“This is more doable than I thought!”
Hailga’s voice sounded a bit excited.
She seemed to have gained confidence as she relentlessly burned and killed the mobs as they approached.
‘Of course it would be doable!’
Usually, one monster comes out of a single distorted space, but insect-type monsters often burst out in swarms of dozens to hundreds. Perhaps that was why?
While they were very threatening when they swarmed in a group, each individual unit was relatively weak. They were weak enough that an ordinary person could beat them to death with a poker.
Of course, just because it was possible didn’t mean they should do it.
If you were unfortunate enough to be bitten, being poisoned was a given. Furthermore, the bodily fluids released when an insect-type monster exploded upon death were not only toxic but also contained pheromones that attracted nearby monsters.
‘In the Original Work, Reysir handled them with lightning.’
Before he got the hang of it, he repeatedly failed to control his output, causing the monsters to explode instead of being charred. Because of that, the centipede monsters swarmed in, creating a total mess.
It was truly a relief to have Hailga here now, with her fire-attribute Aether abilities.
“Father. You said the Boss Monster is a reinforced version of the regular monsters found in that Demonic Realm, right?”
“That is what they say.”
“And the Mana Core is in the Boss Monster’s heart.”
“That’s right.”
“Father, do you know where a centipede’s heart is?”
“……!!”
At the question Hailga posed, the entire group came to a sudden halt. It seemed they only just realized they shouldn’t just go and hunt the Boss Monster blindly, but needed to figure out the location of the Mana Core beforehand.
“As far as I know, the hearts of creatures belonging to the Arthropoda phylum are shaped like long ‘tubes,’ unlike those of mammals. And in the case of multipods with long bodies divided into many segments like centipedes, they have a structure where multiple hearts are arranged in a series.”
A scholar truly was a scholar.
Although Dyuf’s specialty was botany, plants and insects were closely linked ecologically, so this level of knowledge seemed to be basic for him.
“Does that mean the Mana Core isn’t just one mass, but is divided into several, with one in each segment?”
“I haven’t heard of multiple Mana Cores existing…, but as the Demonic Realm is still shrouded in mystery, it’s hard to be certain. Like you said, there could be several, or there might be only one in just one of the many segments.”
“Ugh…, either way, it means we have to dig through everything?”
In the Original Work, they actually did just that.
Dyuf controlled branches to rummage through the flesh of the decapitated centipede-type Boss Monster, investigating each segment. Meanwhile, Reysir dealt with the mobs that incessantly swarmed from somewhere.
Unfortunately, the Mana Core of the centipede-type Boss Monster was not in the body but in the head. Since the heart of the Arthropoda phylum was so different from the typical heart people imagined, perhaps it wasn’t suitable for containing a Mana Core.
‘Or maybe Author Senna impulsively added that setting because she wanted to give her protagonist a hard time.’
As mentioned in chapter 150, the Boss Monster does not die completely unless the Mana Core is destroyed. It would resurrect after a certain amount of time.
‘But in the Original Work, the centipede-type Boss Monster that Dyuf and Reysir faced was well over 15 meters long…’
Consequently, while Dyuf was rummaging through the Boss Monster’s body to find the Mana Core, that ‘certain amount of time’ passed.
Because of that, the two of them had to go through the boss battle once more before they barely found and crushed the Mana Core located in the head.
“Helly. If you burn the Boss Monster to ashes, wouldn’t we be able to find the Mana Core without rummaging through its body?”
“If that were possible, would I have asked where the heart was? Look at the mobs we just killed; their carcasses are still there. How could I turn a Boss Monster, which is stronger than these, into ashes?”
“Ah… So you weren’t adjusting your firepower to save Aether?”
“Nope, I wasn’t.”
Reysir offered a suggestion, but it was rejected due to Hailga’s lack of power.
If it was impossible to turn even regular monsters into ashes, nothing would change even if I used **[Encouragement]** to strengthen Hailga’s skills. The attribute resistance of a Boss Monster was at least twice as high as that of a regular monster.
“Is it not possible that the Mana Core is located in a ‘fatal weak point’ rather than an ‘organ that serves as the center of blood circulation’…?”
I looked down and brought my lightly clenched hand to my chin, faking a pose of being lost in deep thought. I let the line slip as if I were talking to myself.
The Original Protagonist showed interest in my words.
“Hm? What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said. They say it can come back to life if the Mana Core is intact even if it dies once. But it cannot protect the Mana Core while its life activities have ceased, can it? So, in order not to increase the number of ‘weak points’ as much as possible, what if a typical Boss Monster’s Mana Core is located in the heart, which is relatively harder to target, instead of the brain protected by a hard skull?”
“So, in the case of a centipede-type Boss Monster that can regenerate and move even if its tubular heart is damaged or cut off, the head—which contains the sensory organs—would be its greatest weak point, and that’s where the Mana Core would be?”
“I am not asserting that…, I was just proposing a hypothesis.”
In order to emphasize that I was only speaking of a ‘guess’ and not the ‘correct answer,’ I deliberately took a hesitant attitude, sending a message that I could be wrong.
“Right, it’s just a hypothesis until we actually confirm it. Still, I think there’s a high possibility that what you said is the answer. It sounds much more plausible than assuming there are multiple Mana Cores or that it exists randomly somewhere in the body segments. And above all…”
Reysir grinned, giving weight to my opinion, but then his voice trailed off. Then, with a very serious face, he spat out the following words.
“I don’t want to rummage through the segments of a centipede monster one by one. So, I really hope you’re right.”
His voice felt incredibly desperate.
Was that why the role had been assigned to Dyuf in the original? Was it not a placement of personnel in the right place according to their abilities? Suspicion began to grow in a corner of my heart.
“If my memory serves me right, the centipede’s ventral nerve cord should be between the antennae and the maxillipeds.”
“Pardon?”
“Since the part corresponding to the brain is around the front center of the head, I’m telling you to aim for that spot if you’re going to attack the head anyway.”
The Dyuf in the Original Work suffered while rummaging through the segments of the centipede-type Boss Monster’s body one by one. But the current Dyuf did not hesitate to give advice, hoping Reysir would suffer even a little less.
“Is the strategy meeting over now? Then how about we start moving?”
Hailga, who had provided the cause for our halt, suggested moving again.
But before that, there was something I had to do.
I told them to wait for a moment and then asked Yor how much was left until the Boss Monster’s territory.
[Almost thr]
I received the answer above. It meant we had almost arrived.
I had contemplated whether to cast them again once the buff’s duration ended, but I figured I could just cast them again now, so I did.
“Thanks, Karbaldr.”
“Hmph!”
“Ahahaha! Now that we’re fully prepared, shall we go fight the Boss Monster?”
The Protagonist of Another Novel burst into a refreshing yet somehow annoying laugh and walked away energetically.
But even he could no longer laugh once he faced the Boss Monster.
“Just how many segments does that thing have…?”
“Wouldn’t there be at least 100?”
“…I really hope the Mana Core is in the head.”
With a stiff face, Reysir exchanged words with his childhood friend and gripped his spear tightly. Then, he launched three bolts of lightning at the Boss Monster while charging forward himself.
Dyuf controlled plants to seize the Boss Monster, restricting its movements. It would have been great if he could have tied it up completely so it couldn’t budge, but unfortunately, the Boss Monster’s resistance was too fierce.
“The regular monsters were so weak, so why is the Boss Monster so huge and strong?!”
Hailga grumbled as she saw the Boss Monster remain unscathed even after being hit by the fireballs she threw.
The Boss Monster even spat venom from its mouth. Regular monsters could only use poison by biting and injecting it, like actual centipedes.
Anyway, for that reason, Reysir struggled as he couldn’t easily approach the Boss Monster’s head.
Still, the situation was much better compared to the Original Work. Hailga was taking care of the mobs the Boss Monster had summoned.
Reysir focused solely on dodging the venom the Boss Monster shot at him, watching for an opportunity to drive his spear into its head.
And I….
‘ …What should I do?’
I wondered if there was any point in whipping the body of a centipede-type monster with a hard exoskeleton. Even if I could break the exoskeleton, it wouldn’t be helpful. Instead, toxic bodily fluids would splash every time the Boss Monster struggled, only increasing the danger.
After considering this and that, I concluded that staying still was helping.
But that didn’t mean I could just space out.
Even though Reysir was drawing the aggro, the Boss Monster’s venom could be shot toward us, and a mob that Hailga failed to burn or one that popped out from the ground could bite our ankles.
Yor and I remained tense and guarded the surroundings until the battle ended.
To get straight to the conclusion, the thing I was worried about did not happen. The battle ended safely without a single person injured.
“Karbaldrrr~~! The Mana Core really was in the head!!”
With his spear still lodged in the Boss Monster’s head, Reysir shouted with a bright smile, waving one hand.
It was a very dangerous act. A centipede would continue to twitch and move for a while even if its ventral nerve cord was damaged.
Similarly, since the centipede-type Boss Monster moved for a while even after the boundary membrane covering the sky disappeared upon the destruction of the Mana Core, Reysir learned a lesson to not let his guard down even after the battle ended.
It was just fortunate that he wasn’t hurt in the process.
“Rei, how could you joke around and let your guard down when safety hasn’t been fully secured? Something terrible could have happened. It’s a monster that looks like a centipede and has similar organs, so you should have remained vigilant, knowing it would move for a while even after death. Furthermore…”
A dark shadow fell over Reysir’s face as he listened to Dyuf’s nagging instead of feeling relief. But what could he do? He brought it on himself.