Chapter 139 : Cocooning – 3
Chapter 139: Cocooning – 3
The MVP bastard shouted.
"I will pay with my life for the sin of insulting Lady Magireta!"
With a wet, swelling sound—
Throb.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but the cocoon’s belly seemed to have grown even larger.
Realizing the situation was serious, Berseum spoke.
“Everyone, fall back.”
“Sir Berseum?”
“The cocoon’s shell is far too hard. I’ll use Kanecella.”
“Ah, right, that. But if you use magic at this close range, won’t we get caught up in it too?”
“If I protect you, there will be no problem. I’ll adjust it so that even the Deut Territory doesn’t suffer damage.”
Vwoong.
A Defensive Barrier soon formed around us.
Originally, The Light of Despair, Kanecella, required at least three days of mana accumulation in advance before it could be activated.
But Berseum, who had gained Infinite Mana, could activate it as easily as breathing.
“Everyone, cover your eyes and block your ears!”
We did as he said.
Just before I blocked my ears, I heard Aina’s voice.
“Grandpa said it backwards……”
And at the same time, the ground trembled.
Thanks to the Defensive Spell, I couldn’t feel the shockwave, but the scorching heat reached us clearly.
Kanecella—the same one he had used once when stopping Helena Protro Nine.
Back then, at least there had been some distance. But this time, it unfolded right in front of our noses.
‘If I had taken that head-on.’
My entire body would have been disintegrated.
A chill ran down my spine.
How much time had passed?
When the vibrations and heat subsided, I cautiously opened my eyes.
The smoke cleared.
The terrain that had certainly existed just moments ago had completely vanished.
The trees and forest had all burned away, and the rocks had crumbled into sand.
For a brief moment, the sky formed red smoke and clouds.
And at the very center of the explosion—
“……! Hyungnim.”
“Hmm. This can’t be.”
The cocoon still remained.
Exactly as it was before.
Without a single scratch.
At the unbelievable sight, everyone’s jaws dropped.
Benjamin Noel spoke.
“Ah. I see. We’re still inside a dream. The Eighth Quest hasn’t ended yet!”
“Stop escaping reality, Mr. Benjamin.”
“N-No, but…….”
“That cocoon was created by the MVP’s Omnipotence. That’s why its defense is so absurd.”
“Omnipotence? Wait. Then what about Mason’s blood?”
At those words, I immediately pulled out the Replication Sack.
Armelia Kerr Dneroum even clapped her hands as she spoke.
“Yes. If it’s your blood—the very opposite of those demons—then it may be possible.”
“Mm. I’ll give it a try.”
I aimed the mouth of the sack at the cocoon and untied the knot.
—Swoooooosh.
A massive waterfall of blood shot toward the cocoon.
‘This time for sure!’
But—
Before my blood could directly touch the cocoon, a Black hole suddenly formed beneath it.
The cocoon was sucked into the hole, and the blood waterfall sliced uselessly through empty air.
Soon, a Black hole appeared in a completely different location.
As if vomiting it out, the hole spat the cocoon back out.
The MVP spoke.
“When you’re cornered at the end, you always rely on your blood.”
“…….”
“Got anything else to show me?”
Creak.
I heard someone grinding their teeth.
“That bastard is just as irritating as Kaid Bel…….”
“Like master, like slave. He certainly knows how to annoy people.”
“No wonder Magireta hates him.”
At that last remark, a thunderous reply came from the cocoon.
“Which bastard just said that!”
Let’s ignore it.
Armelia spoke to me.
“If I am not mistaken, Mason, is this not a crisis for the world itself?”
“…….”
“Ordinary attacks are completely ineffective, and the MVP evades all of your blood. Just what are we supposed to do…….”
Instead of answering, I fell into thought.
Meanwhile, the cocoon continued to grow, swelling beyond five meters.
The most terrifying part was that we had no idea when it would burst.
What would happen when it burst?
And how were we supposed to stop it?
‘Diary Book. Doesn’t the searching function show anything?’
[I’ve been searching for a while now, but there’s nothing at all.]
‘Damn it. I need information.’
If I couldn’t get it from the Diary Book, then from Magireta—
No. Because of the Hidden Rule, Magireta wouldn’t be able to say anything.
Was there anyone else?
Someone who wasn’t bound by the rules and yet knew the MVP’s information thoroughly.
“Ah.”
Suddenly, I clapped my hands.
Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner?
“Mason?”
“I’m going to sleep for a bit.”
Armelia’s expression turned dumbfounded.
But I was completely serious.
“Aina.”
“Yeah?”
“You had a Potion to Keep Awake, right? Do you also have something that makes someone sleep instead?”
“Wow. That’s a question I never imagined hearing in this situation.”
“Hurry.”
“I have it. Wait a second.”
She hurriedly rummaged through her bag and pulled out a Vial.
I took it and opened the lid as I spoke.
“Wake me up again in about one minute.”
At that, my Companions all nodded.
They all seemed to realize why I was suddenly trying to fall asleep.
Well, there was precedent from last time.
I put the vial to my lips and swallowed its contents.
My mind instantly grew hazy, and my vision blurred.
Please. Please.
Gathering all my strength, I muttered,
“Noona, Noona.”
“…….”
“I’ll call you Noona for the rest of my life, so please just this once more. Bring Kaid Bel into my dream.”
A reply sounded by my ear.
“Shouldn’t that be the default anyway?”
Inside the dream.
That foggy path I had seen before.
I clearly recognized that this was a dream.
So I raised my voice and shouted.
“Kaid! Kaid!”
“Ah, honestly, what kind of mess is this because of you, Mr. Mason?”
From behind me, I heard Kaid Bel’s voice.
Looking back, I saw him wearing a rather sullen expression.
Of course, he was in his true form, with large horns and iron-like scales wrapped around his body.
“Oh. You’re here.”
“This happened because I trusted you. What are you going to do about this, huh?”
“Looks like you revived safely. Congratulations.”
“You call that something to say…….”
“MVP told Edgar to keep stepping on you. You must be having quite a fun time getting tormented in Hell.”
He shook his head.
“There wasn’t even time for that. They were in the middle of a marital fight.”
“A marital fight?”
“Yes. Louis was in Hell. She was slapping Edgar across the face, shouting how he could possibly make her eat maggots.”
“…….”
“Edgar replied, ‘It’s fine since I only fed them to one of your split entities anyway.’ That must have made her even angrier, because this time she gave him a loud slap across both cheeks…….”
“I’m not the slightest bit interested in their marital fight, so stop right there.”
I hurriedly continued.
“The Louis body that MVP was controlling suddenly changed strangely and turned into something like a cocoon.”
“Yes. Well, that would have happened.”
“You knew about it?”
“Of course. That’s the maggot punishment.”
Maggot punishment?
Now that I thought about it, there had been such a conversation before.
When Kaid had been dragged into the hole, the voice of MVP flowing out from inside it.
-Kaid.
-Y-Yes, sir!
-Were you perhaps rebelling against me?
-……You only realized that now?
-I never even imagined it. I thought your rebellion ended about 270,000 years ago. After I subjected you to the maggot punishment.
Kaid nodded.
“In short, it means feeding a monster with maggots that contain Master’s omnipotence.”
“And then?”
“The rest is as you saw. The maggots that entered the body lay eggs. The body is transformed into a vessel to cultivate hundreds of millions, even billions, of maggots.”
“And after that?”
“After that……. Well?”
Without thinking, I raised my fist.
Since this was a dream, Kaid should have been hundreds of times stronger than me.
Yet perhaps because of his slave instinct, he clutched his head with both hands and said,
“Hiiik. Please don’t hit me!”
“S-Sorry. I didn’t mean it. It was just my true feelings.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“Why don’t you know what comes next?”
“When I had just turned into a cocoon, Master forgave me. All the maggots inside my body were expelled, and my body returned to its original form.”
So it had stopped right before something happened.
Clasping his hands together, Kaid said,
“How merciful Master is. That was when I swore I would be absolutely loyal to him!”
“You were running around with an Invisibility Cloak trying to escape from MVP.”
“I said I would be absolutely loyal, not eternally loyal.”
“…….”
“Anyway, that’s why I don’t have any information beyond what Mason knows. I’m sorry.”
I crossed my arms and thought.
“It doesn’t have to be about that cocoon. Whatever it is, give me information about MVP.”
“Hmm……. For now, Master’s true body is so weak that he cannot even descend upon the world. Instead, in compensation, the monsters he controls become tremendously strong.”
“What is his true body?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.”
“You served MVP for that long and don’t know his true body? No, how do you even know it’s weak if you’ve never seen it?”
“I once secretly asked Lady Magireta about it. If there was something like a weakness of Master.”
I stared at him.
“You said you swore absolute loyalty.”
“I said I’d be absolutely loyal. I didn’t say I wouldn’t try to grasp his weaknesses.”
“I think you might have a bit of a mental illness.”
“It does seem that way, right? I sometimes think so too.”
He scratched his head awkwardly.
I felt there was no longer any point in continuing this conversation.
In any case, he didn’t know what came after the cocoon stage.
Damn it. Then where on earth was I supposed to get that information?
‘Where……. Huh? Wait.’
Suddenly, a thought flashed through my mind.
I grinned.
Kaid took a step back with a strangely chilled expression.
“S-Sorry. Please don’t hit me.”
“I won’t hit you, so answer this question. It’s the last one.”
“Please ask.”
“I should’ve asked this from the beginning.”
From the start, there was only one thing I needed to ask Kaid.
I continued in a growl.
“Spill your master’s name.”
Smack!
Edgar’s head snapped to the side once more.
He was slowly growing tired of this quarrel.
Still, he exercised patience and tried to soothe Louis.
“I’m sorry, Louis.”
“Shut up! I can’t trust your words anymore.”
Louis shouted with tears welling up in her eyes.
“What you did to me this time is exactly the same as what you did during that old Game.”
“No. It’s completely different. Back then you were eliminated and sent to Hell, but this time you neither died nor were eliminated.”
“Don’t you get it? The core of it is the same—you betrayed me!”
She continued as if wailing.
“And you betrayed me in such a systematic way. Asking me to split only one entity…….”
“Yes. Then I knocked that split entity unconscious and fed it the maggots. How considerate of me.”
“Considerate? Considerate?”
“If I hadn’t put in that safety measure, you would have completely become MVP’s slave. Like Kaid lying over there.”
He jerked his chin toward Kaid.
The hole that had pierced through his chest had already been filled, but he didn’t get up.
For a moment it seemed he might be dead, but that didn’t appear to be the case.
He was fast asleep.
In truth, Kaid was meeting Mason inside a dream at that very moment, but Edgar’s thoughts didn’t reach that far.
If he had calmly considered it, he might have noticed, but right now he was too busy trying to placate Louis.
Louis spoke.
“I see. So that’s how you think…….”
“……?”
“I was the foolish one. Arcane, you haven’t changed at all.”
When he heard those words,
Edgar decided that any further patience was meaningless.
Brushing his hair back, he said,
“Let me ask you one thing, Louis.”
“Y-You…….”
“When did I ever say with my own mouth, ‘I’ve changed’?”
“……! You said you regretted it! That you were sorry for abandoning me during the Game!”
“Of course. But I don’t recall ever saying I wouldn’t do it again.”
Louis staggered.
She had already experienced betrayal twice.
The first time, when she had still been human, by Arcane.
Arcane had pushed her into elimination.
The second time was by Magireta.
Magireta told her to steal Mason’s blood, yet in the end traded that very blood with Mason and abandoned her.
And now.
‘This is the third betrayal.’
I don’t want this anymore.
I don’t want to be betrayed by anyone ever again!