WeTried Translations

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◈ Ophidian of the Immortal World ◈

Chapter 8: Invitation

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The joy of discovering an unexpected aspect of his identity was short-lived.

The enraged frog croaked.

Bang! Bang!

Globs of spit flew at him in quick succession, but Jegyeong had already slipped into the water.

He had only dived in to avoid the frog's anger for a moment, yet he immediately discovered something else astonishing.

He could breathe underwater!

Could he be a sea snake? Could sea snakes breathe underwater?

‘Whatever.’

Whether it was possible or not did not matter. As long as it benefited him right now, that was enough.

Besides, had he not promised himself dozens of times not to impose knowledge from his previous life onto this one?

“Croak!”

The frog, which had kept spitting from outside, finally lost patience and leaped into the pond.

‘Good.’

Jegyeong could feel the frog following him, but it was not particularly fast. That meant the difference between their speeds underwater was nowhere near as great as it had been on land.

Since the frog had hesitated before entering the pond, there was still quite some distance between them.

Jegyeong leisurely headed for the Lotus. The more urgent the pursuing frog became, the more at ease he felt.

‘Is this enough? Or should I go a little farther?’

As he neared the Lotus, Jegyeong also descended deeper into the water, little by little so the frog chasing him would not notice.

Just as the pond floor came clearly into view, Jegyeong thought, ‘This should be enough,’ and was about to turn.

A massive ripple spread through the entire pond.

At that moment, he felt malice rushing at him from every direction.

Dozens? Hundreds? But just moments ago...

‘No.’

He had overlooked something. This pond had residents, things whose origin he did not know.

Large and small fish, or things resembling fish, swarmed toward him.

They all looked different, but their eyes were the same.

Eyes devoid of vitality, eyes no living creature should possess.

‘Have they all been brainwashed?’

He did not know whether they had truly been brainwashed, but they had clearly lost their minds. They rushed at him like piranhas that had caught the scent of blood.

They were incredibly fast.

Even Jegyeong, who might have been a water snake or sea snake, could not shake them off.

He could move freely underwater, but they moved at double or triple speed.

In an instant, dozens of sharp-toothed fish clung to Jegyeong.

Each one was insignificant, but hundreds bit and tore at him all at once. The pain was hard to describe.

Fortunately, his body had become far tougher after Molting than it had been before Molting. Otherwise, his scales and flesh would have been torn from his entire body before he could hold out for long.

“Graaah!”

Blinded by pain, Jegyeong let out a savage roar and opened his jaws wide.

He thrashed to fling off those clinging to him, then swallowed and tore apart those that remained.

Something that was neither blood nor water filled his mouth.

Even amid his rage, Jegyeong sensed that something was strange, but he did not stop moving.

Crunch!

He continued to struggle, but the fish clung to him as stubbornly as mosquitoes.

Jegyeong sank all the way to the bottom of the pond.

As he rubbed his body against the uneven floor, dozens of fish were ground apart.

“Croak!”

A triumphant croak seemed to echo from afar.

Whether from rage or pain, Jegyeong's mind had grown hazy, but the sound snapped him back to his senses.

‘That bastard seems pretty pleased with itself.’

Well, it had reason to be. The situation certainly looked favorable for it.

Jegyeong realized that his outward condition was perfect for misleading the frog.

His body, bloody from being bitten and torn apart by hundreds of fish, certainly looked grave from the outside.

‘Not bad. No, this is excellent.’

His body had already been tough, but after Molting, it had become sturdier than any ordinary creature could be.

Being bitten and torn by hundreds of fish still hurt terribly, but he could endure it well enough.

“Graaah!”

Jegyeong twisted his body dramatically and roared.

Roaring underwater would not accomplish anything, but he put his whole self into the act.

The crafty frog's means of attack were restricted underwater.

That would be even more true once all these bizarre fish were dead.

It could gleefully spit outside the water, but what could it do underwater? It would probably have no choice but to lash out with its tongue or come close and attack directly.

‘It is cautious. It will wait until I have lost as much strength as possible.’

Jegyeong wiped out the remaining fish while making himself look as wretched as possible, gradually drawing himself in as though he were losing strength and moving less and less.

Yet the crafty frog was suspicious by nature.

Even though Jegyeong looked utterly battered, it stayed far away and remained cautious.

Pretending to stagger weakly, Jegyeong glanced at it from the corner of his eye and clicked his tongue inwardly.

‘Annoying. Do I need to pretend to pass out?’

No matter how strong he was, it was useless if he could not catch his opponent.

It was obvious, but experiencing it firsthand felt different.

If he could have caught that frog in the first place, he would not have needed to go through all this trouble.

‘Nothing can be perfect.’

Expecting a snake without legs to be as fast as a frog that could leap about was greedy.

He understood that in his head, but he could not help feeling disappointed.

Outside the pond, Cheongo fluttered blankly from a distance.

“Mm.”

Cheongo was worried.

Could Jegyeong defeat the bad frog? Cheongo hoped so, but was not sure. Jegyeong was strong, but the bad frog was not an easy opponent either.

‘Now...’

Cheongo's gaze turned toward the center of the pond.

The half-bloomed Lotus rested alone on the water's surface as though it were calling for attention.

Once Cheongo looked at it, it was impossible to look away.

Cheongo was used to experiences like this, so they avoided losing themselves completely. Still, that did not mean they could perfectly control the desire.

Gulp.

Reason and instinct clashed.

Reason told Cheongo to swallow the Lotus immediately.

Cheongo did not know whether Jegyeong would defeat the bad frog, so reason urged them to seize the benefit available right now.

Instinct, on the other hand, said to wait.

That precious treasure was not complete yet, so instinct warned Cheongo not to ruin it through haste.

‘What should I do!’

Cheongo could not decide.

Without realizing it, they gradually moved closer to the Lotus.

The frog, carefully watching its opponent in the pond, noticed that small movement.

“Croak!”

The frog's previously cautious eyes sharpened.

It quickly turned to glare above the water's surface, then cast its gaze back toward the enormous snake resting on the pond floor.

After seeming to hesitate for a moment, it launched itself forward with force.

‘It finally came!’

Jegyeong, who had been growing tired of this contest of patience, cheered inwardly.

The frog finally moved, as though it intended to let him die from blood loss, but Jegyeong did not let down his guard until the end.

He struggled to look at the approaching frog once, then moved his trembling body as if trying to fight back.

Had his desperate performance worked?

A long tongue shot toward him like an arrow.

It was already five meters long as it stretched out. No, perhaps six.

Jegyeong remained calm and watched the rapidly approaching tip of the tongue.

Then he sprang aside in one motion, avoiding the bluish tip that had come right before him, and bit the middle of its tongue.

The tip looked dangerous to touch, and he also tried not to bite too hard.

It would be troublesome if he bit down with all his strength and accidentally tore off the frog's tongue.

Jegyeong clamped down on the middle of its tongue and moved his body.

As though his earlier weakness had never existed, his tail lashed the frog's head like a whip.

The stunned frog reeled after being struck in the head.

It was fortunate they were underwater. If it had been on land, that single blow would have flattened it.

The moment that blow landed, no, the moment it extended its tongue, the fight was as good as over.

Without rushing, Jegyeong coiled around its head and body.

With its tongue restrained, all the frog could do was stretch out its tiny limbs, but Jegyeong's tightly tensed body was as solid as stone.

The frog's desperate struggles were no more than an itch.

* * *

“Hiss.”

A huge snake's head rose above the water.

The corpse of the monstrous frog was clamped in its jaws.

“Jegyeong!”

Cheongo, who had been half-dazed atop the Lotus, cheered and came closer.

Jegyeong's eyes narrowed as he saw them.

Why had that bird-brained creature been lingering on the Lotus?

The situation naturally made him suspicious, but Jegyeong decided not to think about it further.

‘My own heart is wavering too.’

That Lotus was truly strange.

Even he, who had some confidence in his mental strength from his past life as a human, found it difficult to look away after only a brief glance. If he did not force himself to look away, he felt as though he would remain frozen before it like a stone statue forever.

‘It is clearly no ordinary thing, but does that mean it is good?’

Something being special did not necessarily make it good.

His instincts kept shouting that the Lotus was an incredible treasure, but their urgency was so excessive that it made him wary.

‘This must be because of my previous life too.’

His memories of being human, and the reason born from them, made him fear things that were abnormal.

In other words, it was an unfounded fear.

After all, unlike his previous life, he had no idea how many abnormal things existed in this world.

‘I'm one of those abnormal things myself.’

So it was ultimately an unfounded fear, one he had to overcome.

“Jegyeong! What do we do now?”

The monstrous frog that had guarded the Lotus and pond so well had become food for Jegyeong and Cheongo.

They divided and ate the frog beside the pond, though Jegyeong ate ninety-nine parts while Cheongo ate only about one part of what remained.

“Well.”

The pond now had new owners.

If they wanted, Jegyeong and Cheongo could pick and eat the Lotus at once.

Yet both hesitated.

‘If we want to be safe, we should pick and eat it now.’

Just as they had arrived today, another creature could invade tomorrow.

The frog had likely faced no small number of intruders before now.

‘Can we protect it until the flower fully blooms?’

The frog must have been confident that it could.

It had actually protected the Lotus well until today, so its confidence had not been groundless.

Still, it had ultimately failed and even lost its life.

As Jegyeong continued to deliberate, he felt that the thick fog around them had become a little thinner.

‘Right. This fog was the frog's ability too. Now that it is dead, the fog will soon disappear.’

That meant protecting the Lotus would become even harder.

Jegyeong guessed the frog had filled the area with fog not only to detect intruders, but also to limit its enemies' vision.

Especially birds flying overhead.

‘The Lotus stands out too much. Even if they spot it from far away, they will be drawn to it.’

Like the frog, Jegyeong had little he could do against enemies that flew through the sky.

Birds that could watch for an opening without being attacked themselves were the worst possible threat to the Lotus.

‘Neither Cheongo nor I would be much help.’

If the Lotus had bloomed on open ground, he could at least have tried covering it with wood or stones. Yet it was growing alone in the middle of the pond, leaving him with no way to conceal it.

‘Ugh.’

What should they do? Watch it for now?

But what if the Demon Birds they had seen before arrived? Then they would not be able to protect either the Lotus or their lives.

‘It cannot be helped.’

His worries ran deep, but his decision came quickly.

Jegyeong raised his body, heavy from eating the frog.

Feeling Cheongo's gaze following him, he spoke.

“Let us eat it now. If we drag this out and Demon Beasts attack, we will not get anything.”

“Mm...”

Cheongo opened and closed their beak a few times, then drooped.

Cheongo was not foolish, so they understood there was no other choice.

“Then...”

Jegyeong went to the center of the pond and carefully took the whole Lotus in his jaws.

He wanted to swallow it whole, but he remembered his promise to Cheongo and restrained himself.

He did not know how useful a few flower petals might be, while Cheongo was a partner who could fly through the sky and serve as his eyes.

Which one mattered more was obvious.

A short while later, Jegyeong came out of the water and divided the Lotus as promised.

He gave Cheongo several petals that had not even fully opened, then held the rest in his mouth.

Gulp.

Without hesitation, Jegyeong swallowed the Lotus in his mouth.

The flower was tiny compared to the vast space within his jaws. The moment it fell into his stomach, an indescribable coolness spread through his entire body.

Then, the next moment, a sudden wave of drowsiness washed over him.

Before he even had time to feel that something was wrong, Jegyeong fell asleep.

Yet his eyes remained open, and his body did not fall to the ground.

He could still see and move, but he could not think.

How much time had passed?

Light returned to Jegyeong's blank eyes.

‘What was that?’

Something had changed.

What he saw was different, and what he sensed was different.

The maddening part was that he knew things had changed, but he did not know exactly how.

Still, something had undeniably changed. The world had changed.

‘No. Was it me, not the world?’

His mind was clearer than it had ever been.

His thoughts were precise, and his emotions were steady and vivid.

As for the strength in his body... he was not sure. He had already felt full of strength before.

“Cheong...”

Jegyeong started to call Cheongo, then closed his mouth.

A small bird had landed nearby and was staring blankly into the air as though hypnotized.

Cheongo was probably undergoing the same change he had just experienced.

‘I feel better than ever, though.’

Rather than interrupt Cheongo, Jegyeong decided to slowly examine and savor the change within himself.

He rested his body and coiled up, then looked at the sky with his eyes half-closed.

It was clearly the same sky he had seen countless times before, yet it looked entirely different now.

Especially the countless celestial bodies hanging across it.

‘Huh?’

Jegyeong's half-lidded eyes flew open.

One of those countless celestial bodies.

It was not particularly large or bright, but it suddenly began growing without restraint until it became a colossal eye.

The eye stared directly at Jegyeong, and he did not dare turn away from its gaze.

That giant eye forcibly pulled his attention toward it.

The pull resembled that of the Lotus he had swallowed, but its intensity was beyond comparison.

Before that violent attraction, Jegyeong could not even summon the will to resist.

That mysterious gaze utterly overwhelmed him.

- This is an invitation to you, kin.

At that moment, a powerful will descending from the sky conveyed its meaning.

- We bear you no malice. This may even be an opportunity for you, but everything depends on your choice.

The will was calm. It was a mechanical notification.

- We will not force you. If you refuse, there will be no further invitation.

The will sounded one last time.

- Will you accept this invitation?

Because the will did not oppress him, Jegyeong could think even as he trembled in confusion.

‘An invitation? Kin?’

The words were full of things he did not understand, but one thing was clear.

There was certainly no malice.

The powerful will only conveyed meaning, yet the pressure it gave off was unlike anything Jegyeong had ever felt. Not once.

His parent? The two humans who had harmed them? The Demon Birds?

None of them could compare.

That was how overwhelming this pressure was.

If such a powerful being had wanted to harm him, there would have been no need to go through all this trouble.

‘Kin. It said kin?’

What kind of kin?

This invitation could not have come from a snake den, so only one possibility came to mind.

The moment he considered it, Jegyeong's heart pounded fiercely.

‘I accept.’

The instant he made that decision in his heart, before he could even open his mouth to speak.

- Welcome, kin.

A separate world filled with countless gleaming lights unfolded before him.

Footnotes:

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