Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 241

Chapter 241: Depth (8)

TL/ED – Miso

“Before that.”

I looked at the dumbfounded monster and threw out a question.

“Do you have something like a name?”

[A name…? You mean a designation?]

He furrowed his brow.

“Yeah. We’re going to be traveling together from now on, so I can’t just keep calling you ‘monster.'”

[Call me whatever you want. I don’t really care.]

“Then I’ll just call you Fish-Man.”

Fish person. I didn’t particularly want to put thought into giving him a pretty name, so I just slapped a label on him based purely on his species traits, and he shrugged as if it made no difference to him.

[I told you to do as you please. So, what are you planning to do once you find creatures in the same situation as me?]

“For starters, I’ll have to kill them all.”

[…Why are you trying to do that?]

“I’m going to try to make that thing called the Middle Layer.”

I explained the plan to the bewildered Fish-Man.

“If the concept of the Middle Layer refers to a region where beings like you assimilate into the sea and have their selves unified into one, then we should be able to create something similar by doing the same kind of thing, right?”

[Simply killing them won’t make anything happen. They have to assimilate…]

“That part we’ll solve by stuffing them inside a body. First we kill them all, turn them into Dumpling Balls, then shove them into your stomach, and something should change.”

[…Why does it have to be me?]

“You said you didn’t care if you died. I do.”

If the Middle Layer was an aggregate of life, then it would be possible to create one in the Deep Sea’s own fashion as well.

Hearing my reckless prediction, the Fish-Man scoffed as if it were absurd.

[That will fail. It’s too forced. At best, all you’d get is a single monster formed from all of us merged together.]

“Well, honestly, that does seem more likely.”

Just as burying any random animal in the ground doesn’t instantly turn it into petroleum, gathering these creatures wouldn’t produce anything immediate beyond a lump of corpses.

That lump of corpses was enough.

“Still, they’ll accept it as a plan worth attempting at the very, very last resort.”

[Who will?]

“The bastards down below. What matters is making them accept it: making them think that someone driven to despair might pull off a stupid Self-Destructive Move like this.”

[…?]

From there, I explained the real plan to the puzzled Fish-Man.

As he listened, he furrowed his brow with an expression of shock unmistakable even on that face of his.

[…You’re out of your mind. Is that really a plan that someone who doesn’t want to die would come up with?]

“If you want to live, you have to be prepared to die. So, what do you think?”

[Think carefully.]

The Fish-Man answered in a sharp tone, as if delivering a warning.

[You can still die.]

“Is that a threat?”

[No, I’m explaining the advantage you possess. But if this plan you’ve devised fails, you won’t be able to anymore. You don’t understand the value of being able to die in this hell.]

“Spare me the riddles. Just tell me whether it’s possible or not.”

[…]

After mulling it over, the Fish-Man slowly let out a sigh.

[At least… of every method I have considered up to now, this one seems to have the highest chance of success.]

“That’s enough for me.”

There was no sane way to kill an entity that defined the very position of Depth.

In that case, I needed to be a little crazy.

***

With the plan set, I immediately went to obtain semi-forced consent from the Fish-Man’s kin.

I’d assumed force would naturally be involved, but- that turned out not to be the case.

“What is this.”

I stared at the giant Clam with a bewildered expression.

The Clam looked as though it had died a long time ago, mouth gaping wide and giving off the pheromones of decay. Unable to find any sign of life in the dried-up flesh, I asked the unfazed Fish-Man a question.

“Your friend’s dead, you know?”

[He isn’t dead. You know what happens to things that die in this Deep Sea, don’t you?]

“…Ah.”

Now that he mentioned it.

In the Deep Sea, anything that died was, without a single exception, crushed into a small Dumpling Ball by the Water Pressure.

That applied to things like Clams as well. Come to think of it, this was the first time I’d seen the corpse of a Deep Sea Creature in any form besides bones.

The Fish-Man reached his hand into the rotted flesh, fumbling around as if searching for something.

What came out of it was a misshapen, unsightly Pearl.

[This is what could be called my kin.]

“That’s just a jewel. Something like this?”

[It’ll be quicker for you to see it with your own two eyes.]

The Fish-Man lifted the Pearl and tossed it into the mouth of an Anglerfish that happened to be swimming nearby.

The Anglerfish, having swallowed it on reflex, smacked its lips for a moment, then began to swell.

[…?!?]

“What the fuck- what is that?”

Next it shriveled to the size of a fingernail, then warped and twisted wildly, transforming into countless shapes.

[Gah, ghk. Why. Still, here is…]

[Here is… I, I am… why…]

[Even after running away, even after being shattered, even after being broken, it’s always this place.]

Garbled screams that were hard to make out began pouring from the Anglerfish’s mouth, and then it shrank in on itself and burst.

-Pop!

…All that remained in its place was, once again, a single unsightly Pearl.

The Fish-Man let out a sigh as he watched.

[Rather than continue living as a living being, they choose to die the moment they’re born again. That is the fate of every entity in this Deep Sea that possesses a self.]

“Yeah? That’s a more efficient method than I expected.”

The sight had been pretty horrific, sure.

But since it’s painful, just getting eaten by another Deep Sea Creature and choosing suicide every time the self returned seemed like a fairly correct choice.

[Not at all.]

But the Fish-Man scrunched his face up and denied it.

[While that life exists in this form, there is, quite literally, nothing. A self cannot dwell in such a state. As a result, they suffer for their entire existence.]

“What?”

[The ten seconds you saw, that is what they live their entire life as. Suffering for ten seconds, choosing suicide, and then before even a second has passed, another Deep Sea Creature swallows them and they are revived. Of course, a great deal of time exists in between, but they cannot perceive it, so naturally that is how it goes.]

“…Then.”

[Eternal suicide. Reviving, dying, reviving, dying…]

Hearing the inside story, the scene looked completely different. I tucked the Pearl into my robe and asked, dumbfounded.

“Then why the hell would they do that? Living like you do would be better.”

[Because eternal pain is better than a life without hope.]

“…”

[Someday I’ll end up like that too. If this plan fails, that is.]

After that, the Fish-Man guided me without saying much.

Not a single one of his kin was in a state where conversation was possible. They were all broken and twisted, remaining as corpses, and even those corpses were rarely intact enough to count.

The giant Clam I’d seen first must have been one of the more presentable ones, then. Thinking that, I looked at my pouch, which had grown plump.

“This should be enough, right?”

As I jingled the pouch, now stuffed with such a variety of Pearls that it was hard to lift with one hand, the Fish-Man nodded with an uncomfortable expression.

[Yes. But…]

The Fish-Man took the pouch as he spoke, swallowing the rest of his words.

[There was no need to gather this many. Why are you going out of your way to make trouble for yourself?]

“This much is necessary if I want to catch their interest.”

In the end, what was needed was something that the bastards living down below would want.

If the purpose of these things called the Middle Layer was ultimately to grow heavier and sink further down, then we needed an entity that could lend its strength to that weight. Something like that.

“Even defective ones are fine. No, they have to be defective, in fact. Otherwise we’ll be suspected.”

[…]

After thinking for a moment, the Fish-Man opened the pouch.

[If this fails, it will end with nothing changed at all.]

“If it does, just think of it as having had A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

[Tch.]

The Fish-Man clicked his tongue in displeasure and floated every Pearl in the pouch upward.

And then-

[…Khh!]

In one go, he tossed them into his mouth.

I slowly raised my Water Pressure in preparation.

Feeding those things to the Fish-Man and turning him into bait that the Middle Layer would swallow, that much was possible.

But the bait had to be perfectly under my control.

Only then could I hide a trap inside it.

Which meant.

[…Get ready.]

Taking down that thing now swelling, growing scales, and gradually separating from human form-

and turning it into a Burden through the power of the Puppet was solely my job.

[Any, more…]

“I know.”

The instant the Fish-Man’s self vanished, the Water Pressure around me slowly grew heavier.

At first I thought he was immediately turning his hostility on me, but no.

Realizing what it meant, I slowly opened my eyes wide.

“…Damn.”

[Krghaa, agh…!]

Eight arms, and from the joints of the tentacles extending from those arms, clouded eyeballs sprouted, all turning to look at me.

I clenched my teeth at the sensation that the Depth around me was lowering.

‘This didn’t actually turn into the Middle Layer, did it.’

Fortunately, the strengthening Water Pressure stopped below a certain level.

Rather than the Middle Layer itself, it felt like he had become an entity in its vicinity.

Things had certainly gone much better than planned.

The problem was that they’d gone too well.

[….uh, ugh.]

The Fish-Man had now transformed into a complete monster.

Tentacles extending from countless arms grotesquely bloated out of shape. Those sharp things were attacking, aiming with precision at one thing and one thing only.

The problem was- that direction wasn’t me.

[Aaagh…!]

“What’s wrong with that bastard?”

It was the owner of the tentacles, the Fish-Man himself.

Even though I wasn’t doing a thing, the tentacles were jabbing into their owner’s heart on their own, raking his skin and gouging out his bones.

It was an assault so violent it didn’t seem to care if he died right then, and the wounds were genuinely fatal, but every time the Fish-Man’s breath was about to stop, his organs and bones regenerated in an instant.

It was as if his head was trying to commit suicide but his physical capabilities were so superior that it was impossible. Watching it in disbelief, I eventually raised my Water Pressure and sliced off one of the tentacles.

[…!]

I’d merely added one more attack on top of all the others, but every single tentacle turned to look at me at once.

So they can tell their own attacks from someone else’s with uncanny precision. I waved my hand at those unsettling eyes attached at every joint of the tentacles and provoked them.

“Looks like you want to die. If that’s your wish, come at me.”

To wrap my threads around that body, not a single one of those tentacles could be left.

When I formed blades out of Water Pressure, the tentacles slowly began to approach me.

Sensing some kind of will or intelligence in them, I cautiously spoke up, wondering if conversation might be possible.

“Hey, would you guys consider cutting each other off…”

-Crunch!

I let out a sigh as I patted the shoulder of my robe, where the mouth of a sharp tentacle had torn off a piece.

It seemed they wanted to commit suicide, but being killed by someone else was off the table.