Please support the translation by reading the translation and commenting on otakutl official site.
Thank you.
Everyone from Otaku Translation
the audiobook of this novel can be listened
Chapter 1: I Am a Honey Badger
A broad head, big face, small eyes, flat snout, and black, sharp claws sticking out of its paws. It had a white buzz-cut stripe, and the straight bangs on its forehead looked as cocky as could be.
For Wang Ping, a seasoned veteran who’d spent years combating poachers in wildlife reserves worldwide, he recognized it at first glance—this was a honey badger, commonly known as "Buzz-Cut Bro."
Dubbed "the world’s most fearless animal," the honey badger is notorious for attacking any creature bold enough to provoke it. Provocations include, but aren’t limited to, entering its territory, looking at it, or even cursing. While Wang Ping was an old hand who had seen a lot and didn’t fear it, he knew better than to mess with this little brute if he could help it—a rule even the lions on the African savanna understood.
But, what was unusual was the size of this particular honey badger. It seemed abnormally large.
From his knowledge of honey badgers, Wang Ping also knew they had one particularly detested skill among male adversaries. The honey badger is the only animal officially recorded to deliberately target a male’s “family jewels.” So sometimes, even for the sake of dignity, one just had to swallow their pride and back down.
But wait…why was he encountering a honey badger? Where were his teammates?
With his mind still foggy, Wang Ping hadn’t yet noticed how out of place everything around him was.
Before this, Wang Ping had been a member of the World Animal Protection(WAP) and had volunteered to join a special security team tasked with anti-poaching efforts.
Though called a "security team," in reality, the equipment and weaponry they used were on par with those of mercenaries. Everything has two sides. Often, Wang Ping’s team faced life-or-death encounters with poachers. But as WAP is a non-armed organization, these incidents never made it to official records. Instead, in WAP’s records, Wang Ping and his teammates were simply listed as security guards for a medical team.
Wang Ping’s background was impressive. He was a top student at Yanshan University, where he also had military experience. After graduating, he used his parents’ savings to start an outdoor adventure club in Shanghai.
Under normal circumstances, his life trajectory should never have crossed paths with his current situation.
However, at age 23, Wang Ping’s parents, who worked at China’s Institute of Wildlife Research, were in a tragic plane crash. They left behind a few medals, certificates, and a younger sister just starting college.
Devastated by the loss, Wang Ping handed over the club to his sister and left for Europe alone to join the French Foreign Legion. There, he met his mentor, a burly Dutchman named Jacob.
Upon retiring from the Foreign Legion, Wang Ping joined WAP’s security team under Jacob’s guidance.
Wang Ping remembered clearly that he and his teammates had come to East Africa with a mission. Jacob had received information that a notorious mercenary squad had taken on a contract to poach elephants on the East African plains.
Given Africa’s complex political environment, capturing poachers and bringing them to justice would be the best way to protect the elephants. So Wang Ping and his team lay in wait, hidden in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in the northwest of the Tanzania region.
Recently, the two teams had encountered each other in the wild and clashed immediately. Both sides were skilled and determined, refusing to back down, leading to a bloody outcome for everyone involved.
Wang Ping’s last memory was of getting shot. The enemy had hit him in the stomach, and after that, everything faded to black.
Instinctively, he reached down to feel his wound, and then he froze.
He looked down, stretching out his hand.
What appeared before him was a paw identical to that of the honey badger nearby.
Wang Ping moved his fingers, and the paw in front of him moved as well.
When a computer gets infected with a virus, weird error boxes often pop up randomly, accompanied by a buzzing error sound. Wang Ping felt as if his brain were infected by a virus, with a relentless buzzing against his nerves.
He raised his paw, lifted his foot, turned his head, and rolled over.
Wang Ping examined his current body as thoroughly as possible. Everything he saw confirmed two possibilities: either he was hallucinating, or the universe was playing a cosmic joke on him.
The honey badger across from him had no idea why its new buddy was acting so crazy. It ignored Wang Ping and focused on surveying its surroundings.
This was not the savanna, nor any place outdoors. They were inside a building. Had Wang Ping been calm, he’d have recognized it as the back area of a private zoo, specifically the section where small wild animals were kept.
But right now, Wang Ping wasn’t focused on that. Instead, he forced himself to fall asleep. Maybe, just maybe, if he woke up, he’d find that all this was a dream and his teammates would be there waiting for him.
—
Wang Ping was awoken by a banging sound. Opening his eyes, he saw a black man in a tan work uniform standing outside an iron gate. The man was tapping on the bars with an iron rod. When he saw that both honey badgers inside had turned to look at him, he raised his arm and threw in a snake over a meter long.
Wang Ping blankly watched the man’s movements, too dazed to respond. But the other honey badger screeched, pounced on the live snake, and bit into it.
Wang Ping didn’t recognize the type of snake, though he guessed it was some kind of viper. Although he wasn’t sure, he felt certain it was venomous.
Crunch…crunch…
The honey badger tore into the snake meat with loud chomping sounds.
“$#@%!” The man outside muttered, shrugged, and walked away.
Wang Ping couldn’t understand him, but from his time in Africa, he thought it sounded similar to the languages spoken in Kenya and Tanzania.
If that was true, it meant he hadn’t strayed far from the mission area.
But right now… Wang Ping glanced at his paws and sighed.
Crunch…crunch…
One honey badger gnawed on the snake, while the other sat there in a daze. Wang Ping didn’t know why he was staring blankly, but he’d much rather do that than eat raw snake meat.
Thud!
A dull thud echoed. The honey badger still gnawing on the viper suddenly collapsed onto the concrete floor.
Wang Ping noticed that the half-eaten snake was still clamped onto the honey badger, its head buried in the badger’s body, its remaining half twitching slightly.
Wang Ping, like a detached observer, stared blankly at his fallen “predecessor.”
—
Time ticked by. From the look of the sky, Wang Ping’s survival instincts told him that it had been two hours since the venom had taken effect on the honey badger. The half-eaten viper had stopped moving, clearly dead.
Gurgle…
Wang Ping raised an eyebrow—if he still had eyebrows, that is.
Whether human or animal, hunger gnawed with the same insistence. Wang Ping’s stomach was loudly signaling it needed food.
Wang Ping felt a twinge of helplessness. Was he now destined to be a caged, docile honey badger, living off scraps?
No! He had to find his teammates, even if it was just to catch a glimpse from afar, to confirm they were alive—or that he was still alive!
Wang Ping looked around his enclosure.
Apart from the iron gate, the rest of his surroundings were just cement walls with no roof. The walls were about 1.5 meters high, enough for an adult to see inside from the outside.
And that iron gate didn’t seem to be locked.
Narrowing his eyes, Wang Ping took a step towards the gate.
Hiss…
Wang Ping halted and glanced at the other honey badger.
First, one of its claws twitched, then its leg. Wang Ping watched in shock as his “predecessor,” who had been knocked out by venom two hours earlier, shook itself, rose to its feet, gave its head a shake, glanced at Wang Ping, and grabbed the half-eaten snake corpse still latched onto its body.
Crunch…crunch…
Wang Ping: (ʘ.ʘ)
Holy… this badger’s tough!
Please vote for this novel at
https://www.novelupdates.com
If you would like to support this translation, you may choose any one of the options below.
How to find a list of chapters
Please find the chapter label next to your favorite translator's name, and click the label.
No comments:
Post a Comment