Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 266

Chapter 266: False God (10)

TL/ED – Miso

“Where are you hiding…”

The false Capital. Its depths.

Linmel pressed forward carefully, resolved to smash through anything that stood in her way.

“Miss, the fish is good today, the mackerel is absolutely incredible…”

“Hup!”

-Slice!

That held true even for things that took human form. The merchant who had tried to hawk his wares split in two and collapsed to the ground.

No blood flowed. The severed area was filled with something like white cloud, and the merchant kept wandering about, not even realizing he was dead.

“…”

“Oh my, really? Then let’s take a look~”

Watching the other citizens converse perfectly normally with that sliced-up bit of mist, Linmel sighed and rolled her eyes.

‘Ugh, how awful. This is exactly why I hated this.’

The Witch of Nothingness was the enemy Linmel loathed most.

In terms of sheer lethality, she was less than an ant. She couldn’t kill so much as a single person.

But in terms of cruelty, she was more dreadful than any other foe.

She wasn’t called a witch for nothing.

Everyone who encountered the Witch of Nothingness, whether they were a Knight, a wizard, or anything else at all, lost their memories.

At best, memories of a specific person; at worst, they forgot even how to walk.

For Linmel, who lived by those very memories, there was no more detestable opponent.

“I never liked her before either.”

The library.

Arriving in front of the main gate, Linmel steadied her breathing and gripped her sword.

No matter how solid a wall might be, if it existed, there was nothing she couldn’t cut. Linmel’s sword fell slowly from above, downward.

“But right now, I just wish you were dead.”

-Hum…

A faint resonance swept over the Capital.

And yet the sword failed to cut through the door.

“?”

To be precise, it had embedded itself partway into the door and refused to budge. There was no way a mere wooden door could resist her blade. She had even put a fair amount of genuine effort into it, so even a door made of twice as much steel should have sliced apart like tofu.

Something on the other side of the door was gripping her sword.

-Shunk! The moment Linmel realized this, she immediately drove the sword in with all her strength.

“Oh.”

It was the wrong call.

As if it had been waiting for that, the door gulped the sword right down. It seemed ready to swallow her hand too, so she had no choice but to let go, and all she could do was listen to the sound of steel scraping and bending beyond the door.

-Ptooey. Before long, the completely mangled sword was spat back out.

Linmel stared at her beloved blade for a moment, then snorted out a laugh.

“Oh-ho?”

Damage like this could be hammered straight again and reused. She had the strength to do it, too.

But her pride wouldn’t allow it. Linmel clenched her fist and slammed it straight into the door.

-Bang, bang!! Kabooom!!

With each punch, sawdust and dust scattered into the air. If it really had been an ordinary door, it should have shattered long ago, yet it held up astonishingly well. If anything, she got the sense it was repairing itself.

Of course, Linmel wasn’t pounding away without a plan.

‘If I keep hammering till nightfall, the noise will draw it out, right?’

There was a logic to it, in its own way.

Whether her intent got through or not, after enduring a good long while, the other side of the door responded for the first time.

[Stop it.]

The voice was as cold as could be.

[Leave when I permit you to.]

“And if I don’t want to?”

[I don’t want to kill you. You were a Knight that Jern cherished, after all.]

“…Now I hate you even more.”

-Crack!

A punch even harder than before struck the door once again.

Linmel clenched her now-bleeding fist tighter still, glared at what lay beyond the door, and issued her threat.

“Open this door. If you don’t, I’ll split this whole Capital apart.”

[…]

“You think I can’t?”

[Haaah…]

-Click.

The sound of the door handle turning came through.

“You should’ve done that from the start.”

Linmel grumbled as she pushed the door open.

Inside the library, there was nothing but hazy mist. A space like the inside of a cloud, with no shelves, no books, no floor, nothing at all.

Thinking it resembled the inside of that citizen’s body she’d seen moments ago, she walked into the interior, which felt hard rather than soft, and from beyond, someone walked out wearing an absolutely dreadful expression.

It was Elysia. Unlike herself, she hadn’t grown so much as an inch.

“…Why are you so young?”

“That’s not what you came here to talk about.”

Elysia spoke with a weary expression, perched on something or other.

“Did Father send you?”

“No. Hm, though I think I heard something vaguely along those lines.”

She had heard that Alletus was doing everything he possibly could to reclaim his daughter.

It seemed he’d asked Linmel herself to please take care of it too, but she couldn’t quite remember.

As if she’d expected as much, Elysia turned her head away and slowly went on.

“I can’t go back. I’ve gathered all the memories I need, so I won’t be attacking people anymore. I’ll just stay here quietly and do nothing, so go on home.”

“I’m not really all that sorry, but no.”

Linmel held out her hand with a disgusted look, as if reaching into a trash can, and replied.

“Come out. Jern’s waiting outside.”

“Jern…”

At those words, Elysia glanced behind her for a moment, then gave a self-mocking smile.

“I don’t know what fooled you, but Jern is gone.”

“What?”

“It’s something I found out after infiltrating the Crimson Circle. Jern was officially declared dead.”

Elysia slowly lowered her gaze.

After blinking her eyes for a moment, Linmel soon gave the reaction the situation deserved.

‘Sigh, this crazy bitch…’

Was someone like this even worth taking back?

Wouldn’t the right thing to do, for both Jern and herself, be to just deal with her here somehow and make the excuse that she’d grown too vicious to be helped?

As she weighed that possibility, she pictured the reaction Jern would show after she delivered the news, and she clicked her tongue.

In the end, she had to bring this deranged woman back one way or another. If Jern came in here, it would be dangerous.

“I saw it with my own two eyes. If you can’t believe me, then come out and see for yourself.”

“I confirmed it with my own two eyes too, no, with something else. Jern was swallowed by the Deep Sea. A Deep Sea he can never escape from again.”

“No, that’s why I’m telling you to come see for yourself.”

“Cheon-hwa deceived Jern.”

Elysia trembled and went on with hollow eyes.

“You wouldn’t know what kind of place the Deep Sea is. Have you ever even dipped your feet into it?”

“No. But I can tell you’re not listening to a word I say.”

“I have dipped into it. That’s how I know. Jern can’t come back.”

Elysia snapped at Linmel and pulled her knees in against her chest.

She looked less like a witch who had stolen the memories of countless Knights and more like a child of her apparent age.

“Why didn’t he tell me? I could have fought in his place. Instead of going into a hell like that, if he’d only used me…”

Again and again and again.

Elysia had struggled to find something, anything, that would prove her own conclusion wrong.

But nowhere in the world could Jern be found. And if a being that no longer existed in this world had fallen somewhere else…

The only place Jern could be was the Deep Sea.

It was the moment Elysia lost her reason to fight.

“What are you fighting for?”

“…Me?”

Linmel had been listening with her arms crossed, wondering how far this would go, and she tilted her head at the question suddenly thrown back at her.

“You saw in the Capital that, in the end, Void can’t be beaten.”

Elysia was clutching a dagger that could kill Void.

But holding the dagger and being able to plunge it into his heart were as different as heaven and earth.

If Jern came back through it, she could stake her life. She would use her now-deathless body to claw at the impossible as much as she wanted.

But right now she couldn’t find a single reason to do so.

“Why fight a battle you’ll lose?”

“Because I believe Jern will come back.”

“…I see.”

Hope that could only be held because one didn’t know.

Elysia thought she was a little envious of her for that.

But Linmel’s words didn’t end there.

“And even if he doesn’t come back, I won’t give up.”

“What…?”

“Even if he never comes back his whoooole life and I never get to see him again as long as I live, I still don’t care.”

“Why, why?”

“Because I think Jern would be sad if I sat around blubbering like you.”

Her words were sharp, but she answered with a slightly softened attitude.

It was only a little, but she could understand why Elysia had fallen into despair.

“Look at the state of you. Holed up in this Capital, stealing people’s memories in this empty mist, getting called a witch. What do you think Jern would say if he saw this?”

“…Jern is gone.”

“You can keep thinking that all you want, but for now, get out of here. If you don’t want to, then at least step outside the walls just once. No, actually, what even is this creepy place to begin with?”

Linmel wandered around the misty library, feeling puzzled.

Come to think of it, something was off. From what she’d said, it sounded like Elysia thought Jern was dead, despaired, and gave up the fight. But if so, she should have just holed up quietly in some cave somewhere, so why go to the trouble of coming all the way to the Capital?

And why steal people’s memories of all things? What was she planning to use them for?

“You say you’ve given up on everything, so what were you doing in here?”

“G-get out. Let’s talk outside.”

The moment Linmel started moving around inside the library, Elysia tried to stop her, looking somehow anxious.

Linmel sensed something suspicious.

‘It looks like she’s been up to something.’

Come to think of it, would a Fallen really have just stolen memories and nothing more?

It was obvious she’d made something using those memories. Maybe she was using that ability to kidnap other humans and suck out their marrow to keep herself young.

Linmel glared at the mist for a moment, then her eyes lit up.

“Aha, I knew it.”

Spotting something somewhere in the mist, she dashed over quickly and grabbed hold of a certain stone.

-Tap. The instant that stone shifted slightly from its spot, the mist vanished in a flash.

The space she had thought was inside a cloud was, in fact, just the Capital’s library. This stone had been spewing out mist, disguising the library as though it were some separate space altogether.

As Elysia’s expression gradually hardened, Linmel’s guess gradually turned into certainty.

“So you really were up to something filthy. Jern might forgive even that side of you, but I can’t.”

At the very least, it shouldn’t be hidden.

Linmel, who believed the price for wrongdoing had to be paid, lit a flame and extended her senses, and then…

Something walked out from the back of the library.

“Sis, are you done? That corner over there is kind of uncomfortable.”

“…?”

“What’s this? Who’s this person?”

The eyes of Linmel, who had been steeling herself to smash apart the Homunculus the witch had created, went round as saucers.

Jern was there.

In his childhood form.

“Uh…”

Elysia stroked that Jern’s head a few times, then shrugged as if it were nothing.

“Here, read a book for a little while. I have something to talk about with my friend right now…”

“Okay, got it.”

When Jern made his characteristic sullen expression and disappeared toward the back of the library, a heavy silence settled between the two of them.

“What is that.”

“Th-that, I blended memories together to make… since I govern Nihility, in that domain I can make the same thing out of materials of the same form, so using other people’s memories…”

As Elysia stammered out her excuse, Linmel asked coldly.

“That’s not what I was asking.”

“…Because I was lonely.”

Elysia blushed and dropped her head, seemingly ashamed of what she’d made herself.

“What are those things outside?”

“Prototypes…”

“So you’re telling me you attacked people and extracted their memories just to make a fake Jern who’d call you ‘Sis’?”

“I-I actually wanted to destroy the Empire. I’m a witch, you know.”

“…”

“…I’m not like you Mortals. My world is Nihility, so I’ve ended up with a half-infinite lifespan. You’re saying I can’t even do something like this during all that time? That’s too cruel!”

Watching Elysia, who seemed to have decided to take a bold stand, Linmel sank into thought.

After a not-so-long bout of deliberation, Linmel clenched her fist.

“Ah, sorry about this. You really are hopeless.”

Before taking her to Jern, it seemed she’d have to settle the grievances of the poor, innocent Knights who’d had their memories stolen.

*****

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