WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle

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◈ I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse ◈

Chapter 54: The Great Reversal of Birth Status Level 1

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How had my father, Polaris Serpent, lived?

Had he too been born a tiny Little Green Snake?

Or had he been born white, like me?

It was impossible to imagine his hatchling days from that huge, majestic form.

Being a snake, he probably hadn't started out extraordinary.

There was a good chance he had begun as some frail, tiny grass snake.

After he was born, he must have lived fighting his siblings over food.

Maybe he had survived by killing a few uncles or aunts. I had seen for myself just how ferocious baby snakes could be.

After surviving like that, he must have left his parents' side.

According to Pelerian, snakes with strong paternal or maternal instincts were rare.

They were different from centipedes that carried their young on their backs and raised them.

Even Medusa Mom did nothing beyond the bare minimum of parenting.

If Gunter hadn't come, and if we'd grown too large to cling to Mother's scalp...

Mother probably would have sent us out into the wild and gone back to being bald.

Father must have grown.

Most snakes ended their lives no differently from ordinary wild animals.

It wasn't an exaggeration to say that Giant Green Snake was the final evolution ordinary snake monsters usually reached.

But Father must have taken a different path at some point.

White scales stood out in the Great Forest.

For a monster like that to survive, he had to be strong.

Once his body had become as massive as it was now...

Once he could spew rays from his mouth and burn his enemies...

He had probably become the strongest monster ruling some forest.

And then he met Mother.

I tried to imagine what that romance had been like.

A snake's romance.

My parents' romance.

'Hmm...'

Honestly, I didn't know anything about romance.

How had my parents in my previous life met again?

Ah, right.

My father had a complex.

He was missing the index and middle fingers on his left hand.

It didn't seem that shameful to me, but Father had always been embarrassed by that disability.

He always wore silicone prosthetic fingers called 'Will.'

When he had first met Mother and they were building a good relationship...

Father had apparently been suffering all by himself.

Even though it was already their third date, he still hadn't told her about his fingers.

He really liked Mother, bold and pretty as she was.

He must have been afraid of what expression she'd make if she found out he was missing those two fingers.

So Father always walked only on Mother's left side.

He only held her hand with his right hand, and whenever they sat facing each other, he hid his left hand in his lap and kept it clenched into a fist.

Somehow, he had managed not to get caught.

No, that was only what he had thought.

Mother had sensed something awkward in the way he behaved.

Even when she got older, she was the type to be forceful by nature.

The moment she stood on Father's left, Father awkwardly moved back to Mother's left side.

When that happened over and over, Mother grabbed Father's left hand without hesitation.

Mother could have shouted, “Gotcha. What's this?” Instead, she smiled.

"What? I thought you were secretly married and hiding a wedding ring."

"Ah, ahaha..."

"If you ever hide something from me again, you're dead."

I had no idea what he found so charming in that line.

Father fell in love with Mother, and they eventually got married.

In exchange, Mother's personality was far from ordinary, so Father ended up destined to live firmly under her thumb.

Their fiery love eventually led to fiery conflict.

Maybe my current father had enjoyed a similar romance.

When I told Father that Medusa Mom had been killed by a human hero, he let out a long sigh.

I didn't know whether that had been a sigh of relief.

Of course, right after that he shed tears made of ice.

Since they had fought and split up, there had to be some story behind it.

Anyway, after Father and I each exchanged a move of Taming, it seemed like we had come to understand each other.

Father carried me back on his back.

The feeling was absolutely incredible.

The sensation of looking down on everything on the ground.

It was on a completely different level from when I flew. My giant father supported me solidly.

Since there was no way Father could enter the Indoor Zoo, he stayed outside the house on top of the cliff.

And then I learned something surprising.

Every time Father went to sleep, he suddenly vanished off somewhere.

It wasn't teleportation, and it wasn't invisibility.

I would go in to sleep too, then come out the next morning and find that Father had already returned.

Time spent with Father was added to my daily routine.

Of course, that didn't mean we were having cheerful father-son chats.

I was being taught snake combat techniques.

'Like this?'

I lashed my tail through the air.

I was practicing Tail Strike.

Considering ordinary snakes didn't use a technique called Tail Strike, this was probably a monster-only skill.

'Is this right?'

I looked up at Father.

Father slowly shook his head.

It didn't seem like that was it.

He was the quiet type, so he hardly ever spoke.

Instead, he showed me.

He lifted his massive tail.

Then his body rolled and flexed like a wave starting from the spine, and he lashed the air with his tail.

That ripple traveled all the way to the tip, where it accelerated in an instant like a whip.

Craaack!

It was no different from thunder.

The moment the tail tip bent at the point of impact, there was clearly a sonic boom as it broke the sound barrier.

An incredible technique.

It seemed Polaris Serpent hadn't reached his current state on looks alone.

I repeated the technique Father had shown me several times.

Little by little, it felt like I was getting the hang of it.

And then, at last, when I whipped my tail through the air, I heard the sound I had been aiming for.

Bang!

Right, the important part was making a wave through the body.

What I needed was a technique that used my tail like a whip.

Bang! Bang!

I happily kept making popping sounds.

Father stared at me.

And these actions weren't pointless.

Because...

「You have acquired the skill, 'Tail Strike Lv. 1.'」

What I learned from Father had actually formed into a real skill.

Learning something didn't automatically create a skill every time.

But seeing skills like Tail Strike pop up one after another, maybe it was because this was an easy skill for a snake to learn.

In other words, I was being taught snake techniques by a snake that had gone through every hardship imaginable.

Tail Strike was not a skill to laugh off.

「You use Poison Scales Lv. 2.」

「You use Tail Strike Lv. 1.」

Bang!

It was like swinging a whip studded with sharp shards and smeared with venom.

I had gained an excellent close-range attack in addition to Tear Apart.

What should I learn next...?

Obviously, Destruction Beam.

I asked Father to teach me Destruction Beam.

But Father let out a huge sleepy yawn and flopped down.

At times like this, no matter how much I pestered him, he wouldn't get up.

Maybe if I used Heavenly Thunder Decree, he'd wake up.

-He is doing a decent job of being a father.

Pelerian looked at Father lying there with a blank expression.

For some reason, they seemed deep in thought.

Was Pelerian thinking of a child?

As far as I knew, Pelerian didn't have one.

'That's unexpected.'

-What do you mean?

I had been with Pelerian for quite a while now.

I had gotten a rough grasp of their disposition.

'I thought you'd tell me to just kill Father.'

In the ruthless Great Forest, the weak couldn't survive.

That Polaris Serpent was off guard right now, so kill him, level up, and evolve.

I had expected even that sort of proposal.

-That would be suicide.

'I think so too. His Venom Resistance is probably incredibly high.'

-No, I mean if you were to actually kill your father.

Pelerian murmured quietly.

-The Festival will begin soon. Then you will not be able to leave this region, and that monkey Named Monster and the insect Named Monster will run wild. Even if you evolve one more time, dealing with them will still be difficult.

I felt like I had become a lot stronger, but Pelerian spoke with certainty.

-But your father might be able to oppose them.

Hmm, maybe.

I still couldn't really grasp just how strong my father, Polaris Serpent, was.

Honestly, I didn't know how strong those monkeys were either, or how strong the leader of the Insect Legion was.

-If there is a problem...

'A problem?'

-It is that your father does not look very healthy.

I had never thought about that.

When I looked back, Father had his eyes closed.

He did seem to get tired easily.

Last time, when I gave him one unripe fruit, he seemed to recover a little energy.

I was just about to ask Pelerian why they thought that.

Tssssssss-

In that instant, every scale on my body stood on end.

The same was true for Father, and he slowly raised his body.

When I looked around, all the other monsters that had been resting lazily had also raised their heads and were staring at the sky.

-It begins as soon as we speak of it.

The sky had already been dyed purple.

And then, starting from one point in the sky, that color began to deepen.

As if paint were spreading, a vivid purple flowed across the heavens.

Toward the ground, and in every direction.

「The concentration of Magical Essence in the air grows denser.」

-The region is becoming a Demonic Realm.

A Demonic Realm. That really did fit.

Gorilla approached me.

"Leader... it started..."

Gorilla had once acted as a lieutenant among the monkeys.

So she knew a few things.

"The Sage... told me... The Sage lived a very long time..."

That orangutan had apparently experienced the Festival several times in person.

For them to have survived that, they were quite something.

There had to be vivid knowledge there that wasn't written in Dashnan's records.

"Back then... only one group... survived."

Because we were up on the cliff, I could see widely across the surroundings.

Far away, something like a boundary began to form in a great circle.

A dome-like Demonic Realm was being created, one you could neither enter nor leave.

「World Tree roots rise within the Demonic Realm.」

Rumble, rumble-

Then the ground began to shake as if there had been an earthquake.

At that moment, enormous roots began sprouting up in the central part of the distant forest.

There weren't just one or two of them.

Those roots tangled and twisted around each other as they grew like a giant tree.

And there were things moving between the gaps in those roots.

"Guardians... very strong. Protect... shining fruit."

So the shining fruit would grow there.

I couldn't see the fruit forming yet.

But I could tell that countless monsters would fight over it.

「Three groups exist within the Demonic Realm.」

The primates, the insects, and our Beasts of the Zoo...!

「Three Crown Fruits form.」

And then, close to the cliff, a root burst out of the ground.

Craaack!

It was growing at a speed far beyond that of any normal plant.

The fruit formed just as quickly.

Geometric yellowish patterns spread across the red fruit.

「You can challenge the leader of a group.」

I'm already the leader of the Beasts of the Zoo, though?

'Let's go!'

I quickly climbed onto Gorilla's shoulder.

Even if it wasn't far from the cliff, it would be a problem if some other monster gobbled it down first.

Sure enough.

It looked like there were already monsters that had been waiting for a moment like this.

"Baboons!"

Gorilla warned me.

The long-faced monkeys were charging over from below the forest.

Maybe they were some kind of strike force, because they moved pretty fast.

'It's fine, we're faster.'

But the newly sprouted root really wasn't far away.

And Father had gotten up and started running with us too.

Huh.

Father was faster than Gorilla and me.

And because he was taller, it would be much easier for him to snatch the fruit growing high on the root.

Before I even reached the root.

Father plucked the fruit growing at the very top.

-Oh, dear me!

'Don't tell me... is this insubordination!'

Of course, it was true that Polaris Serpent was much stronger than I was.

And he was better-looking than me, and absolutely enormous.

On top of that, his fame was so widespread that there wasn't a monster that didn't fear him.

Even the monkeys that had been charging at us flinched and slowed down.

Still...

The Beasts of the Zoo were a group I had made.

For a moment, I thought Father might snatch away the leader's position just like that.

But that wasn't what happened.

Father bit the fruit's stem and lowered his head.

Then he dropped the fruit in front of me.

"Saaak!"

I let out a cry of joy.

The way he casually tossed me the fruit like a father bringing home fried chicken after work was enough to make my filial devotion surge.

Not eating it would be unfilial.

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【Crown Root Fruit】

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What an interesting name.

I crunched the fruit down whole.

「You use Predation Lv. 7.」

Oh, Predation activated on its own.

「You become the 'Leader' of a group.」

「You have gained the temporary Epithet, 'Leader.'」

...Is that it?

No, it said I had gained a temporary Epithet.

I should find out what this Epithet actually did.

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【Leader (Temporary)】

Leads a group of monsters.

Until the World Tree's fruit falls, shares the Magical Essence absorbed by the group.

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In one sense, it was an ordinary description.

But I soon realized the true value of that last line.

Peeeeing-

A cluster of light gathered around Father's mouth.

Then a single ray fired out, reducing the charging baboon pack to ashes in an instant.

「You receive shared Magical Essence.」

「You receive shared Magical Essence.」

「You receive shared Magical Essence.」

「You receive shared Magical Essence.」

「You receive shared Magical Essence.」

「Your level has increased.」

Ah.

Party hunting, power leveling, auto-hunting.

No matter what you called it.

This was definitely a dad carry.

Footnotes:

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