Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 260

Chapter 260: Fake God (4)

TL/ED – Miso

“You…”

Looking this way, looking that way- it was herself.

A bit younger, but there was no way Linmel could fail to recognize her own face. She quickly pulled herself together and drew her sword.

“What is this.”

Three years since the world had been turned upside down. Two years since natural death had come to be called a blessing.

Anything out of the ordinary took lives. And the child before her who resembled… herself was without a doubt an abnormal occurrence.

Regardless, the young Linmel just kept smiling toward her as if amused.

“So you’re from before you grew up. Well, she was human after all, so I suppose it’s only natural-”

“…”

Linmel-

clenched her teeth without making any rash move.

She had seen countless enemies who remained confident even while standing right in front of her. She had watched their faces turn to shock or despair many times.

But from some point on, she couldn’t see even those expressions anymore. From the moment she had reached mastery, opponents lost their lives still in their confident state.

So this time, the same approach would do. While the opponent still didn’t know her ability, all she had to do was sever that neck.

‘Absolutely not.’

Linmel decided to trust her instincts rather than her past experience, and slowly stepped backward.

“Hmm?”

At that, the girl moved.

Tilting her head, she pulled out the foot she had dipped in the lake, then smirked and waved her hand.

“Why are you running away?”

“…”

Linmel, still retreating, gritted her teeth and muttered.

“I’m not running away.”

“Ah, sorry if it sounded like mockery. That’s not what I meant, it’s just… I should look like nothing more than a young girl to anyone right now.”

The girl, who spoke as if she had been something quite different before, met Linmel’s eyes as if intrigued.

“I was just wondering how a creature with senses keen enough to fear someone like me could possibly exist in this era.”

“Ngh.”

Goosebumps rose on Linmel’s neck.

If that thing took even one step closer, it would be over.

Linmel discarded her instincts. Her sword flew out faster than thought, reaching toward the nape of the girl who smiled as she spoke.

Or rather, it tried to.

“Nightchase.”

Until a voice full of irritation rang through the air from behind her, where there had been nothing just a moment ago.

It was a familiar resonance. Something she had recalled countless times.

“I told you, the moment you slip off on your own again, I’d lock you up in the Deep Sea. What gives you the nerve…”

“…”

Linmel turned her head.

Her eyes met his.

***

Ever since Nightchase had crossed into the Real World, she had a habit of slipping away from the depths of the lake every night under the pretext of wanting to gaze at the moon.

And since I’d be the one in for a headache if Void caught on, that day too I had gone up to drag her back-

There were two Linmels standing there.

“Jern.”

“…Linmel?”

A Linmel with the appearance I knew, smiling wickedly. Nightchase.

And a Linmel grown up about twice as beautiful and strong as I might have pictured had I tried to imagine that Linmel aged.

No matter how long I had watched Linmel back at the orphanage, the five years I should have spent growing accustomed to this new appearance simply didn’t exist for me.

That was why words wouldn’t come easily. It was Linmel who acted first.

-Gnash.

“Where have you been all this time without a single word?”

“…Well.”

“Do you have any idea how long I searched? I scoured half the world. The other half is lost land, so after that I had no choice but to comb through the same places again and again.”

Linmel had come right up to me and grabbed my shoulder.

No exaggeration: I felt on my shoulder the kind of Water Pressure I’d only felt in the Middle Layer.

With the firm certainty that one wrong answer would make me the second god ever killed by a human, I was trying to draw out the best possible reply.

“Thank goodness…”

Then, as if my answer wasn’t even needed, Linmel buried her forehead into my chest.

“I’m so glad… you’re alive…”

“…I’m sorry.”

“…Sniffle.”

I’d had my share of hardships, sure.

But in the end I had left without a word, so from Linmel’s point of view she might well have thought I’d abandoned everything and run away. Or died alone somewhere out there.

And yet it seemed Linmel had searched for me without fail throughout those five years. That was- rather heart-wrenching.

For a while I patted her slightly trembling back, and to calm her somehow, I told her about the things I had been doing.

“I’ve been in the Deep Sea this whole time. It’s a completely separate world, so you wouldn’t have been able to find me.”

“Why were you in a place like that?”

“I had to find a way to kill Void. And I managed to get some of what I needed.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah. Of course, it’s hard to believe…”

“I believe you. If you hadn’t found a way, you wouldn’t have come back at all.”

“Well, that’s true.”

As I nodded, Linmel raised her head and glared at me again with reddened eyes.

“But then why didn’t you come straight to me after returning?”

“To you…? Ah, the Capital? Well, you see-”

“It’s because this guy is a rookie.”

Nightchase suddenly cut in, dipping her foot back into the lake and disrupting our reunion.

“He doesn’t even know how to hide his presence. Look right now, he’s leaving traces.”

“…Huh?”

Linmel looked down at my feet, eyes widening in shock.

The ground I was standing on had sunk in, with water seeping out to form a tiny lake.

Every footprint I had left was the same. On top of that, as the water gradually overflowed and carved small ditches around them, Linmel tilted her head in bewilderment.

“What is this? Magic?”

“It’s not really magic… I’m just a bit different from human now? Something like a being? Anyway, that’s kind of what I became.”

“Huh…?”

Linmel blinked those bright, clear eyes that hadn’t changed in the slightest from her childhood.

The distance between us hadn’t really changed either, close enough that our noses could touch. Feeling a little overwhelmed, I stepped back and shrugged.

“Just by being alive and breathing, I leave traces on this world. Traces that Void can recognize.”

“And we can’t let that guy notice us yet, you see?”

Nightchase, who had drawn close at some point, looked at me as if amused and curled the corners of her lips.

“So I was teaching this rookie god how to walk without wounding the world. He would have learned it all by tomorrow- but you had to show up today of all days.”

When I glared at Nightchase as if I could kill her, she hurriedly hid behind Linmel.

Luckily, Linmel seemed to take the word “god” as some sort of figure of speech, and looking at Nightchase hiding behind her, she brought up something else entirely.

“I see. But what is she?”

“A, a friend I met in the Deep Sea.”

“The Deep Sea? People live there too?”

“Things sort of like people live there. I got lonely so I brought one back with me.”

“…But why does she look exactly like me?”

“Well, that’s-”

My mouth, about to answer as if it were the most obvious thing, snapped shut.

Nightchase was a water surface: a mirror that reflected one’s heart and made one see the person they most wanted to see.

So it was only natural that Linmel had appeared. In a Deep Sea where everyone hid blades under their tongues, the purest person I knew was Linmel.

But saying that out loud in front of her seemed worse torture than having my toenails pulled out.

“You see, there’s an ability I have that…”

“I had her try mimicking people.”

Before Nightchase could blurt out something strange, I crushed her mouth shut with Water Pressure and took over.

Linmel raised the obvious question.

“…Why?”

“I was lonely on my own. So I had her make the faces of people I knew. My memories are stopped five years ago, so that’s why she looks like that.”

“Ah, I see.”

For some reason wearing an expression that was half disappointment and half satisfaction, Linmel grabbed Nightchase by the scruff of her neck and lifted her up.

“Hey, let go.”

“Hmm, so this is what I look like in Jern’s mind?”

“I said let go. Human.”

“Aren’t you sculpting me a little too cute? I don’t think I’d look quite like this…”

“What’s with this girl? Just a moment ago she was trembling in fear of me-”

“I never trembled, did I?”

Linmel gently embraced Nightchase’s neck (though to me it looked like nothing other than strangling) and smiled with bloodshot eyes.

“Still, I’m glad I was of some help. So tomorrow… you can come out of that lake place?”

“Yeah. As soon as I’m out, I’ll go see my mentor and discuss things together with the Princess.”

The Empire has fallen- that statement was half true and half false.

It was only that the Capital had been taken by the Crimson Circle. While that was nearly indistinguishable from ruin, as long as Sharmia was alive, the spark remained.

If I used those people, then even with my still incomplete abilities-

“…Ah.”

At my words, Linmel hung her head.

“That, um… right. Jern, you’ve been gone for five whole years. It makes sense you wouldn’t really know the situation.”

“…Did something happen?”

Feeling a creeping unease, I felt I had no choice but to ask again.

As Linmel had said, I had no idea what had become of this world. All I had were a few things picked up from Cheon-hwa, and that girl never set foot off her mountain either.

If by any chance Sharmia had died. That would…

“The Princess is alive and well. It’s because of her that we’re just barely holding on.”

“…That’s a relief.”

The anxiety quickly subsided. If so, then this wasn’t the worst-case scenario.

As I was thinking that, Linmel tapped her fingers together and continued.

“And your mentor- Dersia is missing.”

“What??”

“Not long after you disappeared, she went back to the elf forest and shut herself away. No one knows what she’s doing.”

This crazy elf, in times like these?

Frowning, I completely overhauled my plans.

‘First, I’ll have to drag my mentor back.’

Dersia was far more versatile than a half-god like me.

To begin with, my plan to turn the world into the Deep Sea was only something I could carry out because she existed. I absolutely had to have Dersia’s help.

“Other than that, though, Sir Brimdal and Karos are fine, my foster dad too, the orphanage too. All of them are fine.”

“…Really?”

I could feel my own expression gradually brightening.

The situation was much, much better than I had expected.

None of those I had loved were hurt; they were all alive. After that, Linmel went on to tell me that the people I might have worried about were all living perfectly well.

All but one.

“By the way, Linmel.”

I scratched my head and brought up that name.

“What about Elysia?”

“…”

For the first time, Linmel fell silent- and my heart sank with a jolt.

“Don’t tell me-”

“She’s not dead! It’s not what you’re thinking.”

Linmel waved her hands and reassured me again.

“Phew, that’s a relief. Was she wounded somewhere?”

If it was a wound, unless it was truly severe, I could heal it, but-

“…It would have been better if she’d just died.”

At Linmel’s words that followed, laced with a trace of hatred, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

“She fell into the Abyss. If you asked anyone right now to name the worst of the Crimson Circle’s Upper Tier- they’d probably pick Nihility, the former wizard Elysia.”

The silver-haired girl in my memories.

…had become one of the Fallen.

*****

Join our discord server: https://discord.gg/Bv5qu2Qbb

Join my Patreon to read more chapters: patreon.com/misoinapocalypse