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Translator: penny
Chapter: 233
Chapter Title: Deep Valley's Abyss, Erebos #3
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We had reached the deep bottom, but for a while, we didn't step out of the gondola and instead observed our surroundings.
In the impenetrable darkness where we couldn't see what lay ahead, only the flickering light at our feet from the torches was faintly visible.
I felt like I was trapped inside a phone booth amid a flood of black water.
If these torches went out, the pitch-black muck would come surging from all sides, tossing me around and burying me alive.
Though no one said it aloud, we all seemed to be feeling much the same.
I could sense Hippolyte and Antiope both taking care not to let their torches extinguish, while straining their eyes and ears toward the surroundings.
Fwoosh.
If their torches even showed a strange flicker or trail of soot, they would point their weapons at the surroundings more aggressively than necessary.
"Sis, how long has it been since we fell down here? An hour?"
"Maybe even longer, or maybe not even ten minutes. Erebos's darkness distorts your senses."
"What do we do?"
"For now, I'm thinking."
An unexpected plunge to the bottom of the valley.
Anyone else might have screamed and fallen into panic, but Hippolyte and Antiope remained remarkably calm.
Thanks to them, I could keep my own composure, which was a relief. High-ranking adventurers weren't just high-level for show.
Of course, not everyone was holding up.
"...Haa. Ha...."
Ever since we'd fallen underground, Elfride's condition had deteriorated badly.
She was breathing roughly like an asthmatic who'd lost their inhaler, her gasps ragged enough that it was obvious she was in a precarious state.
This was normal for such a situation, of course.
But in Elfride's case, it wasn't the fall into darkness that had triggered her panic—it was the black band-like mark that had appeared on her wrist at some point.
The sacrificial brand.
According to high-ranking adventurer Hippolyte, these bands on our wrists, looking like amusement park tickets, marked us as sacrifices of some kind.
"Chaos forever—."
『Name: Hasan Lv. 24
Strength: 12
Agility: 4
Vitality: 8
Karma: 260
Blessings: Blessing of Chaos » Shining Hand » Night's Armor » Dark Eyes』
Just in case, I summoned the text, but nothing had changed. Antiope, who had furtively touched her wrist, confirmed the same.
It didn't seem to be a curse or any kind of status effect.
Amid all this, deep breathing sounds reached us.
It was Elfride.
"Hoo, hoo...."
Seeing Elfride like this for the first time in two years shocked me pretty badly.
The fairy mage who seemed afraid of nothing was trembling like some country bumpkin maiden.
It left a strangely complicated feeling.
"Elf, speak up when you're feeling better. We'll find a way out of the gondola and up."
Hippolyte seemed concerned about Elfride's overreactive state.
She even instructed Antiope to keep watch so the panicked fairy wouldn't bolt into the darkness.
I looked up, staring into the pitch-black void where nothing was visible.
She could run toward that?
It was impossible to comprehend with a sane mind, but according to Hippolyte, those fully eroded by the abyss sometimes charged straight into the darkness.
I'd had trouble grasping what she meant by the abyss's erosion, but roughly speaking, it sounded like what people commonly called SAN loss.
Stress levels.
Mental breakdown meter. If it maxed out and drove someone mad, charging blindly into the dark wouldn't be surprising at all.
Hippolyte spoke.
"Even among Silver Tier high-rankers in the kingdom, three or four go missing in this darkness each year."
"Then what happens to them?"
"No one knows."
Hippolyte not knowing was more chilling than anything.
As chills crept up my back, Antiope, who had sprinkled sap on her torch and relit it, picked up the conversation.
"I've seen it happen. Someone dragged into Erebos."
"Erebos?"
"This creepy darkness—Erebos. It doesn't just exist at the bottom of this valley."
Fwoosh—.
When Antiope lit her torch, the surroundings brightened a bit, lifting my mood. Of course, it also meant our precious sap reserves were dwindling, which was horrifying.
Torches weren't eternal.
If we stayed put like this, eventually we'd be engulfed in total darkness without a single flame.
Everyone seemed aware of it but no one voiced it.
Perhaps to chase away that anxiety, Hippolyte, who had been pointing her sword in all directions, asked casually.
"You've seen someone dragged into the darkness? From your knight order days?"
"Yeah. Traveling the kingdom, you meet all sorts of victims. The one I saw was a guy dragged under his bed."
Antiope's story made me picture someone being pulled under a bed. It was both imaginable and not.
I preferred sleeping on a blanket on the floor, so I didn't use beds, but people who'd slept in them since childhood might have a vague fear of the space between the mattress and the floor.
Like some hideously grotesque monster crouching underneath, yanking your ankle the moment you stretched out your foot.
But that was just childish terror born of imagination.
So I had to ask.
"Pulled under the bed? That's actually possible?"
"Erebos's rifts are everywhere. Under a kid's bed, a dark alley on a lonely dawn walk. Or inside deep, black eyes like yours, Samaritan. Weak-minded folks get lured in."
No, wait—.
Antiope corrected herself.
"Not lured in—they throw themselves in. Ever seen a mantis dive into water?"
"A mantis diving into water? Never."
I'd never seen it, but I knew about it. There was a horsehair worm craze in Korea once. I knew all about their ecology. Something about laying eggs in water, so they lead their hosts to the water's edge.
As I pictured the creepy worm wriggling in my mind, Antiope added more.
"It happens sometimes. Mantises or bugs diving into water like their heads are messed up. They know it'll kill them, but they jump anyway. Abyss-possessed people are the same. They leap in themselves."
"Antiope, stop beating around the bush and get to the point. Didn't you say you'd seen someone lost in the darkness?"
At Hippolyte's nudge from where she'd been listening quietly, Antiope muttered, "Oh, right," as if just remembering.
"About two years ago, when I was still 9th seat in the knight order. I heard a guy who'd vanished into the darkness had returned to his inn."
"A guy?"
"Probably a veteran of the Giant War or something. Missing for over fifty years. But the man who came back showed no signs of time passed. Though whether you could call it human anymore... doubtful."
"Why?"
At Hippolyte's question, Antiope let out a small "Mm—."
"He could only croak 'Mm, mm-mm-mm' like an idiot. No idea what he meant, but he twisted his body in some pretty gruesome ways. Thinking back now gives me chills."
"I see."
Hippolyte's neutral response ended the conversation.
We fell into utter silence.
The darkness enveloping us felt like it had intruded on our talk, sweeping it away with thick, black stillness and quiet.
"So, Samaritan. Got nothing to say? Anything, just spit it out quick."
Maybe that's why Antiope prodded me to say something, anything. Though unspoken, we were probably all thinking the same.
If this silence dragged on, something bad would happen—.
So we'd been dragging out pointless stories and responding to keep it going.
But now that it was my turn, nothing came to mind.
Feeling antsy like someone was following us from behind, I heard Hippolyte crunch another thunder gall nut.
"This won't do. Waiting for the elf to recover is risky too. We move. Everyone, prepare to go."
Move?
Into that unknown darkness?
I thought of the horsehair worm and its enthralled mantis.
Us walking into that dark would be no different from the mantis leaping into water.
But no one objected to Hippolyte's words.
Better to move than stay silent and still, we all felt.
*
*
*
Hippolyte said.
"Imagination."
Antiope followed.
"Bad travel luck."
Then me.
"Meat."
Hippolyte again.
"Energy."
"History."
"President."
"Tensile strength."
"No, sis, you've been doing nothing but words ending in 'strength' for a while now? Are we playing word chain or not?"
Unable to take it anymore, Antiope burst out. Hippolyte really had stubbornly stuck to words ending in "strength" in a perverse way.
"Cheating. I'm out."
And so the word chain ended.
It had been to avoid silence, to keep talking, but even that fizzled, and sticky quiet wrapped around our emptiness once more.
"Hasan, how many thunder gall nuts left?"
"About a dozen still."
"Hoo, a dozen. One per person per hour means two hours.... Not sure if we can find the elf's companion and escape in that time."
Hippolyte swore under her breath.
She and Antiope were visibly growing more on edge.
Walking through pitch darkness where you couldn't see ahead, with torches and thunder galls dwindling and no progress—it was maddening.
"Hoo—."
At least something good: Elfride, who'd panicked earlier, had mostly stabilized.
She snapped her fingers with a click-click, making her torch burn even brighter.
"Elf, coming around now?"
"Yeah, better. Sorry for the ugly show. How long was I out?"
"An hour. No, two. Or maybe not even thirty minutes."
"I see—. Hey, hear that?"
At Elfride's words, we all strained our ears into the void. Only our footsteps and breaths.
"Elf, still delirious? Hear what—."
.
As Antiope started to scold her.
We all halted at once.
Elfride was right—something weird was audible.
Hippolyte confirmed it with a loud clap.
"Don't listen closely. It's bewitching you. Everyone, stay alert. And Samaritan—got any rope or cord in your pack? Long as possible."
"Yeah, I do."
"Tie our waists together with it."
Following Hippolyte's orders, I bound all our waists tightly in one line. Uncomfortable as hell, but it brought some security.
Right then—.
What difference does tying waists make?
A familiar voice echoed from the void. It was Antiope's voice.
I turned to look at her guarding the rear, and she frowned, equally shocked.
"That wasn't me just now."
Stuck suffering in this hellhole with these idiots. It's my day off. Don't need to earn money today. Damn, if not for sis, I'd be resting at home—.
"That wasn't me! For real! And I never thought that!"
Antiope protested loudly like a convict facing final judgment. Hearing her voice from the air was bizarre and eerie.
"Antiope, I know you didn't think that. Succubi work. They read the darkness in people's hearts and whisper twisted versions in your ears."
Born just a few years before me, but strutting as the Amazons' leader? Pisses me off. Nothing better than me.
"No, sis, I really didn't think that...."
"I know. It's sowing discord. We tied ourselves together to stay close, so they're trying to break our bonds."
Right then.
Three women here. Wanna yank their panties aside and fuck 'em rough.
I felt everyone's eyes turn to me.
I pulled out a handkerchief, wiped my brow calmly, and said.
"False accusation."