WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 104: Dwarf Architect Slayer
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Poor chicken.
When that chicken was still a little yellow chick, could it have imagined that one day it would be used as bait to lure out termite monsters?
“Cock-a-doodle-screech!”
Still, it was undoubtedly a brave rooster.
It flapped wildly, spraying bird droppings everywhere as its body slammed against the cage with a loud rattle.
The termites didn't care.
They rushed at it as though they intended to chew up the entire cage.
Still, we couldn't exactly use up a chicken every time we passed through here. A chain was attached to the cage so we could reuse it.
Pandan quickly pulled the chain.
Clang!
The termite's powerful jaws snapped shut on empty air instead of the cage.
Once the adventurers retrieved it, the termites turned to look at us.
Then something strange happened.
The adventurers spread their arms wide, puffed themselves up, and shouted.
“Uwaaaaaah!”
“Graaaaaah!”
“Kyaaaaaak!”
If I hadn't known better, I would've thought they were crazy.
But seeing them reminded me of something. It was exactly like what I'd seen on XTube about encountering a bear while hiking. Make yourself look big and threaten it, so it knows it won't get away with attacking you.
I didn't want to stand around doing nothing, so I raised myself up and let out a loud roar.
“Saaaaaak!”
Surprisingly, it worked.
The termites hesitated, then gave up on attacking. They burrowed back underground.
Their exact name was Hell Helm Termite.
I had no idea why they were called hell termites, but I could see why they were called helm termites.
They had flat, white carapaces like plates attached over their heads.
They looked like helmets, or perhaps the graduation caps college students wore. I soon understood why.
‘Camouflage carapaces!’
After hiding their bodies inside their burrows, they tucked in their heads too. Their flat head carapaces completely concealed the holes.
No wonder I couldn't see them.
They were monsters specialized in digging traps and lying in wait.
“We've confirmed what's over there, so we can go around them.”
Pandan said that.
‘Can we just walk past them?’
“We've shown them that we're dangerous, so they won't attack first. They'll attack on reflex if we pass directly overhead, though.”
The adventurers certainly knew how to get through this area.
“Good thing you decided to travel with us, right?”
I see.
Traveling like this would definitely be convenient. If I'd been alone, I would've been terribly flustered by termites suddenly bursting out of the ground.
‘Ah, but I need to level up.’
That was the problem.
Taking the easy route was nice, but it felt like I wouldn't be able to level up this way. Of course, I didn't bother telling the adventurers about such a luxurious concern.
“Throw it over there too!”
After we passed the first stretch, they kept throwing the cage at suspicious-looking spots.
Whenever termites sensed the disturbance and surfaced...
“Kyaaaaaak!”
“Kwoooong!”
“Krorororo!”
“Saaaaak!”
Everyone shouted together to threaten them.
It seemed one Kradmeser had joined in halfway through, but I ignored it.
The funny thing was that Isil, hanging from my back, shook their leaves too.
If they had a mouth, they probably would've shouted, “Swish-swish-swish-swish!”
Far more easily than expected, we passed through the pillar zone without fighting even once.
“That was easier than I thought.”
“Still, stay sharp. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, yeah. Accidents always happen when you let your guard down.”
Even as they said that, I could feel the adventurers relaxing.
But the Demonic Realm was an extremely dangerous place.
This Mountain Range was also a Demonic Realm. If it was anything like the Great Forest, we absolutely couldn't let our guard down.
There was no such thing as a perfect response or strategy for a Demonic Realm.
Real battles always had exceptions.
And when you encountered one, unexpected situations followed.
“Cross carefully.”
Jericho said that, and the adventurers began walking with heavy steps.
Moving too quietly wasn't good either. It was better to make a little noise, as if warning the termites that we were passing overhead.
Once the termites understood that our group was large and dangerous, they stayed hidden.
But one of them must have been a little braver than the rest.
Or maybe it had been sleeping and didn't know what was happening around it.
Perhaps it was simply too hungry to resist.
One thing was certain.
It burst out from an unexpected place.
It happened suddenly.
I could react, of course, but the adventurer passing beside it wasn't so lucky.
Crunch!
His ankle was bitten in an instant.
The termite didn't release its prey. Before he even had a chance to resist, it dragged the adventurer underground.
“Gaaaaah!”
The adventurer screamed and struggled desperately to keep from being dragged away.
He dug his fingernails into the ground, but he was only pulled along, leaving nail marks behind. His nails quickly broke and bent back.
The other adventurers reacted belatedly.
Jericho swung his hammer at the termite.
Thud!
But as befitted an insect-type monster, the termite had a hard exoskeleton.
Its shell dented, but it wasn't enough to deal a fatal blow. The termite, still clamped onto its prey, stubbornly tried to return to its hole.
Then I moved.
Whoosh-
The meteoric iron dagger Helmut had forged was extremely sturdy and, surprisingly, sharp.
Dawn embedded itself squarely between the termite's eyes.
Even insect-type monsters usually died once their brains were destroyed.
*「You have defeated Hell Helm Termite Lv. 39.」
Magical Essence was absorbed.
But the damage that had already been done didn't disappear.
“Argh, let go! Save me!”
Even dead, the termite didn't loosen its jaws.
The adventurer whose leg had been bitten kept screaming, unaware that the termite was already dead.
“You bastard, shut up!”
Jericho covered the adventurer's mouth and calmed him down.
Another adventurer pulled out an axe and quickly severed the termite's neck. Then they took out a knife and practically dismantled its jaws.
“Huff... ngh...”
The adventurer's ankle bore a gruesome wound.
The white thing visible inside the bite was clearly bone.
Jericho poured a potion over the wound.
It bubbled as some of the flesh healed, but the injury remained.
“Damn it. Of all places, it had to bite his ankle.”
It seemed the termite's jaws carried some kind of poison.
Even after they used an entire potion, the wound didn't close, so they wrapped it in bandages. The bandages quickly soaked through with blood.
“Can you walk?”
“N-No...”
“You there, help this guy walk.”
The chosen adventurer looked displeased, but still offered their shoulder.
Jericho looked like he wanted to send the injured adventurer back. The injured man noticed too and forced himself to walk.
“I've got a bad feeling about this...”
With an injured person, our pace became much slower.
On top of that, one person had to support him, costing us even more combat power.
Watching them, I realized something.
‘Hmm, they're less impressive than I thought.’
Jericho and Pandan were decent enough, but the other adventurers looked far too clumsy.
They said they were B-rank, but was this really their level?
If they had been dropped in the middle of the Great Forest, they probably would've all died within a few days.
They wouldn't last in the Shadow Forest, much less the Palamu Rainforest.
-Your standards have risen quite a bit.
Hmm.
Most of the humans I'd met were heroes or mages.
Thinking about that, there was no way these people's skills would impress me.
‘Look at that. Tsk, tsk. Blood's dripping everywhere.’
Drops of blood fell one after another from the bandages around the injured adventurer's leg.
“Let's get somewhere safe and take another look at the wound. There should be a healer among the adventurers who went ahead.”
“O-Okay.”
That wasn't the problem.
Walking around while bleeding like that would stir the appetites of other monsters.
Humans might not know it, but as a monster, I could clearly smell the blood.
The nearby termites must be getting hungry too.
“Sak!”
I called Pandan over.
Then I warned him that the smell of blood was hanging heavily in the air.
My warning soon became reality.
“What are those...?”
At some point, termites began following our group.
They were definitely termites too.
But their helmets looked different.
Unlike the other termites, which seemed to have flat plates attached to their heads, these had pointed, horn-like protrusions.
When I narrowed my eyes and examined them...
──────────────
【Hell Horn Termite Lv. 43】
【Traits】
[Tracking], [Coordinated Attack]
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They were a slightly different breed.
They looked stronger.
“They're scavengers.”
Jericho gritted his teeth.
“Why are they showing up already?”
Apparently, they weren't supposed to appear near the entrance of the Blade Pillar Zone.
The flustered adventurers whispered among themselves.
“We were already going around to avoid those things...”
‘Don't panic over something so trivial, foolish humans.’
I couldn't just watch silently, so I said something.
They had said a Monster Wave would never happen in the Great Forest, yet it happened anyway.
‘A Demonic Realm is a Demonic Realm because humans can't understand it.’
“Why did your way of speaking suddenly change...?”
That was when it happened.
“Kweeek!”
Termites burst from the ground again and ambushed us.
The adventurers gritted their teeth and fought back.
Fortunately, no one was bitten and dragged away like before.
The adventurers drew their weapons and faced the termites.
“Don't break formation! You there! Don't run out on your own, you bastard!”
They seemed far better at fighting than ordinary soldiers.
But they didn't seem used to fighting together.
Honestly, I benefited the most once the battle began.
*「You use Perran School Dagger Arts Lv. 2.」
Thwack!
Transparent Hand's skill level had risen quite a bit, and I could now send the dagger fairly far away.
Standing in the middle of the adventurers, I moved the blade.
I shot the dagger between Jericho's legs and pierced a termite between the eyes.
Jericho's crotch must have gone cold, because his legs wobbled.
*「You have defeated Hell Helm Termite Lv. 29.」
Had the scent of blood drawn them in?
The trackers following us didn't let this opportunity pass and joined the attack.
Whoosh, I swung the dagger.
*「You have defeated Hell Horn Termite Lv. 46.」
Magical Essence and experience flowed in.
Not a single drop of bodily fluid splattered onto me.
The adventurers shouted curses, the termites made strange clicking noises, and I simply swung my dagger from the center like the conductor of an orchestra.
*「Your level has increased!」
Hmm.
Following Pelerian and Helmut's advice seemed like the right choice.
‘What a spot!’
Rather than going to the front to find termites' hearts and bite and tear at them, it was far more efficient to let the sturdy adventurers hold the line while I fought from behind.
Above all, my Magical Essence was rising nicely.
Was this the usefulness of Swordsmanship?
Old man Pelerian, I told you learning Swordsmanship would come in handy.
-You fool! The flower of the battlefield, pouring long-range firepower from behind the front line, isn't a swordsman. It's a mage!
Was that so?
Still, fighting with a blade was Swordsmanship, wasn't it?
I wildly swung the dagger.
Just when I thought I might be able to gain another level, the battle ended.
“Huff, huff.”
“Damn it, this is completely different from the information we had. Why are there so many of them?”
It seemed they hadn't expected attacks to be this frequent.
‘Was it always this dangerous?’
-It was dangerous. But there do seem to be unusually many termites.
It had been a long time since Pelerian had last visited this place.
Comparing it to the present would be difficult.
“Wait!”
Jericho raised his hand and stopped the group.
Several footprints remained on the ground.
The ground here wasn't very damp.
They had been left where mud and puddles had collected.
“Are those from the adventurers who went ahead?”
“No...”
The footprints were unusually broad.
“They look like dwarf footprints.”
Oh?
The dwarves of Gray Hammer Village had vanished as if they had evacuated somewhere.
They had entered the Demonic Realm as a group.
But why?
For now, we followed their trail farther in.
The terrain that soon appeared brightened the adventurers' expressions.
“Ah, it's a safe place!”
Stone pillars stood close together and covered the ceiling, while the ground was made of damp black soil.
This was a safe zone in the Blade Pillar Zone.
Termites didn't come near wet soil.
The dwarves who passed through earlier seemed to have rested here as well.
The remains of campfires and other traces of camping were scattered around.
“Wait.”
A gust of wind carried the scent of blood.
“There are signs of a fight.”
It seemed the dwarves had fought here.
If so, perhaps a monster had been hiding in what was supposed to be a safe zone...
That wasn't it.
The dwarves hadn't fought monsters.
It seemed they had fought among themselves, or perhaps fought humans.
There was a pile of corpses that had been gathered and burned. Human and dwarf bones were mixed together.
“Over there... isn't that one alive?”
An adventurer spoke quietly.
In the corner, a dwarf sat leaning against the wall.
He was pressing his right hand tightly against his neck.
The cloth held against the wound was dark brown with dried blood.
“Go take a look.”
Jericho gave the order.
The selected adventurer looked reluctant, but cautiously approached.
“Um, are you alive?”
“...”
“Hello?”
The dwarf suddenly opened his eyes wide and swung his left hand.
Thwack!
“Argh!”
The adventurer was sent flying after being struck in the cheek by a hammer.
The dwarf didn't seem sane.
With bloodshot eyes, he shouted.
“Y-You humans, you filthy humans!”
I had heard that surface dwarves were a friendly, boisterous race.
But he looked like a ghost.
“What are you doing?”
“Y-You, do you know what you've done, human?!”
The dwarf didn't seem sane.
“Because of you, everyone's going to die!”
He shouted in a voice like scraping metal.
The enraged adventurers drew their weapons, ready to kill the dwarf.
That was when I stepped in like a hero.
“Sak!” (Everyone, stop!)
I didn't know what was happening, but they needed to calm down.
I stopped directly in front of the dwarf and met his eyes.
‘Dwarf friend. I am a snake.’
I had experience becoming friendly with dwarves at Red Anvil Mine.
Maybe that made me overconfident.
“A-A snake monster!”
He suddenly threw a hammer at me, then tried to grab and throw nearby objects too.
‘Calm down!’
Fortunately, this wasn't my first experience with something like this.
This time, I didn't bite on reflex like I had with the Guard Captain before.
One mistake was enough.
“Saaaaaak!”
I roared intimidatingly to calm him down.
But when the dwarf saw that, he rose as if trying to flee.
Then the wound on his neck burst open again.
Spurt!
Blood sprayed from the back of his neck.
Thud.
The dwarf collapsed.
*「You have defeated Dwarf Architect Lv. 60.」
U-Umm...
Honestly, this really wasn't my fault.
Footnotes:
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