WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 3 - Birth (3)

People often said that Dercia Aspandil, who had the highest chance of reaching the Heavenly Realm, was the greatest mage in the Empire today.

Those who walked the path of magic would argue that it was far too premature to claim such things, as a wizard couldn’t be judged merely by how far they had advanced—

But none of them would deny that she was a leading wizard, still striving relentlessly even now.

However, those who actually knew the elf Dercia Aspandil gave a different answer.

“Lady Cia, what you need to cultivate right now are your social skills, not your magical skills.”

“...”

Dercia paused mid-page turn and scowled at her maid for daring to speak such insolent words.

But the chief maid, Ciel, continued to jab at the fireplace with her poker while stabbing cold verbal daggers into Dercia.

“How many people have you spoken to besides me in the past week?”

“Countless. Do you think I remember all of them?”

“Conversations not about magic.”

“...There’s no need for pointless chatter. My mission is to walk the path of magic.”

“I once heard someone say one should walk the path of a human before the path of magic. I believe the speaker's name was Dercia.”

“What exactly are you suggesting?”

Dercia hurled her book in anger. Ciel caught it effortlessly without even looking and slid it into the shelf.

“What I’m suggesting is you leave the Tower once in a while, get some fresh air, and speak with people. Even if you reach the pinnacle of magic, if you sink to the bottom as a person, isn’t that like putting the cart before the horse?”

“My ears are already growing sore. Did you know that this is the fortieth time you’ve told me that?”

“If I’ve said it that many times, perhaps it’s time you listened. My patience is nearly at its limit.”

“...As I’ve said, my mission is to walk the path of magic. I don’t have time for emotional exchanges with others, as you know.”

Dercia, sensing that Ciel was seriously trying to drive her out this time, tried appealing to her emotions, but it was completely useless. Ciel’s resolve to drag this shut-in out into the world today was unshakable.

Putting down her duster, Ciel turned her vacant eyes to Dercia.

“Your mind is rotting away. I fear that today, I’ll have to resort to force. Please understand my loyalty, though it must be expressed through a fist.”

“...Hmph. No matter how much I may owe you, this time I’ll make sure you understand the difference in our status—”

Exactly five minutes later.

Dercia found herself banished for a week, standing dazed in the capital’s main street with nothing but a shabby robe and enough money to buy a small castle.

“I’m willing…to try for you.”

Muttering to herself in vain, she sighed and began walking.

She hadn’t fought with Ciel seriously. Without her, Dercia would have died in some back alley years ago.

Not even a beast would seriously turn its fangs on its savior. So, naturally, they had settled it with rock-paper-scissors.

“So that line about expressing something through her fist was just psychological warfare, huh…?”

Marveling at Ciel’s cunning in subconsciously leading her into throwing paper, she accepted her defeat and made her way toward the home of a noble who owed her a favor.

“I—”

“Lady Dercia!! Please, feel free to stay as long as you like and do whatever you wish, whenever you wish! Thank you so much!”

Before she could even explain her situation, the Count bowed so deeply his nose nearly touched the ground and offered her the finest room in his mansion.

It was the natural treatment for the greatest mage of the Empire, so Dercia simply accepted it. She lazily lay around in her room, ready to pull out a book, only to realize that there were no bookshelves here.

“Tsk.”

How could a room have no bookshelves? Could one even call something like that a room…? With such thoughts in mind, she opened the window and leapt out.

There was a garden below, but the place she landed in was the library instead. Originally, she had only intended to grab a book and read it in her room, but while she was busy browsing the shelves, she found something rather interesting.

[How to Teach Simple Magic to Your Insect Familiars]

Rubbing over the cover, she realized it was brand new. She sat at the nearest seat, intending to read a few pages, check the overview, and then…

“Uhm—”

“...?”

Someone spoke to her.

Checking her internal clock, Dercia realized that an hour had already passed.

More than enough time for someone else to show up.

How annoying. She’d give them just a short answer, pack up the book, and return to the count’s place. That was her plan until something very strange reached her ears.

“Are you… perhaps, the librarian?”

“...?”

Only then did Dercia properly look at the person before her.

Black hair, small stature, and with remaining baby fat on his face. A young noble child who still hadn’t learned much of the world.

Dercia wasn’t conceited enough to get angry at a child for not recognizing her. She could see the boy fidgeting in place, clearly waiting for a response.

Having no real experience of dealing with children, she seriously racked her brain for plausible responses.

First, ignore him.

The boy would be deeply hurt, but nothing more would come from it.

At that point she decided to examine the child’s appearance.

She rarely ever encountered human children, but she thought he was cuter than she expected. She didn’t particularly want to hurt him.

Second. Scold him and ask him how he could dare to call her a mere librarian.

That would probably traumatize the boy, which would lead him to grow timid for the rest of his life, and Ciel would most definitely kill her if she ever found out.

That kind of outcome was completely unacceptable.

Third, just say that she wasn’t the librarian, and then leave.

That would be the most correct answer, but… at that moment Darcia suddenly remembered the mission Ciel had given her.

Leave the Magic Tower, get fresh air, and meet people.

She had left the Magic Tower. That much was true.

She had also gotten fresh air. That was undeniable.

But as for meeting people and talking to them…

The Count had practically buried his head in the floor like an ostrich the moment they met, preventing her from saying even a single word.

That couldn’t be called a conversation, so she hadn’t fulfilled her final mission yet.

Simply saying that she wasn’t the librarian and leaving would also be nothing more than an exchange of facts, not a conversation.

That was why Dercia chose the fourth option.

Acknowledging it.

“My apologies.”

“Pardon?”

“I was told no one would be coming today, so I acted quite rudely. My name is Dercia Aspandil.”

She lifted the hem of her skirt, greeting him with a small bow.

“How may I help you?”

“E-erm…”

Seeing the boy so flustered made Dercia strangely feel a tiny flicker of amusement.

Seemingly having collected his thoughts, the boy swallowed once before asking.

“I’d like to read books about the basics of magic.”

“Which kind?”

“...Pardon?”

“Elemental studies, arcane engineering, spirit magic, and so on. There are hundreds of schools and styles of magic. Which foundation do you wish to explore?”

“Well, erm, actually I only just went through Soul Fever, so I’m not really sure.”

“Hmm...?”

Dercia studied the boy, feeling slightly surprised.

Her eyes unraveled the flow of his mana, peering into its depths.

It seemed like his spirit hadn’t yet fully adjusted to this new world he found himself in.

Just as he said, he was just a novice wizard, barely a week past his Soul Fever.

Dercia felt a faint sense of responsibility as his senior, so she began to guide him.

“Please follow me.”

Since this library was open to all nobles, the overall quality of the books wasn’t very high. She’d read about 80% of the hundred thousand books but still knew well enough where to find each one.

Using her telekinesis, she drew out around a hundred books and spread them around him. The boy immediately picked one up, read for about five minutes, then frowned.

“Umm, is there maybe a book about how to not get hurt by magic?”

“...Pardon?”

Dercia tilted her head.

About not getting hurt? By his own magic? Why would magic try to kill its user?

“I don’t understand the question. What do you mean by not getting hurt by magic? Did you perhaps study elemental spells of the Fierce Flame Realm too soon?”

“No, I mean those black things—Huh? I guess there aren’t any here. Anyway, aside from that, how should I put it… Currents? You know, the waves and such can get pretty dangerous sometimes, right?”

“Currents…? Waves…?”

Dercia repeated, her expression puzzled. The boy was talking about concepts she had never heard about before in her whole life of studying magic.

Realizing that he might have made a mistake, the boy quickly bowed his head.

“...No, I must have misunderstood something. Thank you for your help.”

Watching the boy about to put the books away and leave, Dercia, thinking that she wouldn’t be able to return for a while anyway, decided that she had some time to spare right now and stopped him.

“Could you show me your magic?”

“My magic?”

“Yes. I have some knowledge, so if I see it, I may be able to understand what you mean.”

“Magic… I’m not sure… if this can be counted as magic, but… alright.”

The boy’s expression grew vague as he raised the books into the air.

They didn’t fall.

He kept stacking them higher in midair. Two, three, four…

When the number passed thirty, Dercia stopped him and asked.

“Aren’t you getting tired?”

“No. Not at all. I can manage over a hundred.”

The books all floated, remaining motionless, so his words didn't seem to be mere boasting.

If what he said was true, this was truly an unbelievable, extraordinary talent for a telekinetic wizard.

But something was strange.

The boy was using magic without consuming even the slightest bit of mana.

She couldn’t feel any flow of mana at all. It was as if he was simply making things float into the air using some supernatural power.

Dercia felt genuinely intrigued for the first time in a long while as she lightly pressed on one of the books.

The boy tilted his head, showing no sense of strain or pressure. She found that gesture rather cute. She finally pressed the book all the way down to the floor.

“How much weight can you hold?”

“Just about a book’s worth. I can manage lighter things too.”

“Could you try dropping them?”

“I can’t do that.”

“...You can’t?”

“If I go too far away, they will fall. About fifty meters, I think.”

The more she heard, the stranger things became.

The boy had no control whatsoever over this phenomenon he was creating.

No, was this even magic at all? He was using magic without using a shred of mana after all.

Dercia was completely speechless, faced with this anomaly of a situation.

The boy watched her before finally opening his mouth.

“I don’t know if this will help, but I think of magic as the sea.”

“W-wait.”

Dercia instinctively stopped him, realizing what he had been trying to say.

Looking at the boy’s puzzled expression, her curiosity as a mage intensely clashed with her conscience.

What he was about to speak about was an enlightenment.

The laws that constitute a wizard’s inner world.

A ball rolls downhill. Water boils when heated. Ice melts over time…

These were the rules that defined the world.

In other words, for the world to exist, these laws are necessary.

So the chaotic inner world of a wizard also had laws that defined it.

Those were called enlightenments.

If one knew a wizard’s enlightenment, one also knew the wizard. That was why wizards kept theirs deeply hidden.

After all, the moment they were revealed, their inner world could be unraveled.

Even for a novice mage, an enlightenment was still an enlightenment.

To eavesdrop on someone who didn’t yet understand the importance of it was the most filthy, disgraceful act one could commit.

Dercia felt a complicated mixture of emotions, yet her thirst for knowledge flared up from within her when her thoughts wandered to this incomprehensible phenomenon.

So she made a compromise with herself.

She would listen to his enlightenment but never speak of it to anyone.

After barely managing to soothe her conscience, she nodded.

“...Go on.”

“...Yes, I think of the world as an ocean. People walk on its surface, but wizards are beings that have fallen into it.”

“And why do you think that?”

“Because after becoming a wizard, everything around me feels like I'm underwater. These books aren’t floating because I’m lifting them, but rather because they are simply buoyant.”

Dercia immediately activated her Mystic Eye and studied the floating book.

It was true. She could see the books ever so slightly falling toward the floor.

However, it was so subtle no one would even notice. Even calling it “falling” felt rather strange to describe it.

If she had to describe it… Yes.

They were sinking.

“I know this might sound a little harsh, but that’s why I don’t think that mages are really better than ordinary people. The sea is full of dangers, right? I don’t even know how I’m supposed to survive here.”

“...Hmm”

“Ever since the Soul Fever, I keep seeing these strange black shapes. They’re obviously not friendly, so I avoid them. And sometimes these, erm, currents? Come rushing at me. Last time it even made me trip, and I nearly got badly hurt. I wanted to know how to deal with things like that.”

“...”

Dercia couldn’t fully focus on his words.

She had already managed to unravel this phenomenon using her peerless magical insight and drawn out the truth—

And the truth was that Mother Nature itself could be unimaginably cruel sometimes.

Deep down, she knew she probably shouldn’t tell him what she had learned.

But she wasn’t empathetic enough to hide the truth because of such thoughts.

“Uhm… Is something wrong?”

Even so, she felt the slightest hint of pity, and slowly opened her mouth.

“Most likely… Your inner world isn’t just any inner world. It’s of the Abyss Realm, more precisely, the Abyssal Sea.”

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