WETRIED TRANSLATIONS
Wizard of the Abyss
[Translator – Aren]
Chapter 92 - Hunt (5)
2 hours before I was kidnapped while disguised as the prince.
I was in the middle of my first battle.
"...This seems far too dangerous.”
In a certain mansion located in the imperial capital.
Dercia shook her head, a weary expression on her face.
I couldn’t quite accept that answer, so I elaborated.
"Right now, there’s only one Lump there. To me, this looks like an opportunity handed down by the heavens.”
"Are you certain of that?”
"About 50%."
Even after locating the Lump, I used Rahyan to scan every single person in the royal palace.
There was no one else. Or at least, no one else with a world Rahyan could detect.
Which led me to reach a single conclusion.
"If we capture the Lump now, we can get an enormous amount of information. Especially if you help, Lady Dercia."
"..."
She looked troubled.
This undoubtedly was a chance gifted by the heavens, so I couldn’t understand why she hesitated so much until she properly explained her concerns.
"First of all, Jern. This isn’t your fault, but—this operation has likely already been exposed.”
"What?"
"The moment the Lump sends in its report, Scarlet Abyss will issue an order for it to flee with the prince. The banquet is over, so they’ll be moving soon.”
"Wait, would they really react this drastically?”
Between Carose’s and my experience back on Earth, I was confident I perfectly embodied the incompetent imperial envoy.
In this situation, no matter how aggressive Scarlet Abyss was, their response should have stopped at ‘Something’s suspicious about this. Investigate further.’ They weren’t the kind of organization that would immediately choose to flee.
Noticing my confusion, Dercia explained it in a clearer way.
"Your judgement was nearly flawless. But there was a slight problem with the role you assumed.”
"Being an imperial envoy?”
"More precisely, being the princess’ envoy.”
"..."
"This is a list of missions the princess’ personal guard has been conducting in secret.”
"How did you get this?”
Dercia didn’t answer.
I shot her a glance and scanned the densely packed list, then frowned.
"...What we’d been seeing was only the tip of the iceberg.”
"Yes. Scarlet Abyss has been far more active than we thought.”
The actions Decay had mentioned were meant to make their name widely known before going fully underground.
Those had been drastically understated.
In reality, there were ten times as many incidents. The reason all of them had been reduced to nonexistent events was entirely thanks to the princess.
[Discovered modified children in Korral. Liberated them.]
[Found 34 regions in the Peawin mountains coated with flammable substances. Dismantled them.]
[Patients in the capital’s psychiatric ward, infused with Mad Blood, attacked doctors with bladed weapons. Incident covered up.]
I could feel the princess’ tear-soaked efforts from every single line. Along with Scarlet Abyss’ tears of blood, they must have shed.
"Within Scarlet Abyss, the danger rating assigned to Princess Sharmia is probably extremely high. Higher than anything else. They’ve probably already identified her capabilities to some extent!”
"Then, from the very beginning…”
“Yes. Whether you thoroughly investigate or act lazy and indulgent, as long as the person behind you is believed to be the princess, they will react more violently than might be necessary. Our worst-case scenario would be them attempting to cover everything up, but their worst-case scenario would be the capture of the Lump.”
"...Understood.”
So because the princess was too competent, even if I acted like a dull kitchen knife, they would still see me as a greatsword.
Did the princess—anticipate this situation?
That was an interesting thought, but now wasn’t the time for that. If Dercia was right, then things were already quite dire.
"Of course, I’m willing to help. Even if the Lump reports to Scarlet Abyss, there should still be a brief window of time for us to act. So it might still be possible to capture it.”
"Then…”
"The problem is that our opponent is the Lump.”
Dercia slightly narrowed her brows.
"If that thing falls into my hand, it will immediately commit suicide. In that case, all we would gain is a useless corpse and a pile of information about our own goals handed over to the enemy.”
True.
"Capturing another Scarlet Abyss executive they called in as backup wouldn’t be a bad option, but they likely had their own methods to escape as well. And the biggest issue is the Realm declaration those who possess a Great World are capable of.”
"Realm declaration?”
"Yes. Even as a 9-star mage, I can’t avoid suffering from their burdens within their expanded Realm. If I encounter a new opponent and are forced to suffer from their burdens, depending on what it is, the situation could become extremely troublesome. I might not be able to reach you in time.”
"..."
The transferral of burdens.
After pondering over this matter for a moment, I asked one more thing.
"Is it possible to prevent the Lump from escaping by dying?”
"If it’s brought in unconscious, it might be possible. But it has already crossed hands with me once. The moment it sees me, it will flee instantly.”
"Then how about this?”
I explained my idea.
As she listened, Dercia’s expression slowly darkened.
"That’s… are you serious? This goes beyond merely dangerous.”
"I am. We have plenty of countermeasures at this point, and I believe you could even call it relatively safe.”
"Ciel."
Dercia called out to Ciel, who had been silently listening to us, standing behind her.
Ciel scratched her cheek awkwardly while looking at me.
"It somehow feels like you two switched roles after fighting.”
"What?"
"The lady is prioritizing safety, while Sir Jern is the one taking risks.”
"..."
"But from a strategic perspective, it doesn’t sound that bad. We’d be able to capture a Scarlet Abyss executive, after all.”
"Jern is not yet at a level where he should be confronting a Scarlet Abyss executive in direct combat.”
“But it’s not a completely impossible strategy, right? And given the dilemma we’re faced with, it looks like an excellent solution."
One against two.
Catching Dercia hesitating as she looked at my face filled with conviction, I pressed forward.
"Master. Please help me. I want to know my past.”
"...Take this."
Sighing, Dercia handed me a red vial.
"It’s a drug made by modifying the pearl pills Scarlet Abyss provided you with.”
"Oh, did you reduce their risk?”
"No. In fact, their drug is a lot safer. The one I’m giving you right now is far more dangerous. After taking it, you’ll have to endure much stronger burdens.”
"?"
"However, it has the same effect as swallowing one of their pills every minute for one hour after taking it.”
"You’ve made…something pretty strange.”
"Normally I would have discarded this, but I kept it because I had a feeling that a time might come where you’d need it. You’re the kind of person who inevitably walks straight into a death trap after all.”
As expected of Dercia. She knew me far too well. She glanced at the clock, then opened her book.
"There are a few more things I need to explain. But before that, you must promise me one thing.”
"What is it?”
"If things become dangerous, you must run.”
"Of course. If I’m injured even a little, I’ll immediately retreat.”
I reassured her with a gentle smile.
This was more of a test for me after all.
If it truly meant risking my life, I would never even dream of attempting it.
"Haah..."
Of course.
I was willing to give up an arm, at least.
* * *
The desert at dawn.
For a moment, the Lump stood there frozen, its eyelids twitching as it stared at me blankly.
Shock, disbelief, confusion. These unexpected emotions were so obvious on its face that I didn’t even need Tide Sense to understand them.
It took a full minute before it spoke again.
"...I see."
The Lump’s tone, usually disgustingly lively, was now deeply subdued.
"I can understand you being the owner of a Great Realm. That Dercia is certainly more than capable of creating something like that. Nothing strange about that.”
"Even you being of the Abyssal Realm—it is rather astonishing that you’re still alive, but considering that you were trained by a 9-star mage, I’m willing to even accept that. I could just chalk it up to Dercia having used some sort of method I’m not aware of…”
-Thunk.
It lowered its sword. The long line that was its mouth was no longer twisted into a smirk and showed a hint of unease now.
"But manifesting your Realm is an entirely different matter. That’s something you cannot do.”
"Really? I don’t think so.”
I casually stroked a jellyfish floating nearby.
As long as I had my Water Partition, I could observe this world far more calmly than I expected.
Hearing my calm response, the Lump quietly shook its head.
"I misspoke. It’s not that you can’t. You mustn’t.”
"I see."
I nodded in agreement.
"Then stop me.”
"..."
It didn’t reply.
However—It’s presence changed.
I licked my dry lips. If I had to compare this to a game, then this felt like I just entered the second phase of a boss fight.
The next instant, the Lump’s compressed body shot forward like lightning.
"?"
Something blurry entered my vision for a moment.
I tried to ignore it and dodged, but its body only twisted grotesquely.
"What…?"
Its waist rotated a full 180 degrees.
A motion that would have killed any normal human, yet it swung its blade as if nothing had happened.
In my shock I managed to narrowly evade it, but the edge was already right in front of my nose.
I couldn’t afford to lose the first exchange of blows. Pouring all my strength into catching the blade using water pressure, I forced it to slow down.
However, even with all that, it still lightly cut my cheek, thick drops of blood flowing down from it.
The Lump snorted lightly in dissatisfaction and, without even a moment’s pause, charged at me with its twin blades again.
I responded by pushing Tide Sense to its absolute limit.
The sword of the strongest Knight, an unsung hero, the Lump had probably ever seen in its lifetime rained down on me like a torrential downpour.
"ㅡ!"
Letting that thing control the distance was a fatal mistake on my part. I charged Thunder Gale and stared straight at the incoming blades.
3 seconds, 29 strikes.
The only reason I was still alive was my small body—and the fact that this Knight was weaker than Brimdal.
Of course, I hadn’t mastered Thunder Gale perfectly yet. The unstable, wrapped ball of wind swelled, yearning to be released.
I was about to fulfill its wish. I detonated the explosion between the Lump and myself.
-Boom!
Instead of the Lump, who barely suffered from minor injuries, my small body was blasted across the desert, tumbling and slamming into the sand repeatedly.
"Peh, peh…”
Spitting out the sand stained with some blood, I immediately jumped backward.
The Lump had no intention of giving me even the smallest opening. Something felt off. Even with the distance I had bought myself, its speed was just absurd.
What was that? I looked at its lower body. It was different from before.
Its legs were developed to the extreme, like those of a sprinter.
It somehow stitched a Knight’s upper body on a pair of legs purely built for speed.
It could even do something like that? Grinding my teeth, I forced it to back off using the water pressure.
Thanks to the drug Dercia had given me, the Water Partition granted me far more protection than usual, but using water pressure this intensely kept shaving away at it every second.
In the briefest opening as I wiped away the blood that threatened to flow over it, the Lump, who had been completely silent ever since the fight began, muttered something.
"So you understand how Great Realms work.”
"...Roughly.”
I had heard about the combat style of someone who had manifested their Realm in the real world from Dercia.
I politely smiled at the Lump.
"This place is seriously awful. Try surviving it.”
From the start, calling their Realm into this one was nothing but a disadvantage for a Fallen.
The burdens themselves grew far stronger, to an absurd degree at that, and multiplied every time I used Abyssal magic.
Just standing still would lead to death. Much faster.
But—the same went for the invited opponent.
So combat with one’s Realm manifested was quite simple.
You had to keep running.
There was no need to fight. The world itself would identify the opponent as a foreign object and start to slowly digest them all on its own.
Watching the process until the enemy was fully dissolved into the world.
That horrific act was the way one could fight with a Great Realm and a way available only to those who owned a Great Realm.
The Lump forcibly endured the pressure, clenching and unclenching its fists.
"An Abyss Realm belonging to the Three Calamities… The Abyssal Sea… Wait, wasn’t it supposed to be the Grand Sea?”
Muttering nonsense in the middle of this fight, it kept looking weirdly at me.
"I have to take you with me. No matter what.”
I forced a smile. That was welcome news.
If the Lump’s goal was to capture me rather than outright kill me, then I could be assured that I wouldn’t lose my life here at least.
And the biggest problem of manifesting my Realm, that it would just flee, had just completely vanished.
It seemed like it thought that this was still doable.
Honestly, it wasn’t just doable. Catching me before it got devoured by the Abyssal Sea’s burdens was probably just a trivial matter to it.
Ignoring me and just running away probably felt like leaving gold just lying on the ground to it.
-Grrrrk…
It overcame the water pressure with sheer physical strength, and I stopped wasting power on keeping up the pressure.
There was no point in blocking anymore. The burdens growing more and more intense would overwhelm me faster than they would consume that thing.
"Ghk—!”
Narrowly evading the sword strikes stabbing at me over and over, I silently thanked Brimdal.
If that madman hadn’t trained me, I would have died to the very first blow.
That training was the only thing that kept me alive in this fight.
The only problems were—those afterimages.
Right before that thing attacked, eerie white phantoms kept flickering into my view, disrupting my vision. Could Knights even do stuff like that?
The afterimages would appear first, distorting my sight. As I dodged while clutching my aching head, the Lump looked at me with interest.
"Is that also an ability granted by the Abyssal Sea?”
"...Want me to tell you?”
Was he talking about my Tide Sense?
Instead of answering, it let a far more violent barrage of strikes pour down on me.
Dozens of afterimages overlapped, rendering my sight completely useless now. Clenching my teeth, I kept dodging, purely relying on Tide Sense.
This had already gone far beyond just dangerous. Since the body the Lump was using was that of a first-rate Knight, my Tide Sense sometimes lost it, just like when I was facing Brimdal.
Tide Sense was the only reason I could evade attacks from something that strong. If I had to name a single flaw of it, it felt like standing in front of a cracked dam.
In battle, I had to perfectly perceive everything with Tide Sense.
However, right now that wasn’t happening.
"...Tsk."
So it owned the body of a Knight that strong, huh? As I hurriedly considered my next move, the Lump drew in a deep breath.
"Ugh!”
At the same time—
My perception was completely severed.
It seems like the Lump was pretty determined to end the fight right this instant, tired of me slipping away again and again. Through my blurred vision, a sword strike, filled to the brim with killing intent, began to carve its trajectory.
I couldn’t predict that attack’s path.
In other words, I couldn’t dodge it.
I had to run immediately.
But—I saw another phantom once again.
'This is…?’
Still unfamiliar with my Realm, I had dismissed it before.
But now that I took a closer look at it, they were bubbles.
The bubbles’ trajectory brushed past my neck.
"—!"
I dodged almost on pure instinct.
The next moment, those bubbles seemed to turn into a living being.
The Lump, who had been nothing but bubbles just a moment ago, clicked its tongue.
"What an annoying ability."
"..."
Watching the bubbles shooting up into the sky, I tilted my head, momentarily forgetting we were in the middle of a fight.
I had already become accustomed to predicting where my enemy’s attack would come from next using Tide Sense.
So familiar that I hadn’t even noticed it.
These bubbles.
"Not prediction, but precognition…Yeah.”
"?"
Even as the Lump raised its sword, clearly uninterested in my rambling, I felt bubbles forming around the nape of my neck. That was when I realized it.
Inside my manifested Realm, I could feel the bubbles that would be created after an attack in advance.
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