WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 110: Evil, Me, a Baby Wyvern
──────
The wyvern egg seemed several times the size of an ostrich egg.
After becoming a Crystal Crown Python, my body had shrunk a little, so I could barely squeeze myself inside.
A wyvern's neck and head really did look like a snake's.
Below the neck, though, the rest resembled the dragons from fantasy.
Wings sat where its forelegs should have been, but that was a reasonable body structure when I remembered that birds' wings had evolved from modified forelimbs.
Its legs were sturdy enough to stand on two feet.
Hard protrusions lined the end of its tail, capable of being swung like a mace and helping it maintain balance in flight.
The hatchlings looked fairly similar.
As a snake, I was longer, but my head was noticeably smaller.
──────────────
【Little Black Wyvern Lv. 1】
【Trait】
[Baby]
──────────────
That was what their status windows showed.
They were in a state similar to mine when I was a baby.
They felt a little different from the centipede triplets, who had been King Centipede Larvae.
‘Come to think of it, these guys are triplets too.’
I thought of the baby centipedes.
Ah, the wyverns had originally been quadruplets, not triplets.
Human stupidity had turned them into triplets.
Unaware of any of that, they chirped and opened their mouths.
They acted exactly like baby birds begging for food.
The wyvern queen, who had been cruel to the humans, showed warm maternal affection.
She regurgitated food she had stored in her body and fed it to the hatchlings.
The babies eagerly ate the warm, thick nutrient porridge.
It was the kind of sight that warmed your heart just by watching it.
‘Urgh!’
I barely held back my nausea.
Once the feeding had gone around, it was my turn again.
The other hatchlings shoved their heads forward, trying to steal my food.
“Piii!”
“Chirp!”
It was probably just their appetite, but I was incredibly grateful.
So this was sibling affection.
It was the first time I'd ever felt it.
But my siblings' consideration, their attempt to eat the horrible porridge for me, was shattered to pieces.
“Gwak!”
Wyvern Mom got angry and smacked the hatchlings with her tail.
“Gwagak, gwak!”
You little brats are trying to steal your poor youngest sibling's food!
Do you have any sense at all?!
That was probably what she was scolding them about.
The other hatchlings immediately closed their mouths, looking dejected. What spineless little punks.
In the end, I had no choice but to eat another serving of nutrient porridge.
“Gurururuk!”
Guh.
It had a truly strange flavor.
Cave crickets, Blood Moles, even Mosquito Rats.
I'd trained my palate on countless bizarre foods, but this was still hard to swallow.
Still, bitter medicine was good for the body.
The problem was that the nutrient porridge was unbelievably nutritious.
*「You have consumed Oblivion Wyvern Queen Seleta's nutrient porridge.」
*「Your body and Magical Essence grow.」
I'd never eaten anything like this in my life.
There was a reason the hatchlings kept charging in for more porridge.
With every gulp, their bodies visibly grew.
Since I wasn't actually a hatchling, my body didn't get bigger. Instead, my scales became glossier.
Even that seemed to worry Wyvern Mom.
She force-fed me more nutrient porridge.
“Gururuk!”
*「You have consumed Oblivion Wyvern Queen Seleta's nutrient porridge.」
*「Your body and Magical Essence grow.」
*「Your level has increased.」
I even leveled up.
At this rate, wasn't I going to evolve?
Then I'd evolve into a Wyvern Python or something. That was worrying.
‘Can you really evolve this much just by eating?’
-How else do you think those hatchlings could grow here if they had no way to hunt? Pfft.
I didn't like that Pelerian was laughing.
Still, wyvern nutrient porridge was definitely something incredible.
You could grow stronger just by eating it.
If rich people learned about this, wouldn't they pay a fortune to eat it?
Then getting free nutrient porridge here might be an incredibly lucky break.
Yeah. It had to be.
Twitch, twitch.
Just then, Isil, who was attached to my body, flicked their leaves as if dissatisfied.
They seemed to be asking for some too.
‘Ha, I'd really like to share it with you.’
Wyvern Mom looked pleased as she stroked my head and the hatchlings' heads with her tail.
* * *
[Monster Tidbit]
There was an effect called the imprinting effect among bird-type and flying monsters.
It meant that a newborn hatchling recognized the first being it saw as its mother.
Because of that, there had historically been occasional attempts to tame flying monsters.
The idea was that if someone could acquire an intact egg, they could theoretically domesticate the hatchling quite easily.
Before even discussing the practical barriers, there was something little known about the imprinting effect.
That was reverse imprinting.
Just as a hatchling considered the first being it saw to be its mother, there were also cases where a mother monster mistook the first creature to hatch from an egg for its own child.
That was why some monsters laid their own eggs in other monsters' nests and left, like cuckoos.
Believe it or not.
According to legend.
A fearless snake monster once laid an egg in a dragon's nest and left.
The dragon mistook the snake for a baby dragon and raised it.
* * *
There were no mirrors here.
Only three days had passed, but I somehow felt like I'd gotten fatter.
It had to be my imagination.
Only three days had passed, after all.
-What imagination? I told you, you've gotten fat.
‘Please say I've filled out.’
It couldn't be helped.
The nutrient porridge was nutritious in every sense of the word.
And surprisingly, I had adapted to its taste.
It was more edible than I'd expected.
My mother and father in my previous life never cooked, so I didn't know what a mother's home cooking tasted like.
Still, this might be what a mother's cooking truly meant.
Honestly, it was much better than the food Medusa Mom gave me. Probably because it wasn't mixed with venom.
My body had gotten nice and plump.
One good thing about being a snake was that, strangely enough, your face didn't gain weight.
My jawline stayed the same while the rest of me filled out.
That was one thing for me, but the other triplets were a different story.
“Chirp, chirp, chirp!”
“Keiiit!”
“Chuiii!”
Each of them cried differently.
Maybe I could name them Pipi, Kei, and Chui.
The three hatchlings had grown at least a head taller than they had been three days ago.
Their wings, which had been as tiny and useless-looking as a tyrannosaurus's forelegs, had grown fairly large.
Of course, they were still ridiculously small for actual flight.
They didn't even have proper skills yet.
Pipi was the largest and fiercest of the three.
Pipi was probably the oldest sister. It seemed female wyverns were bigger and stronger than males.
“Pipi...”
Pipi growled and bared a tooth at me.
Only one tooth had come in so far, so it wasn't very threatening.
Surprisingly, the one who ate the most nutrient porridge among the four of us was me.
I felt a little guilty about stealing the babies' food, but what could I do?
They saw me as a deficient youngest child with no wings or legs and force-fed me porridge.
Apparently, that was deeply unfair to the triplets.
Pipi lunged at me whenever there was an opening.
“Piik!”
Pipi sprang up in a flash and opened her mouth to bite me.
But.
I wasn't about to be caught off guard by a Little Black Wyvern Lv. 3.
I dodged lightly, then swung my tail.
Smack!
Pipi, struck on the cheek, let out a piercing scream.
“Piiieek! Piik!”
Anyone watching would have thought I'd bitten Pipi.
The exaggeration was on the level of a Shiba Inu.
Then Kei, who had been relatively quiet, pounced.
“Chiit!”
Kei wasn't aiming for me.
Kei lunged at Isil, who was clinging to my back.
But Isil had already evolved once.
And when it came to pedigree, Isil had been born with a far greater one, the World Tree kind.
Crunch.
Isil extended a vine and grabbed Kei by the neck.
Kei's wings and legs were bound by the vine.
Crack.
Then Isil put Kei in a joint lock, like some kind of jiu-jitsu move.
“Chiiieeek!”
Another overly dramatic scream rang out.
It wasn't like I enjoyed fighting with children.
We needed to establish the pecking order regularly.
For the record, our hierarchy was me, Isil, then the other three hatchlings.
Wyvern Mom, who had been watching quietly, cried as if telling us to stop.
“Gwooo!”
It would've been nice if Medusa Mom had been this warmhearted too.
Wyvern Mom took devoted care of both the hatchlings and me.
‘It's about time I left.’
But I couldn't stay here forever.
Where there was a meeting, there had to be a parting.
Hadn't I come to this Mountain Range to reach Delphram, where Pelerian's Dungeon was located?
-It's fine. I don't think we've lost much time.
Looking down from atop the tall, blade-like stone pillar, this nest was farther north than the point where I'd been captured.
That meant I was actually closer to Delphram.
-Go just a little farther north and you'll reach Delphram.
I only needed an opportunity.
First, Wyvern Mom had to leave.
“Gugugu.”
A monster that large couldn't survive without eating.
Besides, she had to eat something to make nutrient porridge, right?
I expected she would eventually go hunting.
And that moment came.
Lick.
Wyvern Mom licked all of us, then flapped her wings and took off.
‘Thank you for everything.’
Even if I had the cold heart of a snake, it felt strange to be treated so well by a wyvern.
Watching Seleta fly away made it feel even stranger.
-What are you doing? Move already!
Right, but I couldn't keep living as a baby wyvern.
I said goodbye to the three hatchlings.
‘Take care, kids.’
Naturally, they didn't understand my words and only stared blankly.
But when I left the nest and tried to climb down,
“Piii!”
“Keii!”
They came rushing over in a panic, as if yelling, ‘It's dangerous!’, and tried to stop me.
I'd thought they'd be happy to see me go, so it was unexpected.
Of course, I wasn't about to jump.
With Isil's help, I slowly climbed down the stone pillar.
Still, the baby wyverns seemed extremely worried that I was leaving the nest.
“Piii! Pi!”
Good grief.
They kept screaming.
This was becoming a bit of a problem.
Wyvern Mom's subordinate wyverns lived nearby.
What if they heard this and flew over?
-That's why I said we should take care of the hatchlings before leaving!
‘You trash fairy.’
-No, we only needed to knock them unconscious...
I needed to run.
Sure enough, by the time I neared the ground, other wyverns had begun looking around and spreading their wings.
It was all because the triplets had chirped so loudly.
‘There's nowhere to hide!’
Digging into the ground and hiding wouldn't be easy either.
The ground, hardened by white guano, was tough enough that only termites could dig through it.
Just as I tried to hide somewhere in the shade,
“Gwagagaga.”
“Guguk!”
The adult wyverns that had taken flight let out strange cries.
Naturally, I thought they were looking for me, but that didn't seem to be the case.
They were crying toward the cloudy sky.
‘...What is that?’
As I stared at the sky, wyverns I had never seen before soon broke through the clouds.
Every one of them was white.
-Those are wyverns of a different color. Has another flock launched an attack? This is a lucky situation for you.
All the wyverns here were black, so another flock had come to attack.
The adult wyverns responded to the ambush.
“Gwagagagak!”
The black wyverns and white wyverns tangled together in the air and fought.
It was a spectacular sight, watching enormous flying monsters battle.
In the middle of all that, nobody would notice one white snake disappearing.
It seemed they had attacked knowing Wyvern Mom, the leader here, was away.
I was a little worried about the triplets, but...
‘They'll be fine.’
I tried to think that as I prepared to leave.
Then I saw a dark shadow moving inside the clouds.
What was that?
Was it a wyvern too?
Judging by the size of the shadow, it had to be enormous.
The moment that thought crossed my mind, a beam shot from within the clouds.
It flew straight toward the nest where I had been just moments ago.
Boom!
Stone fragments exploded with a thunderous crash.
That was Destruction Beam.
A massive wyvern capable of using Destruction Beam, like Wyvern Mom or my dad, was hiding in those clouds.
And then.
“Piiiik!”
The hatchlings screamed as they fell.
‘Damn it!’
-Damn it!
I cursed in disbelief, while Pelerian was probably cursing in irritation.
Even so, I moved.
I dodged the stone fragments raining down where I had been.
Then I used Heart-Eating Leap to jump onto a jutting piece of stone midway up the pillar.
Leap, then another Leap.
Around the time I reached the middle, I spotted Pipi falling.
I used Transparent Hand to grab Pipi.
‘Whoa!’
It wasn't enough to stop the fall of a hatchling that had grown quite a bit.
I wrapped Pipi in my tail, then sank my teeth firmly into the stone pillar and barely caught her.
“Keii!”
Kei, the second hatchling, fell beside us.
‘Isil!’
Isil handled Kei, grabbing them firmly with their vines.
Creak!
Naturally, I had to bear that weight.
My teeth almost broke.
I didn't think I could save the youngest too.
But I couldn't hear Chui crying.
Don't tell me Chui had already...
“Chuiii!”
I barely turned my gaze after hearing that sound.
‘Youngest!’
Chui was desperately flapping their wings and gliding.
They were practically falling, but their speed wasn't too fast, so they seemed like they'd be okay.
-You idiot, the sky!
But a white wyvern was diving from above.
Straight toward Chui, to snatch the youngest in its jaws.
Crunch.
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
