Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 247

Chapter 247: Depth (14)

TL/ED – Miso

The word “lost” was exactly right.

I’d started losing track of where forward was, where back was, and even when I’d first arrived here.

‘I’ve probably been here at least an hour.’

It probably hadn’t been all that long. After all, this was still the Deep Sea, and the longer I stayed, the worse the Burden would become.

The problem was what came next. I couldn’t just keep going forever without knowing which direction I was headed.

At the very least, I needed to figure out which way was down. I pulled a pen from my pocket and let it hover in midair.

Then I focused on it intently through Current Sense.

It had weight, after all, so even if only slightly, it would either drift up or sink down. If I could just catch that moment, I’d be able to tell up from down.

I was wrong.

“…This isn’t even a zero-gravity space.”

The pen didn’t budge an inch from where I’d set it floating in the seawater.

Apparently this Deep Layer didn’t have so much as a trace of a current. As I sighed, thinking that, another doubt suddenly crept in.

Was this really the Deep Layer?

Far from the Burden growing heavier, it had actually lessened, and I couldn’t even distinguish up from down. The only thing I had to go on was one single fact: that the Middle Layer had told me so.

But there was no way to verify that in my current situation. I tried pulling out other heavy objects besides the pen, things like keys, but still none of them showed even the slightest movement.

While I was turning over various other thoughts.

Suddenly, a chill ran through me as if cold water had been poured into my head.

“-Wait. What is this.”

The pen was still floating. Exactly as I’d left it.

That much wasn’t an issue. I’d already confirmed a moment ago that it wouldn’t move.

The problem was the fact that it still existed at all.

‘How?’

Genuinely flustered, I picked up the perfectly intact pen.

The Deep Sea showed no mercy. Living or non-living, anything inside it got crushed into a mangled sphere.

And yet, from the moment I’d taken it out, despite all this empty space around it that should have crushed it, the pen had been withstanding the Deep Sea. When I really thought about it, it was absurd. It had just felt so natural that I hadn’t noticed.

“…”

The shock lasted only a moment before a cold sweat slowly began beading down my spine.

The Deep Sea was never a normal space to begin with. Naturally, I had been prepared for the Deep Layer, its most extreme region, to be something similar.

But there was no way it would take this kind of accommodating form. There was no way the place the Middle Layer feared, the place I was aiming for, the place where Outer Gods lived, could be this comfortable.

Something was wrong.

The suspicion hardened, but to turn it into certainty I needed a more reliable method.

After thinking it over, I checked my own physical condition.

“Whew…”

When I lightly waved my hand, the Blade of Water Pressure, capable of effortlessly slicing through steel, manifested at once.

I was in unbelievably top condition. Truly, an omnipotence that felt like I could do anything.

I spread my palm and gave it a light cut.

-Slice!

Watching the blood gradually spread out into the Deep Sea, I gritted my teeth and braced myself.

Up above, those things had come rushing the moment I’d shed any blood.

Even if this wasn’t the Deep Layer, it was only natural that there’d be some response.

But, just as I had half-expected.

There was no reaction.

“That settles it…”

I sighed and wrapped my hand in a bandage.

This wasn’t the Deep Layer.

It wasn’t even close. If even my blood drew this much silence, the answer was almost certain.

I didn’t know what the Middle Layer had done, but it had deceived me. So where was this? Had it thrown me into something like Purgatory entirely?

I had far too little information. And knowing wouldn’t change anything anyway.

In the end, what I had to do was escape. The objective was the same.

‘I dismissed it as a water-headed fool, but it’s pretty clever.’

The Middle Layer must have realized that whether I died or lived, I was a dangerous existence, and it had sent me to this place rather than the Deep Layer to make sure I could neither die nor truly live.

But, if the Middle Layer thought it could keep me locked away forever in this unknown place, then I could only say it had badly miscalculated.

It was a fact I had grasped to some degree from the moment I’d first arrived.

I’d already noticed it somewhat from the fact that the pen hadn’t been crushed, but for whatever reason the Burden in this place was extremely, extraordinarily low.

‘If the entire Deep Sea were like this…’

It was an impossible hypothesis, but if every space really had Burden this low.

By now, I might already be called something like an Outer God. Or at least something similar.

I stretched my Current Sense out with everything I had, and a range large enough to fit two cities inside was caught within it.

Next, I slowly began to stir that entire range.

“…”

This was past reckless and into outright stupid. Catching a wide area within Current Sense and actually controlling every region within that field of view were entirely different things.

Just attempting it should have brought a Burden severe enough to crush my heart.

If this hadn’t been this space, that’s exactly what would have happened, but no.

My heart was still beating.

Without the slightest pain.

“Honestly, I’m grateful.”

I lifted the corners of my mouth and pushed the Current even harder.

Little by little, feeling the sensation of Current Sense filling out.

***

[Jern, get a hold of yourself! Jern!]

Mallo shook him this way and that, trying to wake Jern.

The way he had collapsed as if losing consciousness the very moment he’d plunged into the Middle Layer, no matter how Mallo looked at it, was not normal.

[Damn it…!]

But Jern wouldn’t get up. Whatever Mallo did, he just lay on the sandy floor as if dead.

As Mallo refused to give up trying to rouse Jern, a low voice echoed through the dark waters.

[Creation, your master is unharmed…]

[…]

It was the being Jern had called the Middle Layer.

Mallo bristled at the word “master” but replied curtly.

[Well, he doesn’t look the slightest bit fine to me.]

[Indeed. I said unharmed, not fine…]

[If you think I’ll humor your wordplay-]

[Your master is undergoing the Qualification Test. Wait.]

[…Qualification?]

When Mallo paused, the Middle Layer continued, looking down at Jern who was sunken beneath it.

[In this world, all things sink slowly. But there are also places where one can sink no further. If your master sought out the end of this sea, he came to the right place. I am the deepest part of this sea. There is no realm below me, so I am the deepest of all. The accumulated result of all life.]

[What…]

Mallo, struck speechless by the way it laid out these facts as if they were utterly self-evident, began to stammer.

[So, so you’re saying, you’re not actually the Middle Layer but the Deep Layer? The very edge of this Deep Sea?]

[You could put it that way.]

[…You deceived us!]

[Hardly. I gave him what he wanted.]

The Middle Layer dismissed the accusation lightly and pointed at Jern.

[Behold your master, lying beneath me. I am the end and the floor of the Deep Sea, but the end of the Deep Sea does not mean the end of the world…]

[…]

Mallo, still not understanding, asked again.

[Then, where is this place we’re in now? If beneath the end of the Deep Sea isn’t the Deep Sea anymore…]

[There are things the Deep Sea presses down upon. So that they can no longer even conceive of emerging.]

[…]

[Therefore, every life that descends to the very bottom is tested by this world called the Deep Sea. That is what your master is undergoing.]

[What qualification do you mean, exactly.]

[It’s simple.]

The Middle Layer gave Jern a light nudge, pushing him further toward the bottom, and replied.

[The qualification of being able to keep what should not emerge from emerging.]

For the first time in a very long while, Mallo felt a chill prickle along its collar.

Because it had managed to grasp, even just a little, what the Middle Layer was saying.

‘Could this world called the Deep Sea actually be-‘

All sorts of thoughts raced through Mallo’s mind, but it soon realized this was not the time to be asking such things and spoke up.

[The trial that Jern is…]

[A trial he is bound to fail. Something that even tens of millions of lives gathered together could not accomplish. There is no way a single human can.]

The Middle Layer answered before Mallo could even finish its question.

[He’s holding out longer than I expected, but in the end, the silence in which one cannot tell eternity from an instant cannot be endured. By now he must be screaming in agony.]

[…Damn it.]

[So wait quietly. It will end soon.]

Reluctantly, Mallo stopped trying to wake Jern.

From what the Middle Layer had said, Jern already seemed to be suffering more than enough.

***

“This is so comfortable…”

The instant every region of my Current Sense was completely saturated with my Current.

I clenched my fist tightly, trying to suppress the welling sense of accomplishment.

Just for that moment, I might have been the happiest person in all the Deep Sea.

I even found myself wishing I could stay here forever.

In a state with no Burden whatsoever, my Deep Sea abilities were rising at an exponential rate.

Of course, if I had to be picky, it wasn’t entirely Burden-free. The fact that I had no sense of time. That part was a little annoying.

‘No matter how I look at it, this feels like a year has passed…’

While my thoughts continued, sometimes it felt like I’d suddenly spaced out for several hours, and other times it felt like I’d been stirring the Current for dozens of hours but had only just begun a moment ago.

I tried counting seconds in my head the way Master used to, but I couldn’t focus and gave up. When I thought about it, the warped sense of time wasn’t only a downside.

Even so, just kneading seawater with no stimulation of any kind was rather dull.

Though thanks to it, I’d gained a level of large-scale Current manipulation that couldn’t even compare to before.

“-It’ll be hard to pull this off outside.”

I worked the area spanning thousands of meters completely under my control and clicked my tongue.

Dominating an area this enormous was only possible without Burden. If I tried the same thing outside, I’d still be crushed dead by Burden in three seconds.

But the fact that I could now manipulate a range this vast meant-

That when manipulating a smaller range, I could exert tens of thousands, or even hundreds of millions, of times more precision.

Even before, by concentrating Current Sense on a narrow range, I’d had Current manipulation precise enough to split a thick strand of hair clean in two.

Now that I could perfectly fill the entire range of Current Sense with Current, I immediately set about experimenting.

“Let’s give it a try.”

First, I lightly plucked a hair and tossed it into the air, then concentrated all of my Current Sense into a fist-sized area.

Then I formed a thin blade with the Current, and the hair was easily severed in two.

But it didn’t end there. The hair, halved, was halved again, and that was halved again…

After repeating this several times, fragments too small to see with the naked eye had been produced. It seemed I’d entered nearly the microscopic realm.

The precision was almost ridiculous. Letting out a dry laugh, I soon thought back to when I had first become a Wizard and used to carve wood.

‘Should I try it now?’

I had a hunch that an incredible work of art might come out of this, so I looked around for something to carve.

But of course, the only thing around was water.

“No reason it can’t work.”

I gathered about a cup’s worth of Deep Sea Water and slowly froze it using my Extreme Ice ability.

A round piece of ice formed, and I began to slowly carve down to even the most minute regions.

Wings and scales, brain and blood vessels. Eyes and gills, too.

Before long, a Silver Flying Fish made of ice had taken shape. So exquisitely detailed that with just a coat of color, it would barely differ from an adult specimen.

Satisfied, I tucked it into my pocket, and just as I was about to try carving a human form next.

-Tremble!

A strange shudder came from the pocket where I’d just put the flying fish.

Wondering what it was, I pulled the carved fish back out, and…

[…]

“…?”

The flying fish, trembling all over, was looking up at me.

As if it were alive.

The quivering of its wings against my hand told me this wasn’t simply my imagination, and in an instant my expression began to sour.

“No, hold on…”

In time that I couldn’t really feel, after spending a while in a daze, locked in a staring contest with the flying fish, I had no choice but to accept the situation.

…It seemed.

I had just brought a life into being.