Chapter 169: The Magical Beasts and the Worshippers of the Mountains and the Dragon – Part 1
A ladder woven from something vine-like came into view. As I climbed it, a huge cylindrical passage broke through upwards, revealing a space reminiscent of a tower made inside a mountain.
[Magical Realm: The Heavenly Experiment]
“Heavenly Realm, huh… That’s a complicated term.”
I momentarily pondered over the words that floated before my eyes.
The Heavenly Realm refers to a wondrous world inside a jar. It’s like phrases such as “otherworld” or “wonderland.”
So, when they mentioned the Heavenly Experiment, it means that the cave carved into this mountain is an experimental site of this wondrous world.
“This… This place is the Bronze tier, woof.”
One of the jackals whispered to me with a nervous sweat. I counted the floors leading up and frowned slightly.
“Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond… Looks like I need to climb five more tiers to reach the summit.”
“Woof!”
“So, I just keep going up this passage?”
“Yes, indeed. If you follow this spiral corridor, it’s a one-way trip. But the further you go up, you’ll run into some terrifying seniors…”
The jacks’ tails trembled like jelly. I loosened my body with a satisfying crack from my shoulders and front paws.
“Then I’ll take the lead, so just follow closely behind.”
As we ascended up the inclined spiral corridor, I began to sense some presence ahead.
“I really want to get out of this Bronze tier. This tier is full of idiots.”
“Agreed. It’s like a deep-sea level. Anyway, it’s not my fault.”
Unlike the jackals, who were mostly in the lower tiers, this tier was filled with beasts that had the faces of raptors, scorpions that walked on two legs, and snakes with legs.
Suddenly—
“Yikes, intruder!”
“What the heck are you doing here, cough!”
“Gack!”
Descendants of the mythical creatures I met in the Ancient Nest—Harpy Salome, the pig Pao-Hoo, and the snake witch Kaah—all seemed to have some annoying abilities or two.
If I were to rate them by hunters’ hunting tiers, they’d probably all be around Gold rank.
‘But why are these guys so weak?’
Seeing the worshippers’ heads crack open and bleed from a light tap with my paw made me tilt my head in confusion. Surely, I was stronger now that I had become an adult, but these creatures were surprisingly weak and soft.
‘Are they all descendants of mystical creatures? There’s quite a lot of them, isn’t there? Can there be this many…?’
It felt as though someone had mass-produced these half-human, half-beast types.
“Feel my potent poison!”
A half-human half-snake creature spat at me. I wiped the yellowish liquid off my face with my paw and flicked it away.
“Ugh, what a nasty spitter.”
“My acidic venom can dissolve stone! How’s that? Feeling numb?! With this invader repelled, I can finally level up to Silver, kyaaha!”
“Uh, no.”
I lifted my front paw high and smashed the snake’s head, making it roll its eyes back and collapse to the ground.
Bam!
I confirmed the k*ll by slamming its head one more time with my tail, only to hear a weak m*an from behind me.
Behind my shoulders, the young boy Isaac seemed to have turned pale as he looked at the beasts sprawled on the ground in terror.
This must have been a shocking sight for the innocent child.
“They were coming to k*ll me. They’ve got nothing to say after dying.”
Swish.
Isaac’s father, Abraham, knelt on the ground and placed his hand on the necks of the beasts. Soon, his shoulders shook with astonishment.
“Goodness, they all died in one blow. These awful worshippers go down easier than ants in the wild. This is incredible. Are all the beasts of the eastern magical realm this strong?”
“Compared to that, this place is a flower garden. Now, this Bronze tier seems to be mostly cleared out. Before heading up, let’s handle a bit of business. Dogs, drag all the bodies of those I defeated over here.”
I wasn’t particularly hungry, but it’s always good to stock up and gain some experience. So, I had the jackals gather all the half-human monsters I had taken down.
Squish. Crunch. Splat.
There were a total of fifteen half-human half-beasts in the Bronze tier.
I ate them all, but whether it was because I wasn’t hungry or they tasted awful, it was like chewing sand. I barely got any experience from more than just a few of them.
‘Deep-sea level, huh? Is it true these guys are really descendants of mythical beasts?’
Ptooey.
I spat out some bloody saliva onto the ground, making the jackals and Abraham, who had been watching this frenzy of eating, tremble with fear.
“W-Where on earth did all that go?”
“What gluttony… Truly, the beasts of the eastern magical realm…”
“I’m getting scared just watching you. I’m relieved that you’re on our side.”
“You really haven’t seen anything yet. As we go up, things are going to get much more challenging.”
*
Continuing our way through violence and feasting, we arrived in front of a ladder leading out of the Gold tier. Above awaited the high-ranking ascenders of Platinum and Diamond.
“Wow, this upper tier is the heavenly realm! I’ve never been to a place like this before.”
“The air is different. It feels sweet. Sniff, sniff. Is this the scent of the heavenly realm?”
“You bet! Following you, White One, has been a great choice! The fact that I, who was never even Bronze, made it this high is just overwhelming!”
The jackals barked excitedly every time they ascended to a higher floor.
Even Abraham, who had been intimidated by my violence, exclaimed, “I really think we might be able to drive out all the worshippers. Fighting dragons sounds like something we can manage now!”
However, unlike them who were caught up in positive thoughts and happy circuits, I was sinking into despair as we climbed higher.
‘There are just too many. Is it normal for there to be this many descendants of mystical creatures?’
Since I climbed the mountain, I had taken down over forty half-beasts. Adding the jackals into the mix, that number was around fifty or so.
“This is suspicious. Very suspicious. There can’t be this many low-grade magical beasts with weak powers. The numbers exceed my expectations. It’s almost like someone has mass-produced them without caring about quality.”
Azidahaka seemed to be feeling quite a lot about this situation as well.
“When you were stuck in the tower and the human prison, were these creatures rapidly multiplying?”
Shaking his head, Azidahaka replied, “Well, while that possibility isn’t entirely out of the question, beasts, including the mythical ones, tend to have lower breeding rates and desires.”
In this world, as a general rule, lifespan and breeding power are inversely proportional. Mythical creatures, living near immortality, have less drive to reproduce due to their nature.
It’s either because they’re so close to being immortal that they don’t feel the need to leave descendants or because they’ve reached a state of liberation from these desires, being called transcendental beings.
Whatever it may be, they certainly wouldn’t spread their offspring in such large quantities.
“It might be quicker just to ask directly. How convenient, there are some to ask right here.”
I turned my gaze back to the jackals barking behind me.
“Hey, you guys. Are you really descendants of mythical creatures?”
“W-What’s a mythical creature?”
“We’re not mythical creatures, we’re jackals.”
Ding!
I felt like I got hit in the head with their response. After a moment’s hesitation on how to explain it from scratch, I pointed at the Fire Dragon Azidahaka with my index finger.
“Like that, even though it’s a beast, it has a human appearance. Just like the Fire Dragon Azidahaka.”
“Fire Dragon…? Are you saying that woman is a Fire Dragon? You must be joking! Fire Dragons are legendary beings. Even we aren’t that stupid to fall for such a lie!”
“No, look at her tail and horns. She’s a Fire Dragon!”
“Common red-scaled lizard ascenders look like that too. Salmon Salamander. There’s one up in this upper tier as well.”
“A r-red-scaled lizard…?”
Azidahaka’s mouth twitched. Judging by these creatures’ words, it seemed the jackals thought Azidahaka was some kind of lizard.
I held my throbbing head with my paw and quickly organized my thoughts.
“Then how do you have human-like arms and legs? Were you born that way?”
“Well, that’s because we received the grace of Satan… No, it’s because of Satan’s blessing. Our brothers weren’t born with these inconvenient bodies. We originally used to run freely on four legs in the desert.”
“Satan’s blessing?”
My eyes widened.
“Explain what that means.”
“Well, one day we woke up as usual after sleeping and suddenly had these bodies without any warning or premonition. I opened my eyes and found I was in a human body.”
“One day you woke up and found yourself in a human body….”
A deja vu bubble started to rise in my mind. I too woke up one day and found myself in the body of a beast.
Could this mean they experienced the exact opposite?
“We had to survive in these inconvenient bodies. During that time, we learned about others who experienced similar things, and we realized they all gathered at this desolate rocky mountain. With no other choice, we also came here and joined the worshipers of Satan.”
“So, what exactly is this curse of Satan?”
“It’s said that our transformation into these bodies is due to the curse from the high-ranking ascenders who reside in the upper tier. They can turn beasts into inconvenient forms like ours with strange cursed orbs. They seem to call it the blessing of Satan, but this is undoubtedly a curse.”
“Strange cursed orbs, you say?”
Azidahaka, who had been listening quietly, reacted.
“To turn beasts into something like a mythical creature! Is it possibly the Fire Dragon’s orb? What is its size? And its color?”
“I’ve never seen it up close, but it was probably yellowish in color.”
“If it’s yellowish, it could potentially be amber. Perhaps what we’ve been searching for is right here!”
With a hopeful tone, Azidahaka exclaimed brightly.
A yellow cursed orb that can turn four-legged beasts into something similar to mythical creatures.
Azidahaka had mentioned that the Fire Dragon’s orb also held power to do just that.
Perhaps, just as Azidahaka said, the orb lost during her capture by humans has ended up in the hands of Satan’s worshipers.
Considering Azidahaka was captured by humans over a decade ago, and the worshipers of Satan appeared in this mountain around that time, there are many overlaps to this timeline.
“The high-ranking ascenders offered a chance to go to the ancient magical realm with beings like us who have transformed bodies. By gaining strength and accumulating evil deeds to become top-tier Diamond level or above, they promised an opportunity to go to the eastern magical realm to break this curse and gain even greater power. However, those who couldn’t adapt to this new body remained too weak to make it to the ranks and stayed stuck in the low tiers of the mountain. And then, we met you, White One.”
“Ah, I see. So that’s how it is. Randomly and forcibly transforming beasts to expand their power. Sounds like a true evil multilevel marketing scheme. Well, now I get a better idea of what the worshippers of this mountain are up to.”
It felt like a shady medical practice spreading a disease so they could attract customers only they could “cure.”
Listening to the one-eyed jackal’s explanation, I felt a refreshing sense of clarity quench my curiosity. The tangled thread of confusion in my mind suddenly unraveled.
“You’re good at talking. What’s your name?”
I raised the corners of my mouth while looking at the one-eyed jackal.
“We don’t yet have names we can be called by.”
“Fair enough. Let’s see, since you bark like that, how about we call you Barky… From now on, Barky, you’re in charge of your brothers. You’re now a named monster.”
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