We've Entered the Abyss
“Now that's a face for crime. This one, one hundred percent.”
The gate guard was certain of it. Years of experience on the job had honed his instincts to a razor edge, and every instinct he had was screaming that this man was a criminal. The head of some criminal organization? The leader of a terrorist cell, maybe? The Abyss gate was the artery of the Kingdom itself — commit a serious crime here, and you were looking at a minimum of ten years. Depending on the charges, life imprisonment wasn't out of the question.
“Name and purpose of your visit?”
Even as he asked, he kept his guard up, coiled and ready. Ready for the moment this thug lunged at him before he could even answer. But no — he himself was a Titan knight, a graduate of the Academy's full course of training. If the man tried any pitiful resistance, he would subdue him on the spot with his Titan. That was the plan.
“Ah… I'm Marcus, with Universal Abyss Tour. I'm the guide.”
But the man put up no resistance at all.
“A… guide?”
The answer came back completely outside the realm of expectation.
“You don't mean a tourist guide?”
“Y-yes, sir. Abyss tourism is all the rage these days. As you can see behind me, I've got seven bookings today alone.”
“What— there's a thing like that…?”
“It's already been five years since the Abyss opened over the Kingdom. Every kind of profession under the sun has sprung up — of course the tourism industry came with them.”
The man answered with an air of studied nonchalance, gesturing openly toward the Titans lined up behind him.
But the gate guard couldn't even manage a derisive laugh.
‘What an load of nonsense.' If you're going to lie, at least make it convincing. Since when could a tourist with no knight training pilot a Titan?!
“Open the cockpit of the Titan in the rear.”
He turned his head toward the rear Titans and gave the order. Better to seize hard evidence than waste time sparring with this crook.
“You hearing me? Open that Titan. Now!”
Just as he'd expected. The battered old Titan at the back did nothing but rattle its hatch — the cockpit stayed shut.
“If you won't open it, I'll open it for you!”
Taut as a bowstring, he issued his final ultimatum. The way they were ignoring orders this far in — who knew what kind of vile scheme they were cooking up in there. Were they planning to ambush him with weapons or explosives? Fully convinced that another thug was about to come bursting out, he was just laying his hand on the hilt of his greatsword when—
‘—!'
Clunk! The cockpit that had been rattling away swung open.
At the utterly unexpected sight, his brain stalled out for a full second.
‘What the….'
Inside sat a silver-haired girl. Even half-hidden in shadow, an air of quiet mystery radiated off her that couldn't be concealed — an image somewhere on the order of a hundred million light-years removed from the man out front.
‘A… kid?'
His first instinct was suspicion. Was this child being forced to ride in there? Kidnapped and held hostage? Brainwashed, maybe?
But the way she spoke, the whole atmosphere around her, said otherwise.
“The Abyss… sounds like it's gonna be fun…”
“……”
He liked to consider himself a veteran by now, one who could read the expressions people tried to hide. And that innocent guilelessness? That was nothing you could fake.
‘An actual tourist?'
One look at her face was enough to know this girl was an honest, law-abiding citizen.
And yet, at the very same time, a decade of veteran instinct whispered that the man out front was, without question, a criminal.
‘Anything else suspicious?'
He examined the Titan's armor, its interior, even the area around the cockpit, leaving nothing unscrutinized. As expected — nothing. No problems to be found.
He was reluctantly moving on to inspect the third Titan when—
“Hey! Hey, just wave them through!”
“Sir?”
His superior had appeared out of nowhere. The man who normally couldn't be bothered to stand up from his chair had somehow wandered all the way out to the checkpoint.
“But sir, identity verification isn't complete yet—”
“You verified the leader, that's plenty. Hurry it up and let them pass!”
“I'm sorry?”
“Hah? Are my words not reaching you, or what?”
The guard couldn't hide his bewilderment.
“Is that really all right? By protocol, we're supposed to…” Could he really just let suspicious Titans like these through?
“No time. We've got an important event on today, remember?”
His superior waved a hand, then pointed a finger down at the winding road at the foot of the mountain.
“Look, the knight order's already on its way up!”
And true enough, a column of Titans was advancing up the slope below, trailing long plumes of dust behind them. The crest flickering into view at that distance was the proud lion standard of the Kingdom. That's right — today was the day the Kingdom's knight order departed on its Abyss expedition.
“Get them moving! You've got no time to be dithering over a bunch of tourists when the expedition's coming through!”
“Y-yes, sir.”
The guard gave a grudging nod. It still didn't sit right with him. But orders were orders.
“Kukuku. Keep up the good work, friend.”
“Heh. Hee hee.”
The cockpit hatches of the criminal and the silver-haired girl slid shut, and with a heavy, resonant thud, thud, the eight Titans resumed their ponderous march. One by one, the machines mounted the colossal elevator that stretched up to touch the heavens.
Shhhhhraaaak!
A moment later, the elevator carved through the winds of mana and rocketed toward the distant sky.
It was only when they had dwindled to specks high above the clouds that the guard finally realized what had been nagging at him.
‘Wait. Hold on….'
A chill slid down his spine. No — this wasn't just the wind. There was one crucial fact he'd gone and forgotten until this very moment.
‘Where was the pilot?'
For a Titan to move, it absolutely required a pilot at the controls. And yet, in the second Titan, there had been no one aboard but the kid.
Which meant either someone had been hiding inside that cockpit — or the kid herself was the pilot.
‘Something's not right.'
But there had clearly been nowhere for anyone to hide. He'd searched with extra care precisely because something felt off, and in the end he'd found nothing at all.
‘Then how in the world was that Titan moving…?'
Faced with a phenomenon he couldn't begin to explain, a cold wind swept across the back of his neck once more.
2,000 Ribs have been deposited from "Universal Abyss Tour."
Kuuuguuuung—!
The colossal elevator surged upward, and the higher it climbed toward the dizzying sky, the sharper the wind whistled past their ears.
‘So this is the Abyss.' Marcus's fists clenched tight. Who would have thought the day would come when he set foot, in person, inside the Abyss he'd only ever heard rumors about? How on earth had he gotten tangled up in all this? All he'd ever wanted was to skirt the edges of the law and scrape together a little more money.
‘Hoo.' No use agonizing over it now. He'd come this far — there was no turning back. One way or another, he was stuck riding in the same boat as that monster.
‘If I want to keep my neck, I'd better keep my wits about me.'
He pulled up the materials he'd dug out of ManaNet on his screen — the golden tips he'd studied up on just for today. The things he needed to burn into his memory above all else were these:
Never, ever step outside your Titan!
The mana concentration in the Abyss was thick beyond all comparison with the surface. A knight with high mana tolerance might manage it, but an ordinary human, the stories went, would collapse in a matter of seconds.
Do not approach the fog under any circumstances!
Places where mana had condensed into mist, thick as fog, were more dangerous still. High-density mana disabled compasses, radio communications, emergency teleportation — everything. No visibility ahead, no way to call for rescue; get lost in the fog, and nine times out of ten, you died.
Rest only and exclusively at designated base camps!
Staging points the Kingdom had spent five years erecting at every major junction. Only in the shadow of the handful of buildings ringed by mana-shielding fields could a person finally breathe easy — places where you could step outside your Titan, rest stops built exclusively for Titans, complete with lodging and dining. But every last amenity came at a highway-robbery markup, so it was best to pack your own provisions whenever you could.
‘Keep it together.' Of course, Marcus had come prepared — emergency rations and water bottles packed to perfection. Enough to hold out for quite a while, even if he somehow lost track of the base camps.
‘Here we go…!'
Clunk!
At last the elevator ground to a halt with a shriek of metal, the iron grille barring the way swung open, and the hidden landscape unfolded before their eyes.
“……”
It was the kind of sight that stole the breath clean out of your lungs. An ancient sky labyrinth stretching on beyond sight, its corridors nearly fifty meters wide — wide enough for every one of their Titans to march abreast with room to spare. Walk it on foot, without a Titan, and you'd feel like a lone child abandoned in a world of giants.
‘Magnificent.' It had been roughly a hundred years since the Abyss was first discovered. Legions of scholars had thrown themselves at the mystery, yet the origin of this colossal labyrinth remained unknown. These days, everyone simply called it the work of the gods and stood in awe.
‘It doesn't even compare to the videos.' Because exploring the Abyss poured forth infinite resources, knowledge, and artifacts, whoever held an entrance to it held the deciding measure of great-power status in this era.
Kuum, kuum!
Into that vast and ancient labyrinth, the eight Titans began to advance at speed. Dangdang No. 1 and No. 2, left standing by in subspace, came bounding out to scout the way ahead — while Marcus the pack-mule's Titan, naturally, tucked itself away in the safest spot in the formation.
How long had they marched on through that taut, breath-held tension?
“Oh… puppy…”
The girl's voice crackled through the radio, and a moment later, a grinding noise began to drift down the corridor ahead — an eerie din, half beast's growl, half grinding gearwork.
“We've found something.”
Tssssssss—
The shape that gradually emerged looked, at a glance, like a wolf — but it wasn't. No living creature could be plated head to tail in solid metal.
“Shall we catch it and take it with us?”
An armored magic beast of the Abyss. Baring its fangs to welcome the uninvited guests, the labyrinth's resident had made its appearance.