WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Got a Gallery in the Wild ◈

Chapter 180: Succession Ceremony (1)

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Thanks to the Gallery's experts, I was able to harvest a considerable amount of honey.

The empty bottles left over from the Elixir weren't nearly enough, so I bought a huge container.

It was big enough that I could barely wrap both arms around it.

The honeycomb itself was massive, and the amount of honey inside was insane too.

Even the container couldn't hold all the honey, so I poured the rest into the empty Elixir bottles.

[Wild Grylls]: Have some of this honey. It's seriously sweet.

[Heavenly Demon]: Thank you. Thanks to you, I am always able to try such rare things.

[Wild Grylls]: You give me Fasting Pills. I'm always grateful.

I gave the overflowing honey as gifts to the registered users I was friendly with.

Heavenly Demon was the first, followed by SwordTasteMaster.

It wasn't an elixir or anything, just honey that could be eaten right away, so SwordTasteMaster gladly accepted it.

[SwordTasteMaster]: Can I put this on my skin?

[Wild Grylls]: Uh... Is honey good for your skin?

[SwordTasteMaster]: I don't know, but it came from the Forest of Four Seasons. Wouldn't it be fine?

[Wild Grylls]: How would I know? But don't you not need skincare, SwordTasteMaster? You said aging slows down if you're strong enough.

[SwordTasteMaster]: That's true, but there's no downside to becoming even prettier, right? Handsome and beautiful people can be happy just looking in the mirror.

[Wild Grylls]: You can take a honey bath if you come here. Want to come?

[SwordTasteMaster]: Actually, happiness cannot be attained through appearance alone.

[Wild Grylls]: lol

Next, I gave some honey to Passing Dwarf.

[Passing Dwarf]: It's been a while since I made honey wine. Can you give me some honeycomb too?

[Wild Grylls]: I can, but are you going to make alcohol with that too?

[Passing Dwarf]: Nah. I'll have it with my drinks. I don't know if it's tree honey or rock honey, but don't you know how healthy that stuff is?

[Wild Grylls]: Yeah, I don't.

Passing Dwarf explained it to me.

A honeycomb attached to a tree was tree honey, while one attached to a rock was rock honey.

Honey was made from the nutrients of countless flowers gathered together.

Which meant that the honeycomb holding the honey also contained the gathered nutrients of the Forest of Four Seasons' flowers.

[Passing Dwarf]: The problem is that we don't know what flowers they're from. They could be poisonous.

[Wild Grylls]: Then isn't the honey dangerous too?;;

[Passing Dwarf]: Nah, I heard the honey's fine. The honeycomb is the problem. So can you give me some?

[Wild Grylls]: Now that you've said that, it sounds too dangerous to give you.

[Passing Dwarf]: Even if there's a problem, it'll probably just give me diarrhea and be over with. And you said the deer gave it to you, right? If something happens, go skin that bastard.

Passing Dwarf's reasoning was pretty sound.

The deer gave me this honeycomb, and something went wrong after I ate it? Then I could just go catch the deer.

Of course, considering how strong that deer was, I would have a hard time of it, but I should still be fine.

More importantly, I had Elixir and antidotes. I could prepare for the worst.

[Wild Grylls]: Then I'll try it first and let you know later. That'd be better.

[Passing Dwarf]: Okay, but can you give me more honey? I need more to make honey wine...

[Wild Grylls]: Good grief lol

Passing Dwarf begged so desperately that I gave them more. It wasn't like I'd even notice it was gone.

After that, I gifted honey to the others as well. Most of them liked it.

There was just one exception. I couldn't give any to Allfather because they weren't logged into the Gallery.

Allfather's activity had been sparse lately. They probably had personal matters to deal with.

Now that I'd handed out all the honey, I looked at the honeycomb left after harvesting it.

‘Should I try some?’

I had cut the honeycomb into neat pieces to harvest the honey.

Despite how much honey I'd already collected, it was still dripping out.

The container I'd bought was already full, so I had nowhere else to put it.

‘There aren't any bugs in it, right?’

I checked it over and over. The inside was clean, without a single bug.

Then I cut the honeycomb into bite-sized pieces. I never thought I'd eat honeycomb in my life.

I shared some with my animal friends, including Fast Sloth.

If they had no trouble eating it, that meant I could eat it too.

“Nom nom nom!”

“Is it good?”

“Nom nom nom!”

They dug right in. Even Fast Sloth ate it, chewing slowly and thoroughly.

Fast Sloth usually wouldn't eat anything that seemed sketchy, but they ate the honeycomb without any hesitation.

Going by that, it probably wasn't poisonous.

I looked over a piece of honeycomb dripping with honey before putting it in my mouth.

“Nom. Munch munch. Hm?”

The moment I tasted it, my eyes widened.

I knew the honey was good, but I never expected the honeycomb itself to be delicious too.

The taste was unusual as well. It was a little like eating a soft cracker.

A strange bitterness balanced the strong sweetness, creating a wonderful combination.

‘It kind of feels like a snack.’

The flavor passed the test too. Still, I couldn't relax.

With things like this, symptoms usually appeared only after time had passed.

Hopefully, nothing would happen.

‘As for storing the honeycomb... I should get another container.’

I bought another container to store the chopped honeycomb.

Like the honey container from earlier, containers were really useful. I might need even more.

‘The succession ceremony is tomorrow, right?’

I sucked the honey off my fingers as I logged into the Gallery.

Since the succession ceremony was the next day, most of the posts were about it.

None of them were useful to me, but I was still jealous.

‘I want to meet people too.’

It had been almost a month since I started living in the Forest of Four Seasons. I'd seen people, but I hadn't actually met anyone.

Even the holy knight riding a giraffe across the river hadn't contacted(?) me.

I was starting to wonder if that had been my last chance.

‘Everyone said they were incredibly strong, but... I don't know.’

I went to check the river every so often, but I never saw the grassland from back then.

There were only different kinds of hell waiting there. I always thought it, but I was lucky to be here.

“Hah!”

“Kyuu!”

“Hah!”

“Kyuu!”

Just as I was thinking that, I heard Kkobong and Wonmo shouting.

I had no idea what they were doing, but Wonmo was making hand and foot gestures beside Kkobong, who was training.

Maybe because he was born a bear, he was barely standing on his tiny little legs.

Watching him move his adorable little arms like that made me smile.

‘Is it because he's a kid? He looks like a baby copying the rest of the family.’

Until now, Wonmo had only eaten, slept, and pooped.

What would happen if he started trying to imitate martial arts like this?

“Kyuuuu...”

“Tired? Let's wash up and sleep.”

What would happen? He'd wear himself out and go to sleep early.

I barely managed to wash Wonmo as he shuffled over with sleepy eyes.

Maybe it was because he'd had such a fulfilling day, but he kept nodding off, which made it especially difficult.

After drying his fur until it was fluffy by the bonfire, I let him sleep soundly.

‘I should get ready for bed too.’

It was late at night. It was almost bedtime even by Gallery time.

I applied bug repellent to Kkobong and sent them outside.

Kkobong had apparently gotten used to sleeping outside, because they left without a single complaint.

‘Should I build a shed or something?’

It was a little sad to see them sleeping rough, but I decided to put it off until later.

They'd been sleeping outside this whole time, so they would probably be fine.

I just had to make sure bugs didn't bite them.

‘There haven't been any symptoms yet.’

Time had passed since I ate the honeycomb, but nothing had happened.

If anything, I felt stronger. Maybe that was the effect of the flower nutrients Passing Dwarf mentioned.

‘Still, why did that deer give me honeycomb?’

I couldn't figure out the deer's intentions in giving me something this valuable.

The only help I'd ever given the deer was a bonfire during winter.

‘If that really was the reason...’

I'd give it a bonfire next winter too.

Or I could ask the raccoon family to bring it some fire.

The deer was incredibly strong, so there was no downside to becoming friends.

I was planning to go to the Arena tomorrow, so maybe I could meet it there and talk.

‘I should tell Kkobong to participate.’

With that thought, I closed my eyes, hoping I could meet a person as soon as possible.

* * *

The time had come to welcome the symbol of a generational change, the Empire's new sun.

It was the succession ceremony, the symbolic day Arnold would ascend to the imperial throne.

The Messiah Empire, especially its capital, was inevitably busy preparing for the succession ceremony.

Every possible preparation had been made to ensure there would not be a single mistake during the event.

Of course, only the event staff were busy for that reason. The nobles and commoners were busy for entirely different reasons.

The nobles wanted to forge connections through the occasion, while the commoners wanted to make money and gain other benefits.

The succession ceremony was practically a festival. And among the people attending was a major figure.

“Sweetie. What exactly was that honey you ate yesterday? Your skin looks completely different.”

“Maybe it's because of the food you made for me, Mom?”

Ash was a Swordmaster always counted among the strongest on the continent.

Her mother looked Ash over in her neatly pressed uniform and praised her lavishly.

Ash looked impressive in uniform, but what stood out most was her skin.

“You eat nothing but snacks every day. What would food have to do with it? Could that honey have had some amazing effect?”

“It didn't. My skin just got better, that's all.”

“Just your skin got better? Look at your hands. They were like turtle shells, but they improved overnight.”

Just as her mother said, Ash's skin had changed so much in a single day that it was hard to recognize.

Given her level of attainment, Ash normally possessed beauty rivaling a woman in her twenties.

Yet even after undergoing Body Reforging, there was one area that had never improved: her hands.

Hands were at the core of human civilization, and they took more abuse than any other part of the body.

Ash was a martial artist, so no matter how carefully she cared for her hands, there was nothing she could do about them.

On top of that, Ash underwent Body Reforging at a young age thanks to her natural talent.

From then until now, she had treated her hands roughly enough for them to resemble turtle shells.

“Um...”

Ash looked down at her hands after hearing her mother. They were truly slender and delicate, worthy of being called jade-like hands.

Only a day had passed since she ate the honey Grylls gave her, but her skin had improved this much.

‘Honestly, I don't like it that much.’

She could cover her hands with gloves, and calluses were a martial artist's symbol.

They even made it subtly more comfortable to grip a sword.

When Ash first held and swung a sword, her palms had been chafed raw.

Saying that honestly would earn her mother's terrifying slap on the back, so Ash forced out a lie.

“That's true, but your skin got better too, Mom.”

“Hohoho. It certainly did.”

Ash was not the only one whose skin had improved. Her mother was the same.

Ash hadn't eaten all the honey herself. She had given some to her mother too.

Thanks to that, her mother's skin had become as smooth as that of a young person.

Even her wrinkles had faded. From a distance, someone might mistake them for sisters.

‘Even so, I never expected it to work this well...’

Ash acted calm, but she was shaken inside. The honey's effects were too powerful.

It would be one thing for Ash, considering her level of attainment, but her mother was different.

Her mother had been born a commoner and endured countless hardships. The title was Ash's, not her mother's.

So she had looked her age, but now she looked much younger.

‘At least Mom doesn't use the Gallery.’

If her mother had used the Gallery, Ash would not have given her the honey.

Still, seeing her mother so happy put Ash at ease.

It felt like she had done something truly filial for the first time in a long while.

Ash smiled and continued on her way.

“Hey. Look over there.”

“My goodness. Isn't that the Mercedes Ducal House?”

“Looks like they're attending the succession ceremony.”

Ash was on her way to attend the ceremony when she heard the murmurs around her.

Ash was so famous that she was used to people whispering about her.

But talk about someone else was another matter. She turned her head.

Someone was getting out of an extravagant carriage.

‘The Mercedes Ducal House? They're attending too.’

Then again, it wasn't strange for a ducal house to attend a succession ceremony.

But there was something even more eye-catching: the number of people.

The Duke and Duchess of Mercedes were not the only ones to step out of the carriage. Two women followed them.

“Uh? Th-that young lady is...”

“L-Lady Mercedes? Wasn't she said to be ill?”

“She's beautiful...”

A beauty reminiscent of snow falling from the sky stepped out of the carriage. Even with her cold expression, she could not hide her beauty.

A brown-haired woman with a plain appearance followed after her. Ash raised one eyebrow.

‘I heard she had an incurable illness. Did she recover?’

Even though Ash spent most of her time shut up at home, she knew enough about what was going on in the world.

She also spent plenty of time on the Gallery, so she heard all kinds of rumors.

Lady Mercedes, Selena, should have been in seclusion because of her incurable illness.

It was extremely unusual for her to appear in public like this.

‘Her complexion doesn't look sick at all. And her skin... Hm?’

The moment Ash saw Selena's skin, she looked down at her own hands.

Her skin was giving off a soft glow thanks to the honey. Selena's skin looked similar.

Selena also seemed to notice Ash and turned her gaze toward her.

“...?”

Selena tilted her head. Ash possessed looks no less striking than Selena's, making her difficult to overlook.

But Ash's skin drew Selena's attention even more.

‘...Hm?’

Like Ash, Selena looked back and forth between Ash and her own skin.

‘...What is this?’

‘Something feels...’

A strange atmosphere flowed between them.

Footnotes:

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