Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 222

Chapter 222: Rakshasa (8)

TL/ED – Miso

Jahan tied me up tightly with rope, his face still troubled.

“Sir Jern. I’m not certain this is the right thing to do.”

“It’s fine. The truth is, I’m closer to a pufferfish than a human.”

“If you’re trying to sacrifice yourself this way, please remember that we are far stronger than you think. If we fight together, we will surely prevail.”

“No, I have no intention of sacrificing myself.”

The knights seemed to think I was throwing my life away to save theirs.

It wasn’t an impossible notion. Using this chance to see just how far Agnes could go, while locking in a do-or-die battle alongside the knights, was one of the options on the table.

If only that bastard weren’t an elf.

I still hadn’t witnessed Dersia’s full strength. She was almost certainly hiding a great deal. She probably had thousands of daggers tucked away to throw when her life was on the line.

No matter how insane that elf was, if he’d been in the records for so long, he had to possess comparable means.

And I had zero interest in facing each of those means one by one.

“In the end, that thing won’t be able to digest me.”

“Digest…?”

“Well, what I mean is, if he tries to absorb my Deep Sea like he wants to, he won’t be able to swallow it like the other Fallen. Just do as I say, and this should be over in an instant, so please trust me.”

“Ah, understood.”

It seemed they at least recognized that my eyes weren’t those of a man resolved to die, because the knights accepted my words, tied me to a tree stump, and left.

It took less than five minutes from then for one of Agnes’s Replicas to arrive.

“…?”

The moment he saw me, he furrowed his brow in confusion, his dead-fish eyes rolling.

“Where are the knights?”

“They tied me up here and ran off. No sense of loyalty at all.”

“Seeing that you’re bound by mere rope like that, I can only conclude it’s by your own will.”

“Well, I’m not confident enough to fight an elf alone and win. And even if I forced them into it through threats, I figured I’d end up getting stabbed in the back halfway through.”

I shrugged as best I could while tied up and answered.

“I thought wrong. Let’s just cooperate.”

“An amusing notion.”

“Hm?”

“You think I can’t handle it, is that it?”

“…”

Agnes had hit the nail on the head.

“Don’t imagine you’re the only one who knows of those whose worlds have inverted. We have known of their existence since a past far older than you can imagine.”

“Oh? That’s quite impressive.”

“The reason I deliberately avoid using them as my fragments is that it’s nothing more than the final state of a broken mage. The losses far outweigh the gains. That too is wisdom gained through experience… at least, until I saw the Crimson Circle and realized it had been a misjudgment.”

Agnes strode up to me and drove a dagger into my thigh.

“…Ugh.”

Blood flowed, soaking into my robe. As I winced at the sharp pain, he used his other hand to tear off the wrist that held the dagger.

It was as if he considered his own body to be clay. Blood immediately began to flow from that wrist, pouring into my thigh.

“A wrong judgment, yet right in its result. Welcome to our ranks. As for your pain…”

“You’ll take it on for me. I know.”

I forced a smile back at him, pulling the corners of my mouth up.

“Now that it’s come to this, I should tell you, there was actually one thing I hid.”

“And what might that be?”

“The truth is, the very first thing the Crimson Circle did when they appeared was search for me.”

“…?”

“The world they wanted most and feared most was my Deep Sea, you idiot.”

Just as Agnes tilted his head as though not understanding-

-Crunch!

He collapsed to his knees on the ground.

Watching his body gradually compress, Agnes clenched and unclenched his hand a few times.

“Hm.”

His eyeballs bulged out, and the wound sealed itself shut.

In exchange, his entire skin turned red. As I frowned at the naked appearance of a human who had entered the Deep Sea with no protective gear, he opened his mouth calmly.

“So this is the extent of it. It’s understandable to think one couldn’t handle it. By human standards, that is.”

Amazingly, Agnes continued speaking far more calmly than I’d expected, even inside the Water Pressure.

“Breathing is impossible, but, that’s fine. Organs being crushed is, likewise, hardly an obstacle to my life processes. Is this the wor, world you were so proud of?”

“Impressive.”

His words were drawn out and his appearance had warped grotesquely, but he was enduring far better than expected, and I was nodding in admiration when he stood up against the Water Pressure and narrowed his eyes.

“But this is, certainly, far, too dark. My vision…”

Agnes, who had been muttering to himself, suddenly glanced sideways.

“…What was that?”

“Ah. Didn’t I mention that either?”

I shrugged my shoulders and answered.

“I’m not the only one who lives here.”

“What are you-”

The head of the one trying to ask vanished.

Literally; only a severed neck remained, and blood poured out, staining the meadow.

The other bodies I could see through Current Sense were no different.

[Pop!]

[-Crunch!]

[-Crack!]

Agnes’s bodies were being devoured one by one.

Bloodstains began to appear throughout the forest, one after another. Until, in the end, only the single headless corpse beside me remained.

Was it over?

I let out a sigh and watched the end of this foolish elf who had dared to covet a world he couldn’t swallow, when suddenly he raised a hand and tapped the severed neck.

In an instant, a pale face regenerated from that neck.

The only difference was one thing. Unlike before, his face was extremely flustered.

In that state, Agnes uttered something absurd.

“You, were you the leader of the Crimson Circle?”

“…What?”

“No, that’s not it. That couldn’t be…”

After pondering for a moment, he pulled the dagger from my thigh.

At the same time, his blood that had entered my body reversed course and flowed out.

It probably meant he had given up on devouring me.

‘Wait, he could have even let me go?’

It would have been so much better if he’d just been crushed to death by the Deep Sea and ended there.

This threw off the plan. I supposed I’d have to be content with at least having killed all the other bodies.

As I slowly loosened the ropes and tried to enter a combat stance, Agnes grimaced and stepped backward.

“So I’m the prey now, damn it…! Did I pick the wrong target.”

“What are you going on about…”

I was tilting my head when rain suddenly began to fall from the sky.

“…?”

“…Too late.”

Just as the elf’s face crumpled in despair and he hung his head.

-Sshaaaaaa…

Rain that had begun to fall from a clear sky with tremendous speed gradually started to fill the ground.

It was impossible. Backing away from the rainwater that had risen to my waist in an instant, I realized the sensation felt incredibly familiar.

‘Deep Sea?’

Deep Sea rain was falling from the sky?

No, this was simply how I was perceiving it.

Understanding the situation, I drew on my Water Barrier to its maximum in shock.

“…A Proclamation?”

Someone had Proclaimed this area to be the Deep Sea.

Just like how Deep Sea Water froze solid around Decay, or how Puppet appeared in the form of strings. A Deep Sea Proclamation was perceived as rain falling from the sky and filling the world.

It wasn’t me who had done it.

Then who?

“Is this your doing?”

I turned to Agnes and asked. I wondered if perhaps he had become a Fallen after receiving the world of my Deep Sea.

But he ground his teeth and shook his head as he replied.

“Shut up and prepare yourself. Thanks to your deception, we’ve drawn a misunderstanding.”

“What? From whom?”

“From the inhabitants of your world. You’re in no different a position.”

What was he talking about.

Still tilting my head, I turned my Current Sense outward within the world that had instantly become the Deep Sea.

‘…?’

The first thing I saw was Agnes, swimming freely within the Deep Sea.

The next thing I felt was a sense of wrongness.

Not a single Deep Sea Creature was visible in this Deep Sea. They had been so abundant until now.

The last thing I felt was déjà vu.

A scene with no Deep Sea Creatures whatsoever. This was somehow familiar to me.

I had definitely seen the same thing before, somewhere…

“…That’s right. Ji-eo.”

When I had faced the ruler of that Depth.

No Deep Sea Creature would come near. They only tried to flee.

As I recalled that situation, my expression twisted on its own.

Don’t tell me.

“It’s coming.”

-My ominous premonitions had never once been wrong.

Along with Agnes’s despair-laced pronouncement, something began to register in my Current Sense from the sea.

It was a massive, impossibly massive creature’s leg.

A leg so enormous that even I, who could sense an entire city’s range with my Current Sense, couldn’t take in the whole of it.

-The leg of an octopus.

“Ah, fucking hell-”

I spat out a curse the moment I realized what it was.

[…down…]

“Cooperate.”

“…”

“Otherwise, neither of us will survive.”

[[You’ve, come, down…]]

Along with Agnes’s urgent voice, a gigantic octopus leg grazed my cheek.

The one I had seen in the canyon, the thing that had wanted to kill me but couldn’t reach me because it was too deep.

…It seemed.

That bastard had apparently invited me down to the Depth where it resided.

[[[…Finally!]]]