WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the EX-Rank Pet Maker Hunters Obsess Over ◈
Chapter 39: Prophecy
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The emergence of Japan's Rider Tanker quickly became a worldwide sensation.
Japan had recently been the subject of endless talk about whether its S-rank Gates would ruin the country, so the news spread even faster. On top of that, a new type of magical beast, an Attachment-Type Magical Beast, had appeared. Since the Hunter world viewed magical beasts as one of the ultimate ways to improve one's specs, it couldn't help but take notice.
And apparently, some Hunters with a taste for that sort of thing were going wild over the word "Transform."
【 Korean Hunter Gallery 】
- [ Overseas ] What the fuck is with all this Rider talk out of nowhere?
- [ Overseas ] They kept making tokusatsu shows, and now they've finally gone beyond fiction and brought it into reality...
- [ Overseas ] Current situation at Japan's Gates.JPG
- [ Overseas ] What the hell did Yoo Hyun make...!!! Give us what you made too...!!!!
- [ Overseas ] Holy shit;;; What's with this transformation rush;;;
- [ Free ] So we just watched Japan snatch away a Magic Beast Alchemist who makes Transform Belts and living-steel suits?
- [ Free ] Things had finally started to calm down, and now this shit happens lol
- [ Free ] Is Yoo Hyun actually an alien? Why is he the only one churning out new magical beasts like crazy?
- [ Free ] One genius overwhelms every magical-beast company and research institute... Is this actually real? I still can't believe it no matter how many times I see it...
- [ Free ] I find South Korea's regulations, which let that genius slip away, even harder to believe.
- [ Free ] Isn't Yoo Hyun starting a magical-beast company...? T_T Give me a pet too... At least make more Jellykkos...
Naturally, this news caused an even greater stir in the magical-beast industry than it did among ordinary people or Hunters.
“My God... Yoo Hyun has created another new kind of magical beast...”
Maximilian, a German Magic Beast Alchemist, couldn't hide their astonishment at the Attachment-Type Magical Beast that had appeared in Japan.
“Not just Duality, but this kind of magical beast too... Interesting. I'd like to go to Japan immediately, but...”
Maximilian had a more urgent matter to deal with, so the alchemist decided to set aside their curiosity for the moment.
The limousine Maximilian was riding in stopped, and the driver opened the door.
“We've arrived.”
The Rhine-Main Magic Engineering Technopolis, Europe's largest magic engineering special zone, lay along the border between Switzerland and Germany.
Experts from every field of European magic engineering had gathered at the largest magic engineering research institute there.
Maximilian arrived at a temporary conference room inside the institute. Spotting a familiar figure, the alchemist approached.
“Luise, it's been a while. Have you been well? Are you still in touch with Yoo Hyun?”
Luise, seated in a corner of the conference room, folded her arms and replied.
“Of course. Yoo Hyun and I are much closer than you people think. We even discussed Attachment-Type Magical Beasts together yesterday. Hehehe...”
“...Interesting. Could you let me join that chat room too?”
“No!! That's a chat room just for Yoo Hyun and me!!! There's no place for an old fart like you!”
Maximilian had treated her like a granddaughter in their own way, so her cold response left the alchemist feeling oddly sad. Maximilian sat down nearby.
“So, have you heard what they discovered this time that made them gather us?”
“I don't know... They just told me attendance was mandatory. They probably found something inside a Gate again.”
As they chatted, someone appeared on the platform at the front of the conference room.
A stern-looking middle-aged man who seemed more like an agent than a researcher.
“Quiet. Thank you for coming despite being called here on such short notice. I'll get straight to the point. A new artifact was discovered in a Gate. We called you here to decipher it.”
The room stirred at the word artifact.
“An artifact...?”
“Hmm, they're not that rare...”
“They called all of us instead of handing it to an appraiser. It must not be ordinary.”
Artifact was a collective term for items occasionally found inside Gates.
There were various ways to obtain them. Some were found in the corpses of Gate bosses, while others were hidden inside Gate structures.
There were even times when they simply lay in otherwise empty places, making them truly mysterious objects.
Just as their origins were mysterious, their forms varied wildly, from useless-looking junk whose purpose was impossible to discern to what appeared to be weapon blueprints, martial arts manuals, and magic books.
Since they could provide knowledge and technology from beyond this world, obtaining an artifact from a Gate was essentially like striking it rich in modern society. This was also considered one reason Hunters raided Gates.
Artifacts had even formed the foundation of Hunters' combat techniques and magic engineering technology in the early days of the Gate crisis.
The man on the platform went on at length about the artifact's origin. The man explained where it had been found and what the circumstances had been at the time.
The conditions under which an artifact was obtained were certainly important clues, but the man seemed to be deliberately avoiding any mention of the artifact itself. Something about it felt unnatural.
“Since the Gate was teeming with Chaos Entities, this artifact likely differs from ordinary artifacts in that...”
In the end, a balding man in researcher attire, who had been shaking his leg impatiently in the front row, shouted.
“Hey! Why call busy people here if you're going to do this? You said you'd get to the point, but it feels like we're just going around in circles! If you gathered us here, this clearly isn't some ordinary item, is it? We all know that, so quit stalling. Bring out the real thing and summarize the important parts!!”
Everyone nodded. The man had dragged it out for far too long.
The man on the platform nodded.
“...I'm sorry. This is such a special object that I let the introduction run too long without realizing it. But please understand... I only did it because I didn't want you to be too shocked.”
Nod.
At the man's signal, agents placed a transparent glass case covered with a blackout cloth on the table atop the platform, where everyone could see it.
When they removed the cloth, a grotesque mass of flesh that seemed to profane life pulsed inside. Each beat made the flesh writhe, provoking instinctive revulsion.
Thump. Thump.
The experts frowned at the sight and asked questions.
“My God... What is that...?”
“...We believe it is a living artifact. For reference, it isn't a monster. A detailed examination found no mana core.”
“Then did you call us here to study that thing?”
The man on the platform shook his head.
“No. There is something else you need to study.”
“What could that possibly be...?”
As everyone voiced their confusion, an eye-like organ formed in the flesh inside the glass case and scanned the room.
Rip.
The gaze was so unpleasant that it felt like insects crawling over their skin. A nauseating feeling swept over them, as though the very foundation of their existence had been violated.
Everyone was overwhelmed by that gaze and trembled in silence.
Then the mass of flesh ripped open once more, forming an organ that seemed to imitate vocal cords.
Everyone understood what was about to happen.
“C-crazy... Don't tell me...”
“Ah... This can't be...”
The man on the platform contacted someone.
“Turn on the recorder.”
At the same time, the flesh began to speak.
[ ───Li...sten, sh▒sh-shell-█s. ]
[ The ▒▒first f-f-festival... en-ends─── ]
[ ───the sky's h-hole will n-n-not c...lo█close, but... ]
[ Like s-ski-skin... it will t-turn i-in...si-inside o...ou-out. ]
[ The s-s-sown s-seed... will de-devour the r-red s...sun...! ]
[ B-beginning with the p-p-pillars y-you bu▒bu-built... ]
[ They will rot from the roots... █ █ █ █ █ █ █ and melt away─────! ]
[ When the f-f-final n-night co▒comes... ]
[ ▒▒The Creator's ▒▒▒▒ silence... ]
[ Y-you, y-your m-m-most fertile l-land... ]
[ Will ma-make it an e-eternal c-c-cradle... ▒▒▒▒... ]
Once the grotesque creature finished speaking, the blackout cloth was placed over the glass case again.
For a while, no one in the room could say anything after witnessing such a shocking sight.
If they had been ordinary people rather than Awakened, the shock might have left lasting trauma or driven them insane.
Several minutes passed before they gradually regained their senses and began to speak.
“...What the hell was that...?”
“W-we vaguely knew extraterrestrial life existed, but... something like that...”
“Ha... The Gate Church bastards are going to love this...”
Everyone was sweating as though they had just woken from a nightmare.
Its voice carried a horrifying unpleasantness that seemed to scrape at their souls.
Some still hadn't recovered, but the man on the platform didn't wait for them before speaking.
“As you saw... that is a life form from beyond this world. Fortunately, it appears to have almost no combat ability, but the problem lies in the words it spoke. This was like...”
“A Prophecy. That fucking hunk of flesh left us a fucking Prophecy.”
“That's correct. We want you to interpret the Prophecy.”
The people murmured among themselves. At their core, though, they were scholars, and their curiosity outweighed their physical revulsion.
“So that wasn't all the life form said, was it? There's more, right? We'd like to hear it.”
“It's a little questionable to call that a Prophecy. Why have you decided it is one?”
Questions poured out.
The man on the platform began answering them one at a time.
“First, we concluded it was a Prophecy because that mass of flesh predicted a previous disaster.”
“So it predicted the biohazard incident in China too? Maybe that hunk of flesh caused the disaster itself.”
“No. After a thorough analysis, we determined it was a purely man-made disaster caused by China.”
“Those rotten bastards!!”
Then what disaster had it predicted?
Everyone looked at the man on the platform with that question in mind.
The man slowly opened his mouth.
“The disaster it predicted was Japan's S+-rank Double Gate.”
“An S+-rank Double Gate... It's definitely a disaster, but...”
Compared to the biohazard incident, it seemed almost tame. It was certainly a disaster, but it didn't feel like the sort of disaster that life form would cause. The biohazard incident seemed to fit better.
“Why are you only telling us this now?”
“We only discovered and secured the life form recently. At the time, we had no evidence that could confirm it was a Prophecy.”
“Then what will happen to Japan...?”
“I don't know either... The only thing we know for certain is that something different from an ordinary Gate Break will occur.”
The atmosphere in the conference room grew heavy.
Luise looked pale.
‘W-what do I do? Yoo Hyun is in danger...!!’
* * *
At that time, on Japan's artificial island, Ars Magna.
Hermes Research Institute, S-rank Cultivation Chamber.
Yoo Hyun smiled as he looked at the magical beast inside the enormous incubator.
“The cultivation of the first S-rank magical beast in history is going very smoothly. A magical beast whose performance goes beyond the limits of existing mana cores... I can't wait.”
“Pant, pant...!!”
Having finally stepped into uncharted territory, Yoo Hyun was so exhilarated that he kneaded Haengbok nonstop.
Squeeze. Squeeze.
“Is there a super-powerful monster around here worth testing this masterpiece on, Haengbok?”
“Pant, pant...!!!”
“That's right, Haengbok! This place has tons of S-rank Gates!!”
Even I had to admit, choosing this location for the research institute had been genius.
I'd have to ask them to make sure they filmed the S+-rank Gate raid.
Footnotes:
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