WETRIED TRANSLATIONS

Wizard of the Abyss

[Translator – Aren]

Chapter 71 - Selection (2)

After I had come to a decision, I asked Ciel for more details.

"When do we leave?”

"I was planning on tomorrow. Telling you to ask Sir Brimdal to accompany us was half a joke and half serious. The place where the elves live isn’t somewhere easy to get to.”

"Ah."

So we would be travelling by carriage.

Seeing it this way, I could finally understand how ridiculous Dercia’s magic of walking through a door and appearing in a place kilometers away again was.

As I nodded, Ciel continued.

"We’ll hire the fastest dragon carriage available, but even then it’ll take a week. Most of the journey will take us through remote areas, so there’s a great risk that we run into bandits and wild beasts.”

"I can handle that much.”

"And if the Lady resists when we find her, we’ll need him then as well.”

"...Understood.”

Was she really a maid?

Either way, I couldn’t afford to skip my Arcane Strengthening training for too long anyway, so taking Brimdal along was necessary for me. He’d also be a huge help in emergencies.

The real issue was—if I asked him to come along with me, I was really doubtful that he would just go, ‘Sure, why not?’

Still, I decided it was worth a try at least. So I arranged to meet Ciel tomorrow and headed back to the cabin.

"..."

"Linmel?”

On my way back I met Linmel shuffling along the forest path, on the verge of tears.

What happened to her? When I asked her that, she marched right up to me, with red, teary eyes.

"J-Jern.”

"Yeah, what?”

"Are you really living with Elisia?”

So they were already on a first-name basis?

Wait, why was she asking about that?

"Well… Yeah, for now?”

"Did you meet her dad with her?”

"That did happen.”

"Did you really save each other’s lives?”

"Well…kind of?”

They were all pretty vague questions but were technically true.

It sounded like the sort of wording nobles would use, skirting around truth and lie.

"I mean, to be more precise—”

Before I could even finish my sentence, Linmel’s eyes began to shimmer with more tears, and then she was suddenly gone the moment I blinked.

She sure improved a lot. I lowered my outstretched hand, feeling dumbfounded.

Elisia probably told her some nonsense to show that she was closer to me than her. I would have to clear that up later.

Right now, there was something more important I had to do.

When I reached the cabin, Brimdal was sharpening his sword like usual and then glanced my way.

"What?”

"What, what?"

"Why the long face? You look like you just swallowed a bug.”

Hearing his words, I touched my face, but it felt like my usual expression.

It seemed that highly skilled Knights could even read the slightest shift in expression, huh? Well, there was no real point in hiding anything, so I just said it.

"You know I’m a wizard, right?”

"I’m capable of telling the difference between wizards and Fallen from normal people, so yes.”

"And you also know that I have a master in magic, right?”

"I knew that. Why are you beating around the bush like that?”

"...Do you know Dercia Aspandil?”

"..."

Brimdal appeared quite puzzled, trying to connect my question to the previous one, and then he frowned.

However, eventually he shook his head.

"No, that’s ridiculous. That old monster would never take you as her disciple.”

"I find it rather surprising as well.”

"...You’re serious?”

As I thought, he could read faces pretty damn well.

Once he sensed that I wasn’t lying, he showed shock, rubbing his chin before nodding to himself.

"No… Actually, it kind of makes sense, I guess…”

It seemed like he had found some sort of logic that he could convince himself with.

Taking advantage of that moment, I added more.

"And she’s run away, so I need to go find her, since I have a lot to ask her.”

"What in the world are you talking about? Ran away?”

"My thoughts exactly. I have no idea what’s going on either.”

It was one thing if a disciple decided to leave their master, but when the master just up and left the disciple, that just sounds like some sort of joke.

"Just wait here for a bit.”

Brimdal, still seeming confused, sighed deeply and went into the cabin.

A few minutes later, he came out again with a bag.

"When are we leaving?”

"We’ve decided on tomorrow.”

"Then I guess there isn’t much time. I should just pack the essentials.”

"...?"

Judging by his posture, it seemed like he was seriously coming along, which surprised me somewhat.

"So you're actually coming along?”

"If the destination is those pointy-eared monsters’ homeland, it would take a week to travel there, two weeks to argue and persuade them, and a week to return. Are you planning to skip your Arcane Strengthening training for a whole month?”

"No, but… Are you okay with this?”

"What do you mean?”

"I mean, don’t you have things to do?”

"Teaching you is what I have to do now.”

"..."

Since when had he been this devoted?

Everything was going far too smoothly, to the point that it made me suspicious. His purpose was unclear.

For example—

"If your master is Dercia, then there are things I need to say to her.”

Yeah, that would turn into a disaster. Panicking, I threw up my hands.

"I’m sorry, but if you plan on picking a fight with her, then I can’t have you come with me.”

"I won’t do that. Got nothing to gain from that. Besides, we aren’t even that close.”

"Then what is it you need to say?”

"I’ll say it when we get there.”

"..."

Brimdal, having caught the suspicion in my eyes, then snapped at me.

"Fine. I swear on my title as a Knight that I won’t fight. Satisfied?”

"Thank you.”

Whatever it was, it was enough as long as he swore that he wouldn't do anything.

But I still couldn’t quite shake of some of the questions swirling inside of me. Brimdal didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would stake his title for my sake.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to say it outright, so I tried to word it more indirectly.

"You’ve been kind of nicer lately.”

"Ridiculous. Must be your imagination.”

"It’s not though…”

How should I put it?

Unlike how he acted when we first met, he treated me like an actual disciple now, right?

That was what I found strange, considering that he had been treating me like some useless pebble, even worse than a bug, before. When I was about to point out that contradiction, I felt the back of my neck tingle.

"Ugh."

-Clang!

I barely managed to roll aside in time. A sword was stuck vertically into the spot I had been standing just now.

"You’re slow to react to overhead attacks. You need to train harder. Even if you have eyes that can see everywhere, they mean nothing if you shut them.”

Brimdal threw up the blade he was holding to rest on his shoulder and headed back into the cabin, leaving behind those cool words.

Watching him leave in bewilderment, I yanked the sword from the dirt, sighing.

No matter how I looked at it, it definitely seemed like he used training as an excuse to avoid this conversation.

...Not that I could prove it in any way.

* * *

The next day.

"You really managed to bring him.”

"...I didn’t think he’d actually come either.”

Ciel’s eyes widened when he saw the hulking dwarf.

Brimdal glared at her with a sour expression, then sighed.

"You—”

"Yes? What might be the matter, Sir Brimdal?”

"...Do whatever you want.”

Leaving only those words, he squeezed himself into the dragon carriage.

The way they spoke was clearly like two people who had known each other for some time, so I asked with some degree of curiosity,

"You two knew each other?”

"Not at all. We only briefly brushed shoulders once a long time ago.”

"..."

It definitely didn’t seem that way, but if she was insisting, that meant she didn’t really want to talk about it.

I didn’t really want to pry either. With that, I climbed into the carriage, completing the destructive lineup of a Dwarf Knight, a Fallen mage, and a suspicious headmaid.

"Well then, we'll depart. Have you informed your acquaintances?"

"I took care of everything for now.”

I explained the situation to Aletus and asked him to tell Elisia after I left as well, since she was sure to throw a fit if she heard it before.

I also told the orphanage director that if Linmel came by to visit, to take care of things.

Since my social circle was rather moderate, and even that would be a generous description…all of that only took me about an hour.

At least it was over quick.

"Why should I notify anyone if I’m leaving?”

I was at least better off than Brimdal.

-Clop, clop

As the dragon carriage started to move around like a horse-drawn one, a suffocating silence spread inside.

With Ciel, who was acting like a lubricant, now gone, since she was stirring the carriage, there was nothing Brimdal and I could talk about since we had no common ground.

The good news was that neither of us was the type to care about such things.

Brimdal was wiping down his sword with a cloth, and I was observing the deep-sea creatures.

My top priority was finding that yellow jellyfish.

That thing would definitely be helpful to me. In some way.

"...Oh."

And then.

I was able to witness the death of a deep-sea creature for the first time.

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

It was some gigantic half-shark, half-snake thing. It seemed like it got attacked somewhere since a huge chunk of its torso had been torn off.

It was a bit far away, so I couldn’t catch all the details with my current level of Tide Sense, but I could tell that it was thrashing about.

[--...]

As it thrashed about, I noticed something strange.

Parts of its body dented inward, then returned to its previous state, repeatedly.

Again and again.

The number of dents gradually increased until some parts were unable to return to their original state.

Then dozens of dents appeared all at once.

Crackcrackcrack-!

Pop.

With a soft bursting sound, it suddenly vanished.

It had literally disappeared from the Abyssal Sea.

"...?"

After I searched through the water using my Tide Sense, I froze in shock.

It wasn’t actually gone. Its massive body had been compressed into the size of a lump no bigger than a fingernail.

So that was how it was surviving?

I had assumed that the deep-sea creatures had found some way to resist the pressure, like filling their bodies with water or something like that.

But it seemed like they simply endured the pressure through brute force.

...Like me.

It made no sense. Why did they evolve to make use of the most inefficient survival method one could think of?

As I continued to ponder over this, an anchovy-like creature swam over glamping the tiny shark-lump whole, before drifting away leisurely.

This was the first time I had seen one of these deep-sea creatures eat as well.

No wonder I had never seen them fight. They didn’t need to. All they had to do was wait for the pressure to kill one of them and then feed on the remains. A truly grotesque food chain.

All of that had occurred within mere seconds. If I hadn’t sharpened my Tide Sense to its limit through Brimdal’s training, I might have never learned any of that for the rest of my life.

While trying to steady myself from the shock, I quickly wrote down everything I had learned today.

"What the hell are you drawing?”

Brimdal grimaced when he saw me sketching what I had just witnessed as if possessed.

The shark being compressed into a tiny lump probably looked quite grotesque.

"This is where I live now. I’m trying to sketch everything as detailed as possible.”

"What?"

Brimdal glanced at a few pages of my notebook, then clicked his tongue.

"Do all Fallen live in places like that? This is literal hell.”

"It’s a bit too cold to be hell.”

The burdens just kept increasing.

I was still able to endure the water pressure thanks to the training I went through, but now the cold I had been able to ignore up to this point had become quite intense.

Thankfully, I had this robe. The last time I took it off, I felt as if I had been dropped into a snowfield.

Apparently, it didn’t only reduce the pressure pressing down on me, but also protected me from the cold. I should probably ask Dercia about that as well.

"Hmm…”

Brimdal seemed lost in thought as he continued to flip through my notebook.

"Is something bothering you?”

"You…By any chance—”

Before he could finish his words—

-Babang!

The whole dragon carriage shook violently.

"Hmm, I believe we may have a problem.”

"?"

That was when Ciel called out to us in an uneasy tone of voice.

We stepped out and checked what was going on. One wheel had been gravely damaged.

"Oh, it’s broken.”

"I made a mistake…”

Ciel stared at the wheel and sighed.

"I could have sworn I replaced the wheels right before we left. For it to crack like this all of a sudden…It seems like I bought a defective set.”

"I could make a replacement wheel, but it would be faster to just go back and get a new one.”

"No. We have a spare wheel."

"...Huh?"

Both Brimdal and Ciel stared at me as if I had said something utterly outrageous.

"I’m serious. I stored one in my workshop."

"Wait, but why did you pack a spare wheel?”

"Because preparedness saves lives, or so they say.”

"No, I mean, why did you bring a wheel specifically…”

"To be precise, I stored a whole spare carriage in my workshop. Just in case.”

"..."

The workshop was unnecessarily large, so it was quite convenient for storing various things.

Besides the carriage, I also stored things like food, clothes and tools.

I finally realized why every proper mage needed a workshop.

Unless one were able to move about like Dercia, who could just open any random door and teleport freely, it was insanely convenient. Finally understanding why Dercia went so far as to threaten the Dark Magic Tower to get me one, I opened the carriage door to unlock my workshop.

Ciel blinked at the spare carriage sitting in the middle of my workshop.

"You actually put a whole carriage in here.”

"Yes. I wanted to prevent us from wasting time by having to go back or something.”

I stepped into the workshop and removed one of the wheels.

But then—I could sense something.

"...?"

What was going on? There shouldn’t be anyone in my workshop.

...No way.

I strode toward the carriage and carefully opened the door.

"Zzzz…snore…zzz.”

"..."

Inside, I found a young blond Knight sleeping peacefully.

Gently closing the door again so as to not wake her, I turned back to Ciel, who was looking at me with bewilderment.

"Let’s just go back.”

Honestly, even wasting some time would be less trouble than this.

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