Chapter 239: Depth (6)

TL/ED – Miso

‘No, it’s different.’

Once the shock had faded and I looked more carefully, I could tell its features were meant to resemble a human’s, but they were only a crude imitation.

It was like something that had only heard of humans by word of mouth and tried to copy the idea from there.

Then again, an actual human would have been crushed to death long before they could ever feed on Deep Sea Creatures and end up looking like that. As I was organizing my thoughts, the thing tried to pull the stone door shut again.

I had no intention of letting it.

-Crrrunch!

[…]

The Water Pressure it was using to drag the stone and the Water Pressure I was using to hold it in place collided, creating a strange whirlpool within the Deep Sea. The block of stone let out a grotesque sound as it threatened to shatter, and the creature, wet brow furrowing, was the one to release its pressure first.

[Let go. You are not the one I have been waiting for…]

“Tell me what you’re waiting for and I’ll let go.”

[…]

After a moment’s hesitation, it slowly lowered its eyes and answered.

[In a place like this, there is only ever one thing to hope for. I wait for my end to come.]

“That, I can give you right now.”

When I lightly conjured a blade of Water Pressure, it smirked mockingly and replied.

[Indeed, you could reduce me to scattered debris. And then?]

“What do you mean, ‘and then’? An end is an end.”

[You surely know how my remains would be treated in this world. Another creature will swallow me, and I will regenerate.]

“…What?”

I frowned at the absurdity of it.

The creature buried its head against the floor and began to howl, spreading Blood Scent even more thickly.

[Why… why did I ever wish to survive. Why…]

“So… you’re saying that if another Deep Sea Creature eats the remains left after you die, that creature turns into you?”

[…]

It didn’t answer. The silence was an affirmative.

Dumbfounded, I crouched down to meet its gaze.

“That’s a blessing, then. It means you’ll never truly die.”

[…?]

The creature suddenly stopped wailing and lifted its head, looking at me with that hideous face.

Its grotesque expression made it hard to guess what it was thinking. After a moment of that awkward eye contact, it asked a question in a slightly clearer voice.

[Who are you. You are not the one I wait for, yet you are no mindless creature moving on instinct, either.]

“Someone trying to escape this place?”

[Madness. How wonderful it would have been if I, like you, could lose my mind… if I could free myself from the curse that is a self.]

Having convinced itself of whatever conclusion it wanted, it hung its head and spoke again.

[To live an eternity in hell is a curse. It is no blessing.]

“Hmm…”

Fair enough. Even I had to admit that getting immortality and being stuck in the Deep Sea with it was less than ideal.

But my reason for calling it a blessing was something else entirely.

“If you’ve got that kind of immortality, why not head downward?”

[Downward…?]

“If you go to a greater Depth, wouldn’t there be a way out?”

[Ha.]

Even on that barely legible face of his, I could clearly see a scoff.

[The bottom of hell is merely a deeper hell. If there were an exit down there, then why do you suppose the gods of this world, dwelling in the abyss, are still stuck in this hellish place?]

…That was a reasonable point.

So Cheon-hwa had lied to me after all. While I was agonizing over something that was now far too late to worry about, the creature let out a sigh, its face growing even more despondent.

[Still, I cannot fault you. For I, too, sought the deeper places.]

“Really? Why bother, if you knew it was the end of hell?”

[Because it was the only place I could go.]

The monster looked at me with vacant eyes and spoke.

[Even if the bottom of this hell were a place more horrific than here, I thought that if I reached it, I might find a way to erase myself for good. So I, too, must have once dreamed of escape…]

“And you ended up like this in the process?”

[I devoured everything I could devour. Believing it would help me descend to greater depths. It was all a ridiculous delusion. Down there, enduring the weight of the seawater alone is not enough to survive.]

My head was spinning with thoughts about Cheon-hwa, and I was only half-listening, but then I heard something I couldn’t just let slide.

No matter how unclear it was whether I’d really been deceived, the only goal I could pursue right now was to descend.

And now the descent itself was blocked.

“What are you saying? There’s a Burden stronger than Water Pressure?”

[It is not a matter of Burden. To go below here, to the Middle Layer, one must be granted permission.]

“…Permission? From whom?”

[The masters of the Middle Layer.]

He looked down toward the bottom of the Deep Sea.

[You seem to have devoured a great many of your own kind. The way you handle the flow of the world, though lacking in strength… is delicate. It almost reminds me of them.]

The flow of the world.

Clearly he meant Current.

[But it will not work against the Rulers. Below this Surface Layer, in the Middle Layer and below, not a single point of space exists outside the governance of the beings who live there. Each has their own domain. Neither you nor I can descend any further.]

In other words.

The place below, the Middle Layer, was essentially sealed off.

Sealed by Outer Gods who completely dominated that space with Current, or by things that weren’t even quite Outer Gods.

Then again, if Outer Gods truly existed, they’d be in the Deepest Layer, not somewhere like the Middle Layer. The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed, so I tilted my head and pressed him again, unconvinced.

“Completely sealed off? Then how do you get in?”

[I already told you that you can’t. Not unless you are granted their permission.]

“…Can’t you just force your way through?”

[Try it, if you think you can. Even if you succeeded in breaking through, you would be devoured in an instant.]

They weren’t even Outer Gods, and they were already at that level.

It didn’t sound like empty bluster, and while I was mulling it over, the creature added one last thing in a listless tone.

[If you truly wish to enter, a Ruler of the Middle Layer would have to die for some reason, or descend to greater depths and leave a vacancy. And even then, within a very short window, the other Rulers would swallow up the empty territory and seal it off again.]

“So you’re saying it’s basically impossible.”

[Yes. I waited here, squandering my lifespan again and again, but such a thing never came to pass. Now I merely wish for my end…]

Its tone was still despondent. Apparently, being denied even the option of descending to the bottom of the Deep Sea to commit suicide had hit it pretty hard.

“You just said dying isn’t even an end. What is it you actually want?”

[Someday, a being capable of absorbing my intellect will appear.]

“What?”

[An Anglerfish that will devour everything in this Deep Sea will one day devour me as well, returning me to nothing…]

Listening to this thing, I was in no position to mock anyone else for being crazy.

It seemed to have lost its mind, too.

[The end will come… someday… the end…]

“Hey. Hey?”

After that, it just kept repeating the same words like a broken wind-up doll, and the conversation couldn’t go any further.

I briefly considered killing it and eating it, then shook my head.

For one thing, it still held a human shape, which made me a little reluctant to eat it. And the whole “it regenerates when eaten” thing bothered me, too.

Worst case, it could manifest inside my head as yet another separate self. And just thinking about something like this living inside my skull was horrifying.

I carefully closed the door and left the cave, hesitated for a moment, then dove downward once more.

‘I can’t just believe it without seeing for myself.’

I couldn’t just listen and go, ‘Oh, okay, got it.’

I was descending with the intention of seeing for myself exactly what this “Middle Layer” was supposed to be, when.

“…?”

I saw a pure white floor.

The bottom of the Deep Sea.

***

One of the problems with this Deep Sea was that it utterly wrecked one’s sense of time.

There was nothing to mark the passage of time, so I had taken to keeping an hourglass tucked inside my clothes to check occasionally, and more than once I’d been shocked to find that the sand had run out ages ago.

Three days passed during which I forgot to flip it.

By devouring every new species of Deep Sea Creature I encountered on the way down, I had now recovered close to ninety percent of my original abilities.

‘Normally I should have recovered it all long before now, though…’

For some reason, my growth slowed more and more each time I got another piece of my abilities back.

Still, at ninety percent, I was no longer struggling against the Deep Sea Creatures. I could spot them first with Current Sense and strike them down.

Gritting my teeth against the ever-strengthening Burden as I continued to descend.

“What-”

My Current Sense detected a floor.

Meaning, the bottom of the Deep Sea.

No way. Startled, I rushed downward, and soon enough I could confirm with my own eyes a real, genuine floor.

It was covered in white sand like a beach. A true floor, with no Deep Sea Creatures to be seen anywhere around it.

-Crunch. My shoes made a soft sound as they met the ground.

“…It really is.”

If this wasn’t the bottom, then what would be?

Sure enough, there wasn’t a single Deep Sea Creature in sight. After walking for about five minutes across the endless floor of the Deep Sea, I spread my arms, closed my eyes, and tried to call upon the Divine Authority of an Outer God.

Naturally, nothing had changed. I was as far from being a god as ever, my whole body still felt like it was being pricked by Burden, and I had to keep fighting back waves of nausea.

Strange. If this were truly the bottom, that Octopus Outer God should have been wildly welcoming me. And it should have done so long before I ever arrived.

I thought for a moment, then stirred up a Current and began digging into the floor.

-Whoosh!

‘If this is really the bottom, then no matter how deep I dig, nothing should come out.’

Since it really was just sand, digging wasn’t particularly difficult.

After I’d dug down maybe ten meters or so.

A floor beneath the sand caught my eye.

There was actually nothing down there.

What I saw was more Deep Sea, stretching further below.

“…This is…”

I frowned and stared at the Deep Sea hidden beneath the Deep Sea.

-Boom! Snapping back to my senses, I immediately detonated my Current in all directions, blowing away all the sand around me.

This sand was just a sediment layer that had piled up on top. The accumulation of countless years.

Between two utterly identical seas, there existed an invisible, transparent floor. I tapped that transparent wall a few times with my knuckles.

It felt as solid as striking a wall of metal. And there was a familiar quality to it as well.

“…A wall made of Water Pressure?”

A wall had been constructed that pushed back everything that approached it with a constant force, feeling as if it had a solid, material nature.

It was something I could do, too. But…

I stood back up, looked around, and my expression twisted.

The idea that this entire floor was being held up this way was almost impossible to believe.

Wondering just how far this thing extended, I tried walking for a while.

One hour later.

“It really doesn’t end.”

I looked at the long trail of footprints behind me and let out a sigh.

I was certain that no matter how many hours I walked, I’d be seeing the exact same scenery. So this time, I tried a different approach.

Attack.

In other words, intrusion.

“Haaa…”

Slowly, I gathered Water Pressure and formed the sharpest blade I was capable of creating.

A Water Pressure blade capable of slicing through steel like tofu using pressure sprayed through a tiny aperture.

In terms of pure cutting power, at least, it was close to an absolute ability.

Still, I didn’t try to just slice the whole thing open, which would have been a reckless, self-defeating move. I hadn’t forgotten the monster’s warning.

If I cut the wall open and something Outer God-like came out of it, in my current condition it’d be dangerous. Water Pressure was already starting to become seriously punishing.

So at the farthest distance I could still maintain the Water Pressure cutter, I made a palm-sized cut.

-Zzzik!

‘It’s cutting through way more easily than I expected?’

I’d thought it might take several tries, but it just slipped right through and left a hole.

The thickness didn’t seem to be much. I tightened my guard and observed the area from a distance with Current Sense.

Just in case there was any kind of change.

And then-

-Bubble, bubble…

“…Just bubbles.”

At the small severed seam, all that came up was a cluster of bubbles, indicating that water from the Middle Layer was seeping through.

Beyond that, I could sense nothing. No dangerous creatures, no tentacled limbs. No deadly threat.

If it was this safe, maybe I should try slipping my body through.

It was at that very moment.

‘But why aren’t they mixing?’

Something was off.

What had come up through the hole was Deep Sea seawater. In the end, the same sea, the same seawater.

An ordinary person would never be able to tell the difference, but being half Deep Sea Creature myself, I could detect a strange fact through Water Pressure and Current.

The Middle Layer seawater that had risen up and the Surface Layer seawater were not mixing.

Whether it was a salinity difference or something else, my Current Sense could clearly distinguish the two bodies of water that intruded into each other yet refused to blend, drifting around in their own patterns.

That cautiousness, watching the situation a little longer out of that faint unease.

-That was what saved my life.

[…Tch.]

Suddenly, color bled into that Middle Layer seawater.

Something took shape, similar to the monster I had seen up above earlier, but far more refined, a form that resembled a human. With pitch-black, unreadable eyes devoid of any discernible emotion, it surveyed its surroundings.

Finally, it looked at the hole through which it had extended itself and grimaced deeply.

[Clams, is it. Still unable to grasp their place…]

Then the being melted away again.

Its bodily form vanished in an instant, dissolving back into seawater that was sucked back through the hole.

By the time it was all gone, the hole had already sealed itself shut.

“…”

Clamping a hand over my mouth as I watched, I finally let out a pained groan.

“Kuh, ptoo…!”

My mouth was full of blood.

It wasn’t that the thing had done anything in particular. All it had done was exist.

That was the problem.

‘The moment that thing appeared, the Water Pressure just…’

It had felt as if, in an instant, I’d been sucked thousands of meters deeper into the Deep Sea.

Just standing in the same space had shifted the Burden entirely. If I were actually in the Middle Layer, this was probably what the Burden would feel like.

As I wiped my mouth to keep my blood from spilling out into the Deep Sea, I finally understood what the monster had been saying.

“So the Middle Layer wasn’t a location…”

That thing that had just revealed itself wasn’t some subspecies of Deep Sea Creature that inhabited the Middle Layer, or anything like that.

It was a kind of concept that forced Burden onto every living thing around it merely by existing.

It was the Middle Layer itself.