Chapter 114 : Disqualification – 2
Chapter 114: Disqualification – 2
I asked in confusion.
“Poison gas? Earlier it was…….”
“Yeah, earlier it was liquid. If it can be liquid, why wouldn’t it be able to be gas?”
“…….”
“Some unknown gas was wrapping around that monster. The moment we get close, we’d die instantly.”
It was the moment my plan collapsed.
Armelia asked.
“Mason. What do we do? Should we retreat?”
“No. If we do that, the damage will only grow.”
“Then…….”
“Let’s change the plan.”
I looked at Berseum and continued.
“Brother. Can you use Kanesella magic?”
“Hm? Ah!”
“Yes. Let’s burn all of Helena’s hair with that magic. It’d be even better if her main body burns too.”
“That’s true. That monster was ignorant of magic. Which means she’d have no choice but to take it head-on.”
“That’s right. But if I recall, Kanesella took three days to activate…….”
At that, Berseum thumped his own chest.
“That was because I needed time to gather enough mana. But thanks to you, I already have plenty of mana.”
Infinite Power. It was truly a wonderful ability.
He finished preparing in an instant.
Before even two more footsteps echoed—
“Haat.”
Berseum usually used magic without any particular shout, but this time he let out a powerful cry.
The magic he used was Kanesella.
Once the main spell of a Sudden Quest—an overwhelming spell.
It felt like the extreme of destruction had been gathered and given form, and it finally activated completely.
-Kuuu-gwagwagwang!
Come to think of it, I had never actually seen Kanesella myself.
I had only imagined it from the notes written by the future version of me in the Diary Book.
“Gasp. This is insane.”
“W-what’s that cloud? It’s shaped like a mushroom.”
“I can feel the heat all the way here. Even though Mr. Berseum put up a defensive spell.”
“The ground is shaking like crazy too.”
Kanesella evaporated and burned everything in all directions.
The perennial snow on that towering mountain melted.
The mountain range was carved away, the terrain reshaped.
I unconsciously gulped and kept my eyes on the front.
‘Helena?’
And soon the answer revealed itself.
Berseum spoke with a trembling voice.
“Am I seeing a hallucination right now?”
Even in the middle of this miraculous destruction, Helena remained unharmed.
As before, the snakes of her hair had covered her body and protected her.
Of course, Kanesella burned and erased those snakes.
But Helena’s main body received not even a scratch.
She lightly shook her head.
Like someone cutting off hair she didn’t like, the dead snakes fell to the ground.
And in less than a second, new snakes emerged.
“Hm. So you were nearby.”
“…….”
“I still can’t see you. Not that it matters.”
Once again, the poisonous mist surrounding Helena thickened.
Berseum clenched his teeth and tried to use magic again.
I stopped him.
“Please stop, Brother.”
“But—”
“If you overuse your mana and fall asleep again, it’s over. Your invisibility magic will break.”
“Then what are we supposed to do……? If we leave that thing alone, the Deut Territory is done for. No—this isn’t even about that anymore. It’s the end of the world.”
Yes.
A being like that must not roam this world.
Perhaps this was why Magireta tried to warn me.
She probably had no complaints about dragging me to Hell.
What she truly hated was Helena destroying the world.
I didn’t know when Magireta would grow tired of playing games with the human race…… but until that day came, she didn’t want humans to go extinct.
‘Wait. Then couldn’t I ask for her cooperation?’
Ah—no.
The MVP was someone Magireta could not touch.
That was probably one of the Hidden Rules.
‘Hm? Hold on.’
Suddenly, my mind flashed.
At that moment, Sienne asked.
“Even I can tell. Helena’s way too close right now.”
“You’re right. Let’s fall back for now.”
Benjamin then argued.
“If we retreat here, the Deut Territory will be in danger. No—this entire world……”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“…….”
“Please trust me.”
The companions nodded as if they had agreed beforehand.
Seeing that, Karin spoke in disbelief.
“What is this? A cult leader?”
Once we retreated again to the Deut Territory, we soon sat around a table.
But rather than discussing anything, everyone simply stared at me.
In a situation like this, normal strategies didn’t apply.
After briefly gathering my thoughts, I said:
“Nuna.”
“…….”
“Magireta nuna.”
“She’s not coming out. Something must’ve upset her.”
“Nuna. Please come out. I’ll get rid of Helena.”
Then Magireta slowly appeared.
Her usual smile was gone from her lips.
“What is it, Mason.”
“You should call me little brother.”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes.”
“I understand why you’re upset. But at least until we kill Helena, please cheer up.”
Magireta’s lips twitched.
“You’re saying you’ll kill that thing?”
“Yes.”
“Impossible. You already confirmed your blood doesn’t work on her.”
“Actually, I’m not the one killing her. I plan to ask nuna to do it.”
She let out a dumbfounded laugh.
“I wondered what you’d say, and…….”
“…….”
“You really declared boldly that you’d borrow your nuna’s hand. Don’t act spoiled, little brother.”
She called me little brother again.
Had she softened a bit?
Maybe she felt somewhat pleased that I was entrusting something I couldn’t do to her.
“But let me tell you beforehand: I cannot lay a finger on that thing.”
“Of course. Because she’s the MVP.”
“MVP……. Hah. How did you find out about that.”
“That must be one of the Hidden Rules.”
-Magireta cannot restrict or interfere with any of the MVP’s actions, nor can she kill or injure the MVP.
Magireta nodded.
Even though the situation was urgent, a question suddenly came to my mind, and I voiced it.
“By the way, why did you make such a rule? No matter how I look at it, it only puts nuna at a disadvantage.”
“…….”
“Why did you even establish something like an MVP in the first place? Why did you create that concept at all?”
“……That’s not important.”
Not important?
I tilted my head.
But I soon realized there was a more urgent matter and shifted the topic.
“Anyway, fine. The Hidden Rule you mentioned applies only to the MVP, right?”
“Of course.”
“And Helena is the MVP.”
“Right. Why do you keep asking?”
“In that case, if Helena weren’t the MVP, nuna would be able to step in.”
The air suddenly turned cold.
Armelia asked carefully.
“Mason. Sorry for interrupting…… but Helena not being the MVP? What does that mean?”
“What standard is the MVP chosen by in the first place?”
“Well, the participant Magireta liked the most, I’d assume. Across a whole race.”
“Is it really such a subjective standard?”
Berseum’s eyebrow twitched.
“You mean it isn’t?”
“Yes. Probably not.”
“Hm. If it’s Magireta’s criteria, I’d imagine she’d pick the person who ‘gave her the most fun.’”
“It’s the timespan in which an entire race rises and falls. Do you think there’s only one or two participants who managed to entertain her during all those years? And could she really quantify each kind of amusement and compare them numerically?”
“…….”
“This is what I think.”
I looked at Magireta.
“The person who obtained the most first-place rewards. I’m not sure of the exact threshold, but someone who secured a certain ratio of the total number prepared.”
“…….”
“That person becomes the MVP. There’s no better evidence of a participant’s ability than that.”
“B-but first-place rewards can be stolen from each other. Then even someone who didn’t win the game could get them by stealing.”
At that moment, Magireta opened her mouth.
“It doesn’t matter. Only the number of times someone obtained a first-place reward for the first time through a quest is counted.”
We all fell silent.
I spoke quietly.
“That means…… my guess was correct.”
“Yes. And you checked that with your mysterious ability, little brother?”
“No. It was just intuition.”
I had searched “MVP” in the encyclopedia, but it didn’t list any conditions for becoming the MVP.
The Diary Book spoke.
[The current encyclopedia doesn’t have the power to contain all information on a subject. Why else would it be lv.1?]
That was true.
It seemed this too would be upgraded later like the shop.
As I thought that, Magireta’s voice came again.
“Yes. Well done, little brother.”
“…….”
“Since you’ve figured it out, I’ll tell you openly.”
-MVP is chosen from those who obtain at least 60 percent of all prepared first-place rewards.
Sixty percent.
Hard to say if that was a high threshold or a low one.
I asked:
“What if multiple participants exceed sixty percent? Several people in the same generation could theoretically win more than sixty percent.”
“In that case, I bring them to Hell and host something like an event match. Whoever wins there becomes the MVP.”
“So there’s always only one MVP per race.”
“Yes. But it has never gone to the event match. Normally, no matter how skilled a participant is, they stop at one or two first-place rewards.”
“…….”
“My game isn’t easy enough for one person to monopolize all first-place rewards. You’re just unusual, little brother.”
Well, naturally—there hadn’t been any participant with a transparent Diary Book following them around.
At any rate, I had learned one more thing.
“All generations must have the exact same number of quests, correct?”
“…….”
“If the number of quests differed by generation, then the required number of first-place rewards for MVP would differ too. Naturally, the number of quests must be standardized.”
Magireta shrugged, confirming it.
Edgar had said it earlier.
The list of first-place rewards and the content of quests changed every generation.
But he never said “the number of quests” changed.
Benjamin urgently asked Sienne:
“Miss Sienne, you also didn’t participate in the previous generation. Perhaps……”
“As I said, I was eliminated in the ninth quest. My lover survived until the end, but I don’t know which quest ‘the end’ was.”
She sounded regretful, but honestly, it didn’t matter to me.
Knowing which quest number ended the game wasn’t useful right now.
If I ever needed that information, I could look it up in the Diary Book.
Then Armelia spoke.
“Anyway, with that condition, the MVP of humanity’s era must be Edgar.”
“That’s right. Excluding this generation, he must’ve swept the first-place rewards across four generations. There’s no way he didn’t exceed sixty percent at least once.”
“If we gather more than sixty percent this generation, does that mean we’ll have to face Edgar in an event match or whatever?”
“If it comes to that, I’m forfeiting. I have zero desire to become the MVP.”
What would I even do as some manager of Hell?
Aina grumbled.
“That may be true, but…… that bastard got four chances? Are we really okay with that? This is so unfair.”
“It won’t matter once we finish him off this time. Forget about it.”
I comforted Aina like that.
She nodded sulkily, then asked with a puzzled face:
“But what does that have to do with this? You said something like ‘if Helena isn’t the MVP’……?”
“It’s simple. What if she didn’t actually obtain that many first-place rewards?”
“……?”
“More precisely—what if the games she ‘won first place in’ were the result of someone else yielding to her?”
Everyone’s jaws dropped.
Sienne interrupted.
“Then it wouldn’t count as real first-place wins, so she’d be invalid?”
“That’s for Magireta to judge. That’s why I called her here.”
We all turned to Magireta at once.
She looked genuinely troubled.
A moment later—
Before answering, Magireta posed a question of her own.
“First, may I ask why you thought of that?”