Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 267

Chapter 267: False God (11)

TL/ED – Miso

At first, I didn’t immediately recognize the kid getting beaten.

Her face was a bloody mess, and besides that, the whole thing made no sense, because in the middle of being hit, she seemed to feel more shame than pain or distress…

Normally, when someone gets beaten that badly, there should be at least some sign of pain-

“Huh, Jern!”

“…Jern?”

While I stood there watching, bewildered, Linmel got to her feet with an even more startled look. She stopped pounding her fist into the girl’s face mid-swing.

“Why’d you come in? I told you I’d handle it!”

“Your sword came out past the city gate. All crumpled up.”

When I dragged the pieces of that sword over with the Sea Water and showed her, Linmel looked down at the girl with a flustered expression.

“Did you send that out?”

“…It’s a request for help. Whoever’s out there, when they come, I’ll take you out of here.”

The other one wiped her face with a sour look.

Only then could I see what kind of face she was making.

“Elysia?”

“…”

It was Elysia, literally still in her childlike form.

She blinked her eyes for a moment, then looked at me too.

And soon her face twisted into a frown.

“…What is this? It really is a fake.”

“What’s wrong with her? She won’t believe it even when you show her in person.”

Linmel, who had clenched her fist, was about to ball it up again, so I raised a hand to stop her.

Something was off.

“Wait, Elysia. You don’t recognize me?”

“I can tell you were made to look similar. But you’re not Jern.”

Elysia glared at me coldly, her tone full of conviction.

“You’re not even human, are you?”

“Hm.”

Elysia was watching me with a little more certainty now.

“You might have fooled Linmel, but you can’t fool me. Did you think I couldn’t see those things drifting around you? You’re the Will of the World. A moving world itself.”

“…A few things happened, that’s all. But I can still prove it.”

In the end, it was a problem I could solve just by bringing up something only Elysia and I knew.

As I slowly went to open my mouth, she stopped me.

“No.”

“…What?”

“You think that trick’s going to work on me again? This time you even summoned the Outer God of the Deep Sea, mimicking that memory too, to deceive me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I won’t be fooled twice.”

-Crunch, Elysia bit down on her lip.

“No matter how elaborate a fake you bring, I already have one. I don’t need any more.”

“Hm. What is this…”

Elysia’s reaction was so strange that as I tilted my head, something flashed through my mind.

Elysia had thrown her lot in with the Crimson Circle. And her World was Nihility, that is, a terrifying poison so potent it could work on any World at all, even on an Outer God.

Would Void just let that go? He would have tried, by whatever means, to win her over and use her.

And the most effective means of winning Elysia over.

It feels like I’m tooting my own horn, but it would have been me.

“That crazy son of a bitch Void…”

I dragged my hands down my face and looked at Elysia, who made no effort to hide her hostility.

The situation lined up. Void had already created a fake of me to try to win Elysia over.

‘Or maybe that itself was part of the plan?’

Show her a fake of me once, so that the next time I came back for real, she wouldn’t believe it and would clash with me instead.

If he had been scheming something like that, then I could only say he had gone utterly beyond the realm of humanity.

But then two questions arose. Why go to the trouble of using Elysia to deal with me? It would be far easier for him to just come himself.

For now, I spoke calmly.

“There’s a bit of a misunderstanding. I’m not a fake Void sent. Listen to what I’m…”

“Don’t open your mouth in front of me wearing that face any longer.”

-Crunch.

The world slowly began to turn white.

The library, the world, was fading away.

“…Oh no.”

The second question.

Why hadn’t I been able to restrain Elysia by force.

That, I understood right away. Elysia’s very existence was a threat to an Outer God.

While Elysia annihilated everything around her, I felt my Deep Sea gradually being gnawed away. It wasn’t a large amount for now, but the fact that merely being in contact with her drained my power meant that forcing her down would bring no gain, only loss.

With no other choice, I brought out the Deep Sea just as it was.

“Sorry. First I need you to calm down a bit.”

“Are you an idiot? Spreading your World won’t do anything to me…”

Elysia, who had been letting out a scornful laugh-

The very next moment, she blinked and looked around her.

“…What?”

“It’s over.”

Elysia instantly lost all control over the space.

Her surroundings were the Deep Sea, the deepest place in the ocean.

“Wa- wait a second…”

-Glug glug, Elysia clutched her throat as she watched the bubbles rising from her own mouth.

If I hadn’t quickly drawn the Sea Water out from around her, she would have drowned right there. Even after she could breathe again, she still looked around as though she couldn’t gather her wits.

“…No way. This, this is the Deep Sea.”

“That’s right. Because I govern the Deep Sea.”

“When? When on earth did you take over the surroundings? This whole Capital is entirely my domain, the one I built, this is impossible…”

She had been wearing a look of disbelief, but soon, as if she’d convinced herself, she glared at me.

“You- you really are the Deep Sea.”

“I’ve been telling you that this whole time, haven’t I?”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean that just by existing, your surroundings become the Deep Sea. That’s…”

The pupils of Elysia, who had been trembling as she spoke, were consumed by terror.

“…The Outer God of the Deep Sea?”

“…”

“So it really did exist. Something like that…”

She slowly stepped backward, her body shuddering.

“Right, there’s a reason for all of this. And honestly, compared to the other Outer Gods, it’s really nothing much…”

“What? How can you say something like that?”

When I said that, thinking of Mimicry and Void, Elysia frowned and rebutted me.

“You- you are an Outer God who should never exist. If just by existing your surroundings become the Deep Sea, then what Outer God could possibly stand against you? If the moment anyone meets you the whole area becomes the Deep Sea, then could any World beneath that Deep Sea endure it?”

“…It’s not that bad.”

“It is that bad. An endless desert, a mountain reaching to the sky, lava that never cools. In the Deep Sea, all of it is nothing. The desert would become wet earth, even reaching the sky wouldn’t reach the surface, and the lava would be reduced to a lump of stone…”

It seemed Elysia had studied Outer Gods diligently while in the Crimson Circle.

How was I supposed to explain this. As a sigh rose up, Elysia, looking as though she’d steeled herself for something, drew a dagger.

I thought she meant to point it at me, but the direction Elysia aimed the dagger was her own nape.

“What are you doing?”

“I have means to resist too. If I die in this World, you’ll be left bearing Nihility.”

-Thunk. The dagger pricked her white nape, drawing a light trickle of blood.

“I may not be able to beat you, but ruining your World forever, that much I can do.”

“…Elysia.”

“Don’t call me by that name…!”

“Master told me that you were the one who saved me at the Spire, right before I melted away into the Deep Sea.”

“……?”

“I’d been forgetting to say thank you for that all this time. Thank you. If you hadn’t helped me back then, I wouldn’t be standing here as an Outer God now.”

Elysia’s eyes went round.

So round I wondered if they could possibly get any bigger.

“…Th-that… even if you mimicked the memory, you wouldn’t know that…”

“And I’m sorry. At the very least I should have said something before I left. It was so sudden too, and to be honest, I got fooled myself. Who would have guessed it’d take that long? I thought it would take a week at most.”

“…”

“Anyway, it’s my fault. I’m really sorry. From now on, before I go anywhere, I’ll definitely contact you every two days, no matter what.”

-Sliiide.

Elysia slowly lowered the dagger.

She still didn’t look like she fully believed me. Even so, she was at least in a state where she’d hear me out, so I slowly began to speak.

“So, what happened was, first I went to find Cheon-hwa…”

For about two hours.

I laid out the story of what I’d been through inside the Deep Sea.

Elysia looked as though she was giving it her all trying to tell whether my words were true or false, and Linmel listened with interest, like a child being told some old tale.

“And that’s how I ended up here. I really didn’t mean to deceive you.”

“…Jern?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s r-really you, the real Jern?”

“Yeah, it’s me… how many times do I have to say it?”

I knew I was partly in the wrong, but it felt like I’d answered nearly the same question a hundred times, so when I let a little irritation slip-

“It really is Jern…”

Her face finally showed conviction. So much so that it made me seriously wonder what she’d thought of me all this time.

From the eyes of Elysia, who was still expressionless, tears began to flow. As I stood there not knowing how to react, she looked around and then cried out in a panic.

“Th-the Deep Sea! Put this away! Quick!”

“Hm? Oh, right.”

Thinking maybe she just wasn’t used to the Deep Sea, I hurriedly put it away. Only after it had vanished did Elysia let out a sigh.

“Sorry, I can’t be inside your World. By my very existence, I’m a being that punches holes in things…”

“It’s not a World that’ll break from a few holes being punched in it, so it’s fine.”

“Ugh…!”

Suddenly, Elysia’s face flushed red and she strode right up to me.

There was a height difference, so she had to look up at me for a good while, and with brimming eyes she gazed up and started to whimper.

“Why are you only coming now? I’ve stopped being human…”

“Sorry. But I’m not human either.”

“Th-that’s true…”

Elysia clung to my body like a barnacle and showed no intention of letting go.

“Sniff, I’m sorry. For not recognizing you… I r-really thought you were a fake. I’d already been fooled once… waah!”

“It’s okay. It’s okay, I said. Just don’t blow your nose on the robe- ah, right. She’s asleep, so it doesn’t matter. It’s been really hard on you all this time, hasn’t it?”

“Mm… it was really, really hard. Lonely, too…”

“Well, I don’t know about that…”

Looking at Elysia, who clung to my stomach and wouldn’t budge, Linmel seemed a little put out and snickered, then made a pointed remark.

“She was playing on her own just fine, though. Didn’t look the least bit lonely.”

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Elysia, who had been hugging me, suddenly squirmed as if something had startled her, then lifted her head and hastily changed the subject.

“J-Jern. Right. It’s dangerous to stay here. Void will notice you.”

“Ah, that’s right. He would. But I’ve had the Deep Sea out for this long, so hasn’t he already noticed?”

I had kept the Deep Sea out for so long, here under this sky.

It couldn’t be helped, since I’d judged Linmel to be in danger, but I had to be prepared to pay the price. As I frowned, Elysia shook her head as if to say that wasn’t the case.

“No, right now Void must be extremely busy. So just having the Deep Sea out is hard to get caught for. It’s being with me that’s the problem.”

“…Hard to get caught? Why?”

I frowned.

Because what Elysia was saying made it sound as though something was wrong with Void.

“Yeah.”

Elysia confirmed my words.

“That guy Void, he’s in the middle of a serious fight right now.”

“Void is? With who…?”

“Someone you know too- no, with an elf.”

Something unbelievable came out of Elysia’s mouth.

“Your Master, Dersia, is holding Void back to some extent.”