WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 114: Gravekeeper Golem
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I pretended to be a baby wyvern.
Then I got shoved off for flight training and fell to my death.
Grand prize winner in the World's Dumbest Snake Death category!
The fierce wind lashed my face.
As the dizzying sensation of falling surged through my body, that was all I could think.
‘Isil, at least you survive.’
If Isil stayed attached to me as I fell, they might get badly hurt too.
Isil was light. They should be fine if we separated.
Nod, nod.
But I hadn't expected them to understand me so quickly.
Were you always this smart?
Whoosh!
Like an emergency ejection from a fighter jet cockpit, Isil shot away from my body.
‘Isil...!’
What was this wave of betrayal?
You traitorous plant Chimera.
Still, live happily.
Do well without me.
It's too barren here, so go a little farther south.
Stay with the three siblings until you grow some more.
Could Isil understand those words?
It felt like they could.
‘Communion Lv. 2’ was still active.
It only worked while Isil's tendrils touched my body... Ah!
‘Isil!’
They hadn't run away alone.
They had leaped away while keeping a tendril hooked around me.
And the reason was...
“Piiii!”
Pipi, who had already grown quite used to flying, came soaring toward us.
Her determination to save her youngest sibling was unmistakable.
Still, this was only her first day learning to fly.
Catching me while I fell at high speed would be difficult.
That was where Isil's bold decision helped.
A long tendril stretched out and looped around Pipi's neck like a leash.
A powerful tension pulled at my falling body.
“Ssak!”
For a moment, I thought my spine had shattered.
Luckily, Isil's tendrils had some elasticity.
Boing!
I bounced high into the air.
This time, I had somewhere to land.
I landed right on Pipi's back.
“Piiii!”
She let out a proud roar.
She was flying while carrying me on her back.
“Kekeke.”
“Chwik!”
Kei and Chui flew alongside us.
Three wyvern siblings, one snake, and one vine were flying together.
-You're this skilled on your first flight. Are wyverns truly princes of the sky?
So these kids were princes of the sky.
The three of them were even flying in a clumsy little formation.
I had always hated flying.
Thanks to my Potential of 20, I could learn the Flight skill, but there was a reason I never did.
I hadn't been born with wings, so even if I flew, I couldn't control my direction. Heights also scared me on an instinctive level.
But now...
‘...This is fun!’
I was enjoying flying.
Pipi's back wasn't very wide, but it was enough for me to ride on.
Normally, I would've been terrified because I had no hands or feet to hold on with, but Isil was firmly attached to me now.
Isil's tendril was looped around Pipi's neck, making it feel like reins.
I felt like a wyvern rider.
And that was exactly what I was.
‘Let's go up!’
Maybe Pipi noticed me gently pulling the reins.
Or maybe my will reached her because I had tamed her.
Pipi shot upward.
I could see Wyvern Mom looking pleased from the nest below.
She probably hadn't predicted this would happen.
Still, seeing her happy didn't make me feel bad.
The baby wyverns began getting the hang of flying in earnest.
Pipi, the eldest sister, was brave and charged forward boldly. Kei, the middle sibling, was the fastest of the three.
‘Let's switch, Isil!’
The moment Isil extended a tendril toward Kei, I leaped over.
It was a little dangerous, but it made for a cool stunt.
This time, I rode Kei and tried high-speed flight.
‘If I add magic...’
*「You use Elementary Elemental Magic: Fire Lv. 7.」
I fired a fireball.
Did you know?
If you fire a pellet traveling at 100 kilometers per hour from a car moving at 100 kilometers per hour, the pellet travels at a whopping 200 kilometers per hour!
Was that right?
Whatever. It probably was.
The fireball, which normally drifted slowly through the air, shot forward much faster.
Boom!
The fireball struck a stone pillar and exploded.
It was a powerful hit.
‘Next, Chui!’
“Chwiiiik!”
I jumped from Kei's back and landed on the youngest sibling.
Chui had been the only one who successfully flew when we had all fallen from the nest before.
Sure enough, Chui's flight was the most technical of the three.
Diving sharply, then spinning once through the air, was practically aerobatics.
They were always so dramatic on the ground, but they had no fear in the sky.
Their flying was the best among the three.
My mood soared even higher.
‘A true legend has appeared.’
Maybe I had finally discovered the true joy of flying.
We flew for quite a while.
Then Pelerian and I realized something important.
-That is Delphram.
At this rate, we could reach the Dungeon in Delphram too.
‘That stone tower?’
-It's my Dungeon. That stone tower!
In the distance, I could see an area without stone pillars.
At its center stood a single, noticeably dark stone tower.
It looked like a black obelisk.
‘It looks completely different from the other Dungeons.’
-I named that place ‘Tombstone.’
Pelerian had wanted to go there when they died.
‘What kind of Dungeon is it?’
I only asked because I still hadn't heard a detailed explanation.
Pelerian gave an unexpected answer.
-...I don't know either.
‘What?’
-I have no memory of what is inside.
Pelerian didn't seem to like that at all.
The old mage's soul beside me wasn't whole.
They had only torn off part of their soul and hidden it inside the ring.
That meant they retained their memories, but some were occasionally missing.
It must have felt like their own existence was under threat.
‘We'll find out when we get there!’
-Y-Yes. You're right!
Wouldn't we find out what was inside once we entered?
It was no different from anything we had done so far.
‘Let's go!’
With a cry of “Sssaaak!”, I gave the order, and the wyvern Legion under my command, three hatchlings, began flying toward the black stone tower.
They were still young and small, but being able to fly was incredibly convenient.
A distance that would've taken forever to crawl across quickly shrank away.
At this rate, we would reach Pelerian's Dungeon in no time.
-Don't get too close. Stop up ahead and...
Before we could heed Pelerian's warning and stop, a deafening roar shook heaven and earth.
“Kuoooooo!”
Pitch-black darkness covered us.
It was broad daylight, yet it suddenly felt as if night had fallen.
The black curtain was Wyvern Mom's wings.
She wrapped her enormous wings around us and landed.
The landing was rougher than I expected. We tumbled across the ground.
I looked at Wyvern Mom, wondering why she had suddenly done that.
“Ku-gagagaga!”
She was unbelievably furious.
Even though Wyvern Fear didn't work on me, I could feel her anger prickle through me.
“Ppiiik!”
Even brave Pipi shook in fear, while the other two siblings had already flopped down and wailed.
Normally, Wyvern Mom would've stopped at that.
This time, though, she seemed determined to give them a proper scolding.
Her tail lashed sharply.
Smack! Smack!
She whipped her children's bottoms.
In other words, she was spanking them.
The hatchlings wailed from the stinging pain.
I had never raised children, but I could understand her intention.
-She is raising them by instilling fear in them.
She was teaching them never to go near that stone tower.
If they approached the territory of that monstrous mage, something terrible would happen.
Something very, very frightening.
That was likely why she was deliberately acting so furious and even hitting their bottoms.
The problem was that her anger turned toward me too.
I faced a life-or-death situation, about to be struck by a tail bigger than my entire body.
I acted on instinct.
“Sssaa...”
I opened my mouth slightly and put on an expression of total innocence.
The tail flying toward me twitched and stopped in midair.
Wyvern Mom stared at me.
I couldn't stop acting now. I had to maintain the most innocent expression possible.
At last, a drop of drool fell from the corner of my mouth.
Wyvern Mom slowly lowered her tail.
Then she used it to wipe at her eyes.
Amazingly, Wyvern Mom's eyes had become moist at some point.
Why was she suddenly crying?
Even with my brilliant mind, I couldn't find a clue.
-She is probably heartbroken at the thought of leaving such a dim-witted child alone in this harsh world.
‘No way!’
-Seeing you make such a foolish expression must make any parent worry.
It wasn't a foolish expression. It was an innocent one.
‘But how do you know Wyvern Mom so well? Were you a wyvern in your past life? Or were you a mother?’
-Nonsense.
In the end, Wyvern Mom even licked my head a few times.
Why did mothers lick their children?
-To clean them, mostly. Or perhaps because they instinctively cherish them.
I was already very clean, and I wasn't even Wyvern Mom's real child.
The three siblings seemed resentful that I, the ringleader, was being cared for instead of spanked.
“Ppi-kekekeke!”
“Chuaaak!”
They protested fiercely, but what could they do?
If you don't like it, tear off your own wings and legs too.
We had already gotten quite far from the group of nests.
It seemed impossible to reach that stone tower today.
Pelerian was disappointed, but there was nothing we could do.
“Kugak!”
The hatchlings still hadn't finished growing, so they seemed unable to take off from the ground by themselves.
In the end, Wyvern Mom carried us all on her back at once.
The hatchlings had grown too big for her to carry all of them beneath her feet.
Whoosh, whoosh!
Her wingbeats were heavy.
Wyvern Mom took off with all of us on her back.
The hatchlings had no hands, so they lay flat against their mother's back.
They looked so unstable that I tied them together with tendrils.
“Kuguk.”
That was when the peaceful flight suddenly turned rough.
Rumble...
A thunderous sound echoed ahead.
“Pipi-pi.”
“Kee...”
The hatchlings trembled in fear.
How could they forget that sound?
It was the sound of stone pillars collapsing.
The sound of nests being destroyed by Destruction Beams.
The sound of invasion.
“Keeeeek!”
We were clinging to her back, so we couldn't see ahead clearly.
Still, I could tell Wyvern Mom was casting Destruction Beam.
She jerked her head back and fired a beam from her mouth.
Kwoooooong!
The beam tore through the clouds.
What was she trying to shoot? Another wyvern? Or...
When I poked my head out, I immediately found out.
Wyvern Mom had fired her beam at another beam flying toward us.
The two beams collided in midair.
Kwakwakwakwa!
The result was the destruction of one beam and the deflection of the other.
Wyvern Mom's beam was the one that disappeared because it was weaker.
Her opponent was none other than Chugota, the Triple-Headed Wyvern.
Her beam passed beside us.
A blast of hot wind swept over us, nearly throwing the three siblings off her back.
-Another attack?
Chugota had already attacked once and stolen Wyvern Mom's nest.
When animal groups attacked other groups, it was usually over territory.
In other words, there was no reason for her to attack again immediately after taking the territory.
“Sssaaak!”
But what could we do when it was already happening?
Chugota had led her group all the way here to Delphram.
Wyvern Mom beat her wings hard and picked up speed.
But this was the worst possible situation.
She had all of her hatchlings on her back.
Considering her size, their weight probably wasn't a problem, but it would still make it harder to fly fast.
Especially now, when she had to fight Chugota.
“Gwoooo.”
“Woooo.”
“Duuuuu!”
The cries from Chugota's three heads sounded as strange as the noises of hell.
She looked at least twice as large as Wyvern Mom.
Yet she was even a little faster.
‘At this rate, the kids will all die.’
Wyvern Mom was probably most worried about the hatchlings on her back.
‘Kids, run away.’
I looked at the hatchlings.
Our eyes met.
With their mother busy, I had to command them.
‘Three, two, one...’
I loosened Isil's tendrils.
The three siblings looked terrified, but...
‘Dive!’
“Sssak!”
Thankfully, they listened to my command.
Or maybe they just slipped off. I wasn't sure.
More than a hundred kilograms of weight had been lifted from her, so the difference should have been significant.
Thanks to that, Wyvern Mom accelerated a little more.
Screeeech!
Chugota's head, Chu, snapped its jaws shut just inches in front of us.
Wyvern Mom barely avoided it.
I looked down anxiously at the hatchlings, but they were descending as fast as they could.
I hoped they would hide in the shade between some stone pillars.
But this wasn't the time to worry about them.
Piiiiing!
Chugota prepared another Triple Destruction Beam.
I had already seen that power once.
I looped Isil's tendril around Wyvern Mom's neck like reins.
It had worked on the children, so maybe...
I yanked the reins hard.
I didn't know if my intentions had reached her or if she and I simply understood each other, but she rose sharply upward.
The Triple Destruction Beam shot straight ahead.
The beam was powerful enough to burn the air and create plasma.
It passed us and headed for the stone tower behind us.
-N-No!
Pelerian screamed.
If that Destruction Beam brought down the Dungeon...
Kwooooooong!
Amazingly, the beam didn't even reach the stone tower.
An invisible wall.
Whether it was a barrier or a shield, something blocked that powerful beam.
-It worked!
‘You were scared stiff.’
-Hahahaha!
Pelerian seemed proud of the Dungeon's defense system.
-I remember now.
‘What?’
-Get closer to that stone tower! There is a reason wyverns fear Delphram.
There was no time to ask more, so I sharply pulled the tendril to signal her.
‘Mom! That way!’
“Sssak, sssaaaak!”
I cried out.
Wyvern Mom clearly feared Pelerian's Dungeon too.
But the hatchlings were fleeing in the exact opposite direction from it.
She chose a direction as if she had made up her mind.
She was luring Chugota toward the Dungeon.
-That, that is it!
I could see it too.
A huge obelisk.
From a hole in its wall, a humanoid golem was crawling out.
It looked small from this distance, but it was enormous.
It looked our way.
I could feel its hostility.
The will of a stone guard, declaring that it would not permit anyone to approach.
-My Obelisk Giant!
Footnotes:
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