WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The S-Classes That I Raised ◈
Chapter 102: Ancient Dragonkin (1)
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“Go, curse! I’ll give you a top-of-the-line custom prosthetic arm and eye patch as a set, all prettied up with a ribbon!”
Riette shouted excitedly. Please don’t. I had an ominous feeling I might end up mortgaging the rest of my life if things went wrong. Noah was even fidgeting like someone watching their mother cow get sold at market. He looked ready to cry.
“It’s been a while since I gambled. I’m nervous.”
Seong Hyeonje said it with a face that did not contain even an ant’s eyelash of tension. If he actually looked nervous, I might have felt sorry for him. Seriously, no one cared for the health of my conscience as well as this man did.
“You’re someone who’ll get everything you want no matter how this turns out, yet you’re laying it on thick.”
“You’ll wrap it for me, won’t you?”
“I’ll even give you a receipt.”
Of course, the best outcome for everyone would be lifting the curse without incident. Even if something went wrong, though, we still had the elixir and the system creators to turn to. Whether either would work on the aftereffects of an L-Class curse was another question.
After swallowing a sigh, I held out my hand.
“Give me the contract. I’ll tear it up.”
Seong Hyeonje pulled the contract from his inventory. Unreadable letters were carved into a thin black slab the size of A4 paper. It was neither paper nor parchment. As he held it out, he looked at me with an interested gaze, as if daring me to try tearing it.
Seriously.
As expected, no matter how much strength I put into my grip, the thin slab did not budge. I took out a knife and tried stabbing it, but it did not even leave a scratch. Was its durability L-Class because it was an L-Class contract?
“...Let’s break it by violating the contract. I don’t know exactly how far Curse Resistance extends, so bend over a little. Or sit somewhere.”
There was no choice but to cling to him like I did when using Poison Resistance. It was fortunate the contract involved an eye and an arm. If it had included his legs too, this would have looked ridiculous.
Seong Hyeonje sat down on a pile of building rubble. He was about to violate a contract that had wagered parts of his own body, yet his expression remained calm. Was he really not worried at all?
‘If Seong Hyeonje is all right, I can undo Yoohyun’s contract too.’
They were probably contracts made by the same person under similar conditions.
“You’re thinking about your younger brother again.”
“...What?”
Seong Hyeonje tilted his head and looked up at me.
“If I’m all right, you’ll hurry over to undo Han Yoohyun’s contract too.”
“Don’t read other people’s thoughts as you please.”
“It’s all over your face. What can I do?”
What was with my face? I reached out and set my hand on Seong Hyeonje’s right shoulder. Under the excuse that I had to make contact, I felt a slight urge to grab the back of his head and rip out his hair while pretending it was an accident. Were S-Class Hunters’ hair roots strong too?
“I’m not particularly eager to be an experimental subject for someone else.”
“Yoohyun barely knows anything anyway. It looked like he got out early on.”
“That is true. The young master cut ties quickly. He did not ignore them outright like Riette did, and I had wondered about his halfhearted attitude. Thinking about it now, it was because of you, Han Yujin.”
Was it my fault again? Right. It was always my fault.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“No, so please continue.”
Seong Hyeonje briefly studied my expression before speaking again.
“Their approach is simple. They first offer information about items or skills. They tell you what you can obtain by clearing a particular dungeon in a particular way.”
It was similar to what I had heard from Riette. Did they know a lot about the system, like the system creators did? Yet they did not seem to know about me, so their information network appeared inferior.
Unlike the system creators, who could only send irregular messages outside dungeons, these people seemed capable of directly interfering with our world.
“After giving you something as bait once, they present a contract. The terms are simple. Keep silent about their identities and any information you learn. Naturally, I adjusted the conditions in greater detail. Enough that I could tell you this much.”
“You can keep receiving advantageous information as long as you keep your mouth shut? Those terms are awfully generous.”
“There is a reason their conditions can be so light. That is because those self-proclaimed filial-piety addicts...”
The moment his low, amused voice spoke those words, I felt something like a powerful recoil, and a message window appeared.
[When facing the Master of the Cursed Poison Dragon King □□□□□, all skill effects increase twofold!]
The Master of the Cursed Poison Dragon King.
A laugh slipped out before I could stop it. So it was you.
I had not known the dragon had a master. I had thought I was simply unlucky. Your mangy little lizard bit my younger brother, so I ought to meet you face-to-face and collect compensation. Right?
“So how can I meet that bastard?”
“There was certainly no criminal record. He has clearly lived an ordinary life without getting his hands dirty, yet sometimes he looks as though he has killed far more than one or two people.”
“...What nonsense are you talking about?”
“I mean I like you.”
Seong Hyeonje abruptly rose to his feet. Caught off guard, I staggered, but a large hand caught me. His intact right hand. His eye was intact too. Since the doubled skill effect had appeared, that was only natural.
“The reason they set such light conditions is simple. Without their help, you cannot escape this world.”
As he helped me stand straight, he continued.
“This world, which will disappear before long. In short, if you do not want to die, obediently do as you are told. It is dull and uninteresting.”
“What does that mean?”
Riette, who was still sitting atop a pile of stones at a distance, cut in.
“Earth is going to end? When? If I’d known, I would’ve lived even more wildly.”
It seemed to me that she had already lived plenty wildly.
“If you help those filial-piety addicts, they’ll let you escape?”
“That is about right. Ordinary people cannot do it, though. I heard you need to have at least S-Class stats, and be among the upper ranks at that, to withstand the shock of leaving the world. The young master likely heard that and withdrew. It must have seemed impossible for his precious older brother to awaken with S-Class stats. Unlike your skill, Han Yujin, they cannot know for certain, but people with mid to high stat grades tend to stand out to some degree even before awakening. Like how famous athletes are all at least mid-grade.”
I had been ordinary, and my result had been an ordinary F-Class. That brat Yoohyun, seriously...
“The thing they ask you to help with is destroying this place?”
“It is already heading toward ruin without anyone needing to touch it. More dungeons will appear, monsters will grow stronger, and once this world can no longer endure, that will be the end.”
“Then what exactly is that strangely named group trying to do? Surely they are not a rescue team for people who qualify.”
If they really were something like a rescue team, should I somehow persuade Yoohyun to join hands with them again?
“Letting it perish according to the natural order. Their goal could be said to be removing certain elements that might interfere with that. As for why they want that, well, I did not hear that far. Since they are filial-piety addicts, perhaps their parents want the world to end.”
That made me curious about their parents’ faces.
In any case, it seemed true that the system creators wanted our world to remain intact. To keep the world from ending, we had to keep clearing dungeons before they burst, and that meant we needed many strong Hunters.
That was likely why they had told me to gather S-Class Hunters.
“Do the certain elements that could interfere mean exceptionally strong Hunters?”
“Probably. Even the people they approached were not ordinary S-Class Hunters. If they succeed in bringing someone in, they gain a tool to remove an obstacle and eliminate one such element at the same time. Killing two birds with one stone. That is why they worked so hard to recruit people.”
“What if someone they raised by feeding them information betrayed them, like you did?”
“I heard that simply making a contract with them means you cannot become one of those certain elements.”
That made me remember Yoohyun being attacked in the snowy dungeon. If you got involved with the filial-piety addicts, the system creators rejected you. That was probably why. Could it be that, without the system creators’ help, you could not become one of those certain elements?
In any case, Yoohyun had already made a contract, so he should not have been one of those elements anymore.
Then why had those bastards tried to kill Yoohyun?
“The way to contact them is...”
Thud.
Seong Hyeonje’s hand shoved against my chest. As I was sent flying backward and tumbled away, I heard the ground scrape harshly beside my ear.
My mind was in chaos, but I reflexively used my teacher skill. First on Noah, the safest target. Then I saw what had happened.
A large wound had appeared on Seong Hyeonje’s chest, far away from me now. The sight of him soaked in his own blood felt unfamiliar.
And before I could properly register that someone had taken the place where Seong Hyeonje had been standing in front of me.
Crunch!
“Yujin!”
Burning pain raced through my entire body. My vision went dark for an instant. Rather than an attack, someone’s hand had grabbed my leg.
That hand’s claw had pierced straight through it.
I swallowed my scream and hurriedly shouted.
“Don’t come, Noah!”
If even Seong Hyeonje had failed to properly avoid the attack, Noah naturally stood no chance against this opponent. I immediately used my teacher skill on Seong Hyeonje and Riette as well. Soon, I felt Seong Hyeonje’s Combat Foresight skill.
“...What is that?”
Riette, now sharing Seong Hyeonje’s skill, murmured in alarm. She was not confused by the skill. She was shocked by the dragonkin holding me, a monster with no openings easy to find.
While all three of them were unable to move easily, the dragonkin lifted the hand holding me.
“...Ngh.”
The pierced wound pulled taut, and a groan escaped through my clenched teeth. Wait, Noah. Endure it.
I somehow supported my trembling upper body with my arms and turned to look at the dragonkin. Horns, a tail, scales covering its entire body. It looked like a human and dragon had been mixed together in roughly equal measure, though it had no wings.
I used Sprout on it.
[Grade 2 Ancient Dragonkin of Poison and Curses, Vicus
Current Stat Grade: SS
Potential Stat Grade Upon Awakening: S
Optimized Initial Skills
Dragon’s Scales (SS) acquired
Melted City (SS) acquired
Full Dragon Transformation (SS) acquisition failed
Shadow Sorcery (S) acquired
Battle Frenzy (S) acquired]
...Those stats and skills, yet it was only Grade 2. Impressive. It was unexpected that its potential stat grade upon awakening was S.
I reached out and grasped Shalos’s Bead hanging from my necklace. Using it now would not heal my wound anyway. Should I save it? Even combined with Noah’s, we only had thirty minutes.
‘If it meant to kill me, it would have done so already.’
Seong Hyeonje had clearly said that side, the filial-piety addicts, wanted to capture me. Riette had called it a kidnapping too. More than that, if they could send something like this, why had they not sent it from the beginning? Had they acted recklessly because they learned Seong Hyeonje’s contract had been broken and were in a hurry?
Then the dragonkin opened its mouth.
“□□□□□□□□□□.”
...Did it speak? I could not understand it, but the translation item did not work either.
Seong Hyeonje and Riette, who had healed their wounds, were slowly approaching. Noah was not rashly stepping in and was instead using support skills on the two of them. But we were still at a disadvantage. Combat Foresight was telling me there was no answer here. It was not as if we stood absolutely no chance, but even if the two of them coordinated their attacks skillfully, the damage would probably be around seventy to thirty.
We would be the seventy.
In the air tense with strain, the dragonkin bared its teeth in a smile. It was confident. Poisonous energy began to ripple around it.
‘This won’t work.’
A message from Raucitas’s skill had appeared earlier, and according to the status window’s description, this thing was a cursed poison dragon species too.
One affected by the doubled skill effect.
‘...The teacher skill.’
If I could receive the dragonkin’s senses one-sidedly in addition to Combat Foresight, our side would definitely gain an advantage. Noah and Riette had not resisted the teacher skill even a little. That dragonkin would resist, but with the effect doubled, perhaps I could endure it somehow.
It was not as though there was another option.
As soon as I reached that conclusion, I used the teacher skill on the dragonkin. While sending its senses one-sidedly to the three of them, I activated Shalos’s Bead. I felt a headache, but perhaps because it did not understand the skill well, its resistance was weaker than expected.
The moment Seong Hyeonje and Riette received the dragonkin’s senses, their cautious stance changed completely.
Rattle!
Electrified chains burrowed around the dragonkin’s feet. Riette’s blade knocked aside its attempt to block the chains.
Crackle!
The current, narrowed to a localized point to further raise its power, paralyzed the dragonkin, if only briefly.
Clang!
Riette cut off the claw piercing my leg. Before the pain from the shock could reach my brain, Seong Hyeonje, who had moved in as though everything had been planned, snatched me up and retreated. Riette barely stopped the dragonkin as it tried to pursue us.
“Are you all right?”
“...I’m alive, more or less.”
First, I stopped using Shalos’s Bead. A slight crack had appeared in the bead after its light faded, but it was mostly fine. To use the time accurately, I took out a new bead and put it around my neck before looking down at my leg.
The severed claw remained embedded in it. Blood kept pouring from around the tip of the metallic gray claw.
...I needed to treat it to stop the bleeding. Remove the foreign object first, then use a potion...
Damn it. That stupid lizard-man was spraying poison everywhere, so I could not even turn off Poison Resistance.
Cursing internally, I spoke to Seong Hyeonje.
“If I lose consciousness, wake me immediately, no matter what you have to do.”
If the skill shut off, Riette could be in danger. Even now, she was barely holding on with Noah’s healing skill. Without the teacher skill, she would lose.
“The young master will go mad when he finds out.”
“Let’s keep it a secret for both our sakes.”
Seong Hyeonje adjusted his hold on me. Then, with a chilling sound, he pulled the claw embedded in my leg free.
I think I screamed. Still, I did not lose consciousness. The skill remained active. A sugary taste lingered in my mouth.
During the brief moment my vision swam, potion soaked my leg and the wound closed.
Damn lizard bastard. If it wanted to capture me, it could have done it gently. My stats are F-Class, damn it. I could die from excessive bleeding. Why did that bastard’s master send such a stupid lizard? Was its master’s brain at lizard level too?
“Two ten-minute damage-negation beads, and I used one briefly, so let’s call it seventeen minutes. If we get one more from Noah, that makes twenty-seven. That’s plenty, right? Or you can use one yourself and beat that thing up for ten minutes while ignoring its attacks.”
It was a good method. As I spoke through gritted teeth, Seong Hyeonje stared at me.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I think I’m falling for you.”
“You said you already had.”
“I can fall for you again.”
“You’re having the time of your life, aren’t you? Your eye and arm are still fine. Shouldn’t that count as paying the price already?”
“I am saddened that you value me so lowly.”
“Enough. Let’s catch and kill that bastard first.”
I would take down and beat the hell out of your second pet lizard too. So show your face at least once, you bastard of a master.
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