Wizard of the Abyss - Chapter 291

Chapter 291: Calamity (17)

TL/ED – Miso

[Let me start with the good news.]

[You cannot die.]

That was the first thing the Emperor said.

“…Because I’m an Outer God?”

[No. It’s something more fundamental than that.]

The Emperor looked up at Heaven and slowly went on.

[No matter what happens, you cannot die. Even if that thing descends and brings about the end, it will never kill you.]

“…”

I didn’t think it was nonsense.

After all, it had actually done exactly that once before. Having lived through how it hadn’t struck me down even when it could have, I figured it would probably pull something similar the next time too.

“Why? Does something happen if it kills me? Is the Deep Sea Outer God different from the other Outer Gods somehow?”

[There’s no such convenient thing. However, the master who governs the Deep Sea would be gone. And a world that vast always demands a ruler. As a result, Void would come to possess the Deep Sea.]

“…?”

Hearing that, I tilted my head.

“So, um, you’re saying that if it kills me, Void becomes the Deep Sea Outer God?”

[Since it would be the only Outer God left in this world, and the single life with the qualifications for it. Yes, that’s how it would go.]

“I don’t get it at all. Wouldn’t that mean it should be doing everything it can to kill me instead?”

No matter how I looked at it, the reason it couldn’t kill the Deep Sea Outer God seemed like nothing but a reason it should.

[…]

The Emperor didn’t answer my question.

He shut his mouth for a while and closed his eyes. Rather than dodging the question, he looked like he was thinking it over.

[Before I answer that question, let me ask something of my own.]

“What is it?”

[It seems you truly wish to stop Heaven from falling.]

Having stated the obvious, he opened his eyes and cast a detached gaze at me.

[Is there a reason to?]

“…?”

[I saw it. You, conversing with Heaven. Did it not tell you that life is a truly worthless thing?]

When he raised his hand and rubbed the desk, blue sprouts blossomed up from that spot.

The Authority of Creation. For something that wasn’t even an Outer God, nothing more than a completely worn-out Artifact, it was a rather astonishing degree of mastery.

[Even one such as I knows this. It is an achievable thing. For you, making a living human would be an all too easy task.]

“…”

[Furthermore, you have time that borders on the infinite. I know not why, but Void is inclined to yield to you. If you were to flee into the domain of the Deep Sea and live there, building a world of your own, he would accept it.]

As if coaxing me, as if testing me, or perhaps as if sincerely advising me.

He offered earnest counsel that held all of those intentions at once.

[It is not too late, even now. If you wish it, then ask. Ask Void that, since you will live without ever leaving the Deep Sea again, he at least refrain from setting foot in this place. Do so, and he will comply. This I guarantee.]

“I don’t get what you’re trying to do here. I’m trying to fight, you know? Not to negotiate?”

[It is persuasion. For my own part, I have no wish to go against the Creator’s will. If at all possible, bending your resolve would be for the best.]

“I…”

[Ah, if you mean to refuse my words, then I ask that you explain your reason. And should you fail to convince me with it. For I, too, cannot take such a dangerous gamble.]

Was this a test?

I looked at the Emperor with a sour expression, then opened my mouth. My answer had already been decided.

“Unlike your master, I have no intention of becoming a Creator.”

[Is that so? To me it sounds like you don’t want to bear the responsibility.]

“A being that bears that kind of responsibility shouldn’t exist in the first place.”

A truth I’d come to know upon becoming an Outer God… no, a truth I’d known even from before that.

Outer Gods were not meant to exist.

And submitting to them was even more out of the question.

“Live within the freedom that thing allows me? Absolutely not. Even if it really is a peace close to eternity, never.”

[Why? Is it for your own self-satisfaction?]

“No. Because if I did that, life really would become worthless.”

The mere fact that things which rule over a handful of domains can create life resembling humans however they please.

Something like that doesn’t lower our worth.

But to bow our heads and submit simply because we were made, simply because they can make us.

That, precisely, is what truly renders life worthless.

It would amount to admitting, of our own accord, that our lives and our actions, our hearts and our resolve, are worth less than a single drop of Sea Water in this vast ocean.

If it came to that, no amount of effort would hold any value.

Because then, protecting humans really would become nothing more than playing with clay.

“So that’s enough persuasion. Just tell me why Void is afraid of becoming the Deep Sea Outer God. Even the time I’m spending on this pointless chat with you feels like a waste.”

[…]

When I snapped at him with a displeased look, the Emperor let an expression I couldn’t put into words surface on that aged face of his.

And with his head bowed toward the desk, he spoke.

[…Void was once imprisoned in the Deep Sea.]

“What?”

[It is a fact you must know as well. I mean that Heaven, crushed beneath the Sea Water just as it was, had been sealed down below like all the other Outer Gods.]

“That makes no sense. As huge as it is?”

I frowned, sensing through Current Sense the Void that was passing through half of the Middle Layer.

It was moving through this deep Deep Sea as though it were nearly cutting straight across it. It was so colossal that even my senses were warped by it.

“Sure, back then it lost to the Deep Sea, so it must have been smaller than it is now, but even at an eighth of that size, I don’t think the Deep Layer could hold it. It’s a Universe.”

[Back then it was not so large. It was vast compared to other worlds, but set against the Deep Sea, it was merely a world that did not stand out.]

“No way, a Universe?”

[It is Heaven.]

The Emperor shook his head, as though I had it wrong.

[It was Heaven. That thing grew so vast when it devoured the human who had reached the Celestial Realm.]

He turned his gaze back to me.

[Where do you think the Creator is right now?]

“The Deep Sea Outer God? No idea.”

Now that he mentioned it, he had a point. I tilted my head.

At first I’d assumed this guy was the Deep Sea Outer God. But he wasn’t. He was just a surviving portion of the Artifacts that thing had made, still being kept running.

Which would mean a Deep Sea Outer God that hadn’t died existed as well.

The Emperor nodded, as if that was exactly what he meant to tell me.

[The Creator struck down every Outer God and absorbed every last world they governed. He drowned them in the Deep Layer, from which they could never escape again, and out of that he created the world called the Real World. Do you know how magnificent an accomplishment that is?]

“Why the sudden bragging?”

[It means he poured in that much power. The Creator was driven to the very brink of losing all his strength, and so he decided to reincarnate. Just as you did.]

“…?”

[Consider it. You, in a human body, received a World and became an Outer God. Is that not so?]

“That’s right.”

[The Creator meant to do the very same thing. Because keeping the Outer Gods sealed and maintaining the world forever was a difficult task, at the very last, if a human of his own bloodline were to become the God of Magic, he intended to manifest through that blood.]

I had been listening, blinking,

when a chill suddenly ran down my spine.

“…Wait. That’s-”

[He succeeded. The Deep Sea Outer God manifested within a body. And then it was stolen away. By Void, which had been lying hidden, watching for its chance.]

The reason the Deep Sea Outer God had stayed silent all the way up to this very moment.

The reason it was clearly alive yet had still not shown itself had just been resolved in the worst possible way.

With a stunned look, I pointed at Heaven and asked again.

“Your Creator is that thing?”

[Yes.]

The moment a single human became the God of Magic, he also became the First Wizard,

and became Void.

Only then did it come together. That thing’s preposterous size. The way it handled Sea Water so naturally to wield the Authority of Creation. And a few more things fell into place.

“The Artifacts, and the means to stop Void that the so-called Deep Sea Outer God was supposed to have prepared. The reason all of that got destroyed…”

[It is because the Creator knew what he himself had done.]

“…So there was never any traitor after all.”

Simply because he knew.

Since they were things he’d prepared himself, he could destroy every one of them.

“Then what about the self? Is the Deep Sea Outer God still left somewhere inside that thing?”

[It seems you haven’t understood. That thing is the Creator. It holds his memories and his will too. It simply happens to be Void.]

“I don’t understand at all. No, that’s not it. So what am I supposed to do about it?”

I’d come to hear something useful, and all I’d gotten was a more detailed rundown of just how horrifying my enemy was.

“So why is that thing afraid of me? Tell me that.”

[Because if it swallows you, it might change.]

The Emperor slowly continued his explanation.

[Void swallowed the Creator. It swallowed the human who was the God of Magic as well. It could do that because both of them were incomplete Outer Gods. The Creator was memory, and the God of Magic was the body. And you, you are the mind.]

“The mind?”

[Yes. The instant it swallows you, the Deep Sea Outer God’s memory, body, and mind alike would all come to roam within its own consciousness. What do you suppose would happen then?]

“You’re saying Void would get swallowed in reverse?”

So would I just have to end my own life right now, then?

As I tilted my head at that thought, the Emperor shook his head.

[There’s no way Void would swallow you so obligingly. And this is nothing more than a source of unease. Even if you truly were absorbed by Void, the odds of your being able to seize control of its consciousness are less than a speck of dust.]

“…Then what is it? Why won’t it kill me?”

[Because Void turned the tables with a possibility exactly that small.]

He met my eyes.

[It does not want any ‘change’ to arise from your death. It wants you to simply stay as you are. Neither dead nor alive. It merely wishes for you to live quietly within the domain of the Deep Sea.]

“Because that way there are no variables.”

[That’s right.]

I turned the Emperor’s words over in my mind again and again.

Variables.

Fear.

Its consciousness…

Something felt like it was about to come to me, then slipped away. In the midst of piling worry upon worry, I looked at him, still seated in his chair, and a question suddenly came to me.

“But then, what about the Universe?”

[…?]

“I get that it swallowed the God of Magic and swallowed your Creator. But why did it suddenly become the Outer God of the Universe? You said it wasn’t that way to begin with.”

The Emperor did not continue.

More precisely, he parted his lips, then closed them again.

[…I do not know. It is not as though I know everything.]

“What?”

[But there are two things I can say for certain. The first is that the Creator, beyond any doubt, drowned every Outer God in the Deep Sea, and that among them there was no Outer God called the Universe.]

The Emperor spoke with his face drawn into a frown.

[The second is that above Heaven, there is no world of any kind. That place is a void, a world that does not exist. It is not a domain ruled by anyone.]

“Then…”

[Yes.]

The Emperor nodded, as if he already knew my question.

[Void is telling a lie. Its World is not the Universe, but something else.]

*****

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