WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle

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◈ I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse ◈

Chapter 82: I Became a Hangover Snake

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There were plenty of jokes in the world that made light of hair loss.

There had been memes like that in my previous life too, hadn't there? Things like, "Grow, hair, grow!" and "Hair-loss beam."

Personally, I hadn't liked those memes much.

It definitely wasn't because my father had been bald.

Of course, since I'd been reborn as a snake, I no longer had to worry about losing my hair.

Now I even had a magnificent Horn, no, a Crown, on my head.

"Hehe, I just couldn't leave you alone for some reason."

Still, this dwarf felt a sense of kinship with me.

This bald bastard!

Rustle!

I raised the scales all over my body.

"You're not smoo... th either."

Dunkel looked flustered.

"Did that upset you? If so, I'm sor..."

No, why were he apologizing again?

Seeing him react like that made me feel a little sorry.

"My name is Dunkel. You seem to have come from outside, so let's go to my home for now."

Was Dunkel named that because his face was round?

He seemed like a gentle, soft-hearted dwarf too.

Whatever.

I lowered my raised scales and relaxed.

Maybe because I'd drunk too much, my head was spinning.

I needed to sleep.

* * *

Gaaah.

There had to be a tiny snake inside my head.

A "brain-eating snake" was writhing around in there.

Otherwise, there was no way my head could hurt this much.

That snake's name was surely Hangover, the Snake of Headaches.

I thrashed around.

I was on a bed.

Dunkel, that dwarf, had laid me there.

"You're awake."

Dunkel was sitting in a chair, wearing cute pajamas.

"It's my first time seeing a monster drink alcohol. Have this, at least. It's honey water."

Dunkel kindly poured honey water into a cast-iron cup.

I carefully wrapped my tail around the cup's handle and drank.

Dunkel watched in amazement.

"You're really smart, not like a monster at all."

It's nothing special, but thanks for the honey water.

Like any dwarf, Dunkel was short and stocky.

He wasn't simply fat. Beneath that layer of flesh, there had to be solid muscle.

A proper dwarf should have a lush beard covering their face and thick hair on their forearms.

Yet Dunkel's face was smooth, and so were his arms.

-He must have been born that way.

'Is that so?'

-Yes, unless he has some illness.

There was a condition called hairlessness, where a person had little or no hair anywhere on their body, including their eyebrows.

Dunkel had eyebrows, but almost no other hair.

'Ugh, I feel a little better after drinking that honey water.'

The sweet honey water seemed to spread through my burning stomach.

Its scent was unusual. It wasn't just honey. There was a fragrance like herbs as well.

"I added Kudzu Flower Juice. It's good for hangovers."

Dunkel said.

Pelerian added an explanation.

-Dwarves love alcohol, so naturally they're experts at curing hangovers too. They're such drunkards that it would be stranger if they weren't.

Then Dunkel said something unexpected.

"I'm not very good at drinking, so it's been a while since I made this."

He wasn't good at drinking?

I thought that was just how it was, but Pelerian seemed deeply disturbed.

-No beard and poor tolerance for alcohol... I can imagine what that dwarf's life must have been like.

'What was it like?'

-He must have lived being treated as defective.

That was a merciless assessment.

Dunkel seemed kind. Did he really deserve such a harsh judgment?

Why did a beard matter that much?

-Even dwarf women grow beards. To them, a beard is honor and strength. The fuller it is and the better its quality, the more respect one receives.

No way.

What kind of horrifying beard fetishists were they?

Come to think of it, the dwarf king we needed to meet was named Bluebeard.

Was a beard really that important?

-What respect would someone without even body hair receive, let alone a beard? Think about it. What if one of the hatchlings born in a snake den had no scales? Would that creature truly survive?

Now that I thought about it, it did sound a little creepy.

Still, I had been born alone as an inferior species, a Little White Snake...

-Not being able to drink is the same. Dwarves are born stubborn and self-righteous, and the only way they build friendships is through drinking. If they cannot even do that, of course they are ostracized. What a pitifully wretched fate...

The words Pelerian used to judge Dunkel were practically venom.

I looked at Pelerian, thinking he was being unpleasant again.

I expected him to be staring at Dunkel with contempt, like the elf supremacist he was.

Instead, Pelerian had a wistful gaze, as if he were looking into the distance.

-Whose sin is the heavenly punishment one receives at birth...?

Maybe he saw himself in Dunkel.

A dwarf without a beard.

And an elf born with the appearance of a frail old man.

I teased him.

'Oh, empathy. Fellow sufferers.'

-Yes.

I expected him to snap, but Pelerian only grinned.

-Snake, you were born with inferior white coloring too, so you understand how it feels.

'...'

Could that be why my brother had tried to kill me the moment he saw me?

Because I was white?

Pelerian had gotten me good.

'White isn't inferior.'

Pelerian only smiled smugly.

Dunkel approached.

Unaware that we had been talking about him, Dunkel gestured for me to follow.

"Come this way. I'll show you around."

The dwarf's house had been made by digging into the earth and rock underground.

It was cramped but cozy. Still, it didn't seem like there would be anything worth seeing.

As I wondered about that, Dunkel picked up a lantern and left the room.

I followed.

"It's my own secret space... You can stay there for a while if you want."

A dwarf's secret space.

Was it a workshop or some sort of work area?

I followed Dunkel with that thought in mind.

Dunkel's house seemed to be on the edge of a vast mine, because there was no sign of any other dwarves.

We came to a narrow staircase.

Climbing stairs with a hangover was hard, so I simply climbed onto Dunkel's shoulder.

Dunkel seemed a little surprised, then looked touched instead.

The farther we climbed, the brighter it became.

Bright enough that we didn't need the lantern.

"Here it is."

That was because sunlight shone into this underground space.

"My secret garden."

An underground garden.

It really existed.

All kinds of grasses and trees grew inside the cavern.

Those green leaves couldn't have been so lush without sunlight.

Yet sunlight from the sky reached all the way down here.

"There's a vertical cave."

When I looked up, there was a huge hole in the ceiling.

It seemed to lead outside. Raindrops occasionally dripped through it.

"I grow edible fruit here... The honey came from here too."

Bees buzzed around.

It was amazing.

Even with sunlight, maintaining a garden like this couldn't be easy.

Dunkel seemed more like an elf than a dwarf.

He picked a wild raspberry and put it in his mouth.

Then he picked another and tossed it to me.

When I chewed it, sour juice burst across my tongue and cleared my head.

I should tell him what I thought.

I took out paper and a pen from Subspace.

"You can stay here for a while. I'll find a way for you to get outside... Huh?"

Dunkel stiffened.

It made sense. A sheet of paper had suddenly appeared, and the pen began writing on its own.

'It is a beautiful garden, dwarf.'

Dunkel looked back and forth between the writing and me.

"Did you write that?"

'Indeed.'

Dunkel's face immediately turned red.

"Damn, this is embarrassing."

He must have remembered rambling about how we were both smooth and saying all sorts of things to me.

Well, he probably never imagined I could understand.

It must have felt like talking to himself.

He obviously didn't seem to have friends.

'There is nothing to be ashamed of, dwarf. I am grateful for the kindness you have shown me.'

"...But."

Dunkel frowned with those innocent eyes.

"Why do you talk in such a cringey way?"

'...'

This time, I was the one caught off guard.

Pelerian snickered.

Amaen had definitely admired me when I spoke like this and said I sounded cool...

Even when Nanaruk translated this way, it seemed to work well enough.

'Anyway, thanks.'

I switched to a casual tone.

This was definitely more comfortable.

"It's nothing. Still, you must be a really high-ranking monster or something. You can write and use magic too."

'You could say that.'

Unlike the humans, who had made a huge fuss every time they saw a monster, Dunkel treated me kindly.

'Do you know a dwarf named Bluebeard?'

"...Of course. They're the Lord of our Anvil."

'I came to meet that dwarf.'

"Why?"

'We made a contract long ago. I need to meet them and discuss it.'

Fortunately, it seemed that the dwarf named Bluebeard had not died of old age.

Dunkel's response, however, was not very positive.

"They are in the depths, but it will be difficult to meet them."

Was it because he couldn't bring an unknown monster before his king?

But that didn't seem to be the reason.

'Why?'

"Well..."

That was when flapping sounds came from the ceiling.

"Oh no! Snake, hide!"

Hide from what?

Even as Dunkel said that, he raised a shovel.

"Don't tell me those bastards are back again!"

The flapping came from the vertical cave above.

Bats poured down from it.

Flutter!

Oh, these guys looked familiar.

──────────────

【Bladeclaw Bat Lv. 18】

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Bats whose talons were like saw blades.

The enemies of my brothers and sisters!

Dunkel swung the shovel desperately.

But there was no way those slow movements could catch agile bats.

The shovel only cut through empty air.

Bats could get into a cave. Why were he overreacting like that?

There was a reason Dunkel was so desperate.

Flutter!

Unlike the mouse-sized Bladeclaw Bats, cat-sized bats swarmed in after them.

──────────────

【King Bladeclaw Thief Bat Lv. 12】

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They looked larger and stronger.

That actually made them easier for Dunkel to hit with the shovel, but the problem was that there wasn't only one.

The bats tore through the bushes and dug at the ground with blade-like talons.

"No! Do you know how hard I worked to grow those?!"

One bat finally pulled something out of the earth.

It was a root plant that looked like wild ginseng.

Mysteriously, the root glowed blue.

-That's a Magic Herb. Don't tell me this dwarf grew Magic Herbs underground!

I didn't know what it was, but it was obviously precious.

I decided to repay the honey water.

*「You use Heart-Eating Leap Lv. 3.」

Even if bats were quick, could they really be faster than me?

A bat with a hole blown through its chest fell.

When it dropped the Magic Herb, the other bats rushed at me too.

"Uh..."

Dunkel panicked.

He seemed to think I was in danger and tried to help, only to stop. He had good reason.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

They posed no threat to me at all.

*「You have defeated King Bladeclaw Thief Bat Lv. 12.」

*「You have defeated Bladeclaw Bat Lv. 14.」

*「You have defeated Bladeclaw Bat Lv. 13.」

As their companions died in an instant, the bats finally realized they should be afraid and began to flee.

Dunkel swung the shovel at the fleeing bats, but didn't hit a single one.

What a weak dwarf.

*「You use Beam Lv. 2.」

The Beam that burst from my mouth pierced the bodies of the fleeing bats.

It wasn't Destruction Beam, but it was more than enough to deal with bats.

They dropped like insects.

The bats were cleaned up in no time.

"Wow, wow!"

Dunkel clapped in admiration.

"Thank you, really! Ever since the Magic Herbs sprouted, those bats have kept coming here. They've been such a headache."

Dunkel approached to offer a handshake, then flinched after realizing I had no hands.

I grabbed his hand with my tail and shook it.

-Not an elf, but a dwarf grew Magic Herbs! He even brought them to bloom!

'Is that very difficult?'

-It certainly is. Even among elves, one would need to be a gardener to grow that Bletiful. Go take a closer look.

I approached the Magic Herb.

Looking carefully, I could clearly feel its Mana.

'Ah, it's that thing used to make Mana Potions!'

I had seen this plant in the Great Forest.

But for someone to grow it here, in these distant Mountain Ranges...

There was a nature-loving dwarf right in front of me.

And beside me was an elf whose hobby was building Dungeons and making golems...

'Ah!'

Something struck me like lightning.

"Thank you so much. How can I repay you for this?"

I had just found something I needed to ask you.

'Could you take a look at this?'

"Hm?"

I took out the stew bowl where I had planted Kibaemi's seed from Subspace.

There was still no sign of it sprouting.

'I got this seed deep in the Great Forest...'

How much should I tell him?

Whatever.

I told him quite a lot.

A Chimera had been created from the World Tree's roots, and this was the seed it had carried inside its body instead of a Magic Stone.

I had planted it recently, but there was no sign of a sprout.

"Th-the World Tree... Did you come from the Great Forest?"

Dunkel wore an enraptured expression upon hearing the name World Tree.

'That's right.'

"My dream is to visit the Great Forest before I die. To go there and see the World Tree with my own eyes..."

He really wasn't much like a dwarf.

'All right, hurry up and look at it.'

Remembering Kibaemi looking at me and crying, "Mwaaah," made me feel down.

Dunkel carefully brushed away the soil.

Then he found Kibaemi's seed.

"Oh, this was almost a disaster. The seed was about to rot."

Perhaps because it was wet, the seed had darkened slightly.

There was no sign that it was about to sprout.

'What do we do? Is my kid going to die?'

"It won't die... It shouldn't."

Dunkel, who had seemed a little soft and weak, now looked dignified and cool, like Professor Lee X-jong.

He brought over a small knife resembling a surgical scalpel.

"Maybe it was harvested before the seed matured properly. The outer shell needed to split, but it was too tough to open."

Then he carefully split open the brown outer shell.

I asked urgently.

'You can save my kid, right?'

"Of course."

Dunkel answered confidently.

Once the shell was cut away, a blue seed bud was revealed.

"I'll take responsibility and make it sprout."

Right.

From today onward, a dwarf, not an elf, was nature's true friend.

Footnotes:

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