WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 120: Countdown
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Manners and morals had truly fallen into the dirt.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have hurled insults about how ugly I looked at someone they'd just met.
Still, if that had been all, I might've let it slide with the vast generosity of a snake.
But wasn't firing a crossbow without hesitation a bit much?
If I hadn't been a peak swordsman capable of catching a blade barehanded, I would've been shot through the head and killed right then and there.
This guy was definitely a psychopath.
So naturally, I punished him by swinging a dagger.
And the fact that I'd only sliced through the fingers holding the crossbow was mercy enough to make Buddha press his palms together.
Could his knot-hole eyes not recognize such boundless compassion?
“Argh! You fucking snake, argh!”
The old man clutched his hand and spewed curses.
He'd mentioned something about Chugota earlier, and honestly, being told I looked like that wyvern was an insult to me too.
I'd decided to take two more fingers.
“Stand back, Doctor!”
The large man beside him kicked at me.
My reflexes were quick enough to twist my head and catch an arrow in my mouth, but in truth, only my head and neck could move that fast.
His kick came fast enough that it wasn't easy to dodge.
If I had to take a hit, I should at least take something with me.
The moment his foot touched my body, I bit into his shin.
Crunch!
My teeth didn't sink in easily.
This bastard was wearing greaves.
I bounced back, caught my balance in midair, and landed.
“What the hell...!”
I couldn't inject venom through the greaves, but I did manage to break them.
When the man shook his leg, broken pieces of wood rained from his pant leg.
“You peanut-sized bastard!”
I was the one who'd been cursed at and attacked first. This was unfair.
When the man pulled his hand from inside his clothes, five knives without handles had somehow appeared between his fingers.
They looked like willow-leaf throwing knives.
Whoosh!
With a sweep of his hand, five knives shot through the air.
Backing away now would make me a hack.
Calmly dodging without fear would make me first-rate.
Since I was at the peak, I moved closer instead.
Clang!
Ah!
I almost got hit by a throwing knife.
Strangely, the knives curved through the air along bizarre trajectories.
One blade grazed my Scales.
If my Scales hadn't been tough, I probably would've been injured.
Still, I'd already dodged two of them.
*「You use Heart-Eating Leap Lv. 4.」
I accelerated sharply and dodged the remaining three at once.
Then, intending to take his heart, I tore into his chest.
Crunch-
But this time, too, the feeling against my teeth was different.
The bastard was clearly wearing thin chainmail beneath his clothes.
And it wasn't ordinary steel. Even though my teeth had caught it, it didn't budge.
‘Good. I'll crawl up to the back of his neck like this...’
That was what I intended to do.
I was about to take a big bite out of his exposed neck.
Then I gagged on instinct.
“Saauk!”
I'd meant to roar, but the nausea made that sound come out instead.
I'd wondered where that rancid smell was coming from.
It wasn't coming from somewhere else. It was coming from that human...
“Ah, right!”
The man grinned brightly.
“How do you like the taste of the ampule, you bastard?”
“Saauk!”
“Damn it, I got scared of a tiny snake like this. Take my punch!”
Crazy bastard.
The human then punched me.
I spun once through the air and was flung away.
The smell was so awful it made my head swim.
I'd been punched, but getting farther away actually made my stomach feel better.
In the end, I threw up.
Whew, I can breathe again.
“How irritating.”
The human who'd been jumping around and yelling about his punch just moments ago struck a serious pose again.
Then he yanked off his cloak.
I wondered what he was doing, but when he unfolded it, it took the shape of a net.
“You seem to have some special ability for something so small... I'll capture you.”
Surprisingly, quite a few humans I'd encountered reacted that way.
To poachers, I must've looked like an extremely rare and valuable monster.
Like a red Gyarados that was the only one with a different color.
That didn't mean I intended to let myself get caught in a net.
I was also sick of hearing comments about how small I was.
“Hup!”
The human threw the net.
I drew Sunset and swung it lightly at the flying net.
Rip!
The net split in two and rolled helplessly across the floor.
Sunset continued flying and buried itself in the shocked man's shoulder.
“Ghk!”
As expected, the chainmail he wore definitely wasn't made of ordinary material.
Sunset, forged by a dwarf Meister, had only sunk in about an inch.
The human gritted his teeth.
“How could Jannil Feje suffer such humiliation...!”
At that moment, smoke burst from the human's body.
He wasn't even a ninja, yet he'd set off a smoke bomb.
Once the smoke cleared, only Sunset lay there.
The bastard apparently had no shame at all. He was already running away in a panic.
“Saaak!”
I would have chased after him, shouting for him to come back, if Pelerian hadn't screamed.
-Kyaaaaaah!
Since the day I'd met them, this was the first time I'd ever seen Pelerian scream so disgracefully.
They hadn't reacted like this even when I'd deliberately fed the ring they inhabited to an animal.
Was there something more terrifying than becoming shit and being buried forever?
Judging by Pelerian's face, there was.
-No, no, no!
‘Why? What's wrong?’
-This is a dream. This can't be happening!
‘Calm down first.’
It looked like Pelerian might burst into tears, so I hurried to calm them down.
-Calm down. R-Right, I need to calm down.
‘Take a deep breath.’
-G-Go that way. Slowly.
The direction they meant was the opposite of where the humans had fled.
Normally, they would've been shouting, “Tear those invading rats apart, Snake!” So why?
I didn't know, but I moved in the direction they wanted.
I'd taken a quick look when entering this room, and strange tanks had been installed along the walls.
Very grotesque creatures floated inside them.
I couldn't tell whether they were alive or dead.
-They're all hibernating.
Pelerian's mutter was weak.
We'd returned to the entrance of the circular corridor.
Inside the first tank was a mass of flesh so hideous I could barely stand to look at it.
Things resembling limbs stuck out wildly from the round meatball.
‘This is a Chimera too, right?’
-Yes. It is a Chimera.
‘Compared to the Chimera you made before, this one's pretty awful.’
The Chimera Pafnacha.
Pelerian's Chimera, the first one I'd fought and defeated.
No, back then, that thing had been incredibly terrifying. But looking back, it really was weak.
Still, it had at least looked normal.
By normal, I didn't mean handsome. I meant its body functioned properly.
The Chimeras here, on the other hand, were not normal-looking.
‘It seems you didn't have the technology yet?’
-What are you talking about...
Pelerian gave an unexpected answer.
-Chimera-making technology would have been far more advanced when this Dungeon was built.
‘...Then why?’
-Let's move on.
We went to the tank beside it.
The metal plate there read,
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〔Test Subject, No. 02〕: One-Leg
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The second Chimera, nicknamed One-Leg.
It had one leg, so One-Leg, obviously.
For reference, the first Chimera's nickname had been Meatball.
Pelerian clearly didn't have very good naming sense either.
But why was it called a Test Subject?
-Next.
I moved on.
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〔Test Subject, No. 03〕: Three-Eyes
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It had three legs and three eyes.
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〔Test Subject, No. 04〕: Bloodscale
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A disgusting Chimera with scales sprouting here and there across its skin.
Pelerian had said Chimera-making technology at this time was more advanced than when they made Pafnacha.
I thought I was beginning to understand what they meant.
As the experiments progressed, the Chimeras here converged on certain traits and improved.
Even an outsider like me could see it.
The first trait was smooth skin.
The Chimeras' furry, lumpy skin grew smoother as their numbers increased.
The second was having proper limbs.
Limbs meant a pair of arms and a pair of legs.
In other words, they were evolving toward having two arms and two legs.
That seemed to have been pretty difficult. Some Chimeras had three or four legs, while others had tentacles growing in place of arms.
It wasn't until the eighth Chimera that one appeared to have proper limbs.
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〔Test Subject, No. 08〕: Dancer
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I immediately understood what that nickname meant.
Its legs stretched out beautifully and smoothly.
They were white like a plaster statue, while its arms and legs appeared flawless in form.
A real dancer's toes would probably be rougher and worn by reality.
Was it too harsh to say that was the sort of name Pelerian, who'd spent all their time studying in a little room, would come up with?
Its smoothly extended arms also hung gracefully, like a ballerina's.
But I quickly noticed something unnatural.
‘Its hands...’
I'd thought its arms were a little long, but feet were attached where its hands should have been.
In other words, it had four legs and no arms.
Its face was just as grotesque.
It had neither eyes nor a nose, only a mouth.
-Next.
Pelerian spoke in a weary voice.
The ninth tank.
The thing inside looked human.
‘This...’
Right.
More precisely, it resembled an elf.
Long, slender limbs.
Above all, long ears.
The last remaining tank held a Chimera with elven traits.
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〔Test Subject, No. 09〕: Undecided
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A Chimera that had not been named.
The reason it hadn't been named “fairy” or “elf” was obvious.
-Hideous.
Did having limbs and long ears make it an elf?
Of course not.
Even without looking closely, there was no way anyone could mistake that Chimera for an elf.
Its skin was damp and pale, like that of a frog that lived only in caves. Its cloudy eyes bulged out to either side like a fish's.
A Chimera imitating an elf.
What had been the purpose of creating something like this?
The scribbled note beside the plate gave me an idea.
It read,
「It is too hideous and inadequate to transfer into.」
Pelerian trembled.
Their main body.
Before they died, the mage known as Heaven-Defier had planned to transfer into another body.
They had even created a Chimera resembling an elf themself.
-T-This, this can't be...
Pelerian spoke like a wounded animal whimpering.
What would remain of them if you took away their pride and self-respect?
Only a lowly body. At the very least, they must have believed their mind was noble.
I felt guilty, as though I'd read someone else's diary without permission.
Or as if I'd overheard a confession I was never meant to hear.
The mage known as Heaven-Defier, who feared death so much that they couldn't die as an elf.
Who had planned to transfer into a hideous doll of their own making.
-...
I was witnessing the moment Pelerian's dignity crumbled.
The alarm shattered that dreadful silence.
Beeeeeeep-
It sounded like a DEFCON siren had gone off.
Bright red lights flashed all around us.
Then the voice of the Magic Spirit I'd heard in Pelerian's Dungeon before echoed out.
-Defensive Formation Level 4 remains engaged. Beginning the incineration and demolition sequence.
-The Incineration Procedure begins in 30 seconds.
‘What!’
Thirty seconds?
My Heat Resistance was high, but would I be fine once the incineration started?
No. I didn't think so.
Uh, uh...
Thirty seconds wasn't enough time to escape, and there wasn't anywhere to hide.
-G-Good!
Then Pelerian suddenly shouted that.
I listened, wondering if they had some kind of plan.
-Let's all burn to death together! This is perfect!
‘I-I don't want to!’
-Burn it all clean!
I didn't want to die yet.
-25.
It seemed the countdown had already started.
-24, 23, 22...
Footnotes:
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