WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 105: Ace Marksman
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What an impatient dwarf.
Isn't it discriminatory to assume every snake is an evil monster? I might've even healed them.
They panicked, scrambled around on their own, and their wound burst open. Then they died.
I got quite a lot of experience.
The poor dwarf would become Magical Essence and live on forever with me.
‘Let's burn them.’
I made that request of the adventurers. They nodded, though reluctantly.
Leaving a corpse here would only spread the smell of rot and attract hungry monsters. There was a reason the dwarves had burned the other bodies.
Whoosh-
The adventurers performed the cremation before I even needed to help. The nameless dwarf burned away until nothing but bone fragments remained.
Jericho muttered as he watched the smoke rise into the sky.
“Someone will see that.”
Visibility in the Blade Pillar Zone was poor, but black smoke rising into the sky would still stand out. Everyone nearby would see it.
“I don't know what kind of result that'll bring, though.”
The dwarves might see it, or the other adventurers who had entered first might see it.
If it was the latter, it would help us find them.
If it was the former...
Well.
The dead dwarf had shown unexplainable hostility toward humans.
“Did the ones who went in first do something to the dwarves?”
“Why would people who accepted a quest fight the dwarves?”
“There'd be no reason for them to fight.”
Had the humans committed some major offense against the dwarves?
Maybe that was why the dwarves had all entered the Mountain Range to track them down, then found them and fought.
It seemed to fit, but I couldn't imagine why that would happen.
Then someone spoke up.
“Let's withdraw.”
It was one of the B-rank adventurers.
“This situation wasn't disclosed in the quest. It looks like an entire dwarf village has mobilized. What are a few adventurers supposed to do against that?”
“Hey, if we run now, the penalty is double the advance payment. If they make me pay that penalty, I'm finished.”
Another adventurer snapped.
“In a situation like this, we can withdraw. We might not even have to pay a penalty.”
“That's what you think. The Adventurers' Association won't see it that way. If this quest were so easy, would they have given us such a generous advance?”
Just how much was the quest reward?
I was participating too. Shouldn't I get a share?
I should seriously bring it up with Jericho or Pandan sometime.
The adventurers didn't seem as brave as I'd thought. They argued over whether they should withdraw.
If they left, I'd have to break through alone.
That wouldn't do.
As I thought that, Isil fluttered their leaves above me. It felt like they were saying they were here too.
The funny thing was that the humans seemed to think Isil and I were one body.
Since Isil clung to me all day, they probably thought I was some strange snake that carried a vine around.
Then Jericho said gravely.
“We're not withdrawing. At the very least, we need to find out what happened to the adventurers who went ahead of us.”
As expected of the adventurers' unspoken leader.
A few people looked unhappy at his decision, but none openly objected.
“If we just go back, it won't end with a penalty fee. And we were already told that wyverns might appear.”
There was a strange weight in Jericho's words.
It seemed Pandan and Jericho knew more than they were saying. The other adventurers must have noticed something too, because their faces turned ashen.
“Damn it, we really stepped in shit.”
“This is why you don't touch blue quest sheets.”
It seemed the quest they had accepted was something special.
“Still, it would be better to send the injured Hanson back with one person.”
The adventurers' expressions changed the moment he said that.
Hanson himself didn't look pleased.
“Y-You're saying you're going to abandon me.”
“What the hell are you talking about? That's why we're sending someone with you.”
“Still, if there are only two of us on the way back...”
“Think about it calmly. Would it be safer to keep going with an injured leg, or to turn back now even if you have to give up the completion reward?”
“...”
Staying together wasn't always safer.
If it became necessary, the adventurers would absolutely use Hanson, with his injured leg, as bait.
Knowing that, Hanson eventually nodded.
Retreating with only two people was dangerous too, but there was a volunteer.
“I don't plan on dying in a place like this...”
They could've just gone quietly. There were always people who had to sour the mood like that.
The atmosphere had turned completely rotten.
‘Come on, let's go.’
It looked like Isil and I had no choice but to lift everyone's spirits.
I climbed onto Jericho's shoulder and patted his back. Jericho nodded too.
“We're moving.”
They had rested enough.
The adventurers began moving carefully.
“I'd like to reach that white peak before the sun sets...”
Jericho muttered.
‘Hmm, the smell of tension.’
Snakes had a good sense of smell.
So did I.
That was how I learned something. Cold sweat from a nervous person carried the scent of tension.
It wasn't a pleasant smell.
Right now, the adventurers were afraid of nightfall.
Well, none of them had Dark Vision. A pitch-black place had to be terrifying for them.
A suspicious passage appeared ahead.
Jericho repeated what he'd been doing so far. He threw a chicken cage into the passage.
Thud, flap flap flap!
With a loud commotion, termites hidden underground sprang out.
There were a little too many of them.
We had five humans, one snake, and one vine.
There were more than ten termites.
We shouted at them, but they seemed capable of counting heads too.
“Quiiiik!”
The termites chose to fight.
The adventurers frowned, but I was happy about it.
The battle began.
Pandan smashed a termite in the face with the buckler in his left hand.
Thud!
Then I sent Sunset flying and cleanly cut off the termite's head.
*「You have defeated a Hell Helm Termite Lv. 34.」
Now then, hunting time...
‘Huh?’
Something strange happened.
The termites all stopped fighting at once.
They looked up at the sky.
The sky was clear. Other than clouds, there was nothing in sight.
Click, click, click-click-click.
Then the termites began clacking their jaws together, making a strange sound.
“Uh!”
Jericho's face turned pale.
The termites hurriedly crawled back into the burrows they had emerged from. They didn't seem to be running because they were afraid of us.
“A wyvern!”
There was something like a black dot between the clouds.
Was I finally going to meet a wyvern?
Unlike me, the adventurers were beside themselves with fear.
Pandan, who usually just followed Jericho's orders, suddenly shouted.
“Get the termites! We need two more!”
He drew his longsword and chased after the fleeing termites.
In an instant, he cut off one termite's head.
He moved faster than I had expected.
Had he been hiding his ability?
He held out his hand to me. I crawled up his arm and clung to his shoulder.
I wondered why we had to catch termites when a wyvern had appeared, but I soon found out.
Pandan boldly jumped into the burrow where the termites had been hiding.
He immediately used a termite head like a lid to cover the opening.
He was borrowing the termites' hiding method.
This seemed to be how people dealt with wyverns when they appeared.
Smart.
“Huff, huff.”
Pandan breathed roughly.
Like the other adventurers, he was tense too.
Fortunately, every adventurer managed to hide.
There was a slight gap in the termite carapace covering the hole, though. Light shone through it.
Pandan's face looked like it was begging, ‘Please don't let us be found.’
Seeing them go this far made me even more curious about what kind of creatures wyverns were.
I looked outside through the gap.
I couldn't hear the wyvern approaching.
Maybe it hadn't seen us from the beginning?
I had that suspicion, and Pandan seemed to feel the same way.
Still, none of the adventurers crawled out of their burrows.
The silence continued, and just as I started to feel sleepy...
Boom!
It appeared without warning.
I saw sturdy feet, closer to a reptile's than a bird's. Its glossy black claws were as sharp as an eagle's talons.
‘Wow, it flew in completely silently.’
-There are many wyverns with Silent Flight. Competition for prey is fierce.
‘You scared me!’
Pelerian suddenly spoke beside me, startling me a little.
The wyvern didn't seem to have noticed us.
First, let's see how strong it was.
──────────────
【Gray Horn Wyvern Lv. 97】
【Traits】
[Cunning], [Silence], [Mated Pair]
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Thankfully, its status window wasn't completely hidden from me.
There were far more than one or two wyverns in the Mountain Range. If monsters of this level had started appearing already, I'd have been a little scared.
Its name felt somewhat similar to when I had been a White Horn Snake.
Its strength seemed to be on a completely different level, though.
Its skill window was impressive too.
──────────────
【Skills】
[Silent Flight Lv. 10], [Bite and Tear Lv. 17], [Wing Strike Lv. 9], [Sweep Lv. 4], [Howl Lv. 10], [Scorched Earth Lv. 5], [Fall Lv. 10], [Acceleration Lv. 5], [Slash Resistance Lv. 10], [Heat Resistance Lv. 5], [Venom Resistance Lv. 10]...
──────────────
It didn't only have useful attack skills.
It had quite a few resistance skills too.
No wonder the adventurers were afraid of it.
More than anything, there was the problem of its size, something the status window didn't show.
Boom, boom.
It had made no sound while flying in, but it seemed quite heavy.
The ground boomed with every step it took.
It didn't seem especially observant.
Still, it refused to give up and leave.
Click-click-click, clack, clack.
It wandered around making strange sounds.
They sounded a little like a frog croaking, or perhaps an insect.
Click-click-click, clack.
Pandan flinched every time it made that sound.
Then it happened.
The wyvern dropped something.
It was a person's upper body.
It was the adventurer who had gone back earlier with the injured leg.
Even in death, Hanson's face was twisted in fear.
“Gasp.”
Pandan quietly inhaled.
He seemed quite frightened.
‘Calm down. Don't worry too much, Pandan.’
I stroked Pandan's head, and Isil extended a leaf to pat his head too.
The wyvern dropped Hanson's upper body onto the ground and began eating.
It was an especially gruesome sight.
The other adventurers had to be terrified too.
As for what I had been doing all that time...
‘Its Venom Resistance seems a little high... but its Lightning Resistance is weak.’
I was sizing it up.
‘If I slash its wing membrane wide open... No, would it still be strong on the ground?’
I was comparing the wyvern's strength to mine.
It looked strong, but not like something I couldn't defeat.
Even with the difference in compatibility between birds and snakes, it wasn't insurmountable.
I, Urooros, am a big shot who recently hunted a fire lizard that crawled up from hell.
I had been about to ambush it quietly, but I changed my mind a moment later.
Hmm, not now.
Rather than now...
At that moment, the wyvern finished eating and took flight.
When I listened carefully, I could hear the faint sound of its wings beating.
The sound gradually faded, then disappeared.
We waited for quite a while.
Pandan still didn't seem ready to leave.
Neither did the other adventurers.
‘Let's get out now.’
I told Pandan that, but he didn't nod easily.
So I simply slipped out through the gap.
“Eek, hey!”
Pandan tried to grab my tail, but failed.
The sun had already begun setting outside.
It looked like night would come soon.
There was no sign of the wyvern.
Only traces of its meal, bloodstains, and a huge pile of shit the wyvern had left behind remained.
“Ssssss!”
I gave a loud hiss.
Only then did the cowardly adventurers stagger out of their burrows.
They saw that the wyvern had completely left and let out sighs of relief.
“Damn it, I was so scared I almost shit myself.”
“I peed...”
What a bunch of cowards.
It was so absurd, but they seemed to have their own excuse.
“Is this Wyvern Fear?”
There was Wyvern Fear too, not just Dragon Fear?
The strange sounds the wyvern made seemed quite terrifying to humans.
“Night will fall soon. Let's camp over there.”
Jericho said that with a pale face.
Fortunately, not far away was an area where the ground was black and stone pillars blocked out the sky.
The adventurers staggered that way.
* * *
“Senior Jericho.”
One of the adventurers whispered into Jericho's ear.
“Let's go back. This is crazy.”
“...”
Jericho didn't answer.
“This isn't the time for wyverns to appear. I've never even heard of a Gray Horn Wyvern appearing near the entrance to the Blade Pillar Zone.”
They had already discussed how retreat was not an option.
This time, though, Jericho listened in silence.
“It seems something has already happened in the Mountain Range. The information we knew is practically useless now...”
“Hmm.”
“If going back empty-handed is a problem, how about we capture that snake?”
Jericho's eyebrow twitched.
“If we bring that snake back, the client will be satisfied too. That snake doesn't look ordinary, and at a glance, they seem like a Unique Species monster...”
Come to think of it, wasn't the adventurer party they had originally planned to support also searching for something valuable?
“That's a fairly strong monster. The snake is small and acts immaturely like a kitten, but still.”
Instead of answering, the adventurer tapped the Thunder Net Gun on their back.
If they used that, capturing a snake like that would be easy.
Jericho wavered.
Just as he was about to make a decision...
“Uh, what? What are you doing!”
An adventurer cried out in panic.
They were making such a loud fuss that Jericho frowned and turned around.
“Gasp!”
“Put it down! Put it down! It's dangerous!”
The snake was holding the net gun.
Obviously, not with their hands.
The snake seemed to be holding it with magic, like when they used a sword.
“Calm down! What's going on!”
Why were they panicking like idiots? Jericho gritted his teeth.
There was no way a snake could use a gun.
It even had a safety lock.
The snake probably touched it out of curiosity. If they panicked this much...
That was when the snake smoothly loaded a round.
Click!
Then the snake disengaged the safety and aimed at Jericho.
Jericho's vision went dark.
* * *
Magazine attached!
Bolt forward!
Single-shot!
There wasn't a fire selector, but close enough.
I had fired a gun before.
And there was no time to explain at length.
Shooter ready. Firing!
Thud!
Maybe because it wasn't gunpowder-based, the sound wasn't as loud as I expected.
The projectile cut through the air.
It passed over Jericho's head.
Then it struck the wyvern that had been hiding against a stone pillar.
Boom!
A net unfolded in the air and wrapped around the wyvern.
Crackle-crackle-crackle!
Sparks of electricity flew everywhere.
The wyvern let out a roar of pain.
Footnotes:
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