Chapter 116 : Disqualification – 4
Chapter 116: Disqualification – 4
Karin said that and swiftly turned her body, flying away.
Helena couldn’t be seen, but I could tell exactly where she was.
‘Is that fluttering thing a coat? She took off her coat and is having Aether carry it. On purpose.’
She was deliberately announcing with her whole body that I was here.
That meant I also knew it was a trap.
But Helena didn’t care.
A trap prepared by inferior humans was hardly worth laughing at.
I even felt like humoring them just to see how hard they had tried.
Thud. Thud.
So I leisurely followed the fluttering coat.
Well—“leisurely”—if taking several hundred meters per step could be called leisurely.
Before Karin arrived in this direction, Helena’s approach was already visible first.
She was simply that massive in form.
I opened the Replication Sack.
‘I’ll take out all the vials filled with powder.’
I muttered that and opened the sack.
Soon, as if a tidal wave had burst forth, countless vials poured out endlessly.
Armelia spoke when she saw the vials piling high like a small hill.
“Will this really work?”
Aina replied to her words.
“About that scale Miss Sienne cut earlier. It was huge, but it was literally just a snake scale as we know it.”
“…….”
“The snakes attached to Helena’s hair too—aside from regenerating infinitely and releasing poisonous smoke—they’re basically ordinary snakes.”
“Don’t those two things make a big difference?”
“That still means their traits are similar.”
Benjamin took her words.
“The powder I put into the Replication Sack works on every snake in the world. It drives snakes into a collective frenzy, making them attack everything nearby.”
“Why would you make something like that?”
“I didn’t make it—my family passed it down for generations. Said it was an order from the Emperor two reigns ago.”
“Royalty, honestly….”
Surprisingly, that was Armelia speaking.
When we stared at her, she shamelessly said:
“Is there a problem?”
“N-No.”
“At this point, I’m reaching the stage of being disillusioned myself. I used to worry endlessly that I might not have imperial blood, but now I’m actually hoping that’s the case instead.”
Armelia had grown considerably more cynical after everything she’d been through.
It was a good look on her… wait, what am I thinking.
I shook my head and grabbed the Diary Book.
[Karin. Please.]
Just as we’d agreed beforehand, Karin used the spirits to lift the mountain of vials into the sky.
Then she sent it flying over Helena’s head.
“What is this supposed to be?”
Helena muttered that with a face completely devoid of concern.
She used the snakes of her hair to swat down the hill of vials.
‘Thanks.’
Originally, we planned to break them ourselves.
—Paaaah!
Many vials shattered, scattering through the air.
“Brother. Please explode the vials that didn’t break. Karin! Send the wind that way.”
“Got it.”
“I already am.”
The two moved cleanly in sync with my instructions.
Boom-boom! Boom!
All the vials broke.
Wind carried by Aether blew forth.
Countless pinkish powders swirled around Helena.
“This is some childish—hmm?”
The next moment.
—Kaaak! Kaak!
Helena’s hair writhed and twisted wildly.
Each strand—each colossal snake—squirmed as if in agony, or perhaps in delight.
Soon, they began biting one another.
“H-Hey! What are you doing? What is this?!”
Helena couldn't hide her panic.
She tried desperately to control her own hair with her hands.
But that was a bad move.
The snakes began biting her hands.
“Good. It worked.”
“Will that poison work on that monster too?”
“We’ll have to see.”
We watched Medusa’s self-inflicted chaos with tense hearts.
The snakes traveled from her hands to her wrists, from the backs of her arms up to her shoulders.
Eventually they reached Helena’s nape.
“W-What is this!”
Helena grabbed her own hair and ripped it out in a fistful.
But it was useless.
New hair immediately sprouted.
And the newly grown hair, still affected by the powder, became excited all over again.
Her snakes’ infinite regeneration was backfiring.
So Helena repeated the battle against her own hair again and again.
“Grrrr… Aaaaah!”
With no room left to spare, Helena dropped to her knees.
She couldn’t target us, nor flee to another region of the continent.
Her best option was desperately trying to manage her own hair.
“How about we attack now?”
“No, Miss Sienne. The poison mist is still strong. It’s actually even worse now.”
“I see. A shame.”
“All we need to do is stall for time. Until Magireta returns—so Helena won’t break the world any further.”
I asked Benjamin for another vial.
I put what he handed me into the Replication Sack and quietly calculated the time.
‘Five hours left until the 10th.’
There was no guarantee Magireta would appear exactly at midnight on the 10th, so at minimum five hours, maximum twenty-nine.
Could this trap really hold Helena until then?
……
I shook off the negative thoughts.
We already did everything we could.
I swallowed dryly and focused on the front.
How much time had passed like that?
The 10th finally arrived.
But even after midnight passed and dawn approached, Magireta did not return.
During that time, we sent more replicated powder at Helena twice.
But things were getting worse.
“Doesn’t her hair look… shorter? Helena’s hair.”
It was true.
Her hair, once long enough to reach her calves, was growing shorter.
The snakes had also clearly become smaller than before.
Maybe “thinner” was the better word.
Karin dug a finger in her ear and said:
“Looks like she’s going bald.”
“How can you joke right now?”
“I’m being serious? Maybe she just doesn’t have any more hair left to grow. She kept ripping it out herself.”
That was uncomfortably persuasive.
Right.
Humans also lose countless strands of hair in daily life.
New hair grows where strands fall out.
However, when one grew older, new hair would no longer grow.
Helena might have simply repeated that in a highly condensed way.
Berseum swallowed hard and spoke.
“Then isn’t that a problem? If no more snakes come out…….”
“The traps would become useless as well.”
“…….”
“There’s no need for her hair to completely disappear. It only needs to be reduced to the point where it doesn’t hinder Helena’s movement.”
The venom held by the snakes seemed unable to affect Helena.
In other words, if the physical biting attacks disappeared, that meant Helena would be able to raise her body.
“Khk.”
And it seemed that moment had finally arrived.
Helena slowly straightened her bent knees and rose from her spot.
Her bare face, previously hidden behind her hair, was revealed.
Blood-soaked.
Torn and ripped so mercilessly that not a single intact part remained.
She flickered her golden eyes and muttered,
“Luna. Move aside.”
“……?”
“Dodge as best you can. I no longer intend to go easy on you for your sake.”
In the next moment—
She stomped her foot with a heavy thud.
An overwhelming tremor engulfed us.
Berseum urgently cast a defensive spell, but it shattered the instant it activated.
“Guh! T-This strong?”
“Brother, are you okay?”
“We can’t stay on the ground any longer. Karin.”
“Got it!”
Karin commanded the spirits to lift us into the air.
But that didn’t mean we were safe.
Helena took a deep breath—then suddenly let out a monstrous scream.
—Kkyaaaaaaaa!
It was similar to the sound of a blade scraping metal.
Only tens of thousands of times louder.
My ears burst instantly.
My chest pounded violently and blood spilled from my mouth.
My companions were each opening and closing their mouths, trying to say something.
But I couldn’t hear them—my eardrums had ruptured.
I grabbed the Diary Book and initiated a secret conversation.
[Are you all all right?]
[Hack. No, I think I’m dying.]
[My defensive magic isn’t working at all against this attack!]
[She can attack with sound alone? What kind of principle is that?]
[I’ll heal you. Wait just a moment.]
[No, Your Highness. Even if you heal us, our eardrums will just burst again. It doesn’t look like this is going to end with one scream.]
Just as Aina said at the end, Helena was drawing a deep breath again.
I reflexively pulled out a teleportation bead.
But before I could even set a destination, that maddening noise rang out again.
—Kkyaaaaaa!
“Khk.”
My vision turned bright red.
My thoughts tangled so badly I couldn’t even chant a spell.
Not just me—everyone was the same.
Everyone, including Berseum, who had been concealing us with magic.
[Khk. T-This!]
From Berseum’s desperate cry, I realized what had happened.
His invisibility magic had broken.
And Helena had found us.
Her gaze—those golden eyes—
looked straight at me and my companions.
“So you were there.”
And our bodies began to stiffen.
Time seemed to slow.
My companions no longer spoke through the secret conversation.
I couldn’t speak to them either.
My consciousness blurred.
The last thing I saw was only one thing.
“Puhahat. Look at your face, little brother. If you freeze with that expression, you’ll be embarrassed later.”
Only her fluttering purple robe.
Mason’s group had completely turned to stone.
But Karin didn’t transform.
Because Helena had set her petrification to affect only humans.
However, she decided not to act rashly.
‘This is so terrifying.’
Because Magireta had appeared.
“Hello?”
“……Why did you come?”
“Hold on. Before we have a pleasant chat, I should take care of the little brother’s group first.”
She glanced behind her.
Karin flinched and trembled.
“Should I spare your mother?”
“……It doesn’t really matter.”
“How cold. Well, I wasn’t planning to kill her anyway. Since their MVP status was revoked, I’ll just treat them as ordinary passers of the game. I intend to turn them into another type of monster in Hell.”
“…….”
“Of course, before that, I’ll have to scold her a bit. It wouldn’t be something a daughter should see, so disappear along with the little brother’s group.”
She snapped her fingers.
And Mason’s group vanished.
Only Magireta would know where she sent them.
Helena narrowed her eyes and spoke.
“You saved them?”
“Yes. As you can see.”
“That’s unlike you, Lady Magireta. Out of all those quests, you’ve never once tried to save any specific individual.”
“Right. Because until now, none pleased me this much.”
She continued in a leisurely tone.
“The hidden rules don’t include any clause saying I can’t save someone. So I simply do as I please.”
“I intend to kill them.”
“And?”
“You cannot interfere with me, Lady Magireta. That’s one of the hidden rules you were referring to earlier…….”
“That’s right. As long as the premise that you’re the MVP still holds.”
Ssshhk.
She lowered her hood.
A pair of chilling red eyes—far more horrifying than Helena’s golden ones—glowed.
“You must have heard what I said to Karin earlier? Your MVP status has been revoked.”