Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 25

WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 25 - Rising Above (8)

"Pleased to meet you. Could you maybe clean this up first?”

I took a few steps back to avoid the spreading blood from touching my feet. I was certain that he had mastered some sort of magic to manipulate blood.

Faris chuckled at me before snapping his fingers.

"Ah, don’t worry. You deserve some special treatment.”

Swish… The blood that had almost seemed to be alive instantly sank into the ground, vanishing without a trace.

"See, rituals that aren’t any better than mindlessly stabbing or cutting are really beneath me. If handled properly, this art might even become a Grand System.”

"I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

For now I tried to keep him talking, drawing his attention.

Thankfully, he seemed oblivious to my intentions.

"This is what I mean."

Wearing a malicious grin, two mummies emerged from behind Faris.

Drool dripped from the corners of their mouths, and their hands were dripping with fresh blood.

...Of course. To go against this guy also meant taking care of every single one of his mummies.

All I could hope for was that the teachers were still holding their ground somewhere out there.

"Handle him carefully. You can’t kill him under any circumstances.”

"Grrrrrk."

I softly exhaled when I saw the mummy slowly approaching me, then spoke in an attempt to stall.

"Erm, excuse me. You said you belonged to a group called Scarlet Abyss, right?”

"Huuh? Ah. Yeah. Though I’d say it’s more of an employer-employee relationship.”

"I see. So I was wondering why that group would want to abduct us. You don’t have to tell me, if it’s too difficult to answer. I’m just curious.”

I tried keeping my tone as polite and businesslike as I could.

Faris tilted his head before smiling broadly.

"Man, the more I talk to you, the more you grow on me, kid. I don’t have a reason not to tell you. Little kids like you fall very easily.”

"...Fall?”

"Yes. It’s when the world you created starts hating you. You could say it’s a form of self-torment. And we aim to create those Fallen.”

"..."

I frowned, feeling shocked.

What he had been describing seemed pretty familiar to me after all.

So, those Scarlet Abyss bastards were deliberately trying to create people like me?

...Why?

"Can’t tell you why. As I said, I’m just a hired hand. So, since I answered your question, let me ask you something, too. Do you have anything you’re afraid of?”

"I do."

"Then be nice and tell this uncle, okay? Worlds aren’t easily born. You’ll have to suffer through your worst nightmares, over and over. I’ll make it quick.”

"Hmm..."

Feeling Faris’ sadistic gaze licking over me, a mummy approached me, clamping its hand around my arm as I struggled.

Despite the pain lancing through me, and feeling as if my bone was about to snap, I still answered honestly.

"I guess my biggest fear would be drowning. Falling into water, suffocating, dying completely unable to breath. That’s the scariest.”

"Oho, you sure are honest. What a good boy.”

"Yes. I’ve experienced it quite often these days, and every time it happens it’s truly terrifying.”

"...?"

"Next would be being crushed to death. Being flattened until the whole body collapses into itself is also very scary.”

"I see. That one might be a bit hard, huh? I don’t exactly have the right tools for that.”

"Really? In that case, freezing to death would also work. Slowly dying in the cold, all alone in the middle of nowhere is also pretty frightening.”

"...Oho."

"I’m also pretty scared of being devoured by strange monsters, ah, suffering through great pain while constantly staying conscious is also up there. Honestly, there isn’t much I’m not afraid of.”

Faris looked at me as if I was some sort of madman.

"Hey, you stupid kid. I don’t mind listening to you, but you do know that you’ll be suffering from all that, right?”

"Of course. But well, even if you don’t make it happen, those things will happen to me eventually anyway.”

"...What?"

That was the signal.

I spotted Elisia waving from the floor below using my Tide Sense.

What perfect timing. I met Faris eyes and continued to speak.

"Well, shall we start with being crushed?”

"!"

Ruuuumble—! A thunderous rumbling shook the corridor leading to the ceiling collapsing.

Faris looked up in shock, but—

this time he wouldn’t have any time to respond.

* * *

Ruuumble, rumble!!

Only after the rumbling subsided did one of the children poke their head out from the cell.

Seeing the completely ruined corridor they muttered to themselves.

"He really got crushed…”

The kids, who had been holding their breath as they listened in on Jern’s and Faris’ conversation, were now gazing blankly at the collapsed passageway.

"...Is he okay? I mean, we only did what he told us, but still.”

"Well..."

They couldn’t even fully understand the concept of Jern being in danger.

Sure, they had seen far stronger wizards before.

But— someone their own age that had already achieved that much?

He possessed talent that didn’t even leave room for jealousy.

His calm, unwavering decisiveness in the face of crisis, that always led to the right answer, and not allowing even the slightest fear to pass his face, made him feel so reliable that he almost seemed omnipotent to them.

"He knew exactly which pillar would lead to the ceiling collapsing completely, right?”

"And he never once fell into a single trap…”

While most of the children had found themselves speaking formally when referring to him, one child finally quietly voiced their real thoughts.

"...He really does seem like a true wizard.”

Only then did they start to grasp what their teacher had meant when they said that.

Was conjuring fire from one's hand, or spraying out water truly magic? No.

Wasn’t being able to freely manipulate an unfathomable realm much more like magic?

"...Let’s go!"

Elisia shouted before this silent realization could fully settle in.

"We need to get out of here fast. Our parents must be waiting for us!”

"Ah, right. Let’s go!”

"Uurgh, I can’t stand this humidity anymore…”

At Elisia’s shout they came back to their senses and finally started to leave the underground prison one by one.

Elisia was about to follow them, but before she left, she took one last glimpse towards the massive hole from which still some rubble was raining down.

"..."

Unlike the other children, she was aware of the truth.

The boy who had just fallen down there wasn’t some overwhelming prodigy, but just a plain 1-star mage.

That boy, who Hughins had mistaken for the crown prince was just a natural-born who had been working in the Academy as a janitor to sneakily listen in on their classes that they took for granted.

"...Just hold on a bit longer!”

But Elisia knew something far more important.

'I’ll be back to rescue you!'

That this was a debt that had to absolutely be repaid.

* * *

The currents always pushed me around.

When I first awakened magic… Or rather, realized that I had fallen into this Abyssal sea, my most prominent worry had been what would happen if I was ever lifted to the skys by the currents–

That was why I trained relentlessly until I became certain of a single fact.

Drowning, freezing, getting crushed, even being swallowed alive by fish I couldn’t even name.

All kinds of deaths existed in that world, except falling.

"Phew..."

I shoved aside the rubble and got to my feet.

There was a bit of dust on my body, but no internal or external injuries.

Dusting myself off I scanned the area. I was roughly located on the third basement floor, a gigantic hole we had crashed through in the ceiling above me.

This had only been possible because I made the kids create some cracks beforehand.

I would have liked some backup, but there was no way in hell that the kids would be able to keep their mental states calm for even a second facing that guy.

"...Kid.”

And as I had expected, there was no way a little trick like that would defeat that monster.

I could see Faris burst up from the rubble, drenched in blood, his face clearly showing his annoyance in the dim light.

To be more precise, he poured out of the rubble.

It seemed like he had momentarily liquified himself, before taking on a human form again.

He perched on the pile of rock, completely unharmed, as he looked down at me, letting out a deep sigh.

"You’re starting to freak me out a little here. Resorting to filthy tricks like that at your age? How scary.”

Yeah. That kind of magic could certainly exist out there.

The world of the arcane was vast after all, and there was so much I still didn’t know yet.

But the crimson blood that was staining my sea was something entirely different.

"Did you also fall?”

"Oh, yeah. That’s why the Scarlet Abyss hired me.”

Faris splattered his blood everywhere with the wave of a hand.

I reflexively dodged, but that didn’t do much.

-Splurt!

"Ugh...!"

From the splattered droplets, long spears of blood formed that shot straight towards me.

If I hadn’t pushed myself to the side using wind at the last second, those things would have pierced through my thigh. Still, their tip still tore my flesh, which made blood flow out of me profusely.

I immediately proceeded to counter.

"Cut!"

The wind spell I had honed for weeks perfectly sliced across Faris’ lower abdomen.

"...You sure are a strange kid.”

He didn’t even attempt to dodge or block. He simply took the blow, letting himself bleed.

A normal person would have definitely died instantly from that wound, but for some reason Faris didn’t even flinch, seeming as if he was completely unharmed. It seemed that my theory that a blow to his spine would take care of him—turned out to be false.

However, I had gained some time while he was busy regenerating. I fled, blood dripping from my body, rounding a bend in the prison corridor.

"I noticed this earlier, but you sure don’t act like a kid.”

However, he, seemingly incredibly familiar with this prison’s layout, followed after me with unhurried steps.

Naturally, the path I had taken was leading to a dead end. I tore a piece off my clothes and tightly bound it around my thigh.

"What difference would it make if I cried or begged for mercy?”

"No, that would be— actually just imagining it would be damn disgusting.”

"How unfortunate. Then I’ll try harder not to.”

Now, how about this?

I scraped together the oil from the lanterns I’d been gathering beforehand, pouring it into a small flask.

Then, when Faris just rounded the corner, I lit it on fire and tossed it at him.

Fuooosh—! The flames roared to life in an instant.

"You sure remind me of myself, back in the day.”

And they died down just as quickly.

He had used his nearly endless supply of blood to douse the fire.

Every attempt I made had a cost attached to it.

Splurt!

More blood spears flew at me. I quickly used my current to pull the surrounding rocks around me to block, but I couldn’t stop all of them.

"Krgh...!"

This time my left arm was pierced.

I forced myself to go down the last passage, tightly wrapping the wound using a strip of cloth.

Pain like I had never felt before shot through me, my arm trembling nonstop. Where the hell was that adrenaline kick I had heard so much about?

"...Those words are rather unpleasant.”

"It was praise though. Well, unlike what will happen to you, I chose to fall.”

"You chose? I thought Scarlet Abyss forced you to.”

"That had nothing to do with Scarlet Abyss. I was just some backwater natural-born.”

Step, step.

I let out a small sigh, as I stared at the mossy green wall made of stone that had completely blocked my path.

I popped all the remaining pills into my mouth, chewing them hard before swallowing them so that their effects would kick in as fast as possible.

"I didn’t even realize I was a wizard. That fever? I just thought it was the flu or whatever. Not a day passed and I was made to shovel pig dung and got beaten up on top of that. My old man, y’see, used me like a slave.”

"Want me to cry for you?”

"No need for that. If you looked at it as a father-son relationship, then yeah, it was the worst. But thinking of it as a master-slave relationship, then it wasn’t that bad. The problem came after my mom just up and left. So now whenever he came home drunk his punching bag wasn’t there waiting for him anymore, so he used me instead.”

Even without listening to all of that, I could tell that he had raised himself in hell, but Faris didn’t seem to be explaining all of this to me, but rather himself.

He stopped a few meters before me, looking down at me with a satisfied grin.

"He tried to strangle me once, so I grabbed a glass shard from a bottle he had broken and stabbed him right in the neck. He couldn’t even scream and just collapsed.”

"What a happy family.”

"Right? But that old bastard wouldn’t just die like that. He kept struggling and writhing for hours. It was an amazing sight, so I kept watching from the bed, wondering when he’d die…”

Faris sent more drops of blood flying with the wave of one of his hands.

The wall had turned completely red. This meant that blood spears could sprout out from anywhere, at any moment leading to certain death.

Or perhaps he was about to torture me, which was worse than death in my opinion.

"He finally died after all his blood drained from his body around sunrise. Now what lessons do you think I took away from this?”

"Hmm, that discipline isn't a healthy solution?”

"That’s not wrong, but no. I had come to realize something else.”

Faris’ voice dropped, as if he was about to share his most intimate secret.

"This world… isn’t actually inhabited by humans."

"That’s some bullshit right there. Then what are we supposed to be, huh?”

"Blood."

"?"

"People die when all their blood has been drained, right?"

"Sure, that’s usually how it goes, right?”

"So in the end, our flesh is but a vessel for blood. The heart pumps blood, the veins contain it, the lungs fill it with oxygen. In other words, blood is our very essence. You, I, everyone in this world is just trapped. Trapped in this shitty shell some call a body.”

At that moment his hand instantly burst into a bloody mess.

But not long after the blood that flowed out of it seamlessly formed another one.

Faris gazed upon this grotesque sight with immense pride, as if he had discovered a fundamental truth of the world.

"This is our essence. You and I are nothing but clots of blood. The only difference is whether you accept it or not.”

"Hmm..."

I had heard that mages were prone to dogmatism. It seemed to be true.

But still...

Something felt off somehow.

I stroked my chin and asked.

"Is that it?”

"What?"

Faris tilted his head as if he didn’t know what I was talking about.

"So your big enlightenment was that all people in this world are made of blood and that we’re a~ll just trapped in our inner worlds? That’s all?”

"...Yes. Do you know more? Have you heard of that somewhere before?”

I looked into Faris’ eyes, which seemed rather wary.

I didn’t really get it actually.

"That’s really all there is?”

"Yeah. What? Did you think the inner world was some romantic fairy tale world? Don’t worry. You’ll see it for yourself once you fall…”

"No. It’s just a lot simpler than I expected. Quite surprising.”

"?"

My world was the abyssal deep sea.

And even now, the sea was slowly reaching for me.

Every time I breathed, I felt something other than air enter me. Every time I took a step, it would be met with slight resistance, as if I was underwater. My vision dimmed, my body felt cold even on the hottest of days.

Everywhere I looked, no matter what time, I could only see the sea.

A world that absolutely hates me and yet cannot escape from.

But—

"So it’s just— that people are blood? That’s your world?”

"What…?”

"A pathetic, little world, born from killing a single person. You don’t even know what a price is yet you call that the world’s hatred? This is nothing more than your fear of not being able to return to a human form after being turned into blood.”

"..."

Was that really a world?

...How could that be a world?

A world built on the realization that humans were nothing but lumps of blood wasn’t actually that far removed from reality after all.

"It feels a bit… Hmm, small.”

I wasn’t mocking him.

It was closer to wonder, I guess? A hint of envy even.

"...Aha, I see.”

Faris however didn’t seem to take it that way.

The sly smirk that had never left his lips now completely vanished.

"Then let’s see what wonderful world you’ll create. I’ll gladly watch from right beside you.”

His tone was filled to the brim with hatred. To that I simply retorted.

"No need to wait. I’ll show you right away.”

"-?"

I took a single deep breath.

Then—I turned up the water pressure to its absolute maximum.

"K-kuhuk…?"

"Krgh…”

The pressure appeared instantly.

Both I, who had been prepared for it, and Faris, who wasn’t, collapsed to the ground.

"A-agh…!!!”

It felt like my body was being tied up and slowly crushed beneath a hydraulic press.

The air in my lungs was squeezed out of me. Not only was I unable to breathe, I couldn't even move a single finger.

"You, what, are….!”

Faris looked at me with horrified, confused eyes, then came to a realization as he saw his own arm beginning to crumple up under the invisible weight.

"A-already…?!”

"..."

I couldn’t even answer him.

Even though we were under the exact same pressure, a child’s body and an adult’s body reacted very differently.

That didn’t mean Faris remained unharmed. His body was gradually being reduced to a mere puddle of blood.

But he still managed to smile and laugh.

"...Krgh, ugh, cough, fuck…! This is insane…! One of the Three Calamities that those Scarlet Abyss bastards were trying so desperately to create, natural born…? By chance, cough…”

His gaze, filled with greed, swept over me.

The drops of blood surrounding us began to quiver slightly before they gradually merged into spears.

"Kuhuhuk, lucky, so lucky…!”

While the spears he made in his half shattered state weren’t comparable to those he made before, they certainly were still aiming for my throat.

I was kneeling on the floor, unable to move a single finger, and watch as they approached.

All I could do was wait.

"If this works, then I won’t need anything else…! I’ll…”

"F-uck…”

I squeezed air out of my lungs, somehow managing to force out some words alongside it.

"Y-you’re so fuck…ing slow, bastard…”

"Hah, it’ll be enough to pierce your damn throat…”

"Not you…”

"?"

Confusion flashed over Faris’ face.

-Crunch!

Then his shoulder was ‘cut off’.

"...Huh?"

Faris looked down at his shoulder with a blank expression.

What he saw was a circular gaping wound as if something unseen had devoured it.

Of course, even if he had been able to see it, he wouldn’t have been able to understand what was going on.

...That he was currently being eaten alive.

"W-wait what the hell is this?”

I was pretty lucky.

To explain, it seemed like our natures were a perfect match.

Blood had the tendency to blend. I didn’t just run away, bleeding all over the place for nothing.

Faris had stepped through all my puddles of blood and every time he liquified his body he would drag it into his body.

Then I made the blood clinging to his body recognize that it was underwater.

And the deep sea creatures were also able to recognize it now. To them my blood was nothing short of a delicacy—

[~!!!!!!~~~~~]

"N-no…”

That was all it took.

Crunch, crunch, riiiip!

Faris thrashed about, desperately trying to escape.

But it was all pointless. I wasn’t about to release the water pressure until I was completely sure that he couldn’t fight anymore, even if it meant that I would die myself.

The deep sea fish, still invisible, seemed to laugh as they swarmed around Faris.

Ah. There was one thing I could now see quite clearly.

Ther endless appetite accompanied by their sharp teeth.

"No… you son of a bitch…!”

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

To anyone else, this would have been a nightmarish sight.

Faris’ body was vanishing piece by piece into thin air.

Only I could see what was really occurring to him.

All kinds of deep-sea fish were swarming him and tear away his flesh one bite at a time. And another bite, and one more.

"...You, crazy bastard.”

Not long after, Faris, his head already half bitten off, muttered, resignation clear in his tone.

"...What kind of world are you living in…?”