Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 235

Chapter 235: Depth (2)

TL/ED – Miso

“First, you do not know me. I do not know you, and the fact that we met here must never be known to anyone.”

“I get that much.”

Because if Void ever caught wind of this sleeping-with-the-enemy arrangement through any channel whatsoever, he would move against us immediately. It was a rule that made sense.

But I couldn’t figure out what she meant by extending her empty hand rather than the one holding the dagger, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“I need funds.”

“…Money?”

What was this, a mugging all of a sudden?

No, more importantly, wasn’t someone at her level supposed to be a high-ranking officer of the Crimson Circle? Shouldn’t she be swimming in money?

“What nonsense are you talking. I am merely a Priestess with no abilities of my own. Whether I wish it or not, I am useless beyond the act of divining the future.”

“Then what was it that just now drove me to the brink of death?”

“Had you not wounded Mugeun beyond what Void permitted, I might indeed have been powerless. Now that Void has absorbed what remains of the Crimson Circle’s Lower Tier, there are no forces left for me to employ. I must use funds to make use of ordinary people.”

If that was the case, I could understand. Money was something I had in excess anyway, so I opened the Workshop and handed over a heap of coin pouches. Cheon-hwa tucked only a tiny fraction into her sleeve and nodded.

“Now then, from this point you shall return to the Empire and bring every single item I am about to name, without fail. I shall write it down here.”

“Hmm…”

I frowned as I read the parchment she handed me.

“…This is what’s going to push me to a greater Depth?”

“More precisely, it is necessary for the ritual meant to do so. I say it again: all of it is needed. You must not leave out a single item.”

“Got it. It’s nothing too difficult.”

“Return within three days. I too shall make preparations in that time.”

With only those words, Cheon-hwa disappeared somewhere into the mountains.

I watched her retreating figure for a moment, then lightly kicked Damyu, who was still sprawled out asleep, to wake her.

“Let’s head back. Get up.”

“…Ngh, mm… Huh? W-what time is it?”

“Can’t you tell by looking at the sky? The sun’s about to set.”

“You’re right… Oh, did you meet Lady Cheon-hwa?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“I, I wasn’t lying! It really was here…”

She launched into an anxious defense, apparently worried I’d think she had lied. I tossed her into the Workshop and rode hard back to the Empire.

The moment I arrived, I went looking for Dersia.

“…Jern. Where on earth have you been.”

“Just a little walk, I mean, what happened to you?”

Dersia looked utterly worn down by exhaustion.

She always did, more or less, but this was worse than usual. She looked like a madwoman who hadn’t eaten or slept in a month.

I frowned, stepped closer, and waved my fingers in front of her face.

“Can you even see me right now? Why do you look like this?”

“I was running a few experiments on what would happen if that thing reached the Heavenly Realm. My condition is fine, so there’s no need to worry.”

Her eyes weren’t tracking my fingers, so her words weren’t especially convincing.

She’d probably manage on her own, but watching her immediately bury her face back into the desk and start scribbling something, it was clear that if someone didn’t intervene soon, something bad was going to happen.

I’d have to go back sooner than three days. While Dersia was too out of it to notice, I scooped the World-Sealing Pills she had been researching into the Workshop.

“I’ll be borrowing these for a while. Please rest while you work.”

“Yes…”

She absolutely wouldn’t.

Aside from the World-Sealing Pills, the items I needed were all mundane things anyone could find in daily life. Salt, live fish, clean bandages, things like that, as if I were cooking some kind of meal.

I wasn’t doubting Cheon-hwa’s word, but I couldn’t help growing suspicious as I gathered them.

‘It’s not like we’re throwing a barbecue or something…’

What was she even planning to do with this stuff?

Still, there was no other way to go about it, so as soon as I’d gathered the materials I set out for the mountain where Cheon-hwa was. This time alone, without Damyu.

Since I no longer had to worry about being watched, I rode far faster than before and reached the mountain in just two days.

Just as I was about to pitch a tent to camp for the day, I saw smoke rising from the mountainside.

Traces of people. There had been nothing like that before.

I spread my Current Sense to check and discovered a strange lake that hadn’t been there before, and hurried toward it.

“…What is this?”

“You’ve arrived early.”

A lake so clear I could see straight into it.

The water wasn’t very deep. Roughly three meters.

Cheon-hwa stood beside it, looking down at the lake with a sigh.

“There was already a pit here; I hired people and had it filled with water. When I paid four times the contract fee, they filled even a lake this large with remarkable speed.”

“If it’s just filling water, I could do that with my magic?”

“That won’t do. It must be naturally occurring water.”

After answering, Cheon-hwa turned and extended her hand toward me.

“Take out what you prepared. I shall arrange the environment.”

“I brought it all, but… what is any of this for?”

As she shoved a sack of salt from the Workshop straight into the lake, Cheon-hwa answered indifferently.

“Have you not seen it often enough? The things we did to create an ocean.”

“…Ah.”

Now that she mentioned it.

These people used to drown wizards in salt water through Submersion.

But hadn’t that become essentially unnecessary after a being like me emerged?

Cheon-hwa emptied salt and released fish into the water with complete indifference as she explained.

“The Fallen only break down when the stimulus is intensified. If you endure extreme Burden while in the Deep Sea, it is the same as descending to a greater Depth.”

“Then if I just subject myself to heavy Burden on my own…”

“That won’t do. You have a way out.”

“…”

“In a situation where you can flee back to the Real World at any moment, it is meaningless. To drag your completed system down to greater depths, inside and outside must be the same environment.”

Only then did I understand what Cheon-hwa was trying to do.

This woman, right now, was trying to Submerge me.

“Uh, well… just so you know. I don’t even breathe.”

“I am aware. That is precisely why we must use several other elements.”

Drawing her dagger, Cheon-hwa laid the blade against my wrist.

“Will you cut yourself, or shall I cut you?”

“…What is this for?”

“That lake, the artificially constructed Deep Sea in the Real World, must also carry a Burden capable of killing you. Death by Exsanguination will provide sufficient Burden.”

“…”

It was a reasonable choice, so I clenched my teeth and lightly drew the blade across my wrist.

I didn’t slice deep enough for blood to spray out all at once. Just enough that, once I entered the warm water, it would bleed out and kill me within thirty minutes.

“And what’s my objective?”

“Not losing your composure, that is admirable.”

She looked at me approvingly as I asked about my goal while blood dripped down my wrist, then wiped the expression from her face.

“There is none.”

“…What?”

“You must enter with every means of escaping the Deep Sea gone. That is the objective.”

What Cheon-hwa meant was this: I was not to carry any piece of this world in with me as an insurance policy that would let me come back from the Deep Sea at will.

I frowned and refused at once.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. That just means I’ll die.”

“Which is why your objective shall be to return.”

“How am I supposed to return if there’s no way to escape?”

“That method is for you to find.”

“No, wait, hang on,”

Cheon-hwa suddenly cut me off, grabbed my shoulders, and spoke with forceful conviction.

“Go as deep as you possibly can.”

“What’s supposed to change?”

“You will either touch the bottom and come back, or fail to reach it and die.”

In other words.

Cheon-hwa was telling me to plunge into the Deep Sea right now and become an Outer God.

“This is awfully sudden. Don’t I need some kind of preparation?”

“Do you think, with everything already ended, any more time will be granted to you?”

“…”

“If you wish, you may go back.”

Cheon-hwa held out a bandage.

“No variation, no outside help can be introduced into this method. Even if ten years were to pass from now, we would have to use the same method under the same conditions. I have merely presented the method a little earlier than intended. If it does not suit you, nothing can be done.”

After a few minutes of thought, I frowned and threw the bandage aside.

“Fine, I’ll do it. You’re sure that if I touch this so-called ‘bottom’, I’ll make it out?”

“Probably.”

“?”

“Meaning it is not certain.”

She was the kind of person who wouldn’t offer a comforting lie right up to the very end.

I let out a sigh and, still bleeding, began to wade into the lake she had fashioned into a Deep Sea.

Cheon-hwa watched from behind with her arms crossed and offered a word of encouragement.

“Still, I shall share one fact that may give you strength.”

“What.”

“Even if you die in there, if you die late enough, it will not be your death alone.”

“…Why?”

“Because the Outer God will use you as a conduit to break through into the Real World and kill everyone, myself included.”

“I genuinely have no idea how that’s supposed to give me strength.”

“It means you will not die alone. Void’s plans may also be delayed.”

“…”

If the point was to instill in me the resolve not to die easily, then she’d succeeded.

I let out a deep sigh, and threw myself into the lake.

***

When I opened my eyes again, I was inside the Deep Sea.

“…”

It was a familiar sight, but something was different.

I raised my right hand.

The Air Bubble that should have been there was nowhere to be seen.

As if to announce that there was no longer any way out.

‘If this turns out to be a trap, there’s no going back…’

I sighed and set a Current in motion.

It was something I always did upon entering the Deep Sea. The human instinct to move and survey one’s surroundings.

But the Current wouldn’t move.

“…?”

No, to put it more precisely, it did move, but slowly.

Heavy, sluggish. As if I were pushing oil rather than water.

I started to swim at an agonizingly slow pace, tilting my head at the bizarre phenomenon, then realized something and spread my Current Sense.

“??”

At most, three meters.

When I realized I could only perceive a distance equivalent to the lake I’d fallen into, I swallowed a curse.

After checking the Water Pressure, Currents, and Current Sense repeatedly, I arrived at a hopeless conclusion.

“I’m screwed.”

Every ability that had let me survive in the Deep Sea…

…had been reduced to roughly one-hundredth of what it was.

*****

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