WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Ophidian of the Apocalypse ◈
Chapter 87: Flash
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In truth, there was no official profession called “warrior” in dwarf society.
Did a race that dug earth, forged weapons, and built structures really need warriors?
It wasn't an age of war like the old days, either.
Yet paradoxically, miners, construction workers, and craftsmen were all warriors at the same time.
Dwarves were short, but their strength easily exceeded that of humans twofold.
Their short, stout bodies were packed with steel-hard muscle.
They could take a beating, and dwarves were naturally bold and fearless.
Whether they struck heated iron with hammers or bashed enemies' skulls with warhammers, it was much the same thing.
Miners could become warriors too.
That is, as long as there is light.
A few Blood Moles were no match for dwarf miners.
Then the snake illuminated the pitch-black darkness.
Manjin shouted as he swung his pickaxe.
“Uraaaah!”
The pickaxe pierced straight through a Blood Mole's head.
He shook it off, and the Blood Mole's body spun through the air.
When it flew toward the snake, the snake swallowed it in one bite.
Manjin had felt it since feeding the snake ham, but it was rewarding to feed someone who ate so heartily.
The dwarves fiercely battled the Blood Moles.
Blood Moles burst out from every direction.
No, not just east, west, south, and north. They even dropped from the floor and ceiling.
Blood Mole corpses steadily piled up across the narrow tunnel floor.
The stench of blood was overwhelming.
Among the dwarves, Manjin killed the most Blood Moles.
The snake killed even more than Manjin.
The snake fired beams from their mouth, and whenever they used Leap, they shot forward like an arrow.
Whenever the snake casually bit one while passing, the Blood Moles convulsed and died on the spot.
When Manjin had first met the snake emerging from the barrel of liquor, he had regarded them as little more than entertainment.
Even when they met again, Manjin had thought the snake was just a cute, foolish little thing.
But he had been wrong.
The snake was incredibly strong. Without them, every dwarf here would have died.
A little later.
The Blood Moles' assault, which had seemed like it would never end, finally stopped.
Still, Manjin couldn't relax.
“Argh!”
“D-Don't thrash around! You're bleeding!”
The dwarves hadn't come through unscathed, either.
Wounds on their arms and legs were manageable.
But one of them eventually clutched their abdomen and collapsed.
“Y-Youngest!”
Manjin screamed and rushed over.
The one who had fallen was the youngest.
Blood was pouring from their abdomen.
One dwarf was frantically pressing down on the wound to stop the bleeding.
Even so, blood kept gushing out.
“T-Take their clothes off first.”
Miners getting hurt was common.
They carried tools for first aid and had basic knowledge of treatment.
But when they took off the youngest's top, Manjin's face went pale.
“The intestines...”
A Blood Mole had torn into their abdomen.
Their intestines were protruding through the open wound.
It wasn't an injury that could be handled with simple first aid.
And Manjin knew from experience.
When a person's insides spilled out, they died.
“Huff, huff. H-Hyung...”
“...”
“P-Please save me.”
The youngest tightly gripped Manjin's forearm.
Perhaps because they had lost so much blood, their hand had gone pale.
Manjin couldn't answer immediately.
Everyone was looking at him.
As if begging him to do something.
Idiots, what could I possibly do?
But Manjin was the team leader. He had to do something.
He couldn't tell the youngest, who was dying, that it was over and they should give up.
“...”
His mind had already gone blank.
That was probably why, when someone gave him a slight push, Manjin fell onto his rear so easily.
“Move.”
Dunkel took Manjin's place.
“Give me water and a potion.”
“Huh? Ah, right.”
Manjin hurriedly took out water and a potion.
Right. Potions were extremely precious, but Manjin always carried some.
Just as Manjin was about to pour the potion onto the youngest's wound.
“Manjin!”
Dunkel shouted, glaring at him.
Manjin flinched, and Dunkel swiftly snatched the potion from his hand.
“If you pour it directly on the wound, it could contaminate the injury.”
“Uh...”
“Pour the water. Not on the wound, over here.”
Manjin dazedly did as Dunkel told him.
When he poured water from the canteen, Dunkel washed his hands first.
No one understood why he was doing it, but no one dared say anything.
Then Dunkel took the canteen.
Carefully, he cleaned the dirt from the protruding intestines.
“Urgh, aaagh!”
“Hold their arms and legs so they can't move.”
None of the dwarves moved at Dunkel's words.
Dunkel shouted as though enraged.
“What are you idiots doing?! Grab them, now!”
Manjin was the first to react.
As Manjin grabbed the youngest's legs, the other dwarves seized their arms.
The youngest struggled wildly.
They even spat curses through the pain and fear.
But Dunkel slowly pushed the intestines back in as though he couldn't hear any of it.
“The intestines aren't damaged. There was a hole in the abdomen, and the abdominal pressure pushed them out.”
“Then can the youngest live?”
“We have to try.”
Useless, lazy Dunkel.
Whenever Dunkel had been cursed like that, Manjin hadn't joined in, but he had agreed deep down.
Yet what was Dunkel like now?
More dependable than anyone else here.
Dunkel took something from inside his clothes.
Wrapped in a clean white cloth was what appeared to be the first-aid kit he carried.
Inside were a needle and silk thread as fine as a strand of hair.
“I'm going to stitch the wound closed temporarily, so hold them tight.”
Dunkel began sewing the grotesquely torn abdominal wound.
His hands trembled.
Dunkel was nervous too.
He set down the needle for a moment, then sharply slapped his own cheek with the back of his hand.
Smack!
“Whew.”
Then he picked up the needle again.
It might have looked ridiculous, but nobody laughed.
In the end, he managed to stitch the youngest's wound closed.
Seeing that, Manjin recalled the past.
When he was little.
Whenever he got hurt while playing, it was always Dunkel who treated his wounds.
An indescribable shame swept over Manjin.
“Make them take the potion orally.”
“Orally?”
“It means make them drink it.”
“Ah, got it.”
Manjin gave the youngest the potion.
They couldn't even swallow it properly. More than half seemed to have spilled out.
The snake approached.
Astonishingly, the snake held a bottle of potion in their tail, somehow having found one.
“This... is a better potion than the ones we have.”
Dunkel said that after smelling it.
The snake nodded, and only then did Dunkel pour a little potion over the stitched wound.
The wound healed at a visible speed.
But the youngest, who had lost consciousness at some point, didn't open their eyes.
“They lost too much blood. They might be in shock.”
“We need to carry them out quickly!”
“...That could be more dangerous. The treatment wasn't done properly. We need to place them on a stretcher and move them carefully.”
That was what Dunkel said.
“You, go get people! Hurry!”
At Manjin's order, one dwarf ran off at once.
Manjin carefully spoke to Dunkel, who was wiping away cold sweat.
“Hyung.”
“Yes, Manjin.”
“The situation might be bad.”
“...What do you mean?”
Manjin clenched his teeth.
At least when it came to mining, especially Blood Moles, Manjin knew more.
There were more than twenty dead Blood Moles on the ground now.
That was clearly unusual.
For so many Blood Moles to gather here...
“There might... be a nest nearby.”
“A nest?”
“Yeah. A place where the Blood Moles and their queen live together.”
Blood Moles liked Bone Crystals.
Nobody had discovered why.
Maybe some kind of power within Bone Crystals attracted monsters.
Sometimes, Blood Moles built nests where large quantities of Bone Crystals gathered.
Normally, Blood Moles avoided dwarves well enough, but if anyone approached their nest, they attacked without regard for anything else.
“Then...”
“We can't be sure. These things might have simply been gathered nearby by chance.”
If there really was a Blood Mole nest nearby, they would attack again.
“Then we'll have to take the risk and move the youngest.”
“Stitching the wound isn't the end of it. Their intestines haven't ruptured, but there's internal bleeding. Moving them without even a cart would be too much.”
Sure enough, a thin stream of blood flowed from the youngest's mouth.
Manjin agonized over it.
If there was a nest nearby, they had to risk carrying the youngest out.
But what if there wasn't?
If they moved the youngest without even a stretcher, they could lose their life for nothing.
If the dwarf who had run off returned with a proper doctor and a stretcher, they might still be saved.
It was a dilemma.
Making a decision and taking responsibility in a situation like this was the team leader's role.
But with the youngest's life at stake, Manjin couldn't decide easily.
Tap, tap.
That was when the snake tapped his heel.
“Uh...”
Before Manjin had a chance to ask what was wrong.
A notebook floated into the air.
Then a pen moved on its own and wrote.
‘I’ll go check whether there’s a nest.’
“What?”
Manjin hadn't known the snake could communicate by writing.
The words that slipped from his startled mouth were.
“Why...?”
‘Because we're friends.’
The snake raised its tail.
Somehow, Manjin understood that it meant a thumbs-up.
The snake sprang up.
Then the snake slipped into the hole the Blood Moles had emerged from.
It was too small for the dwarves to even put an arm through, but the snake seemed to have no trouble at all.
Their white tail fluttered once, then the snake disappeared into the black hole.
“W-Wait!”
Manjin, who had been standing there blankly, startled awake and tried to catch the snake.
But the snake that had vanished into the darkness didn't return.
Dunkel looked at Manjin in alarm.
“W-What's wrong?”
“No, there's something I should've told them.”
“What is it?”
“Blood Mole nests are dangerous. Not because of the monsters, but...”
Manjin swallowed hard.
“They're full of poisonous gas.”
* * *
I was helping because we were friends.
And though I hadn't told Manjin and Dunkel.
Kibaemi wanted it.
I put Kibaemi into Subspace first.
Kibaemi threw a tantrum about not wanting to go in, but I forced Kibaemi inside.
It could be dangerous, after all.
-There is definitely a nest.
Pelerian was certain there was a nest.
-I'm more of an expert on monsters, am I not?
That was true.
I kept crawling along the tunnel.
It wasn't as if I had only dug tunnels once or twice before.
Crawling through an already made tunnel was easy.
I focused on the sound of my heart beating.
Hmm, calm.
Survival Instinct gave no warning at all.
Even though I could clearly sense swarming monsters ahead.
Then shall I go punish the bastards who put a hole in our youngest's belly?
The end of the tunnel drew near.
A faint light shone from beyond.
You bastards!
“Saaah!”
I roared loudly and burst out of the tunnel.
Bone Crystals were exposed everywhere.
It was practically a cavern made of Bone Crystals.
The faint light came from the Bone Crystals themselves.
Perhaps the abundant phosphorus in the Bone Crystals had created something like will-o'-the-wisps.
Countless Blood Moles gathered beneath that light.
Dozens, no, hundreds of Blood Moles.
Their bright red eyes gleamed as they stared at me, the unwelcome visitor.
And in their midst stood a gigantic Blood Mole.
Its belly bulged outward, and its long snout had eight eyes like a spider's.
It had eight legs as well.
──────────────
【Blood Mole Queen Lv. 40】
【Traits】
[Queen], [Egg-Laying]
──────────────
Ah, I came to the wrong place.
Goodbye.
Just as I was about to leave.
“Queeeek!”
I could probably understand without anyone translating.
Get that bastard! Something like that.
I could smell its breath all the way over here.
It reeked like farts. That was kind of weird.
“Quiiik.”
“Keek!”
Hundreds of Blood Moles rushed toward me.
Using Giantification in a cramped place like this didn't seem like a good idea.
*「You use Poison Scales Lv. 2.」
Shall we try some close combat?
I dove into the Blood Moles.
My sharp crystal scales cut their smooth skin.
The Neurotoxin on those wounds alone made them stagger.
And when they bit me.
Clang!
Their teeth couldn't pierce my scales.
They were small, low-level monsters. No matter how many there were, they couldn't hurt me.
Lu Bu among men, Urooros among Blood Moles.
I rampaged like a fish in water.
Ah, this feeling.
I hadn't had a proper fight since Shadow Forest.
For the first time in a while, my battle instincts stirred.
But there were far too many of them.
If I bit them to death one by one, my teeth would break first.
-Use magic, magic.
Pelerian advised me.
In a battle against many enemies, magic was naturally more efficient.
‘Got it.’
Fire magic would be especially effective in a place like this.
*「You use Beginner Elemental Magic: Fire Lv. 6.」
I had intended to fire a fireball.
From the flames I created in the air.
Crackle.
That sound rang out.
Then the entire space caught fire in an instant.
Like a gas explosion.
No, was it actually a gas explosion?
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!
Light, thunderous blasts, and shockwaves swept through the cavern.
I was caught in the blast and hurled through the air.
The Blood Moles had probably been killed in droves.
*「You have defeated Blood Mole Lv. 18.」
*「You have defeated Blood Mole Lv. 12.」
*「You have defeated Blood Mole Lv. 21.」
*「You have defeated Blood Mole Lv. 9.」
*「You have defeated Blood Mole Lv. 18.」
*「You have defeated Blood Mole Lv. 5.」
*「You have defeated Blood Mole Lv. 10.」
......
*「You have defeated Blood Mole Queen Lv. 40.」
And the queen too.
*「Your level has increased.」
*「Your level has increased.」
*「Your level has increased.」
My level went up as well.
*「The proficiency of Heat Resistance has increased sharply.」
*「You have acquired Shock Resistance Lv. 1.」
*「The proficiency of Pain Resistance has increased sharply.」
But... am I going to die like this?
Footnotes:
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