Konjiki no Moji Tsukai - Chapter 63: Venom Mountain

Finally! I'm Free! I've finished my assignments!
I'm so happy, that I translated ahead of time and am releasing this now! (Please don't kill me for posting ahead)

Alright. Me and my freedom aside, I've decided to change my format a little bit.
I've replaced quote marks "" with 「」to denote talking. As the author uses this format, I thought I should follow suit. I'll also be using some stylized brackets as the author uses them.

In addition, I'll be following NetBlazer's format for the words/characters. This is how it will look:
「English Word 」| 『Japanese Character』

One more thing. Before people start complaining about discrepancies, we have yet to decide on the Old-Fart's Name. NetBlazer uses Silvan, however, our reference list had Shyuba, so...yeah.

Source: http://ncode.syosetu.com/n7031bs/63/

Edit 1 (30/3/2015): Fixed Errors, changed 'old-fart' to 'Jii-san' and added corresponding note.
Edit 2 (31/3/2015): Converted to US spelling/grammar. Preemptively changed 'Shyuba' to 'Silva'
Edit 3 (31/3/2015): Fixed Error (Credit to Commentor: Henrique Castilho)

Chapter 63: Venom Mountain

【Venom Mountain】 was spread with carpet of lush and dense grass. One was able to discover a Evila road that was unlike any of the Gabranth paths.The trees held thickly grown black leaves. There were even uniquely large mushrooms that made their habitat here.

Hiiro: (That’s obviously a poison mushroom.)

While thinking thus, Hiiro proceeded to walk down the grass road while being extremely wary of his surroundings. In front of him was Silva who was leading the way.

Silva: 「Please take care, Hiiro-sama⁽¹⁾. The monsters that inhabit this area are well-versed in mimicry. It is not uncommon for those to be killed by poison fangs before one notices.」

Hiiro: 「You seem to know a lot, huh?」

Silva: 「This is because I am a Butler.」

As he contemplated upon the reason for this, Hiiro thought that Silva might have performed a preliminary investigation before coming here. He was completely different from Hiiro who improvised his actions. Hiiro thought that it became necessary for him to emulate a little bit of Silva’s manner of operation.

Silva: 「Please stop here!」

As Silva’s feet abruptly stopped, Mikazuki followed suit.

Hiiro: 「What is it?」

Silva: 「It is those branches.」

In the direction that Silva had pointed his finger were, indeed, thick branches that grew from a large tree. However, all that Hiiro felt when he looked at it was that those were just branches.

Silva: 「Over there are monsters that are mimicking branches. I presume that they are the monsters referred to as Lugoon.⁽²⁾」

The knowledge of such a monster did not appear in Hiiro’s memory. It was probably a monster specific to the 【Evila】 Continent.

Silva: 「Please observe.」

As he said thus, Silva began to retrieve something from his pouch. What had sparkled with a *kira~n*⁽³⁾ was clearly a knife used for eating.Throwing the knife with a *shuba*⁽⁴⁾, he pierced the branch that he had pointed at with his finger earlier.

「Gugya-!⁽⁵⁾」

At that location, a fat, cobra-like monster appeared, squirming around painfully with a *kunekune*⁽⁶⁾ due to the knife protruding out of its body. It tried to move, however, as the knife had fastened its body to the branch it was mimicking, it could not escape from that spot.

Soon after, it expelled green blood as its movements stopped, as if forfeiting.

Hiiro: 「You’re pretty knowledgeable, huh.」

Silva: 「That is because I am a Butler.」

Hiiro: 「......whatever.」

Hiiro convinced himself that this was due to Silva's eyes having good vision.

Hiiro: 「By the way, is this annoying weed-zone gonna keep going?」

As the area around one’s feet cannot be determined well, it would be a pain if they were attacked from below.

Silva: 「No, we will soon be approaching an open location. Unlike this area that is lush with long weeds and bushes, this location seems to be a grassland. Should one advance further, they would be met with a zone of granite. Proceeding past this stony area will bring you to the exit of the mountain.」

Hiiro: 「I see. In that case, we should probably aim for that open area or something first, huh?」

Silva: 「Indeed. What I am searching for appears to be in that location.」

It seemed that Silva had been ordered by his master to search for a certain something. As Hiiro had no interest, he didn't ask any further. After walking for a while, Silva once again abruptly paused.

Hiiro: 「Another monster?」

Silva: 「......I must apologize.」

As Silva's eyes were staring straight ahead, he gave his apology.

Hiiro: 「What’s up?」

Silva: 「It appears that we have been completely surrounded.」

Hiiro: 「What was that?」

Saying this, Hiiro instantly grew increasingly vigilant. Standing on Mikazuki’s back, Hiiro attentively surveyed his surroundings. However, no matter where Hiiro looked, all he could see around him were weeds. Following this, a leaves began to flutter through the air. Hiiro thought that this was caused by the wind.

However, the leaves headed straight for Hiiro.

Silva: 「Please evade Hiiro-sama!」

Hiiro: 「Eh?」

In the instant that Hiiro expressed his confusion, Silva threw the knife towards Hiiro’s location. Of course, what Silva was aiming for was not Hiiro, but the leaves. The knife penetrated the leaves before piercing itself into a tree trunk with a *ton*⁽⁷⁾.

Six legs began to grow from the leaves. Similar to the previous Lugoon, it struggled to escape from the knife, yet it drew its last breath as its existence faded.

Silva: 「That was a Venom Insect⁽⁸⁾ that disguises itself as tree leaves! It may look small, however, they contain an extremely deadly poison!」

Hiiro: 「Ku-!⁽⁹⁾」

As he was surrounded by dancing leaves, Hiiro assumed that all of them were those insects as his thoughts raced. As he looked around restlessly, Hiiro began to ponder about how to deal with this situation when-

Silva: 「There is a certain point that you can use to distinguish them! In the center of the leaf, if there is a red dot then they are Venom Insect!」

While splendidly avoiding the leaves, Silva accurately pierced the insects. With that said, in this blizzard of leaves, identifying only the Venom Insects was a daunting task.

Hiiro: (I guess I've got no choice. If I use this, then the Jii-san⁽¹⁰⁾ will probably disregard it as just normal magic.)

As he determined thus, Hiiro cast the word 「Fire」|『火』to wrap flames around themselves. Of course, he made sure to avoid targeting Mikazuki. The flames spread as if they were a barrier of fire, mercilessly consuming any of the leaves that touched them.

Silva: 「Oo!⁽¹¹⁾ So Hiiro-sama was a spell-caster of Fire!」

Receiving the reaction that he had expected, Hiiro felt relieved. After one minute passed, the flames naturally extinguished. At the same time, it seemed that the leaves that were dancing around earlier were now neatly and refreshingly burned.

Silva: 「Nofofofofo!⁽¹²⁾ In any case, that was quite impressive. Normally, using fire in such a place would result in the flames spreading out of control. I did not believe that you were such a spell-caster capable of controlling the flames so that they would burn only the surrounding area. A thousand pardons.」

As the surroundings were full of weeds and trees, it would not be strange for such a flame to turn into a forest fire. However, as Hiiro’s magic caused the flames to be erased after a minute has passed, he wasn't concerned. On top of this, as Hiiro had made created the fire precisely according to his image, Silva mistook Hiiro as a flame spell-caster that could completely control his magic, an extraordinary mage.

Hiiro: (It looks like it went well, huh.)

Silva: 「With this much magic, even among those of the 『Imp Race』, you must be an extremely talented person, am I correct.」

Hiiro somewhat happily began to speak.

Hiiro: 「Aa⁽¹³⁾, in regards to fire magic, I've never lost once.」

Although this wasn't a complete lie, as he didn't want to reveal his <<Word Magic>>, he had no choice but to phrase his answer as such.

Silva: 「Nofofofofo! Indeed, indeed. It appears that one such as myself might not have been necessary!」

Hiiro: 「More importantly, let’s keep moving. It looks like the grassland is up ahead.」

As the three of them continued walking, they advanced through and exited the weed-zone.

Author’s Note: It looks like the Butler’s pretty skilled.⁽¹⁴⁾

Notes:

(Disclaimer: I am describing the terms used above as best as I can describe them. You’re probably better off checking with Google. With that said, please don’t quote me as I am not a professional.)

1. ^ -sama: A suffix used to show respect to the one addressed. Very formal and used to address someone of higher position (eg. A maid addressing her Master).
2. ^ TL Note: Lugoon = ルグーン. For those that have better translations, feel free to suggest. Although, I doubt that this will be used again so...
3. ^ *kira~n*: Japanese onomatopoeia meaning *shine*.
4. ^ *shuba*: Japanese onomatopoeia meaning *woosh* (I think). Just think of the sound that occurs when someone makes a rapid, sudden movement. The sudden movement causes friction with the wind (or fans it), making the sound.
5. ^ Gugya: Sound of agony/pain/torment/death cry/etc.
6. ^ *kunekune*: Japanese onomatopoeia meaning *wriggle*.
7. ^ *ton*: Japanese onomatopoeia meaning *thump*. Think of something striking wood.
8. ^ TL Note: Venom Insect = ヴェノム虫 with the 虫 character read as ちゅう. Again, better translations are welcome.
9. ^ Ku: An expression similar to a grunt of frustration.
10. ^ Jii-san: An incredibly informal way of addressing an elderly male. Think friendly 'old-man' or rude 'old-fart'. This can be thought to be a variant of Ossan.
11. ^ Oo: Not 2 ‘o’ but an elongated O. Expresses surprise/amazement.
12. ^ Nofofofofo: Silva's laugh. Get used to it. He does it a lot...
13. ^ Aa: An expression of affirmation. Usually used by, but not exclusive to, masculine, dominant people. Kind of like ‘Uh-huh’ or ‘Yeah’.
14. ^ TL Note: The author uses the phrase なかなか| nakanaka. This usually denotes to the subject being ‘pretty good’. As this made no sense when translated literally, I took some liberties in the translation.