I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse - Chapter 112

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle

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◈ I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse ◈

Chapter 112: The Serpent’s Way

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Our wyvern leader was Seleta.

Their wyvern leader was Chugota.

Was it three against one?

Still, it was confusing.

Chugota definitely had only one body.

But she had three necks and three heads.

So was she one creature, or three?

Going by the status window, she seemed to count as three creatures.

Yet she also felt like one.

-Not twin-headed, but a triple-headed monster.

‘Is she rare?’

-Rare? She’s incredibly rare.

That made sense.

I couldn't remember ever seeing a monster with even two heads.

Yet here was one with three.

This world still seemed to have plenty of secrets left.

-For a triple-headed monster to occur naturally... it’s practically a miracle.

‘She looks even more incredible than a Chimera.’

Monsters with two heads were special by nature.

Twin-Headed Ogres were traditionally considered magical geniuses, weren't they?

Even I had heard stories about great Archmages like Cho and Gal.

If she was a triple-headed monster, surely she had the potential to become a god of magic, not merely an Archmage.

Pelerian, who had been studying the enemy closely, came up with a theory.

-I think she was originally a one-headed monster. Her head must have split apart as she evolved.

Looking at her, I could see what Pelerian meant.

All three heads had nostrils and mouths.

That meant they could breathe and eat.

They probably each had a relatively small brain, too.

Their eyes were another matter.

Two of the heads had two eyes each, while the remaining one had none.

-It split. The original head split into three pieces. It probably originally had four eyes, two on each side.

It wasn't a banana. Was that even possible for a wyvern?

Chugota's snouts and heads were triangular.

It looked as though they would fit together perfectly if brought close.

In short, she was horrendously ugly.

As if they were trying to reaffirm their bond, the heads gathered together and rubbed against one another.

Then each opened its mouth and gathered a Destruction Beam.

Three Level 20 Destruction Beams.

Kiiing-

When the three beams merged and fired at once, something far more powerful than an ordinary Destruction Beam shot toward us.

Seleta, who was carrying us through the sky, pulled off an incredible evasive maneuver.

She had been flying at full speed when she spread her wings wide in front of her.

The air resistance was enormous. The membranes of her wings swelled as though they would tear, and Seleta's body spun once through the air.

If we hadn't been wearing vine seat belts, the three siblings would have definitely fallen.

It was reckless flying.

But it let us avoid the Triple Destruction Beam.

Kwauuuung!

The beam swept across the ground, shattering several stone pillars in an instant.

My heart dropped.

Pelerian saw it and blurted out.

-Majestic...!

‘What do you mean, majestic?’

It really was majestic.

Crap, I'd gotten my thoughts backward.

-Evolution can be this incredible. I wondered why she had evolved so inefficiently, but that wyvern split her own head into three and gained power comparable to a dragon's breath.

It was impressive.

For all I knew, a real dragon's breath might be like that.

Even the Crown of Seizure probably couldn't steal that kind of power.

-How about splitting your head into three as well?

‘Uru, O, Ros, like that?’

-Yes.

Absolutely not.

Maybe I'd consider it if Pelerian split themself into Pel, Ler, and Ian first.

Chugota had nearly killed Seleta and all her children with that Destruction Beam.

Wyvern Mom growled as she stared at Chugota.

‘Is she going to fight?’

That was what I thought, but I was wrong.

Seleta let out a long cry and changed direction.

The black-scaled wyverns followed after her.

Seleta had chosen to retreat with the entire flock.

-A leader monster should do that.

The battle had already turned against them.

Rather than let everyone die here, Seleta chose to flee.

‘Isn't that a problem? We need to go to Delphram.’

We had gotten close to our destination by luck, but it felt like we were about to get farther away again.

Pelerian glanced between the sky and the sun, then sat on my tail and spoke.

-It’s fine. It looks like we’re heading toward Delphram, if anything.

The driven-off flock was heading toward the place where Pelerian's Dungeon was.

Well, that worked out.

Still, why were the wyverns heading toward the Dungeon made by the Fairy Mage?

* * *

There was a saying.

Even if Earth grew hotter and civilization collapsed, it wasn't Earth that perished. It was civilization.

Perhaps the saying that life was tragedy up close and comedy from afar was along the same lines.

The Monster Wave that erupted from the Great Forest dealt devastating damage to humans.

Countless people died.

Several territories were reduced to ashes, and the wave even crossed the kingdom's border and annihilated an entire continental infantry division.

But if you stepped away from the human perspective and looked at it from the continent's point of view...

It might have been nothing much.

Say the Great Forest was the continent's philtrum.

The Monster Wave was like a huge pimple suddenly popping on the continent's philtrum.

A little blood might flow, but that was all.

The continent wasn't in danger, and neither was the Great Forest.

The elves living within it were no different.

As they always had, the elves gathered and lived near the World Tree.

No matter how ferocious the monsters became, the Monster Wave would never sweep over the World Tree itself.

That was why the elves suffered little damage despite the Monster Wave.

Hailit Langrey, who had been near the Monster Wave's origin at the time, naturally took refuge with the elves.

She returned with a blank look on her face.

More than three months had already passed since she began idly spending her days eating elven snacks.

Hailit had once resembled an elf herself, with a running form as graceful as a deer's.

Now, though, her cheeks, wrists, and ankles had become as plump as a confectioner’s daughter.

“Rembus!”

With crumbs around her mouth, she held up a triangular piece of bread and mumbled.

“They said one bite would fill you up...”

No one present paid Hailit any attention.

“They said one bite would fill you up. I've already eaten four, so why am I not full?”

Iris glanced at her.

“You already look plenty full.”

“How rude, you little brat.”

Hailit lowered her voice and waved the bread around.

This was the elder's residence.

No matter what she said, Iris and the elder paid her no mind.

That only made Hailit more dissatisfied.

“...Why aren't you throwing me out?”

Even if she was a hero, Hailit Langrey was still human.

She had formed a connection with the elves somehow, but an outsider was still an outsider.

It would have been natural to throw her out when she barged in and insisted on staying for a while.

Hailit had said she would only stay briefly, then settled in and refused to leave.

Iris and the elder looked bewildered.

“You told us not to throw you out because you would only stay briefly.”

“Is it a problem that we let you stay?”

The elder pointed that out.

“No, I lied. I said I'd only stay briefly.”

“If you lied, do you intend to stay longer than that?”

The more they spoke, the more Hailit felt like she was going to burst.

“I mean, ‘briefly’ already passed a long time ago.”

“Langrey, don't raise your voice.”

Iris pointed out Hailit's tone.

“Don't give me that!”

Hailit sprang up from the sofa.

“It's already been three months, so why haven't you said a word?”

Iris and the elder looked at each other in confusion.

“...It's only been three months.”

“Why are you so dissatisfied? If you don't like it, leave.”

That was the problem.

The elves and Hailit had that much of a difference in their sense of time.

“This is the problem.”

Hailit even felt angry.

“That laid-back attitude is the problem with elves.”

“You've been lying around eating snacks, yet you're the one talking big.”

Iris and Hailit bickering had become an everyday occurrence.

When Hailit made an unpleasant face, she developed a double chin.

Iris didn't miss it.

“You can't even take care of your own body. Your combat ability must have dropped terribly.”

Since Hailit prided herself on her nimble movements, it wasn't wrong.

“Sorry, but I'm human, so just running from here to the kingdom would bring back my six-pack.”

Hailit replied coolly.

The World Tree was incredibly far from the kingdom, but it was entirely possible for her.

“The problem isn't me. You and the other elves can eat the same snacks as me without gaining weight.”

Hailit pinched the back of Iris's neck with two fingers.

There was nothing there but smooth skin.

“And even if you ran the same distance as me, your body wouldn't wear down.”

In truth, Hailit wasn't trying to argue about whether she had gained weight.

What did that matter?

“If you have something to say, say it plainly. Don't circle around it.”

Iris remained expressionless, even now.

“The homeostasis of your race is the problem.”

Hailit sat on the tea table in front of the elder.

Then she placed her face beside the elder's and looked at Iris.

“Can't you see it?”

“Your face is bigger.”

“Ah, damn it.”

She took a pendant with a round locket from her clothes.

When she opened the locket, there was a finely drawn portrait inside.

It showed the elder holding a young girl.

It was none other than the elder and Hailit.

“It's the elder and me. Before I knew it, I look older than the elder now.”

“What can we do about our long lives?”

The elder pointed that out, but Hailit firmly shook her head.

“Dwarves don't live even half as long as elves, but at least they age. What about elves? You don't change. Your appearance doesn't change, and neither do your minds. There's a reason people say you're a race closer to plants than animals.”

It didn't seem like an empty complaint.

“Humans are like fire. We burn through our surroundings and thrive. We burn trees and cultivate land. We clear territory and turn monsters into livestock. But elves?”

“So we're water, then? Are you going to start talking about some race-as-four-elements theory?”

“I don't know anything about that. And I don't care that this nature of yours has caused elves to decline and will eventually drive them extinct!”

Hailit slammed the tea table.

“What I mean is, I think I know why Pelerian is still playing you all like fools.”

Iris's expression froze like ice.

“...What do you mean?”

“It's certain that Pelerian was an elf less elven than anyone else. Pelerian was a mage like fire.”

That wasn't wrong.

Pelerian was prouder of being an elf than anyone, yet had a temperament less elven than any other elf.

In a good light, Pelerian was progressive.

In a bad light, vulgar and wicked.

“You'll never figure Pelerian out if you try to analyze someone like that with your old-fashioned elven methods.”

“...”

Hailit had watched Iris and the elder closely throughout her stay.

She watched them search for traces of Pelerian, train, and drink tea, then became certain.

She understood why they had failed to find Pelerian's trail all this time.

“Did you ever truly intend to find Pelerian?”

“Why ask something so obvious? Did it look like we were playing around?”

Iris had sworn revenge.

But compared to what they were doing, it was no different from searching every bed in a hotel by yourself to find bedbugs.

“How long were you planning to search?”

“What?”

“How long did you plan to keep uncovering Pelerian's trail?”

How much time and effort would that take if they kept at it that way?

“...At least within the next fifty years.”

“This is why elves are the problem.”

If someone like Iris managed a hotel, that hotel would eventually go under.

“If you want to catch bedbugs, you first narrow down where they could be.”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden? And what are bedbugs?”

“You find out where the suspicious-looking guests who might have brought in bedbugs stayed. Or you close the hotel and pressure the housekeepers into checking every room at once. If the manager runs around alone trying to catch bedbugs, will they ever catch them all?”

It was normal for Hailit to say incomprehensible things as her thoughts wandered.

Fortunately, that was as far as her seemingly random talk went.

“You need to consider Pelerian's personality. That old mage was the real deal.”

“The real deal...?”

“You know the type. They have a desire to show off, and they want people to admire them, but they don't want to show it directly. The kind of person who enjoys people recognizing them on their own and whispering, ‘Wait, isn't that the famous Heaven-Defier?’”

It was a scathing assessment.

Still, Iris had never thought of it that way.

“How could you not know? Don't you know Pelerian once went around wearing a crystal mask?”

“They did.”

“Why do you think they wore a mask?”

The elder was the one who spoke when no one answered right away.

“To hide their identity?”

“Oh, Shining Orb above.”

Hailit smacked her forehead.

The elves had exceeded even her expectations.

“Who wears a crystal mask to hide their identity? If that was the goal, they would have just pulled up a hood or worn a scarf.”

“The mask was...”

“A mysterious crystal-mask mage has appeared! Pelerian probably wanted a story like that to spread. Do you know why they suddenly stopped wearing the crystal mask? I heard it myself. Archmage Caspian mocked Pelerian, saying the crystal mask didn't suit them because they were ugly, so they should take it off.”

“So Pelerian stopped wearing it after that?”

“Yes. A mage from the Magic Tower told me. If they were going to commit to the whole persona, why quit so pathetically?”

Pelerian's way of thinking was impossible for innocent elves to understand.

Why did Pelerian want others to revere them so badly, while also wanting that atmosphere to arise naturally instead of forcing admiration from them?

“Anyway, this is a map of the Dungeons Pelerian has built so far, right?”

A map of the continent hung on the wall.

Amazingly, the administrative districts marked on the map seemed to have last been updated hundreds of years ago.

That was elven, too.

“You all stay cooped up in the Great Forest and never go out, so you wouldn't know. But they even have something called opera in the capital.”

“What does opera have to do with this?”

“There's a story that Pelerian watched operas many times. The opera they watched most was called Kabbalah's Blue Night.”

Hailit suddenly took out red chalk and began drawing lines across the map.

“I've seen Kabbalah's Blue Night too. It uses the Tree of Life as stage imagery several times. I'm not a mage or a sorcerer, so I don't know the exact shape, but... is this right?”

“Don't tell me...”

As she connected the Dungeons with lines, a distinctive shape began to appear.

Honestly, it wasn't easy to find any pattern in it.

You would only have a chance of recognizing it if you knew about Kabbalah and tried drawing lines in that shape.

It was a clue that would have been nearly impossible to discover naturally.

“Right? I'm telling you, Pelerian really is something. They wanted someone to recognize it, but made it subtle enough that nobody could figure it out easily.”

The elder abruptly stood.

If this represented the arrangement of the Tree of Life, there was a corresponding flow and path to draw.

“If we follow the Serpent of Wisdom, the route of the Serpent's Way...”

The serpent's head was in the north.

“If we search broadly around this area, there may be a Dungeon.”

That would be true if the Dungeon arrangement followed the Serpent's Way.

And if the Dungeon symbolizing the serpent's head was the last one placed...

“Then this must be a Dungeon with some meaning. An especially important one.”

“Thank you, Hailit Langrey.”

Iris, who always snapped at her, thanked her politely.

Then she put on her weapons.

The elder asked.