WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Got a Gallery in the Wild ◈
Chapter 75: Joy of Life (1)
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With the trade cooldown vote underway, I got to work.
First, I reset the Fish Trap in the river and took care of my tools.
I paid particular attention to Heavenly Demon’s Sword. Having this sword greatly affected my chances of survival.
Still, how often does anyone have to maintain a sword in their life?
At most, I’d sharpened kitchen knives before. That made me all the more careful.
[Post title] Dwarf, help.
[Author] Wild Grylls
[Post] I want to take care of my sword. Got any tips?
└ [Passing Dwarf]: For free?
└ [Wild Grylls]: You little...
└ [Passing Dwarf]: Give me a crab, then we’ll talk lol.
└ [Wild Grylls]: Ah, right. If I give you a crab, will you tell me?
└ [Passing Dwarf]: I’ll do more than give you tips. I’ll give you oil paper and a whetstone too.
└ [Wild Grylls]: Oh;;
└ [Passing Dwarf]: But if you don’t give me a crab, no chance.
└ [Wild Grylls]: I fought a Guardian and some otters. Can’t you cut me some slack?
└ [Passing Dwarf]: If you’re really tired, bring it tomorrow. But make it three.
└ [Wild Grylls]: Okay;;
Guess I had to go get them. I was a little tired, but getting crabs wasn’t difficult.
The mana the Guardian had absorbed quickly refilled once I used my cultivation method.
Maybe the Forest of Four Seasons was rich with mana, since I could recharge after just a few breaths.
‘I haven’t maintained my sword at all.’
Better to start doing it regularly from now on.
It’d be a disaster if it broke at a crucial moment because I’d neglected it.
Once I finished preparing, I looked around the cave.
Perhaps because Wonmo had polished off a whole fish, he was taking a nap.
Fast Sloth, as relaxed as ever, stared right at me.
“I’ll be back soon. Keep a good eye on Wonmo.”
“……”
After telling Fast Sloth that, I blocked the entrance with the iron fence.
Even if Wonmo woke up while I was gone, he wouldn’t be able to get outside.
‘Elixir. Fasting Pills, smoked food, crossbow... I packed everything.’
I even had the World Tree Gloves LetsGrowTrees gave me, along with a backpack for the crabs. Everything was perfect.
I’d fought twice today, though, so I planned to avoid fighting if possible.
Especially since I still had some injuries from the Guardian.
Still, if an animal cornered me, I’d have no choice but to fight.
‘If things go south, I’ll use the smoked food to distract it.’
It was absurdly salty, but it was still meat.
If I used it as bait and slipped away, it should buy me some time.
‘If it spits it out because it’s too salty...’
No idea. It should still be better than Fasting Pills.
I checked my gear once more and took a sip of Elixir.
The faint pain in my stomach eased a little.
Time to go. This wasn’t an expedition. I just had to get some crabs and come back.
Still...
‘It’d be easy if I just headed downriver.’
The problem was not knowing what might jump out of that river.
A group of otters I’d never seen before had shown up just earlier.
There might even be crocodiles, so I walked a little way from the river.
‘Didn’t I run into an iguana here last time?’
A huge iguana, too. It had been nearly as big as a crocodile.
Thankfully, it was a coward and ran the moment it saw me, but we met again later.
It had snatched up a mosquito I killed and bolted.
Following the familiar river path, I headed toward the lakeside where the crabs lived.
Swoooosh-
As I got closer to the lakeside, the river grew much wider.
Not quite the Han River, but it was still a broad lower stretch of river.
There should be far more fish here than in the fast-flowing upper reaches.
Crash! Splash!
There was even a whale, the kind I thought could only be seen in the ocean.
I’d seen it before, but it still didn’t feel real.
At this rate, there might be sharks in the river too. In the Forest of Four Seasons, it wouldn’t be impossible.
“Hm?”
I was walking along the lower reaches in disbelief when I spotted a deer drinking from the river.
It wasn’t the Spirit Deer I’d seen this morning. It was an ordinary deer.
It had antlers, so it seemed to be male. Pretty big antlers, too.
‘I should make some noise on purpose.’
Who was it that said herbivores were more dangerous than carnivores in the wild?
Unlike carnivores, people often let their guard down around herbivores and got killed.
Rather than provoke it for no reason, it would be better to make my presence known.
Step. Step. Step.
Even though I made my footsteps loud, the deer didn’t budge.
It only glanced in my direction before focusing on drinking again.
I raised an eyebrow, wondering if the bastard was ignoring me.
Craaaash!!
Something massive burst out of the river.
Its wide-open jaws were lined with teeth as big as my fist, and it was much larger than the deer.
I was startled because I hadn’t sensed even the slightest presence, but I quickly recognized it.
‘Holy shit. There really are sharks here?!’
It was a shark. An enormous shark.
The deer was small enough to fit in one bite.
But where were we? This was the Forest of Four Seasons, where even Fast Sloth was powerful.
Whoosh-
As though it had expected this, the deer abruptly stopped drinking.
It then turned halfway around and launched a kick with its hind legs toward the shark’s open jaws.
Crack!
The deer’s kick struck the shark right on the nose.
A shark’s nose was a well-known weak point. And the deer had kicked it there?
Splash!
The shark, hit squarely by the counter, sprawled onto the riverbank.
It didn’t move at all. It seemed to have passed out.
As if none of that mattered, the deer started gulping down river water.
“……”
A deer drinking water beside an unconscious shark. What kind of combination was this?
Keeping an eye on the deer, I carefully moved away.
Luckily, it seemed uninterested in me and didn’t even look my way.
‘...I should post this on the gallery first. Maybe deer in this world are just strong.’
There were things like Spirit Deer, so it wasn’t completely impossible.
I took a photo that clearly showed the drinking deer and the unconscious shark beside it.
[Post title] The deer caught a shark.
[Author] Wild Grylls
[Post] (Photo of a deer drinking beside an unconscious shark)
[Post] A shark attacked a deer in the river, but the deer knocked it out with a kick.
[Post] Can deer in this world beat sharks too?
└ [Heavenly Demon]: It appears to be a deer with profound Internal Energy. Be careful.
└ [Wild Grylls]: Could you tell that about Fast Sloth just from a photo too?
└ [Heavenly Demon]: Are you ignoring the shark beside it?
└ [Wild Grylls]: Ah.
└ [SwordTasteMaster]: Wow. I’ve never caught a shark either, so that’s interesting. Don’t sharks normally live in the ocean?
└ [Wild Grylls]: There are whales in this river too, not just sharks.
└ [SwordTasteMaster]: This really is an insane forest.
└ [Allfather]: It is a Bull Shark. It can travel between the sea and rivers. Saltwater crocodiles are similar.
└ [Wild Grylls]: Then what’s that deer?
└ [Allfather]: Just a deer. It seems to be one fucking strong deer.
└ [Wild Grylls]: ;;;
└ My common sense is crumbling right now. Is that even right?
└ I can accept sharks living in rivers, but a deer? lol
└ Why are herbivores like Fast Sloth so damn strong? What even is this?
└ Seriously, this forest is insane lol
So that deer really was abnormal. My common sense wasn’t the problem.
I closed the gallery and glanced behind me, wondering what the deer was doing.
“Snort.”
“……”
Oh my. When did this bastard get behind me?
I froze as I looked at the deer, which had approached without a sound or presence.
Its body came up to about my eye level, but those antlers gave off incredible pressure.
‘Am I... fucked?’
I slowly backed away and got into a guarded stance. The deer stared at me.
Then it snorted and turned around.
The deer walked lightly into the forest without making a sound.
Before long, it vanished completely into the woods.
“Phew...”
I let out a long breath. I’d almost had a heart attack.
A deer had that much pressure. I felt like I would’ve lost if I’d fought it.
It had knocked out a shark with a kick, even if it did hit a weak point.
No, reacting to and dodging a surprise attack from a shark underwater was already insane.
‘When will I be able to react to something like that?’
The reality was that I still found it hard to react even to Fast Sloth’s attacks.
I could at least block them with my shield, but I still had a long way to go.
Sighing at how strange the Forest of Four Seasons felt the more I learned about it, I kept walking.
Bang! Boom!
I was almost at the lakeside when a tremendous noise reached my ears.
It came from the lakeside itself. It sounded like a building being demolished.
‘What is that?’
I’d never heard a noise like that in the forest before.
Once I reached the lakeside, I realized what was causing the noise.
Crunch! Bang! Crash!
Do you know those movies where giant monsters fight?
Movies where abnormally huge animals or massive monsters battle each other and wreck everything around them.
I was watching one in real life, and in real time.
‘...What’s that now? A crayfish?’
I’d seen a crab the size of an apartment building.
But this was my first time seeing a crayfish the size of an apartment building.
The two were even trading blows with their claws.
Watching giant monsters fight in reality instead of a movie was ridiculous.
Thump!
I was blankly watching the scene when the giant crayfish’s claw smacked the giant crab across the face.
A chunk of shell flew off toward me.
My eyes widened as the piece of shell rapidly got bigger, then I urgently raised my shield.
Baaaaang!!!
“Ugh?!”
My body flew backward with a sound like a ringing bell. The impact was absurd.
The only consolation was that I hadn’t suffered any serious damage thanks to blocking at the right moment and breaking my fall.
Groaning, I staggered to my feet.
“What the...”
That hard chunk of shell was no different from a piece of concrete debris.
Did I really need to go where those things were fighting? At this point, wouldn’t the dwarf cut me some slack?
But I had to strike while the iron was hot. I’d already come this far, and I couldn’t exactly go back empty-handed.
Instead, I’d squeeze everything I could out of the dwarf. I took a few photos and a video.
Of course, I planned to post them on the gallery later. I wanted to see the dwarf’s reaction.
‘Let’s grab the crabs and get out fast.’
While the crab and crayfish fought, the smaller crabs were doing their own thing.
That meant they were eating something off the ground. Broken chunks of shell were scattered around.
They seemed to be eating the shells that had fallen off the giant crab and crayfish during their fight.
I also saw crabs that had been crushed and burst beneath the shells.
Crash!
“Eek!”
A piece of shell fell right beside me as I grabbed some crabs.
I clenched crabs in both hands and ran for it.
I wanted to collect more, but I was in too much of a hurry.
I had no idea when a chunk of shell might fall on my head. What a hellish forest.
“Phew. Phew.”
Only after running far from where the shells were falling could I relax.
The crabs in my hands thrashed around, as if trying to escape.
I put them in my backpack and caught my breath.
‘Now I just need to go back.’
Bang! Craaash!
Something exploded behind me, but I tried to ignore it.
No, honestly, it was hard to ignore. Shells could fly all the way over to where I was.
Every time I heard a loud noise, I checked behind me as I returned to my shelter.
I’d already fought twice today, and now I’d filmed a disaster movie(?) too. I felt completely drained.
“Ugh...”
“……”
When I came back to the cave and collapsed, Fast Sloth patted me.
You’re the only one who comforts me directly. Thanks, really.
I gave Fast Sloth a Fasting Pill and logged into the gallery.
I planned to tell the gallery everything that had happened.
[Post title] Dwarf. Got the crabs.
[Author] Wild Grylls
[Post] (Photo of a giant crab and giant crayfish fighting)
[Post] (Photo of shell fragments that fell from their fight)
[Post] (Video of a giant crab and giant crayfish fighting)
[Post] I barely managed to get them by braving those bastards’ fight. Please recognize my hard work...
└ [Heavenly Demon]: You’re having rare experiences that even I have never had. By the way, what on earth is fighting that crab?
└ [SwordTasteMaster]: Isn’t that a crayfish? Judging by its appearance, it looks like one.
└ [Heavenly Demon]: ) I have never seen a crayfish that large.
└ [SwordTasteMaster]: It’s not just you, assistant moderator. This is the first time any of us have seen one;;
└ [Passing Dwarf]: Wow;; What the hell are those? Is that the lake you went to last time?
└ [Wild Grylls]: Yeah. When I got there, they were fighting. Maybe over territory?
└ [Passing Dwarf]: Crazy. But where are the crabs?
└ [Wild Grylls]: (Photo of crabs in a backpack) Here. You’re not going to worry about me?
└ [Passing Dwarf]: Want me to?
└ [Wild Grylls]: Never mind.
└ Are there monsters or animals bigger than those?
└ There are some right there.
└ Other than the Forest of Four Seasons, dumbass.
└ There must be... but aren’t most of them considered legendary animals?
└ There are dragons, at least, but they’re even bigger than those.
└ There’s a deer that beat a shark, and crabs and crayfish the size of buildings lol What the hell kind of place is that lol
└ For real, like an onion, the more you peel it, the more bizarre things keep coming out lol
As expected, the gallery was full of praise(?). They said I’d let them see something rare, or whatever.
But I’d barely survived another day, so I couldn’t share their mood.
‘I feel completely drained.’
I didn’t want to do anything, but somehow I felt even less like doing anything.
Exploration was over for today. I absolutely wasn’t going outside again.
‘...I have that tobacco, don’t I?’
I suddenly remembered the World Tree Tobacco LetsGrowTrees had given me.
I was so tired that I wanted to put something in my mouth.
It wasn’t like I could dip into my limited food supplies just for that. The tobacco was perfect.
‘I never thought I’d smoke in my life...’
Was this how smokers felt? I was going to smoke even though I hadn’t smoked in the military either.
I took one cigar from the box and examined it.
It looked like an ordinary cigar. The leaves were probably World Tree leaves.
It was supposed to be incredibly expensive tobacco. I suddenly wondered how effective it would be.
‘I’ll light it with the Ignition Stone.’
Crackle! Tap!
When I held the Ignition Stone to the tip of the cigar, smoke began to curl upward.
The moment it did, I hesitated briefly before slowly drawing it in.
Cigarette smoke was normally harsh, and cigars were even harsher.
But World Tree Tobacco wasn’t harsh at all. It felt refreshing.
It definitely smelled like mint, but it was so much more refreshing that all I could feel was the coolness.
Energy even returned to my exhausted body.
‘...It’s good.’
It was really good.
Footnotes:
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