Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 225

Chapter 225: Rakshasa (11)

TL/ED – Miso

Fortunately, the Outer Gods didn’t seem to be on particularly good terms with each other.

[We need to get as far away from them as possible.]

“You don’t have to tell me that.”

I pushed aside the stray thoughts that kept surfacing and escaped the ominous Deep Sea as fast as I could.

The problem was, I still didn’t know how to get out of the Deep Sea.

[An exit will open on its own the moment you leave the Outer God’s domain.]

[Since I myself am this world’s Foreign Substance.]

Agnes, parasitizing inside my head, responded precisely to my concern.

Seeing how he’d been offering solutions immediately, before I could even ask, this guy was apparently reading my thoughts.

The problem was that the reverse wasn’t possible.

I’d tried once to make him reveal what kind of being he was and what he knew, but it was impossible. In that case, had there even been a need to eat him?

‘…A trap?’

So he’d been trying to seize my consciousness by exploiting the urgency of the situation after all. The moment I thought that, he pushed back.

[If I am the Deep Sea’s Foreign Substance, then Agnes is a Foreign Substance mixed within that Foreign Substance.]

[Normally, I am hidden. The Outer Gods are always searching for me, but they can never find me. However, because of Agnes’s presence, the once-transparent droplet has taken on color. That is why they found me.]

[Agnes absolutely cannot remain with me. He only borrowed my body in order to escape, that is all.]

“You bastard- you gonna keep relaying things this confusingly?”

These were clearly Agnes’s thoughts, but they felt solid enough that I could have mistaken them for thoughts I’d idly come up with myself.

If he hadn’t been stating things I didn’t already know, I might have genuinely accepted them as my own. As I rubbed my temples, I soon felt something squirm in my palm.

“…Aha.”

A small Air Bubble, shining with a light brilliant enough to blind in this Deep Sea, had suddenly appeared.

It was something familiar. Without hesitation, I focused on the Air Bubble and grew it.

The gradually swelling Air Bubble wrapped around me. Enveloped in an even more intense halo of light, I barely managed to open my eyes…

Sunlight was pouring down.

“Whew…”

It seemed I’d ended up some distance from the Knights, and I was in an unfamiliar forest, but I let out a sigh of relief. Wherever this was, I was clearly away from those Outer Gods.

[You’re not safe yet.]

[Until the Foreign Substance is removed, the Outer Gods can find you at any time.]

[You must remove Agnes from your head urgently.]

“That’s the best news I’ve heard in a while. How do I do that?”

[You must feed blood to another corpse.]

“…What?”

[Having been eaten and made one, I must now be given over and separated.]

“Hmm…”

There were no corpses nearby.

And I didn’t particularly feel like killing anyone.

After pondering for a moment, I used Water Pressure to grab a bird perched on a nearby branch and brought it over.

Then, for some reason, a frantic thought surfaced.

[If it is not a proper body, the Flesh Vessel process may be difficult.]

“Doesn’t sound like my problem. Get out already.”

I pricked my finger to draw a drop of blood, pried open the bird’s beak, and force-fed it.

Trembling at the incomprehensible treatment but still swallowing the blood, the blue lark soon began foaming at the mouth and flapping its wings wildly.

It was meaningless resistance. Along with the sensation of something vanishing from my head, intelligence began to show in the bird’s eyes.

“Tweet, chirp. Squawk.”

When I released the bird from the Water Pressure after it cried out, it immediately tried to fly up toward the sky.

“And where the hell do you think you’re going, you little shit?”

-Crunch.

Smirking, I pressed down with Water Pressure just hard enough not to kill the bird, and brought it back in front of my face.

Then the tongue, far too small to form human language, writhed this way and that, swelling grotesquely.

Soon, from the opened beak came a sound just barely intelligible.

“W-we… no wongeh, need yoo.”

“And?”

“If, yoo let me, go, I won’, inteh-feeh.”

The gradually more human-like pronunciation was quite peculiar.

But I tightened the Water Pressure harder and snapped at him.

“That’s not the answer I wanted. How much do you actually know?”

“…”

“You didn’t even know my world was the Deep Sea, so how did you know about Outer Gods and Foreign Substances and crap like that? Until I find out, I’m not letting you go.”

“…”

The bird held its silence, as if it didn’t want to speak.

“Will you look at this bastard?”

I chuckled softly and shoved him into my pocket.

“If you hate talking that much, don’t. I’ll just take you to my teacher.”

“T-teachah?”

“Yeah. You didn’t dig up that much? Dersia.”

“…”

“Seeing a fellow elf turned into a bird might make her sad enough to show you mercy. She’s actually pretty sensitive and softhearted. If you don’t want to talk to me, nothing I can do.”

“Deal.”

As I casually started to walk off, the bird chirped and spoke up first.

“I will answer what I know. Whether you are satisfied or not, when it is done, set me free.”

“Fine. I can do that much.”

Holding him firmly in Water Pressure, I settled down on a nearby tree stump.

“First off, why are you being so cooperative? That was just an empty threat.”

“…”

“Isn’t this one of those deals where you just resurrect somewhere else if you die, like before?”

“They all burst.”

“What?”

“That was the price I paid for stepping into your world.”

Aha.

It seemed all the spare bodies this guy had kept in reserve had burst the instant he set foot in the Deep Sea.

Of course, given the nature of his ability, he could resurrect as many as he wanted… but that was a story for after he survived here. For now, this tiny little bird was Agnes’s main body and his lifeline.

Confirming that I held a far more advantageous position, I asked again with a slightly easier mind.

“Explain, in as much detail as you can, what those things I saw earlier were.”

“They are not exactly beings one can define.”

Agnes shut his beak as if dissatisfied.

“‘Deep Sea Outer God’ is merely a term for the bottom of the World, the deepest place. If you were to reach the position where they exist, you too would be a Deep Sea Outer God.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. However, do you think you could reach the end of the ‘outer’?”

“Absolutely not.”

I spat it out without hesitation. I couldn’t descend to the Depth where things like those lived.

Agnes sneered as if he’d expected that and continued.

“Indeed. Try to imagine reaching, while still alive, a region capable of grinding a mountain of steel into a lump smaller than a fingernail in the blink of an eye. That region is a hell beyond description, and anyone who descended to such a hell and lived would rightly be called a god.”

“Then how did you know what the Deep Sea was?”

“I only learned of the Deep Sea after entering your head. What I had been aware of was not the Deep Sea, but the Primordial Worlds.”

“…What?”

With that small face, Agnes made an expression that said ‘You don’t even know this?’, then sighed and explained.

“Just how stupid are humans? The three Worlds that existed in the beginning: Heaven, Earth, and Sea. Of those, you were assigned the World of the Sea.”

“…”

“I had no idea that someone had been assigned the World of the Sea. The World of Earth is where we currently live, and Heaven is held by the head of the Crimson Circle. So when I first confirmed it was a Primordial World, I naturally assumed you were the leader of the Crimson Circle.”

So that was why, when I’d fallen into the Deep Sea, he’d asked if I was Void.

“Then do Outer Gods live inside that Void guy’s world too…”

“You know Void?”

“I’ve met him and fought him before.”

“I see. However, if Outer Gods live in your very deepest place, then in his case, they would live at the very highest.”

At those words, I looked up at the sky.

“But the sky has no end.”

“Your Deep Sea is the same. You don’t seem to understand, but the place where an Outer God exists is the end of the outer realm itself.”

The end of The Three Evils.

Chewing over the meaning, I soon noticed something strange and frowned.

“But then… Void is also one of The Three Evils? And life exists in his world too?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do they need me?”

If what was required to destroy this world was The Three Evils…

Couldn’t he just unleash his own World without needing to catch me?

That guy already possessed an endless sky as his World, so why of all things was he chasing me?

Agnes’s answer was simple.

“I don’t know.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I truly don’t know. I haven’t spent much time with the head of the Crimson Circle. Even if I found him, I have no confidence in winning a fight. Above all, my knowledge of the Fallen is, if anything, less than yours, not more.”

“Bullshit. You clearly know plenty about the Primordial Worlds-”

“It is you who’s strange for not knowing that.”

“My teacher didn’t know either, though?”

“That child wasn’t in her right mind. Back when I still had ties to the elves, she was barely twenty years old, yet she was already thinking about escaping. There is no way she received a proper education.”

That… was so thoroughly like Dersia that I couldn’t argue back.

“Then what about this Real World? Is this the World of Earth? And where’s the Outer God?”

“Dead. It doesn’t exist.”

“What?”

“Did I not say they were the Primordial Worlds? Don’t you see from the fact that two of those three Worlds were allotted to mere humans like you? The god of the Real World cut away the remaining two Worlds and left only his own. That is what we now live in…”

“…The Celestial Realm.”

Void’s account and Agnes’s account lined up.

The Celestial Realm created by The First Wizard.

The world of magic we lived in…

It was the result left behind after cutting away all the other hell-like Worlds.

And Void wanted to return this world to its primordial state once more.

A thought struck me there.

“Was The Wizard the Outer God of the Real World…”

“You could say so.”

If one reached the extreme of one’s World and transformed into a god…

The form was different, but what The First Wizard had wanted was the seed of the next generation’s Outer God, one who would protect this world after him.

I wasn’t sure whether the word ‘outer’ was really appropriate, but…

As I was chewing over this information, Agnes chirped.

“This is everything I know. Now release me.”

“Hmm…”

The Outer God of the Real World. The Wizard.

Something seemed on the verge of surfacing in my mind from that thread, and as I pondered, I released the Water Pressure and set Agnes free.

He hastily flew up into the air.

“Not so fast.”

At least until I caught him again.

Clenching his beak, he turned to look back at me and muttered.

“What else do you want to know?”

“No, it’s just that I’m not sure if what you said is true.”

“…?”

“I’m going to take you to Dersia for verification. That alright?”

“Didn’t we have a deal that you’d set me free?”

“We did.”

I shrugged as I replied.

“That’s why I set you free, once.”

I never said I wouldn’t catch him again.

*****

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