A surprising fact.
Even beasts hold funerals.
Not all beasts mourn their dead together, but it’s behavior often seen in relatively intelligent animals that live in groups.
Elephants are a prime example, as are gorillas and others.
The same goes for monsters like wyverns.
When young offspring die, or when a great queen dies, wyverns gather to mourn together.
Of course, the scale varies greatly.
Having countless wyverns gather in one place to mourn the death of offspring.
In other words, it’s a very rare sight.
“Uuuuuu-!”
Their low crying voices resonate like a chorus.
You could call it a primitive form of funeral song.
It’s nearly impossible for non-monsters to witness such a scene.
Even for fairies who live with nature, or hunters who treat magic realms like home, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Heilit Langrey.
The human woman with a twisted affection for monsters felt a thrill.
Her whole body vibrated.
Literally, she shook from the ultra-low frequencies resonating from the wyverns.
The cries of the two queens in particular were overwhelming.
Those beautiful and dangerous, tremendously huge monsters shed tears.
And during that.
The fairy Iris broke the silence and spoke.
“That worked out well.”
Heilit whipped her head around at that dry, even parched response.
Unlike the moved Heilit, Iris showed no emotion.
“Now it’ll be easier to investigate the dungeon.”
“What did you say, you crazy?”
“?”
Witnessing such a majestic scene firsthand.
And all you can say is ‘Good that the wyverns cleared the tower ruins’?
A human could never do that. Ah right, she’s not human but fairy. Maybe that’s why.
The funeral wasn’t long.
The hundreds of wyverns who spent 7 days carrying broken rocks and digging earth.
After crying out for the dead offspring, they took flight one by one.
Even that was spectacular. Soon only two queens remained on the ground.
Then the offspring became visible.
If the wyverns hadn’t held a funeral while wailing, they might not have recognized it as a wyvern offspring.
It was an offspring’s corpse covered in something like hard crystal.
Whether struck by magic or dried up after death.
One queen had three offspring, apparently their siblings.
And the rogue Pandan who had been quietly standing behind.
Seeing that crystal-covered monster reminded him of something.
‘Could that be… Mr. Snake?’
It looked clearly different from that snake.
Though that snake’s scales shone like crystal, this one was covered in thick crystal layers giving a completely different impression.
There was no sign of life at all. It just lay face down motionless.
The semi-transparent crystal interior was grotesque with bright red blood and nasty things stuck inside.
‘Since he hid in a wyvern egg and got carried away…’
It was a thought Pandan could have only because he witnessed the process.
‘Poor Mr. Snake, don’t know what happened but ended up dead.’
He couldn’t judge that the snake inside was alive.
It was that lifeless, and the more you looked, the more grotesque its appearance.
Like unset bloody pudding inside crystal formations.
Pandan glanced to the side.
Should he tell them?
That this was probably not a wyvern offspring but the snake monster he met.
‘Why should I?’
But there was no reason to do so.
Pandan turned his head pretending not to know.
The normal Heilit might have noticed Pandan was hiding something.
But now she was distracted.
‘It looks just like a snake… is it a deformed type? A stuffed wyvern offspring covered in crystal… Might have been hit by a special petrification trap. No, that must be it.’
She who hunts monsters and makes her own clothes had a ‘collection obsession’.
Sometimes she gets uncontrollable urges.
Now was such a time. Seeing that grotesque crystal wyvern offspring made her heart race.
First time since then.
When she saw the huge Polaris Serpent, and its offspring, the small snake.
Heilit Langrey ended up asking the baby snake for its scales.
‘I want it.’
But how?
There are two powerful Wyvern Queens. Difficult opponents even for Heilit Langrey, the kingdom’s greatest hunter.
Moreover, the Black Wyvern Queen started flying off with the hardened offspring in her mouth.
The white three-headed wyvern followed.
‘There must be a way.’
But Langrey is a hunter who doesn’t know surrender.
She opened her mouth to declare.
“This seems to be it for us. Do what you need from here.”
The journey with Iris ends here too.
The fairy wasn’t surprised at the sudden farewell.
“Thank you.”
“Then goodbye.”
That’s when Pandan cut in flustered.
“Uh, then I…”
“Uh, do what you want?”
“…”
It was hard to tell if Pandan’s expression was happy or frustrated.
So the three scattered.
For their own purposes.
Of course, among them Pandan.
‘Sigh, guess I’ll just go home now.’
Decided to just return home.
==
‘But why don’t they know I’m alive?’
It’s natural for me to have such doubts.
To watch my own funeral while alive, what kind of omniscient… anyway not that either.
But Pelerian said something unexpected.
“Did I not tell you what you look like right now?”
‘…What do I look like?’
“Like tomato soup in a snake-shaped crystal bottle.”
‘?’
“Chunky, rotten tomato soup.”
A horrible state even hard to imagine. It’s a bit creepy.
No wonder my status window doesn’t show properly and I can roll my eyeballs over 360 degrees.
‘Good thing I put Isil and odds and ends in the ring.’
Otherwise I might have left them all behind.
Fortunately I had packed everything including Pelerian’s diary.
Wyvern Mom Celeta carried me in her mouth and left Delfram.
But she didn’t go very far.
With the original nest collapsed, she needed to make a new one.
The chosen new spot was right near Delfram.
Since it was avoided by wyverns due to the dungeon-guarding golem, there were no existing nests.
The golem had disappeared at some point.
As the leader made a new nest, other black wyverns gathered nearby.
Celeta made a large new nest atop the highest stone pillar.
It was wide enough to stay together until the wyvern triplets grew somewhat.
And I was in a corner of it.
Like a statue had been placed. Or perhaps a tombstone itself.
Thud.
‘Again!’
An eagle with its head torn off dropped in front of me.
The one who brought the eagle was none other than Pipi.
“Kuak!”
Already various mountain animals from frogs lay scattered in front of me.
Some even wiggled with worms due to rotting.
Good thing I can’t smell right now.
‘Pipi! I told you to stop bringing them!’
“Kugak!”
‘Aoh!’
It was like offerings for their dead older brother.
“Still, isn’t it nice they care?”
‘This one really seems to know I’m alive though.’
“Then maybe they’re giving you food.”
It was a mystery.
At least Wyvern Mom clearly thought I was dead.
Until yesterday, I confirmed she would hug her children and cry a bit before sleeping.
‘Feels like I’ll be able to use skills soon.’
It’s the third day staying at this nest as a crystal tombstone. Day 10 since evolution started.
Gauging the evolution process, could say a third has passed.
Pelerian says outwardly it looks like there are more chunks in the tomato soup.
‘Crown of Connection, what kind of skill is this?’
It was a skill gained while evolving into Little Prince Serpent.
The Crown series had three: ‘Domination’, ‘Steal’, and ‘Overcome’.
Now Crown of Connection was added, but I can’t test what effect it has since I still can’t use skills properly.
“Since it came from synchronizing with multiple wyverns, maybe it’s about leading monster armies?”
‘That overlaps a bit with Crown of Domination though.’
Probably not that.
Actually, I’m just waiting to escape from here.
If they discover I’m alive it would be rather bad.
I absolutely don’t want to be trapped in a wyvern nest forever.
‘I could escape using those kids right?’
Hoped to escape by using Crown of Domination to ride the triplets.
“Then train harder during this opportunity.”
So said Pelerian.
How to train while covered in crystal like this?
Surprisingly, it was possible.
“You won’t get another situation where you can train magic this quickly and efficiently.”
Especially for magic, with tremendous efficiency.
The secret was simple.
My magic power is only about 1/100th of normal now.
