Chapter 249
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 249
Chapter Title: Learn It Now, At Least
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“Kruuung!”
The giant twisted his lips into an ugly grin.
The explosive burst and spray of blood from Maia's defenseless cheek as his fist connected gave him a base thrill.
But soon, his face contorted in horror.
It wasn't just because Maia's face remained unscathed despite taking a direct hit from his fist.
The sound of flesh rupturing.
The blood splattering everywhere.
He realized too late that it had all come from his own fist.
“Kruuuuung!”
Thwack! Thud! Boom!
As if he couldn't believe this reality, the giant struck Maia repeatedly in quick succession.
But nothing changed.
No matter how much he punched and battered her, he couldn't inflict so much as a scratch on Maia. Meanwhile, his own limbs grew even more bloodied.
The bizarre sight—of the one struck emerging unscathed while the attacker suffered wounds—finally ended much later.
No matter what the giant did, Maia stayed focused solely on treating Arvela, shielding her with her own body. It was only when she finally extended one hand that it happened.
A slender fist meeting the giant's head-sized one head-on.
It looked like an egg hurled at a rock—obvious to anyone what the outcome would be.
Splat!
But after the two fists collided.
Not only did the giant's fist shatter entirely, with every bone in his arm and shoulder pulverized, but he was also swept away by a storm-like shockwave.
The impact must have been immense.
By the time the giant, embedded in the lab wall at the far end, began twitching.
Maia slowly rose to her feet and spoke.
“...Your abilities after transformation are certainly superior to most high-level players, but your intelligence drops critically in exchange.”
Calmly.
Utterly composed.
Her tone, as a researcher analyzing the giant's capabilities, was matter-of-fact, as if she'd already forgotten everything that had just transpired.
But the giant froze.
Maia stared straight at him.
He sensed something savagely feral lurking in her green eyes—enough to make his skin crawl.
Watching the giant shudder with instinctive terror, Maia wore an unusually icy sneer.
“Didn't the one who sent you warn you? Never touch me with your bare hands.”
“Kru, kruung?”
He was bewildered by the incomprehensible words for a moment.
Then the giant's eyes widened.
Not the gloved fist that had burst open—but the hand that had struck Maia's cheek. An anomaly was now unfolding there.
Shhh...
Blood turning pitch black.
Lumpy protrusions swelling up.
Muscles twisting and spasming.
Along with extreme changes as if doused in dozens of deadly poisons came excruciating pain that seared his brain, despite the loss of sensation.
“Kaaaaak!”
From his hand to his arm, to his shoulder.
Like ink spreading on blank paper.
As the mutation propagated, the giant's screams grew louder with the mounting agony.
“No, come to think of it, they might not have told you at all. To them, underlings like you are just expendable anyway.”
Maia watched impassively.
As if it were a familiar sight.
She slowly stepped away from Arvela to create distance, approached the giant, and gripped the glove on one hand.
Slither...
Like a snake shedding its skin.
The glove covering up to her elbow peeled away.
Revealed instead was a hand so pale it seemed untouched by sunlight—flawless and beautiful as white jade.
Baring that translucently pale, delicate hand, Maia continued.
“If you didn't know, learn it now.”
One step.
Another step.
She slowly extended her hand toward the giant pinned to the wall.
“Why you must never touch me.”
And with that chilling voice, the moment her white-skinned hand made contact with the giant's body...
—The explosion began.
Crack! Cruuunch!
“Kru, hung, heuk, kuuung.”
It wasn't like the self-destructing test subjects, bursting and spraying blood and flesh.
Yet the giant's transformation was so grotesque it could only be called an explosion.
His already swollen bulk ballooned several times larger in an instant.
But filling that body weren't firm muscles—instead, pitch-black tumors and highly acidic venom.
Spikes like thorns erupted from his bones, shredding his flesh. His organs turned greenish like plants, sprouting roots.
When the change finally ended.
No human form remained there.
It resembled a plant.
An animal.
Something alive.
Something dead.
Only a "something"—a swollen tumorous orb tangled with bone branches and plant stems, oozing venom like blood—writhed.
Unable even to withstand its own venom.
Melting alive, it drew a savage sneer from Maia as she turned away.
She approached Arvela to check her pulse but flinched at the sight of her own pale skin and withdrew her hand.
Gazing darkly at her hand for a moment.
She donned the glove again and turned to the researchers who had retreated to one corner of the lab.
“Take Arvela and finish treating her.”
“Yes, Princess.”
The researchers, watching Maia with eyes mixing fear and awe, finally approached. They cautiously loaded Arvela onto a stretcher and carried her out.
Careful not to get too close to her.
Maia accepted the scene as a matter of course.
She was the Green Dragon Princess.
Heir to the Venomous Green Dragon Apothecary.
After silently watching the researchers carry Arvela away, she ordered Barbara to be summoned.
Ignoring the rising pain in her chest that grew with every passing moment...
It took considerable time to handle the aftermath.
The lab's partial collapse was secondary; the giant's remains had ultimately melted into a puddle of toxic sludge, contaminating the entire facility.
Because of that, she had to personally clean up the poison. Only after entrusting the rest to Barbara, who had rushed over, did Maia return to the artificial garden.
And she crossed the flowerbed toward the jade throne.
Or tried to.
Before she could take a few steps, a violent coughing fit brought her crashing to her knees.
“Cough! Cough cough cough!”
Whether because the seizure hadn't fully subsided and she'd overexerted herself treating Arvela.
Maia coughed relentlessly in an attack far worse than before.
With each cough, blood surged up, accompanied by chest-tearing pain that drained even more color from her already pallid face.
To quell the fit, Maia struggled to control her psionics and reach for her medicine.
But it was futile.
Despite her efforts, the coughing intensified, and her trembling hands couldn't even uncap the vial.
“Cough!”
Clatter, roll.
To add insult to injury.
Collapsing fully to the ground, Maia gritted her teeth as she watched the vial she'd dropped roll into the flowers.
And she reached for it again.
Bit by bit.
Forcing her convulsing body to move.
The moment her straining fingers finally brushed the vial.
“Cough cough!”
Another cough sent it flying from her spasming grip. Maia bit her lip.
On a normal day, perhaps.
But now, with even moving her fingers a struggle, the distance to that vial was too far.
So Maia could only regret.
'A mistake.'
No matter what dream she'd had that morning.
She should have taken her medicine upon sensing her body's malaise.
Then the seizure wouldn't have struck mid-fight, nor would Arvela have pulled that foolish stunt.
But as someone once said.
Regret is always too late, no matter how swift.
Already barely able to move from the severe attack, Maia could only endure it all in regret, as the saying went.
The pain ripping her chest apart.
The beautiful flowerbed blackening around her.
And her own condition deteriorating even faster than the flowers.
It was unavoidable.
Only her two aides could enter this artificial garden.
Arvela had just barely survived and was under treatment, while Barbara was swamped cleaning up the lab.
No one from the Green Dragon Clan would come to her aid.
“...Tch. My gut feeling was off, so I hurried over.”
But right after.
Maia suddenly remembered.
The sole exception to the Green Dragon Clan who could enter this garden.
The utterly insolent temporary slave mad enough to remodel it without permission.
“Are you alright, Mistress?”
Truly like a slave concerned for his master.
The black-haired youth approached, inquiring after her collapsed form in the flowerbed.
Seeing him casually cross the boundary into the blackened flowers, Maia cried out unwittingly.
“St-stop!”
Because she'd forced the shout.
The already excruciating pain doubled, and a clot of blood poured from deep in her lungs.
Yet even amid that, Maia desperately opened her mouth again.
“Cough, cough cough! Don't... come near me. No—get out of here now.”
“...Is that an order?”
“It... is.”
Looking utterly surprised.
Even as she watched Rimon's enigmatic expression, Maia didn't take it back.
Approaching her during a seizure was an act even a Green Dragon Clan apothecary at the Grand Master level would risk death for.
Better alone.
Here, the flowerbed's poison would slowly restore her body, at least a little.
Even if it took hours to recover—and she had to suffer the whole time—it didn't matter.
Better to endure the pain than watch someone else fall ill and die because of her again.
“Well, if it's an order, this slave has no choice but to obey. Then I'll take my leave.”
“Go! Hurry!”
“Yes. I'm going.”
Watching Rimon stare at her thoughtfully before shrugging and turning away.
That was why Maia inwardly sighed in relief.
But right after.
She could only widen her eyes.
“Whoops, slipped!”
“...!”
Pretending to lose balance from stepping wrong.
He seemed to tumble backward—then executed three flips in midair, crossed the blackened flowerbed boundary effortlessly.
And landed perfectly right in front of Maia with a flawless ten-out-of-ten pose. He scratched his cheek sheepishly at her stunned face.
“Sorry about this. I was trying to follow orders and leave, but this clumsy body wouldn't listen and messed up.”
“You... madman...!”
It was so absurd.
Staring blankly at Rimon, Maia unwittingly bellowed at his brazen words.
“What do you think you're—cough cough!”
Do you have any idea how insane it is to approach me now?
She tried to rage and demand answers but couldn't even finish before another violent cough wracked her.
And she paled.
Seeing the dark blood she'd coughed up splatter onto Rimon's cheek.
'...In the end.'
Maia closed her eyes.
From the moment he was coated in her blood, Rimon's fate was sealed.
That's why she'd tried to keep him away.
Lamenting Rimon's foolishness in courting his own doom and her inescapable fate, Maia awaited the ensuing tragedy.
But moments later.
She sensed something odd.
No scream rang out as it should have. Instead, only rustling like trampling through underbrush reached her ears.
Opening her eyes to check the source of the strange noise.
Maia froze.
“How many pills?”
“...What?”
“I mean this medicine. How many do you need?”
By now, his flesh should be melting, or at least paralysis setting in.
Yet here was Rimon, drenched in her toxic blood, perfectly fine—shaking the vial with an innocent face. Maia could only swallow hard.