WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the EX-Rank Pet Maker Hunters Obsess Over ◈
Chapter 101: Ark
──────
“Phew...”
I gazed somberly at the Essentium I’d just made.
I’d practically cobbled it together with poor equipment, so it wasn’t exactly a proper specimen...
As for what it was...
‘Plant-type essence separated from the corpse of a mutated magical beast.’
As expected from mutated monsters, very little of their essence remained intact. Even with my ability, separating it had been quite a struggle.
The poor working conditions certainly hadn’t helped.
I held the roughly finished Essentium up to the mouth of Haengbok, the ultimate life-form.
Then...
“Pant, pant...”
Slurp.
Haengbok swallowed it right down.
The reaction came immediately.
Something like a pimple rose from Haengbok’s head...
Pop.
And a sprout made of jelly grew out.
Just as I’d expected.
I lifted Haengbok.
“Haengbok Vegetable Garden Edition.”
“Pant, pant...!”
Thanks to Haengbok’s ability to retain the essential nature of a Jelly Dog no matter what essence it swallowed, I could feed it questionable specimens like this and observe the reaction.
But what I needed was proper essence, not this questionable stuff.
“Tsk... I’d really like to get some intact plant-type essence...”
“Pant, pant...”
At the previous Round Table meeting, Magician Mask White had definitely mentioned a sighting of a “plant-type magical beast” in central Sichuan.
Yet when I actually reached the depths where the giant tree stood, all I found were magical beasts that looked like patchwork combinations of humans and magical beasts.
Then where had all the plant-type magical beasts gone?
I found the answer... deep inside the giant tree, somewhere probably no one else had seen.
And that wasn’t all I’d found...
“Pant, pant...”
It was giving me a serious headache.
For the sake of my peace of mind, I kneaded Haengbok Vegetable Garden Edition all over.
Squish. Squish.
The facilities deep inside were on an entirely different level from the cultivation facilities on the outskirts.
‘I do need to share this with the other factions.’
“Their meeting happens to be today... I can drop by.”
“Pant, pant...”
Amon, who had been browsing the web in a corner, tapping the keyboard with their front paws, spoke.
[ You intend to go there again? Your mental body becomes unstable every time you return. It worries me. ]
That worried me too, but...
“I just have to take precautions.”
I grabbed Haengbok and Amon together in one hand and kneaded them without restraint.
Crack. Squish. Squish.
“Pant, pant...”
[ Aaaaaaagh!!!!!!!!!!!! I told you not to knead me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ]
With my squishy-bouncy power fully recharged...
I used the censer to enter the mental world.
* * *
A sacred air filled the meeting hall.
Rattle, rattle, rattle.
Butterfly Mask’s teeth were chattering.
Surprisingly, she had continued attending these meetings even after Plague had utterly destroyed her that day.
- “Th-they’re watching me!!! If I don’t come, they’ll k-kill me... They warned me that day...!!!”
Apparently, something else had happened after everyone hurriedly fled.
‘Tsk, tsk... You’ve really gotten on their bad side. You should’ve behaved yourself.’
Magician Mask White shook his head. Most of the others in the hall also regarded her with pity or contempt.
She bit her nails in fear.
Fortunately, if that was the right word, Plague didn’t attend every meeting.
‘Perhaps... they only attend before major events... or when they need to intervene. If my guess is right, they’ll attend this time.’
Magician Mask swallowed as he watched the entrance.
Only the usual members were present.
Five minutes remained until the meeting began.
At last, a figure shimmered into view at the entrance...
And the one who appeared was...
“...”
Butcher.
He was floating cross-legged in midair, moving along in that position.
“...What the hell is that now...?”
“What a fucking clown.”
Float.
After traveling in that peculiar fashion, he finally settled into his seat.
“You ignorant fools... I can see everything.”
Butcher radiated confidence, his eyes half closed as though he had achieved enlightenment.
Fanatic looked at him and shook their head.
“What the hell did you eat to start acting like this?”
Behind his mask, his half-closed eyes seemed to gaze into another world. His gaze swept across the audience, who were looking at him as though he were pathetic.
“I see... You cannot understand... It must be because you live your lives observing only the world of Mount Sumeru... What hopeless fools you are.”
Deciding that ignoring him was the best response, the others turned away.
Mask of Wrath folded his arms.
“Is there anyone normal here?”
As Magician Mask looked at him as if to ask whether that included him...
Rumble.
The virtual world shook as though swallowing something enormous, and everyone’s tension shot up.
“...!!”
“Don’t tell me...!”
“...They’re here.”
Step. Step.
A moment later...
They looked toward the entrance and saw something slowly approaching the Round Table. Not a human, but something wearing a human shell.
The masked figures watched Plague’s every move.
But they knew. If that thing cast off its shell, no amount of resistance would mean anything.
That mental body, so vast that even “enormous” couldn’t describe it, wasn’t human.
Rattle, rattle, rattle.
Butterfly Mask trembled like a leaf. The sight of her holding her breath, desperately trying not to draw attention, was almost pitiful.
Had this been reality, she probably would have wet herself or fainted.
Once Emperor’s Mask confirmed that Plague had taken a seat, he finally called the meeting to order.
“...Everyone seems to be here. Let’s begin.”
As expected, the chosen topic was sharing information about Sichuan.
“I always go somewhere in the middle, so I’ll start today...!”
Mask of Wrath made his declaration. Since no one particularly objected, they decided to proceed clockwise from him.
With his arms folded, Mask of Wrath began.
“As you all know, countless factions have gathered in Sichuan...! Their relative strength and the danger they pose...”
Butcher, who had somehow returned to his polite manner of speaking, interrupted.
“That doesn’t sound particularly interesting. Shall we skip it?”
“No, listen!! It’s quite important! And aren’t you going to keep up that bullshit from earlier? Why are you suddenly back to normal?”
“Well, now that Plague is here, I should stop acting like an idiot.”
Butcher jerked his chin as if telling him to continue, and Mask of Wrath resumed.
“Listen closely! If we put each faction’s current progress into a chart, it looks like this.”
He formed a graph out of tangible energy, neatly displaying each faction’s name beside it.
He then gave a general explanation of the objective statistics for each faction and why they had produced those results.
When Mask of Wrath finished, Iron Mask offered an assessment.
“Not bad, but rather dull... It’s painfully obvious why you insisted on going first. You had no useful information, so you gathered information about the factions, assuming no one else would bother. It makes your lack of intelligence sources quite clear.”
Mask of Wrath shook as though humiliated.
“...I’ll be watching to see what information you cough up.”
They continued around the table, and Magician Mask’s turn came fourth.
‘At last...! The moment has arrived...!!’
By his standards, all the information presented so far had been subpar.
Most of it had only been useful for competing against other factions... None of it had touched the heart of the current situation.
‘Heh...’
Soon he would enjoy the superiority of holding far more important information than anyone else, along with the thrill of revealing it.
But there was something he anticipated even more...
White looked at Plague Doctor across the table.
On the board laid out by a transcendent being, he was the one who had rolled the highest number...!!
How would Plague Doctor react when he revealed this information? White wanted to know.
“What are you doing? Get on with it.”
“Oh...? Don’t tell me you failed to find any information?”
“...Butcher’s back to his usual smart-ass tone.”
Whatever they said, White calmly crossed his legs and spoke.
“Ahaha... Why would you think I failed to find information? Every piece of information you offered was so poor that I was simply wondering whether I should share mine.”
His arrogant words drew everyone’s attention.
“Oh...? Did you find something useful?”
“If we’re talking about information valuable to the current situation... anything unrelated to the giant tree at the very heart of the region would be questionable.”
White smiled, making a show of his ease.
“Precisely. I have information about the interior of the giant tree.”
The masked figures were taken aback.
“...What?”
“...”
“You went in there?”
Entering the giant tree was an entirely different matter from wandering around its outskirts.
“That couldn’t have been easy. Did you sneak in with your spatial ability?”
“The mutated magical beasts would’ve swarmed you like mad. Impressive that you made it back.”
The mutated magical beasts moved like a swarm, as though sharing their consciousness with one another.
Their reactions grew faster the closer one came to the center, where the giant tree stood...
Entering the giant tree alone was practically madness.
Merfolk Island alone had been that dangerous. Setting foot inside a tree that had absorbed twenty million lives was no easy task, even for someone with Apostle-tier combat power.
Smiling at the masked figures, who all knew that, White shared his information.
“Inside the giant tree, there is a facility for cultivating pseudo-humans.”
The shocking, unexpected statement instantly weighed down the atmosphere in the hall.
“...What did you say?”
“A human cultivation facility...? Run by magical beasts?”
“Wait!! That faction is centered around magical beasts. Why would they cultivate humans?”
White didn’t know the reason either.
But he didn’t let it show.
“Well... you can imagine any number of reasons. However, the things being cultivated inside weren’t human. If I had to describe them, they looked like elves. There was also an individual inside the giant tree that appeared capable of communication. I suspect it was an Apostle, or something of a similar level.”
As expected, everyone grew serious when White finished speaking.
They now had to consider the possibility of a war against humanlike life-forms, rather than simply hunting magical beasts and closing Gates.
There was no need to explain the enormous difference in mental strain between hunting monsters and fighting beings that looked human and spoke human language.
The hall fell silent.
White addressed Plague Doctor across from him.
“What do you think, Plague? Wouldn’t you say this is enough for us to move on to the next step?”
Everyone stirred at those words.
“What are you suddenly talking about? The next step?”
“...Come to think of it, Plague isn’t reacting. Did they already know...?”
“Perhaps that’s only natural. All of this must be part of their plan.”
Plague Doctor, who had shown no reaction to their remarks, finally spoke.
“Deep inside the giant tree...”
Everyone immediately fell silent.
“There is another world.”
...Another world?
At Plague’s words, everyone tilted their heads.
“...Do you mean there’s a Gate?”
“Well, Sichuan is an Anomalous Gate, so there should be a Gate at its heart...”
It seemed like an obvious statement, but they weren’t dealing with an ordinary Apostle. This was an unknown being whose true nature remained a mystery.
So they looked at Plague Doctor, waiting for more of an explanation.
Plague spoke.
“There is a dimensional portal distinct from a Gate.”
With those words, Plague used formidable mental power to project what they had seen into the air.
Inside the giant tree stood an enormous arched dimensional portal, formed by thousands upon thousands of plant-type magical beasts woven together.
It shimmered with light similar to a Gate’s, briefly revealing glimpses of what lay beyond.
Gray ruins where everything had collapsed.
The remains of weathered buildings clearly suggested an advanced civilization, but the world had been devastated beyond measure.
Plague spoke in a flat voice.
“They intend to migrate to this world.”
That was it.
The giant tree was a kind of ark.
“The elves want this world.”
To take it from humanity completely.
Footnotes:
Mount Sumeru is the central mountain of the cosmos in Buddhist tradition. Butcher invokes it while acting like an enlightened sage.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
