WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 131: Wyvern Funeral
──────
The process of choosing what to evolve into was fairly logical.
First, I didn't want to become a wyvern.
Having wings wouldn't be bad.
But suddenly changing species here would be no different from reducing my infinite potential.
The grand journey that began as a Little White Snake might end here.
If I stopped being a snake.
Dad would no longer be Dad, and Wyvern Mom might become my real mom.
Anyway, I still wanted to preserve my identity as a snake.
‘Crystal Double Crown Python.’
Evolving from CCP to CDCP.
It looked like a standard evolution tree, but did I really need two crowns?
There was such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Rather than a conventional evolution, this might be a branch that led to a mutant form.
As I thought about my future evolution tree, something worried me.
In myths, snakes always seem to have multiple heads.
Hydra, Typhon, Orochi, Nine-Headed Dragon, things like that.
Personally, I didn't want to evolve that way.
Multiple heads were scary.
That left two choices.
First, number three, Big Head Serpent.
And number four, Little Prince Serpent.
I had wanted to evolve into a Serpent as soon as possible.
This time, I would finally enter the Serpent stage.
Big Head Serpent meant a Serpent with a big head, but I had no idea why this evolution option had appeared.
What did my accomplishments have to do with having a big head?
Was it because I had spent too much time with dwarves, the representative big-headed race?
The spirit form of Pelerian, who traveled with me, did have a head and torso of roughly equal size.
Little Prince Serpent had the modifier “Little.”
The Serpents in my mind were imposing, sturdy creatures. But Little?
Did it mean small for a Serpent, or would I really become objectively smaller?
When I evolved into a Crystal Crown Python, I became a little smaller than before.
Getting a little smaller here didn't seem bad.
I could make myself bigger with Giantification anyway.
‘...Hmm.’
Honestly, I didn't deliberate for very long.
Prince meant royal prince, didn't it?
It wasn't that I wanted to become a prince, but any clever snake could pick up on this.
A prince and a “Crown.” They seemed related.
In other words, this might be the standard route of my [Crown] trait tree.
I made my decision.
*「You evolve into a ‘Little Prince Serpent.’」
It was starting!
Normally, I would have felt my body changing now.
My scales becoming tougher.
The Crown atop my head growing, and so on.
But this time, the transformation did not proceed rapidly.
There was an unfamiliar message below the options.
──────────────
※ In your current state, evolution into a ‘Serpent’ will take approximately 30 days.
──────────────
I had not intended to choose anything other than Serpent in the first place, so I had prepared myself for this.
*「Preparing evolution.」
*「Forming a Crystal Cocoon.」
Oh, oh!
I could feel something covering my body.
Surely I wouldn't have to endure thirty days with only my eyes rolling around.
The timing was perfect.
I could evolve safely in an underground shelter that was safer than a nuclear fallout shelter.
I was clearly already asleep, yet drowsiness came over me.
A dream within a dream.
I slowly sank into slumber.
When I opened my eyes, I would be a cool Serpent.
That was what I hoped.
* * *
“Phew, phew.”
Pandang breathed heavily.
He was an excellent adventurer and an outstanding rogue.
Still, keeping up with Iris and Hailit had been extremely difficult.
If they hadn't shown consideration, he probably would have fallen behind.
It would've been nice if he had.
He didn't want to get involved with those two dangerous-looking people.
But they had dragged Pandang along anyway.
They ran toward the rising flames.
Toward those dangerous wyverns, no less.
At last, Hailit let go of Pandang’s wrist.
Pandang dropped to his knees on the spot and dry-heaved.
“Urk, phew, huff, huff.”
“You said there was a stone pagoda!”
At Hailit’s words, Pandang raised his exhausted face.
Then he froze.
“Uh...?”
“Why is it gone?”
“I, it was definitely there?”
There had been a stone pagoda. Then there hadn't.
There had definitely been a pitch-black stone pagoda.
He had checked it before leaving, but when he returned, there was nothing.
“Ah, it must have collapsed!”
The air was thick with dust.
That enormous stone pagoda had clearly crumbled down.
On the way here, they had heard several thunderous booms.
Stone fragments were piled up everywhere.
But why had the perfectly intact pagoda suddenly collapsed?
Pandang had no way of knowing.
He did not know the pagoda was a relic left behind by the infamous Heaven-Defier mage.
Iris and Hailit whispered to each other.
“What do we do?”
“What do you mean, what do we do?”
The place presumed to be Pelerian’s Dungeon had collapsed.
There was only one choice left.
“We clear away the rocks and search through it.”
At that answer, Hailit’s face went pale.
“You want the two of us... No, the three of us, to move all those rocks?”
When Hailit shouted in surprise, Pandang looked around.
Three? Why three?
“We have to.”
“Wouldn't it be better to hire laborers and demolish it slowly...?”
“...”
“Right. I suppose we can't do that.”
“Should we call your people?”
“It would take ages just to bring the elves here.”
Hailit sighed.
She bickered with Iris often, but she had intended to help.
That was why she had brought Iris here.
‘But this is too much...’
Search the ruins of the collapsed stone pagoda for Pelerian?
Even if they hired laborers, it would be a massive project that took at least several months.
If they wanted to keep it secret, it would take years.
That meant being tied down here the entire time.
Hailit was not a Long-Lived Race like an elf. It was absurd.
‘Honestly, we aren't that close.’
Hailit made up her mind.
‘Right. I should apologize, but say that I need to leave.’
From here on, it was for the elves to handle.
Just as Hailit was about to say so.
A white lump splatted down in front of her as she turned around.
“Ah, fuck! You scared me!”
A white lump the size of a human torso.
It was mixed with the shells and legs of undigested termite monsters.
When she looked up at the sky, she saw what had fallen.
“Bird droppings, no, wyvern droppings...”
Two enormous wyverns flapped through the sky overhead.
Pandang had told them of their existence.
But something seemed strange.
The two were not fighting. They were only circling through the air.
“Kugagagagak!”
The black Wyvern Queen.
The monster roared at them.
Its wary eyes seemed to say, Do not dare approach.
‘That thing was warning us.’
As a hunter, Hailit Langrey instinctively considered how to hunt her.
She was clearly a Named Monster.
Could she be hunted?
It was not impossible.
Even if a monster could not be defeated in direct combat, a skilled hunter could still hunt it.
But this was not a suitable situation for hunting.
“It doesn't look like we can even approach unless we deal with them.”
“Hmm...”
Iris looked troubled as well.
“Let's try hunting them first. There are three of us...”
“What? Are you insane? Count me out.”
The elf naturally treated him as part of their fighting force, and Pandang nearly lost his mind.
But he was not forcibly recruited to hunt wyverns.
One head from the black wyvern.
And three heads from the white wyvern.
“Kuaaah!”
“Gwooooh.”
“Duuuuuu.”
“Kererererere!”
All four heads suddenly began to sing together.
Those long, loud cries were not simple roars meant to display strength.
They were calling.
Calling their kin.
Calling their subordinates.
“Uh...”
A Wyvern Queen did not become one merely by growing large.
When the queens cried out, wyverns that respected their authority gathered from afar.
There were not merely one or two.
“What a swarm...”
White and black wyverns gathered like a cloud of bees.
The queens had not called other wyverns even when fighting each other.
There was another reason they had gathered their kin like this.
“Kwak!”
“Gwoooong!”
An order was given.
And the countless wyverns began descending toward the ground all at once.
What was about to happen?
No matter how long an elf had lived.
No matter how mighty a hero was.
This was a moment when they could only hold their breath and retreat.
* * *
Soft.
Soft, soft, soft.
When I was young.
I had seen a place called the Dead Sea in a science comic.
Its name combined the characters for death (死) and sea (海), and it was called that because no living thing could survive there.
Apparently, the water was too salty.
That meant you floated on top instead of sinking.
I couldn't swim, so I had been very curious about it.
I wanted to visit someday, but I died before I could.
Yet the feeling here reminded me of the Dead Sea.
Cozy, damp, and salty.
It felt as if my body were floating.
How small would a Little Prince Serpent become?
Dad, whom I had thought was incredibly huge, had actually been small too.
Thinking about it that way, it wasn't bad. I could use Giantification anyway.
Father was definitely a Big and Cool Snake.
I wanted to become a big and cool snake too.
Like that Monster of the Apocalypse.
I would eat lots and lots, and get lots and lots stronger.
I would become the greatest snake on the continent.
Ah.
I think I had decided on my dream.
I wanted to become the greatest snake on the planet.
A very, very strong snake, as long as a river and as huge as a mountain.
I would become the greatest snake in the universe!
Thud.
My mind was hazy.
I woke from my long sleep a short while later.
Thud.
‘Huh!’
I could see.
But it was not clear. Everything looked blurry.
It felt like wearing glasses with the wrong prescription.
As I tried to rub my eyes with my tail.
I realized I could not move my body.
‘Huh? Why can't I move?’
I could not move at all.
I was suddenly terrified that my whole body had been paralyzed, but then...
-You are awake.
Pelerian emerged.
‘Why can't I move? Did the evolution go wrong?’
-Evolution?
Then came an unexpected answer.
-It has only been seven days since you began evolving.
‘What?’
To me, it had felt like a blink.
Then why had I awakened after seven days instead of a month later?
-You melted completely inside that crystal, like soup.
‘What do you mean?’
-I mean exactly that. Your body melted into a soft mess, then began growing back. It has not even fully hardened yet.
Aah!
I had gone through such a horrible process.
Come to think of it, I had heard that the inside of a pupa turned into something like a thick protein drink in its early stages.
Even though I was a snake, not an insect, it was similar.
I focused and examined myself.
──────────────
【Little Prince Serpent Lv. 0 (Evolving)】
【Traits】
-
【Skills】
-
【Status】
[Evolution]
──────────────
Oh.
My name had changed.
But perhaps because I was still evolving, I could not see the detailed changes.
I could not even see what I looked like, so it was frustrating.
And if it was only day seven, I would have to spend more than three weeks like this.
‘It's going to be incredibly boring.’
-Hmm... I don't think so.
‘...Why?’
Pelerian did not need to answer.
Boom!
A thunderous noise and a tremor shook through me.
Now that I thought about it, I had heard sounds like this in my dream.
We were deep underground.
Was someone doing construction outside?
Craash!
But the sound was abnormally loud.
Then I suddenly realized something.
My entire body seemed to be covered in thick crystal. If it sounded this loud through that, how loud was it in reality?
I got my answer immediately.
Craaaash!
A wyvern’s head pushed down through the ceiling alongside falling rocks.
The impact tipped me over onto my side.
Blinding light poured in.
Sunlight from the surface.
Did that mean the stone pagoda’s ruins had all been cleared away?
I was shocked enough to jump, but my body was too stiff to do so.
It was Wyvern Mom’s head.
She looked utterly exhausted.
Covered in dust, with stone-scraped wounds all over her snout and head.
“Koo, koo...”
She could not continue when she saw me covered in crystal.
Joy, shock, fear, sorrow.
That whirlpool of tangled emotions...
“Kugaaaaak!”
Burst out as a grief-stricken roar.
Did she think I had died stiff like this?
Seeing her tears, that seemed to be the case.
Crash! Crash!
Then the ceiling broke again.
This time, three heads appeared.
I almost wet myself. They were Chugota’s three heads.
She also let out a grief-stricken roar when she saw me.
“Gwooooh!”
“Kererererere!”
“Durururu!”
The two Wyvern Queens shook their heads wildly as tears streamed down their faces.
After a long time.
Once they had calmed down a little.
Wyvern Mom Seleta gently picked me up in her mouth.
“Kwoooh.”
Chugota did not interfere.
It seemed their relationship had improved somewhat.
And when I finally reached the surface.
‘Aaaah!’
-Uh, uh!
I screamed in my mind.
In the middle of what had become a plain in Delphram.
Hundreds of wyverns had gathered on ground covered with the black ruins of the stone pagoda.
They all looked exhausted and covered in dirt, as though they had dug through the earth and moved the stones.
Every wyvern was looking at me.
Wyvern Mom set me down on the ground.
-There, there! Why are they here?
Pelerian told me to turn my head, but I was too stiff to do that.
-That, Iris, the Golden Leaf Investigator, and that red-haired human who plucked out your scales last time!
‘What?’
Only my eyes darted around.
I could barely see them in the distance.
Judging from the tents behind them, they had settled in and waited here.
Had they come looking for Pelerian’s Dungeon? They hadn't recognized me, had they?
Then Wyvern Mom raised her head to the sky and began making a cry unlike her usual one.
“Kuuuuuu...”
A low, drawn-out cry.
The other wyverns raised their heads and began crying along with her.
“Ooooo...”
Chugota joined in.
The three siblings below joined too.
Soon, hundreds of wyverns cried together.
“Ooooooooooo!”
It felt as though all of Delphram trembled with their mourning.
Tears rolled down the three siblings’ faces again.
-This...
Pelerian and I.
We understood what was happening.
-This is your funeral.
‘Huh...’
The white youngest, born deficient, without wings or legs.
All the wyverns of Delphram had united to save them.
Only to find them here as a stiff corpse.
For the mothers who had lost a child.
A moment of silence.
Whether it was coincidence or fate.
At that moment, I awakened a new ability.
*「You commune with countless wyverns simultaneously.」
*「You have acquired Crown of Connection Lv. 1.」
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
