Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 265

Chapter 265: False God (9)

TL/ED – Miso

That morning.

A public notice was posted throughout the Capital. Since the order had been to make sure everyone could see it, the citizens who read the notice, scattered hastily as if it had been flung down, could not hide their bewilderment.

Its contents read-

“D-did Her Highness eat something bad this morning?”

“This crazy bastard, how dare he, before whom does he think he stands…”

Abandon the Capital.

Take only the bare minimum of belongings, and by whatever means necessary, leave the Capital within 24 hours. Noble and commoner alike, all without exception.

The citizens, who had lived here for generations spanning nearly several centuries, could not easily accept it.

Words so sudden and absurd that, had it been an ordinary monarchy, they might well have sparked a rebellion or an uprising.

Had it not been Sharmia, a notice this paltry would never have carried any weight.

“W-well, there must be some reason for it.”

“It’s not as if she’s telling us to abandon the Capital for good… we just have to leave for about a day, don’t we?”

“If you ask me, there are probably a lot of spies hiding inside this Capital. So she’s telling us to clear out while she cleans those bastards out.”

Conspiracy theories, rumors, grumbling. Each of them voiced their discontent in their own way, yet, because they knew of Sharmia’s dazzling achievements over the years, there was no hesitation.

A wild rumor that anyone remaining inside the Capital would be executed lent its weight as well, and an extraordinary sight unfolded as countless throngs surged out through the gates like a tidal wave.

The nobles, however, were not as obedient as the citizens.

“What is the meaning of this, telling us to abandon the Capital…”

“…Relocating the capital?”

“How could such a thing be done, after all the painstaking effort poured into fortifying the Capital…”

Far more intense discontent flared up.

The nobles, who watched Sharmia’s movements from a far closer vantage, felt with even greater certainty that her actions were aimed at relocating the capital.

And relocating the capital meant that all the land, the wealth, the history they had accumulated in the Capital over the years would come to nothing. Naturally, for those who stood to lose so much more, even Sharmia’s own subordinates could not sit idly by.

It fell to the Knights to calm them.

“There was a royal decree stating that if nothing happens, they will be permitted to return.”

“Hmm…”

Elysia, too, was among the procession of nobles, gazing at the Capital from inside her carriage.

Unlike the other nobles, Elysia had no thoughts on the matter. To be precise, she had no time to spare for such trivial things.

‘Something seems to have changed.’

Lately, the world had been looking slightly strange to her.

A difference so trivial that, if asked what exactly was strange, she could not have answered.

And yet, something was clearly different.

And she had the feeling that if she figured out that difference, something would change.

As she gazed blankly at the Capital, wondering just what this feeling was, piecing together a puzzle with her Telekinesis, a lady-in-waiting who spotted her face poking out the carriage window hurried over and spoke to her.

“Young Lady, are you all right?”

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

“Well, your Star…”

The lady-in-waiting carefully drew a mirror from her bosom.

In the eyes reflected within it, the Star unique to wizards was swimming in Elysia’s pupils.

Far fainter than before.

“…My condition must be off.”

Elysia hurriedly set down the puzzle pieces she had been holding and shrugged.

“It’ll get better with a little rest. I’m fine.”

“Yes…”

Of course, Elysia had some idea of what was happening.

For the Star to grow faint meant that she was gradually drifting away from being a wizard.

Jern had been an unusual case. Normally, when a wizard Fell into the Abyss, they lost all their Stars and could no longer use Magic.

And gradually drifting away from Magic.

She knew the reason for that as well.

Her own ability.

‘This is dangerous.’

The more accustomed she grew to it, the stronger this power that suppressed Worlds and threw the Fallen into convulsions became, the fainter her Star grew.

-The Fall into the Abyss.

The same kind of existence as those criminals being dragged along at the very back, locked in their cages. Elysia knew that among those criminals was even a noble she had once known. And that she herself was standing on that very boundary.

Should she stop? For a moment, Elysia thought that if Jern came back and found she had become one of the Fallen, he would probably be quite sad.

“…No.”

It was a brief thought. Through her contact with the Fallen, she had seen any number of times how they could not survive even a year, half a year at the longest, before being devoured by their Worlds.

And how agonizing a life they led.

Elysia bit down on her lip. Just yesterday, she had succeeded in using her ability to bring a Fallen back to nearly the level of an ordinary person. They had turned a little dim-witted, but it was proof that with this ability, she could save Jern.

With firm resolve, she was once again toying with the puzzle when-

“Ah, gah…”

“Kyaaaaah!!!”

She heard screams coming from outside.

When Elysia opened the window again and looked out, a spectacle had unfolded before her. Countless crowds, nobles and commoners alike, were all staring in the same direction.

It was the Capital. Elysia, too, turned to look back at the Capital and frowned.

“…What is that.”

-Rumble, rumble-rumble-rumble-rumble…..

Something was falling from the sky.

Earth and piles of stone, flaming tree branches, the thick smell of sulfur.

White ash began to pour down as if it were rain.

More and more, harder and harder.

“K-Knights! Go back! Now!”

“Get back to the Capital! We have to put out the fire!”

As those burning branches fell, plop, plop, igniting the now-empty buildings of the Capital, several nobles who saw that their own buildings were going up in flames went into convulsions.

The convulsions did not last very long. Soon after, just as the sky grew dark, it revealed itself.

“A-a mountain?”

“It looks… like a volcano.”

“As if anyone couldn’t tell that, why is it over there…”

Within the sky that had darkened as though night had fallen, something covered the Capital from above.

A volcano with lava flowing through it stretched out from the sky. Its crater was overturned, aimed squarely at the Imperial Palace.

A miracle that no Magic could ever produce: a mountain appearing in the sky, turned upside down.

But such a trifling thing was not enough to hold back the nobles, whose entire fortunes were on the line.

“If no one else will go back, then I will go back myself!”

The moment five Stars sparkled in one noble’s eyes, lightning was forged in the grip of his hand, for he had been born a wizard from the start, and it began to shine with a dazzling brilliance.

“What is there to fear from a mere mountain? In my youth I broke apart any number of them!”

-Crackle-crackle-crackle, crack!

A massive bolt of lightning struck the side of the mountain, and though there was the minor matter of dust and dirt raining down on the Capital, half of the mountain was blown away.

“…”

“…”

“……”

Despite the triumph, everyone, including the noble who had loosed the lightning, froze.

The mountain was not simply floating there.

It was being held by something.

“Th-that…”

The flash of lightning had not merely struck the mountain. As it blazed with light, it revealed, if only for an instant, the hand, or rather, the colossal object that had to be called a hand, gripping the mountain.

A hand was clutching the volcano.

But no one could tell what that hand was made of. It was certainly not flesh, bone, or skin, and it was neither cloud, mist, stone, nor glass; it was none of those things.

It simply looked as though a portion of the night sky had taken the shape of a hand and was gripping the mountain.

At a sight none had ever seen in their lives, the hand moved before the noble could find his words.

It did nothing special. It merely clenched its grip.

But the volcano could not withstand it. It was crushed on the spot, scattering earth and piles of stone, lava and volcanic ash like spilled entrails.

Every last bit of that debris became a weapon and struck the Capital.

-KABOOOOOM!!!

“Ah…”

Before the sight of everything they had built up over their entire lives being smashed to pieces, the nobles had nothing to offer but stifled groans.

The hand that had crushed the volcano and shattered the Capital vanished without a care, as if its work were done.

In the still silence as everyone gazed wordlessly at the Capital, now reduced entirely to ruins, someone opened their mouth.

“Is that- the enemy?”

The enemy.

If so, then it meant they would have to wrest a victory from that thing.

It meant they would have to fight that thing, make it bleed, and force it to admit defeat.

Against an enemy that smashed apart a Capital built up over several centuries, just like that.

Impossible.

“….”

Just as a similar despair was welling up in everyone’s hearts.

Only one person clutched her pounding chest and held within her a kind of rapture.

“That’s it.”

Elysia, her eyes shining, looked up at the sky where the hand had been.

She knew the instant she saw it. That was Jern’s enemy.

That was Jern’s only enemy. And at the same time, it was the reason Jern still had not returned.

He had known from the very start. That the enemy was something like that, which was why even Jern was still struggling, unable to find a way to face it. And that it was because of that struggle that he had vanished from before her.

That he had not shown his face even once throughout all that long time.

And at the same time-

“…I can kill it.”

-Clench, Elysia tightened her fist.

She had learned it while examining countless Fallen under the pretext of treating them. Her ability suppressed, eliminated, and annihilated their Worlds.

And that thing was, quite literally, the World itself that made the Fallen what they were.

In other words, she could erase it.

She felt certain that with her ability, she could make that hand disappear.

‘I’m the only one who can do this.’

This ability.

The power to erase Magic, which had tormented her since she was a child.

The power to erase even the Worlds of the Fallen. The flaw that had made her curse the heavens again and again, wondering why she alone had been born a defective product. There had been a reason that flaw existed.

Elysia, about to kick open the carriage door and rush out, hesitated for a moment with her hand on the door handle.

She might be thinking too hastily.

Her ability could surely kill the enemy, but what if she made a mistake and failed even to make contact? It would be nothing more than a meaningless death.

When Jern came back. When he came back safe and sound, she would talk it over with him then, and…

“No, no, no…”

Elysia gritted her teeth.

It had been a year. The fact that he hadn’t appeared in all that time was strange, no matter how she thought about it.

Something had gone wrong. Badly so.

Perhaps already.

“No…”

Gripping the door handle hard enough to draw blood, she put her thoughts in order.

‘It’s only because that hand exists that Jern isn’t coming back.’

Because Jern was that kind of person.

If he wouldn’t return until he found a way to defeat the enemy, then she would simply bring the enemy down herself in the first place.

-Click. The instant she steeled her resolve, the door handle turned.

“…Elysia, are you all right?”

About an hour later.

Alletus, who had returned with a weary face from the nobles’ emergency meeting, came back to the carriage looking for Elysia.

“First of all, we’ve decided to relocate the capital to a new place that Her Highness the Princess had marked out in advance. It’ll be a rather long road, but-”

As he opened the door with a tired face, he saw that the carriage was empty and tilted his head, then spoke to a coachman who was tending the horses nearby.

“Excuse me, where is Elysia?”

“Pardon? She said just a moment ago that she was going off to see her father…”

Puzzled glances crossed between them.

And Elysia’s disappearance did not become much of an issue.

With the Capital in ruins, the disappearance of a single Young Lady, even if she was Alletus’s daughter, was nothing more than a trivial matter.

“…Ah, Young Lady… put the sword down!”

And two weeks later.

A new Fallen appeared.