WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 102: Dawn and Sunset
──────
The Continental Adventurers' Association.
The CAA for short.
Before that, it had been called the Continental Multinational Adventurers' Association.
That would have made it the CMAA.
Of course, hardly anyone was foolish enough to actually call the Adventurers' Association the CAA or CMAA.
The Adventurers' Association was a transnational organization, not one limited to a single country.
Naturally, the adventurers themselves hadn't built that vast, continent-spanning information network and organization.
Adventurers were even more individualistic than hunters. In the past, they had only gathered sporadically in small guilds.
They had formed an alliance on a continental scale because the Empire had turned a blind eye and offered support.
All kinds of requests became ranked quests, while their rewards and acceptance were strictly managed. Adventurers were given ranks as well, along with adventurer badges that served as identification.
Considering how adventurers had once been practically synonymous with “unemployed dreamers” or “thugs chasing a quick fortune,” it was a remarkable change.
Adventuring had become a proper profession.
The kingdom had an Adventurers' Association too.
The Solion Impel Branch of the Continental Adventurers' Association.
As befitted the kingdom's prosperity, it had several S-rank adventurers and one adventurer who stood outside the norm.
One of the Eight Heroes of the Kingdom was that extraordinary adventurer affiliated with the Adventurers' Association.
One of the missions posted at the Solion Impel Branch was currently being carried out here in the Mountain Range.
Seven adventurers were walking through the mountains.
Two were A-rank adventurers, while the other five were all B-rank.
Even without an S-rank among them, it was an impressive lineup.
That meant the mission entrusted to them was far from ordinary.
At the very least, it had to be an A-rank quest.
“Clear winds, bright skies, rugged alpine peaks.”
One of the A-rank adventurers muttered those words.
“To think such a beautiful mountain range is called a Demonic Realm. It's ridiculous. I suppose it only looks that way from a human perspective...”
He was a young man with clear eyes.
The climb was hard enough already, yet he spoke so casually that the other adventurers gave him strange looks.
“Pandan, the Mountain Range is a damned awful place.”
“Really? It looks beautiful to me.”
A young man with a slightly long chin and hollow cheeks sneered.
“Pandan, didn't you say you were from the eastern Empire? I guess you never experienced the Mountain Range before becoming A-rank.”
Since the Adventurers' Association had spread across the continent, Pandan was an adventurer from the Empire.
“I suppose not. Jericho, have you been to the Mountain Range often?”
“It's the closest Demonic Realm to Solion Impel.”
“I've only been to grasslands and deserts. They were both terrible places. This seems better than those.”
“That thought will disappear the moment you meet wyverns and termites.”
The man called Jericho was the leader of this quest.
He had thought he alone would be enough, but the association had insisted on assigning another A-rank adventurer, Pandan.
Jericho had earned his A-rank after surviving every kind of hardship.
Pandan, on the other hand, was not only young but also looked like an utter airhead. Jericho didn't like that.
“Oh, smoke.”
Pandan pointed below.
Jericho unfolded a map, then nodded.
“We've reached Gray Hammer Village.”
Like most Demonic Realms, there was no clear line where a place suddenly became one.
Monsters appeared frequently, but there were still regions where people could live and make a living.
Gray Hammer Village stood near that boundary.
Adventurers and hunters heading deeper into the Mountain Range resupplied there.
“The Gray Hammer dwarves are greedy. They might try to fleece visitors, so stay alert.”
Jericho spoke gravely.
The others all nodded seriously, but Pandan did not.
He only quietly muttered, “So I can drink dwarf beer...”
Jericho clicked his tongue and kept walking.
Yet as they drew closer to the village, something felt wrong.
“Why isn't anyone...?”
Jericho quickly silenced the adventurer who had started to speak.
Slowly, he placed a hand on the weapon at his waist.
There was no one in Gray Hammer Village.
The village was usually full of lively noise. This was unexpected.
And any adventurer worth their salt knew to be wary of unexpected situations.
Only Pandan followed Jericho with an indifferent expression.
Clang! Clang!
In the village, quiet as a graveyard, only the sound of metal being struck rang out.
There was nothing strange about a forge making noise in a dwarf village, but the complete lack of any other sound was unsettling.
“It smells like fire.”
Pandan's mutter broke the silence.
Jericho frowned and glared at him.
Pandan spoke as though he had no sense of the mood at all.
“Isn't the air warm?”
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
“Look. A hot wind is blowing.”
A hot wind.
Surprisingly, Pandan was right.
The sound came from the forge.
The closer they drew, the hotter the air became.
Naturally, the area around a forge would be warm.
But if that heat had spread throughout the village, just how hot was the forge itself?
“The door is open.”
A dwarf was working inside the forge with the door thrown wide open.
They quickly understood why.
An immense blast of heat poured out through the open door.
It was murderous heat.
If the door were shut while work continued, the forge itself would become a giant oven.
“Urgh!”
The B-rank adventurers covered their faces against the searing wind.
Pandan and Jericho, however, widened their eyes and watched the work inside the forge.
Clang! Clang!
The dwarf craftsman was hammering a glowing-red mass of metal.
He was an old dwarf, bent with age.
His forearm and hair were drenched in sweat.
Amazingly, the dwarf had only one arm.
Even so, the force with which he struck the metal was anything but ordinary.
Sparks flew wildly every time the hammer landed.
Without blinking once, he repeated the process with a steady rhythm.
“...A Meister.”
Pandan whispered.
“A Meister is making a sword.”
He spoke cautiously, not because he feared being noticed, but because he was afraid of interrupting.
Jericho understood immediately as well.
As a swordsman, the chance to watch a Meister forge a blade was exceedingly rare.
Proper swordsmiths were rare even among dwarves, and humans had almost no way to witness the process.
The dwarf Meister Helmut repeatedly folded the heated metal and hammered it again.
Once it cooled, he put it back into the furnace to heat it once more.
“Ah.”
They found the source of the insane heat.
Purple flames flickered within the furnace.
When Helmut placed the cooling metal inside, the flames surged up.
It looked as though a demon were flicking out its purple tongue.
Then an unimaginably fierce heat burst forth.
“...Beautiful.”
Pandan spoke softly.
Jericho's back was already soaked.
It wasn't only because of the heat.
He was witnessing something that had reached the very pinnacle with his own eyes.
Like the grand magic an Archmage unleashed alone.
Or the brilliant Aura Blade released by a master of Swordsmanship.
The sight of that ancient dwarf forging a sword was just as shocking.
The dwarf never once looked at the adventurers watching him.
He only devoted his soul to making a perfect sword, to sharpening its edge.
Pandan and Jericho watched the process, forgetting the passage of time.
Even after the other adventurers had grown tired of the repetitive work and settled down to rest, they continued watching.
At last, the dwarf finished.
“Whew...”
The completed weapon was a longsword.
It resembled the dagger Helmut had already made, as if the two were siblings.
Its blade gleamed black, making it clear that it wasn't made of ordinary metal.
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.
It was Pandan who applauded.
“It was beautiful. Such an incredibly beautiful sight!”
Helmut wiped away his sweat with a towel and walked out.
His skin had turned red, while his hand and feet trembled from the long work.
He had breathed in hot air from point-blank range, leaving his throat completely hoarse.
“Humans? Cough.”
Pandan tried to speak to him warmly.
“May I ask the name of the great Meister?”
“If you had interrupted my work even a little, I would've beaten every one of you to death.”
Dwarf craftsmen were known to be eccentric, but for his first words to be a threat?
Anyone would have been offended, yet Pandan didn't frown in the slightest.
“As if I would commit such rudeness!”
“You speak well.”
“If it isn't too rude to ask... that pair, the dagger and longsword. Do they already have an owner?”
They were clearly items of tremendous value.
Even adventurers with plenty of money would not find them easy to buy.
Still, Pandan couldn't bear not to ask.
“They already have an owner.”
“Ah...!”
Pandan opened his mouth in disappointment.
“I would like to speak with their owner, if possible. Are they nearby...?”
“I have a question for you too.”
Helmut sat down on a crate.
“Can you get along with monsters?”
“Pardon?”
It was Jericho who asked in bafflement.
“Humans are especially afraid of monsters, aren't they? I'm asking whether you can get along with one if you can communicate.”
“Ah...”
“Especially one like a snake.”
Jericho couldn't answer, but Pandan replied at once.
“Of course! If we can communicate, what's the problem? I've personally wanted to befriend monsters too!”
“Good. Then talk to one.”
“Oh, yes?”
“You said you wanted to speak with the owner of those swords.”
Jericho wondered if this dwarf had gone senile.
Then...
Thud.
He felt something cold against the back of his neck.
Something heavy wrapped around his neck and shoulders.
When had it gotten there? From where?
Jericho, an A-rank adventurer, was about to react instinctively.
Rattle.
The sound of scales shifting sent a chill down his neck.
A snake was just about to bite him.
If he moved even a finger, he would be bitten to death.
If a snake with Deadly Venom bit his neck, the outcome was obvious.
Stopping himself in that instant was enough to show Jericho's sound judgment.
A sheet of paper fluttered into the air.
A pen began moving on its own.
‘If you covet my swords, you die.’
Scratch, scratch. It wrote those words.
‘And if you draw your sword, you die.’
Pandan stopped himself from drawing his sword.
Then he burst into amazed laughter.
“Amazing!”
* * *
An A-rank adventurer. How cool.
I asked whether monsters had ranks like that too.
Unfortunately, they didn't.
It'd be nice if I had a rank too.
An S-rank monster, Urooros, the Serpent of the Apocalypse.
Something like that.
Would I make it into the monster encyclopedia too?
The humans were afraid of me, but they found it fascinating that I communicated through writing.
Pandan, in particular, had an incredible amount of nerve.
Apparently, he was from the Empire rather than the kingdom.
“I want to buy the swords.”
Wasn't he making that offer because I called them my swords?
At least it was a better reaction than the human next to him, who was shocked that a snake had commissioned swords.
‘How much?’
When I asked that...
“Five hundred Imperial gold coins for Dawn, and one thousand Imperial gold coins for Sunset. What do you think?”
What did I think?
For now, I wrote, ‘Hmm...’
Dawn and Sunset were the meteoric iron dagger and meteoric iron longsword, respectively.
Helmut had forged one meteoric iron dagger and one meteoric iron longsword.
They were sibling swords. The dagger represented the faint light of dawn, while the longsword represented the intense glow of sunset.
The fact that Helmut had even woven a story into the names of his works proved that he really was a Meister.
‘That's too cheap.’
“Urgh... Then how about two thousand coins for both?”
‘Hmm...’
Look at that, the price rose right away.
I was going to toy with him a little longer, but I stopped.
‘Not for sale.’
I had plenty of money to begin with.
Even if I had more, I didn't really have anywhere to spend it.
How could I take money for meteoric iron swords forged with such painstaking effort?
I felt bad for Rania because I had lost Ashira, the Dagger of Dawn, but I would cherish these two new swords.
Still, Pandan's offer seemed to be an enormous sum.
The other humans were shocked.
“D-Does he really have that much money?”
“Isn't he just throwing money around?”
I could hear them whispering.
-That might be a fortune in the world of poor adventurers. Tsk, tsk. Pandan is trying to buy a Celestium sword set made by a dwarf Meister for only two thousand gold coins?
‘Exactly, right?’
-Kill that shameless human, Snake!
Should I?
Still, I put that decision off for now.
I liked the way Pandan looked at me.
His eyes held boundless envy and admiration.
No one had ever looked at me like that before.
Rosena and that strange woman named Langrey had shown interest in my Scales, of course.
But their eyes had been far from envious.
Pandan, though, looked at me with such burning envy.
How could that not be enjoyable?
“But Mr. Snake, you don't even have hands, so you can't use a sword...”
Even so, I couldn't tolerate that.
‘I'm good with swords, you know?’
“Come on, you're joking...”
‘Want to have a match?’ I wrote, lifting a sword with Transparent Hand.
I raised the Dawn dagger and spun it through the air.
“Huh...?”
‘Did you think I was joking?’
Pandan seemed to feel his competitive spirit rise as well.
He leaped up, did a somersault in the air, and landed.
“To use an expression from where I lived...”
Then he stood before the floating dagger and drew his own.
“Would you care to have a bout?”
Sounds good.
Instead of answering, I smacked the ground with my tail.
My dagger cut through the air.
Pandan's dagger shot forward sharply as well.
Heh heh.
But my Dagger Arts weren't ordinary.
*「You use Perran School Dagger Arts Lv. 1.」
My dagger suddenly dropped straight down, then shot up beneath his chin with a terrifyingly unexpected movement.
The instant my dagger dropped...
Pandan's dagger dropped too.
As though reflected in a mirror, the daggers followed the exact same path and collided in midair.
Clang!
Because of the difference in quality, only Pandan's dagger chipped.
But that wasn't what mattered.
What mattered was that our Dagger Arts matched perfectly.
Pandan asked in a trembling voice...
“...Are you from the same school?”
Had I somehow gained fellow disciples without even knowing it...?
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
