survive getting caught in those claws.

Could my pressure blade slice through its shell?

I clenched my fist. At this depth, it wasn’t completely impossible.

At the very least, I hadn’t seen a single creature capable of forming blade-like things out of hydraulic pressure. If I struck the same spot repeatedly, then I could probably cut it, I guess.

...But could I really do that?

'There’s no way.'

Repeatedly striking the same spot?

Against something I couldn’t perceive with my Tide Sense, I couldn’t stop with pressure, and that was several times faster than me?

'If I swallowed all the World-Sealing Elixirs and went all out—’

Would my full power even surpass the pressure that the whale had unleashed?

'What about waiting for another whale and ambushing the lobster?'

Waiting for another being like that whale, letting the lobster start its hunt, and then ambushing it from the side—

No. Thinking back on it now, that fight had been far too one-sided. Even if I had joined in, it wouldn’t have changed much. The Slow Fish had simply been hunting.

I spent precious time thinking it over, dozens, hundreds of times.

The result was always the same. At the end of thought and consideration, I would always get devoured by the Slow Fish.

"Think…”

The more desperately I thought about it, the harder I clenched my teeth and forced myself to think more.

If I hadn’t seen it, maybe I could’ve backed off. But the moment I saw the Slow Fish, retreat stopped being an option.

The difference between obtaining that power and not was painfully clear.

Even if I had to overexert myself, even if I had to force it, I had to hunt the Slow Fish.

What could I use? How far could I cross the line?

What I held in my hands right now was…

"...Huh.”

In that instant, something suddenly occurred to me.

I briefly checked my Water Partition. If I rushed, it might work.

I swam with all my might toward the opposite side of the canyon.

'Would it still be there?'

It was uncertain, but checking wouldn’t hurt.

Backtracking again and again—I headed to where I’d first seen the corpse.

Soon, there might be two—but for now, there was only one.

The corpse of Nightfall.

"..."

So much time had passed.

Yet it hadn’t decayed at all, it hadn’t been crushed, and it just floated there as if it were still alive.

I swallowed my discomfort and stared at it.

'This thing definitely …'

Hadn’t it supposedly dissolved into my Abyssal Sea?

It was something like residue left behind when Puppet collapsed.

If that was the case, then maybe—

I hesitated to touch it directly since it seemed filthy, so I used the current to examine its fingers.

...There it was.

"Just as I thought. This is still here.”

A ring made of several loops of thread.

A fragment of Nightfall’s ability used to control others.

Since the power was still there, I briefly wondered if she was still alive, but if she could survive this long in the Abyssal Sea, she wouldn’t have died to me in the first place. It was just a corpse.

I shoved Nightfall aside so she would be out of my sight, then slipped the thread onto my right index finger.

-Sssrk.

"Ugh."

Along with a slight headache, I found myself naturally able to draw white threads from my right hand.

Since I’d once been her close subordinate, there was no real difficulty in using the power. If anything, being immersed in the currents made it feel smoother than before.

Although there was less of it than back then.

As a test, I used the thread to bind a passing shark with three tails.

[...?...]

It was the same as before.

The shark began to move according to my will. I couldn’t order it to fight or kill, but I could make it move.

Hmm. So this is its extent.

"Not bad…but is it actually useful?”

It wasn’t useless, exactly. But deep-sea creatures were so stupid that making them move didn’t really require threads to begin with.

I sighed and was about to pull the thread back in. That was when…

[U-useful.]

"?"

[N-not…bad.]

The shark twitched and awkwardly repeated the words it had heard.

"...What?"

[...What, what, what…]

This reaction was clearly different from every deep-sea creature I’d encountered so far. A creeping suspicion surfaced as I spoke again.

"Can you understand what I’m saying?”

[...]

"No, wait. If you understand, nod your head.”

[...]

"Hey, I mean this part. That’s your head."

Something unbelievable happened.

Something unbelievable happened. The shark nodded.

"...What the hell.”

When I’d bound deep-sea creatures with Nightfall’s ability before, this hadn’t been possible.

What was different now? There was only one answer.

"Language..."

So that was it.

Back then, I could control deep-sea creatures.

But unlike humans, they didn’t come with a remote control.

Different species required different interfaces. Every command I’d given them before was effectively incomprehensible to them.

They obeyed direct force, like when I moved them by pushing them, but anything beyond that simply didn’t register.

Now it was different. I finally held the controller for the creatures I bound as puppets.

"Ugh..."

Realizing that made the thinness of the ring feel like a curse.

With this little thread, even if I managed to catch the Slow Fish, I wouldn’t be able to tame it.

No, control itself required consent. It wasn’t like the Slow Fish would politely say yes to “Would you like to be dominated by me?”

......Then why was this thing obeying me without consent?

Was it because deep-sea creatures lacked something like free will? I sighed, but an unsettling thought crossed my mind.

'Did Heavenly Balance know this?’

Nightfall’s ability only worked if you understood the language of the deep-sea creatures.

If Heavenly Balance knew that, it explained why she’d taught me the language first. And why Scarlet Abyss’ Sharmia had delivered the completed version. But how did she know…?

...That could wait. I shook my head to clear the noise and looked back at the shark.

I’d called the ring cursed earlier, but it was honestly the opposite.

"Hey, go crush every clam you can see.”

[Cr, ush…]

Without a hint of hesitation, the shark lashed its three tails and surged forward, tearing into the chattering clams.

-Crunch!

[!?, ???!!!!]

The clams panicked at the sudden attack and tried to fight back, but it was meaningless against the shark’s ferocious bites.

The shark frantically chewed through the clams until I told it to stop.

"...This."

This was pretty good.

I nodded slightly.

Of course, the odds were still slim. It felt like I had at least been given a steel knife after trying to fight a bear barehanded.

The ability of Puppet was probably the strongest blade I could wield here.

So the question was how to use it.

With only a handful of threads, how could I utilize this power best?

[...G-guhk.]

"Ah, damn, you startled me…"

My thoughts were interrupted when the shark suddenly swam up close.

It probably finished carrying out its order. I scratched my head and looked at it—

"..."

And then I froze. White armor has grown across its outer shell.

There must have been dozens of clams. And in exchange it had gained that addition.

Stunned, I hesitated for a moment—

"—That’s it."

The corner of my mouth twisted upward.

I’d found it.

The only way to catch a Slow Fish.

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