WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Mistaken as the Dungeon Boss Monster ◈
Chapter 9: I'm Not a Pokémon, So Why a Two-Stage Evolution?
──────
“Dogs of the Demon Realm! Struggle harder! This Balm Monk will kill every last one of you!”
Every punch carried tyrannical destructive force.
The countless rumors hadn't been lies. The hero was a powerhouse who couldn't be challenged through superior numbers alone.
Only then did Charlotte realize her mistake, along with the fact that this was far beyond her capabilities.
‘What about the Boss?’
Before she could finish the thought, she realized her error.
This was a test of her qualifications as an adjutant. The very thought of shirking responsibility and relying on the Boss disqualified her from being one.
“Grrk...”
Even the Minotaur and Basilisk, which had seemed like impregnable fortresses, collapsed.
That struck fear into the monsters, and their plummeting morale spread like an epidemic.
Being unable to fight and losing the will to fight were shortcuts to defeat.
She had already played every card she had prepared. She couldn't see any way to beat the hero.
“Ha! Right! I'd forgotten about you.”
With that, the hero charged in another direction.
The Death Knight, the dungeon's Boss, stood there without a care in the world.
In that instant, Charlotte's face filled with despair.
The dungeon was the Boss, and the Boss was the dungeon.
Responsibility for defeat could be redeemed someday. But allowing the hero to reach the Boss would be an irreversible catastrophe.
‘I... am incompetent.’
This was what happened when a boss's subordinates weren't capable enough.
Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut in helplessness.
When she opened them again, Balm Monk had vanished.
Only bloodstains and chunks of flesh lay scattered where he had stood.
Every other trace of presence and vitality had vanished as if it had all been a lie.
A sudden silence descended.
The Death Knight looked down at black iron armor stained with blood, eyes pitiless.
“Even in death, you splatter filth around.”
That was all the Death Knight had to say. The Death Knight turned away, leaving the bloodstains at its feet behind.
Only after Charlotte's frozen thoughts began moving again did she grasp what had happened.
The hero Balm Monk had died at the Boss's hands. In the blink of an eye.
Strictly speaking, though, saying he had died at the Boss's hands was inaccurate.
The Boss had blown him apart without even moving a finger.
‘How?’
The Boss had killed the hero without a word or gesture. The hero who had been slaughtering dozens of monsters.
Even after seeing it herself, she couldn't believe it.
The Death Knight's reaction was utterly indifferent, despite killing such a hero in an instant.
Even an elephant stepping on an ant could not have made the death feel more anticlimactic.
Everyone's eyes naturally turned toward the Boss.
The pressure in the air was enough to make them feel as if they needed permission just to breathe.
“Hah.”
Someone drew a breath, and everyone else finally began breathing again.
“Well... the Demon Realm will be in an uproar for a while.”
The Demon Merchant spoke with a dazed expression.
It was unprecedented in the Empire's history for its greatest military asset, a hero, to die so anticlimactically.
What even the Bosses of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss hadn't accomplished in a thousand years had been achieved by the Boss of a newly emerged member of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss.
And it wouldn't only stir up the Demon Realm. It would become the talk of the town in both the Empire and the 72 Dungeons.
‘Just how strong is the Boss?’
Even the other Bosses of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss would have been shocked if they had witnessed this.
The Death Knight at the center of it all had already left without any particular reaction.
Everyone who watched the Death Knight depart felt something beyond wonder. They felt reverence.
‘...To the Boss, a hero was less than a fly.’
The only reaction the Death Knight had shown was displeasure at the blood splattering onto the armor. It was the sort of reaction one would have after crushing an insect.
The Demon Merchant was famous in the Merchant Association for loving gossip.
Since the merchant had seen it firsthand, it was only a matter of time before word of the new Boss of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss's achievement spread far and wide.
It would especially draw the interest of the Bosses of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss, who lived steeped in boredom.
‘What's this?’
That was when a familiar scent brushed the Demon Merchant's nose.
The Demon Merchant was half-Incubus and could track human lust through scent.
The Demon Merchant's vicious gaze stopped on Charlotte.
A human mongrel dared to...
The sight of someone harboring lust without knowing their place was utterly detestable.
Charlotte shook her head several times.
The lust then faded like a candle flame in the wind.
So she knew it herself.
Don't get ahead of yourself. The Boss isn't someone a bitch like you could dare desire.
‘Yes. If it's that person...’
Unless she was a Boss of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss herself.
The merchant remembered that person complaining recently about being lonely all the time.
It was too early now, but if an opportunity arose later, the merchant decided to arrange a meeting.
‘Come to think of it, there won't even be any need for that.’
The indefinitely postponed 72 Boss Convocation was certain to resume soon enough.
The star of that gathering would be the new Boss of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss.
* * *
Once the Balm Monk incident had been settled, the Demon Merchant led the monsters back through the portal.
Before leaving, the merchant said they'd be back soon. Something about coming fully prepared for dungeon restoration and expansion.
‘It suddenly feels empty.’
According to Charlotte, the only monsters they had bought were the Minotaur and Basilisk, but both had died fighting the hero.
In the end, the only ones left in the dungeon, no, the cave, were me, the Vampires, and Charlotte. We were right back where we started.
“G-Great Boss who has defied the natural order. I can only beg forgiveness for failing to be of use. I swear I will repay this debt as soon as possible.”
As an aside, the looks I was getting had somehow become extremely burdensome.
Isabella, especially, had gone way too far. Was this what it felt like to sit on a bed of thorns every moment?
She did go back to normal after I told her to fix the way she spoke.
“You all did more than enough from your positions.”
“Boss...!”
Isabella and the Vampires looked up at me with eyes brimming with emotion. What a pain.
When I waved them away, the Vampires hurried off in a crowd.
‘Ha. What am I supposed to do now?’
I couldn't even beat that airheaded True-Blood Vampire, yet I'd become the Boss of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss.
That alone was enough of a headache, but I had also killed a hero.
‘A newly emerged member of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss killed a hero? Oh, shit.’
The Empire would obviously hear the news and consider me its top-priority enemy. They might be even more wary of me than the other Seven Palaces of the Abyss.
The human side was a problem, but the real issue was elsewhere.
The 72 Dungeons and the Demon Realm would focus their attention on me for a while. Me, who wasn't actually part of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss at all.
Because of the misunderstanding that I was a newly emerged member of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss, it seemed one of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss had recently been conquered.
Considering that this was the past, the conquered dungeon was probably none other than Shadow of Pangu.
‘I only knew about Shadow of Pangu from the setting, too.’
The game's starting timeline began after Shadow of Pangu had been conquered.
That naturally raised a question.
What exactly was the real newly emerged member of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss that I was impersonating?
‘Seventh-ranked Achromatic Silence. Its Boss was probably Hermit.’
If there was any silver lining, it was that.
As the name suggested, Hermit shut herself away in the dungeon like a hikikomori and devoted herself to a secluded life. That was her own method of growing stronger, anyway.
According to the game's official story, the seventh-ranked dungeon could only be conquered after the fifth-ranked dungeon.
That was because Hermit never showed herself, and the dungeon's location was only discovered much later.
‘She wasn't interested in the outside world, either.’
She was the perfect person to impersonate.
Of course, she hadn't vanished. She was in seclusion.
That meant I'd have to live with the anxiety of being exposed at any moment. Damn it.
“Boss. I have a request.”
Charlotte's words abruptly cut off my thoughts.
I arrogantly tilted my chin as though I truly were the Boss of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss.
Why was I acting like that in front of a crazy bitch who could kill me easily?
[Lv. 72]
The level hadn't changed, but its color had.
A pale green, indicating goodwill. As long as that color didn't change, I had no reason to fear Charlotte.
“If you don't need it, may I claim ownership of the hero's corpse?”
Corpse? Ah, I understood what she meant.
But Balm Monk had been reduced to dust to the point that calling it a corpse was almost ridiculous.
“Not even a body should remain.”
“I know this is presumptuous, but if you permit it, I'd like to gather the pieces and use them.”
So she wanted to gather the pieces scattered like dust and resurrect Balm Monk as undead?
The very idea was insane. There was no psychopath more legendary than this bitch.
Putting aside the issue of human decency, it was inefficient from the start.
Regardless of the caster's ability, even a corpse missing a single limb was difficult to raise as undead.
Let's say the limbs were reattached and the undeadification succeeded. More often than not, it would only look intact on the outside, while being weak and hollow inside.
The advantage of undeadification was raising the subject's combat power beyond what it possessed in life.
That was why an intact corpse gained an average of two to five levels after being turned into undead. As I said, only an intact corpse.
Balm Monk hadn't merely lost a body part. His whole body had been turned to dust.
Even Charlotte would struggle just to turn him into undead.
“If you're only planning to waste mana, stop.”
“No. I can do it.”
Was she always like this? It was completely unlike Charlotte.
A strange stubbornness showed through her expressionless face.
“Please. I want to make up for my mistake.”
“Mistake?”
What the hell was she talking about? What mistake had she made?
“I know I'm unqualified to be an adjutant. So I want to prove my worth, even if only this way.”
Now I understood what she meant.
She seemed to feel responsible for the Balm Monk incident.
‘Come to think of it, I did say it was a test for her.’
Was she ashamed to remain an adjutant after failing the test her Boss had given her?
“Do as you please.”
As if she had been waiting for permission, Charlotte took out a vial, pulled its cork, and drank it.
It was a Mana Potion she had brought as a spare.
Charlotte drained three bottles in an instant, then quickly headed somewhere.
Before long, she brought a bundle before me and unwrapped it. The moment I saw it, I frowned.
‘This crazy bitch?’
I crossed my arms and closed my eyes, making it look like I was being solemn.
I had no disgusting hobby of looking at pieces of a corpse.
What the hell was she thinking, showing it off right in front of me?
It was like a child asking their parents to watch the little dance they had learned in kindergarten.
...I've lost it. How was the adorable performance of a child anything like a Necromancer's undeadification?
Whether she succeeded or failed, I just wanted her to finish quickly.
I tapped my crossed arms, urging her along.
I couldn't see it, but I could sense a sinister ritual being performed before me.
Charlotte muttered an incantation under her breath.
How long had it been?
“Guuuuh...”
I opened my eyes at the groan of the dead.
A Ragged Undead stood there, its body stitched together in various places.
At least the undeadification had succeeded.
[Lv. 32]
Of course, it had only succeeded.
Compared to when Balm Monk was alive, its level wasn't even close.
She had made a miserable undead from the finest material imaginable, an eighty-fourth-level hero.
It was no different from making nail clippers out of the finest mithril.
“Ah...”
A short sigh of lament escaped Charlotte's lips, as though she understood it herself.
Even though I couldn't see her expression, I could clearly tell how dejected she felt.
Honestly, since it was Charlotte, I had held out a tiny hope that maybe she could pull it off.
She must have felt the same way when she tried. She was the type to think highly of her Black Magic.
“Undead. Answer your master's call.”
“Guuuuh...”
See? I told you it wouldn't work.
Undead that lacked intelligence and couldn't speak ranked among the lower and mid-tier varieties.
Charlotte had confirmed it for herself and lowered her head. She couldn't bring herself to raise it again.
‘But damn, that's ugly.’
Its whole body had been stitched together, making it one of the ugliest undead I'd ever seen.
I wanted to tell it to get lost because it was disgusting to look at. The mood was the only reason I didn't.
[This target has partially fulfilled the conditions for Evolution.]
[Would you like to evolve the Ragged Undead?]
I doubted my eyes at the sudden notification.
I could evolve that rag?
“I apologize for disappointing you.”
I didn't have time to respond to Charlotte.
The status window had shown a notification, but my questions remained.
What Evolution conditions had that rag fulfilled?
“Eek. Huh? Did I do something wrong?”
Look at Isabella, a successful example.
She had enough potential, had nearly died and survived, and possessed the desire to sacrifice herself for her companions. Naturally, she had succeeded at Evolution with a 100% chance.
But what about Balm Monk's rag?
Given the state of its body, it at least had enough potential.
Still, at least two conditions had to be fulfilled to attempt Evolution.
Had Balm Monk sacrificed himself for someone right before dying? Absolutely not.
Then was this a situation where it was on the verge of death?
...It was already dead, though?
‘Ah. This is a bug too.’
One condition for Evolution was that the target had to be exposed to the threat of death.
And undead were constantly exposed to death. Put simply, they were already dead.
I didn't know whether it was an Easter egg or a bug, but as long as their potential was high enough, Evolution could be applied to undead.
Through potential and the threat of death, the two minimum conditions were fulfilled.
“I am grateful for the help you gave me, even if it was only for a short time. I apologize for leaving after showing you such a pathetic sight.”
I hadn't even said anything, but she was drowning in self-loathing and about to leave on her own.
Don't go. The dungeon will fall apart without you.
Now that I'd suddenly become the Boss of the Seven Palaces of the Abyss, I couldn't afford to lose capable talent.
It felt a little unpleasant, but I placed my hand on the Ragged Undead and glanced at Charlotte.
“Wait.”
Evolve, you Ragged Undead.
[Evolving the Ragged Undead.]
[Since two conditions have been fulfilled, success or failure will be determined with a 50% chance.]
[Evolution successful! The Ragged Undead has successfully evolved.]
[Lv. 56]
I cheered inwardly.
Unlike Isabella's 100% chance, this had only been a fifty-fifty shot, so the sense of accomplishment was even greater.
[The target's potential is exceptionally, exceptionally high! Beyond MAX Evolution, it has a 50% chance to enter a two-stage Evolution!]
I'm not a Pokémon, so why a two-stage Evolution?
Could this really happen?
Getting the same side twice in a row on two coin flips happened more often than you'd think.
Thinking of it that way, it was worth hoping for.
[Two-stage Evolution successful!!! The Ragged Undead has successfully evolved! You may now give it a new name.]
I didn't have genitals, but I wet myself.
Unlike Isabella, the Ragged Undead's entire body was covered in a glow.
When the glow finally faded, the stitched-together rag had transformed into a dignified undead that looked vaguely human.
[Lv. 74]
“Your name is Balm Monk.”
“Balm... Monk.... I will... follow....”
“Balm Monk. Raise both hands.”
The instant I finished speaking, he shot both hands up.
I nodded in satisfaction without meaning to.
He answered well, and he immediately did what I told him without hesitation.
Thus, a ghoul stronger than a Death Knight or Lich was born.
At the edge of my vision, Charlotte was staring at me with her mouth hanging open.
After considering what to say, I opened my mouth.
“Remain here as the adjutant. I'll make up for your mistake.”
“...”
Charlotte, who had been opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish, pressed her lips tightly together.
Thud.
She immediately prostrated herself before me as though collapsing.
“I will serve you as my Boss forever.”
[Lv. 72]
The pale green level began changing color once again.
It would become a very deep green. The deeper the color, the deeper the feeling it represented.
But the color that caught my eye wasn't green at all.
It had changed into a completely unexpected pink, the color of affection.
...Was she attracted to me right now?
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
