Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 221

Chapter 221: Rakshasa (7)

TL/ED – Miso

“Sorry. I still don’t remember much else.”

The albino elf said that while floating in midair, staring straight at me.

“Except that I need your head.”

“You already have a head, don’t you?”

“Not enough. Far from enough.”

Agnes extended his hand and murmured softly.

His tone was gentle, as if soothing a child.

“If I had your head, I think I’d finally be complete.”

“…!”

And with that, a pillar of light came down from the sky.

Current Sense picked up nothing. It was pure instinct, the judgment that I couldn’t stay in that spot, that made me take one step and saved my life.

-Kraaaang-!!

“Oh, fuck.”

Having fallen sideways, I watched the spot where I’d been standing moments ago turn into a pit billowing black smoke, and cursed.

Literally a bolt from the blue.

A 7th Circle mage. He grinned as if the spell just now had been nothing at all and replied.

“Lovely indeed. I have to have it.”

“…Wait. That spell just now…”

The one who answered wasn’t me but Jahan.

He stared at the pit with an utterly disbelieving expression, muttering as though entranced.

“A-Agnes? Tyrant Agnes…?”

“Who is that.”

“…Uh, he was the Empire’s worst terrorist, from hundreds, no, thousands of years ago. B-but he should be an Elf…”

“Isn’t it laughable? They’re just ears. And yet, cut them off and stitch them on, and they’ll accept you as a human.”

Agnes tapped his earlobe and sneered.

“Agnes, huh. So that was my name. It’s been so long since I came out like this that I’d forgotten.”

“If you’re being mind-controlled by the Rakshasa, we can resolve that.”

I immediately raised both hands to show I had no intent to fight.

I knew how dangerous Elves were, having seen Dersia.

And this was an Old Monster, alive from a time that had to be called ancient. A fight was the worst possible move.

“Even more so if your body has been taken. Our goals are the same, so there’s no reason for us to come to blows.”

“Hm…? Rakshasa…?”

He opened his mouth with a blank expression, then nodded slowly.

“Ah. That. Now I remember.”

Then he burst into a dry laugh, as if it were absurd.

“But, my body taken? That’s what you thought? How curious.”

“…What?”

Agnes abruptly raised a sword and cut off the fingers of his own left hand.

-With a tap-tap, the fallen fingers writhed on the ground, grew as they swelled in size, and soon turned into humans.

“What the hell.”

They were part of the Rakshasa I had just finished killing off.

Naked as they were, the things nonchalantly pulled out the swords stuck around them and immediately lunged at the Knights.

“Tch, hold them off!”

“These monsters, how dare they!”

-Clang! Kraang!

Swords met and sparks flew. As I narrowed my eyes at a scene so unreal it felt like a dream, Agnes continued in a languid tone.

“What you call the Rakshasa are humans who have had parts of my body transplanted into them. In exchange, I took them in and promised them Eternal Life.”

“Eternal Life, my ass. Looks to me like they’ve been reduced to your fingers.”

“No. It is Eternal Life. As you just saw, even if those who receive my body parts die, once I revive and reattach that part to another corpse, they come back with their memories intact. And since I live for what’s nearly an eternity… how is that not Eternal Life.”

“What…?”

“Every human in the Rakshasa is an organization that moves around with my finger, hand, arm, leg, and so on transplanted into them. They aren’t the ones controlling me. I’m the one controlling them.”

In other words, Agnes had been living on inside the Rakshasa, divided into pieces.

It was a revolting concept. I frowned in visceral disgust, but he paid no mind and looked down proudly at the Rakshasa Assassins fighting the Knights.

“And that’s not all. Right now I’ve made this body my Flesh Vessel directly like so, but as long as they don’t replace the part I gave them, everything else can be swapped out as often as they like. Bring down someone strong, and you can claim the part that was hardest to deal with. Isn’t that a tremendous advantage.”

“You crazy bastard. Are you doing all this to become the Savior?”

Savior.

A being who would someday prove that the Elves’ Madness could be solved, and awaken every Elf from their eternal slumber. Dersia hadn’t seemed the least bit interested in it.

But this one seemed to be after precisely that. In the worst way imaginable.

“…How do you know about the Savior?”

“I have ties with some Elves. But looking at you, I’m starting to think for the first time that Azrael might have been right.”

“Haha. Indeed. Azrael and my brethren made the right call. Madness is something that cannot be solved.”

“…”

When I looked at him with a gaze asking, then why are you doing all this shit, he raised his hand and spoke as if mocking me.

“If Madness cannot be solved, then there’s no need to solve it.”

Dark clouds gathered in the night sky.

Thinking this was going to be trouble, I clenched my teeth, and he smiled and pointed at the sky.

“Living while embracing the madness is also a path, wouldn’t you say.”

It was the kind of thing only a madman would say.

-Kraaaang-!!!

“Gh…!”

“Hmm?”

This time, I didn’t dodge the pillar of light coming down.

If I had to dodge something like that, this fight wouldn’t even be possible. If it was truly nothing more than a lightning strike, then I could deflect it.

Planting my feet firmly on the ground, I formed an ice spear longer than my head in my left hand and drove it into the earth. To act as a lightning rod.

The lightning was drawn in, grazed my body, and slammed into the ground. My eardrums must have burst, because sound was ringing, but what mattered was that I hadn’t taken a direct hit.

If this was all I could do-

“That’s a fun trick.”

Agnes smiled and formed something in his palm.

The orb, made of plasma stained violet and crackling grotesquely, looked nothing like any natural phenomenon, no matter how I looked at it.

“Then try blocking this as well. Thunder Death, I used to call it.”

The orb, gradually swelling, curved into a shape similar to the spear I held, and was fired off just like that.

There wasn’t the slightest sign of homing. Neither Current nor Water Pressure could catch it: a mass of pure energy.

Magic.

“Tch.”

Drawing in a breath, I gazed at the vast Deep Sea spread before my eyes and closed them.

The Deep Sea was not merely a space made of water. Water was only one concept that composed the agony known as the Deep Sea.

But at the same time, it took the form of water. So, it could be frozen. Just as I had done countless times before.

How much?

As far as my Current Sense could reach, all of it.

-Kraaaaaaack-!! Before I could even blink, a massive ice wall had risen between me and Agnes.

In terms of thickness, it was a block of opaque ice well over several meters thick.

I pressed a hand to my forehead, feeling my head turn sluggish.

‘…As expected, this much at once is tough.’

There was apparently a cap on my Extreme Ice ability too. Pouring out this much at once left me unbearably drowsy.

It was a dizzying drowsiness that willpower alone could barely resist, which made me all the more wary. If I passed out here, it was over.

Still, I had bought time, so in the meantime-

“Interesting. I didn’t know you could use that too.”

-Kraang!

It took barely a few dozen seconds for that massive ice wall to come crashing down. Seeing how many Thunder Deaths he was holding, it seemed he’d just kept hurling them until it broke.

The problem was that despite all that, he didn’t look the least bit tired. If anything, he surveyed the ice wall with a satisfied expression and looked at me like prey he’d already hunted down.

“As I thought, I do need your head.”

“I said I’m not giving it to you.”

As he raised his hand, his fingers twitched.

Finally, it’s kicking in.

“Hm?”

“Round two, you bastard.”

Now that his barrage had stopped was my chance.

I immediately spread Water Pressure outward and crushed down on him.

-Crunch!

“Ah. So it’s this.”

Agnes, unable to mount any resistance, was slowly crushed.

No, he was crushed far more easily than I’d expected. He splattered in all directions, practically bursting, and then rose up as countless Assassins.

“What the hell…?”

“Ugh, what ghastly creatures.”

The Knights, who had been driving the Assassins back, were left dumbfounded as they watched the enemies multiply into dozens in an instant, but they soon swung their swords again.

The Empire’s Knights were no pushovers. Multiplying or not, they pierced chests, severed heads, and sliced off hands in the blink of an eye.

The problem was that the enemies didn’t stop at that.

“The Fallen are the only piece that can make me complete.”

One of them was Agnes. His face and body were different, but his manner of speech was exactly the same.

He must have been transplanted with the brain, most likely. When I took particular care to crush that one so its head couldn’t regenerate, another one beside it picked up where he’d left off.

“It would be hard to settle for anything else.”

-Crunch!

“I had meant to make do with something else if I could, but Jern, looking at you, I can’t help but be greedy.”

-Crunch, crack!

“Well, if they say I’m acting unbecoming of my age, so be it.”

This time I crushed every single Assassin at once.

For a moment the Encampment fell silent. The Knights lowered their blood-soaked swords and asked with half-believing expressions.

“Is it over?”

“…I don’t think so.”

But it was a moot point.

My Current Sense, now strong enough to easily surveil an entire city, detected them closing in from all around.

From the forest, from the ground, from wells, from people’s homes.

Wraiths, wearing not a single piece of clothing, were walking toward this place with broad smiles on their faces and every kind of weapon in hand.

Muttering to themselves into empty air, as if they knew I could hear them.

[I have prepared many things for today.]

[I know how much danger you incur by inhabiting that world.]

[How about we turn this into a battle of endurance. You and I. I have confidence in mine, and I’d wager you do as well.]

They looked like zombies.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands- and once the count surpassed even that, I could only shake my head in astonishment.

“This guy’s truly out of his mind.”

“Pardon?”

So much for a small elite force.

He’d been lopping off his fingers, so I’d thought there’d be a few hundred at most, but that wasn’t it at all.

It seemed he had divided and transplanted himself right down to tiny scraps of skin. And he probably hadn’t shown everything even now.

On top of that, this was a strategy prepared for me alone. Overwhelm me with sheer numbers so I could never escape, and hold out until I collapsed under my Burden-

“Sir Jern.”

As I was letting out a sigh along with my shock, Jahan asked with an uneasy expression.

“Is, by any chance, our situation not looking very good right now?”

“Yes. To be honest, it isn’t.”

“In that case, we’ll carve a path for you.”

“Pardon?”

That wasn’t what I meant at all.

Jahan took on the face of some honorable Knight and struck his chest.

“Sir Jern, you are the person most needed by the Empire here, above all others. Leave it to us. No matter how strong he is, we’ll absolutely open up an escape route for you.”

“No, that’s all right…”

I was about to decline when, looking at Jahan’s resolute expression, something suddenly came to mind.

Because there was a line of Agnes’s that stuck with me.

What he’d said while looking at the ice wall.

‘I didn’t know you could use that too…’

Mulling it over, I slowly nodded and met Jahan’s eyes.

“…Actually, there’s one thing I’d like to ask of you.”

“Yes? What is it?”

“Could you betray me for a moment?”

“…Pardon?”

Perhaps.

There was a chance Agnes didn’t know my world was the Deep Sea.

And if that really was the case-

“Let’s give that bastard what he wants, just once.”