Chapter 249 - Learn It Now

"Grrah!"

The giant gave an ugly grin. The bursting sound and spray of blood as his fist struck the defenseless Maia's cheek filled him with a base pleasure.

But his face soon twisted horribly. It was not merely because Maia's face remained unscathed despite the blow. He had belatedly realized that the sound of flesh bursting and the blood spraying everywhere had come from his own fist.

"Grraaaah!"

THUD! THUD! THUUD!

As though unable to believe it, the giant struck Maia again and again. Yet nothing changed. No matter how much he punched and battered her, he could not leave a single wound, while his own arms and legs grew ever bloodier.

The bizarre spectacle—the victim unharmed while her attacker injured himself—continued for quite some time. It ended only when Maia finally extended one hand, having devoted herself entirely to treating Arbella, shielding her with her body regardless of what the giant did.

A slender fist met the giant's fist, larger than a grown man's head, head-on. Like an egg hurled against a rock, the outcome seemed obvious to anyone watching.

BOOM!

But when the two fists collided, it was the giant whose entire fist shattered, every bone in his arm up through his shoulder splintering. As if that were not enough, the stormlike force swept him backward.

The impact was so tremendous that he flew clear across the laboratory and lay twitching, embedded in the wall. Maia slowly rose to her feet and spoke.

"... Your abilities after transforming are certainly superior to those of most high-level players, but your intelligence seems to suffer a fatal decline in exchange."

Cool and utterly composed, she analyzed the giant's abilities as a researcher. Her tone was so matter-of-fact that she seemed to have forgotten everything that had just happened.

But the giant froze. Maia was staring straight at him, and he sensed something horrifyingly savage lurking in her green eyes.

Watching him shudder with instinctive terror, Maia curled her lips into a sneer colder than usual.

"Did the man who sent you not tell you? That you must never touch me with your bare flesh?"

"G-grrah?"

His bewilderment at those incomprehensible words lasted only a moment before his eyes widened. Something strange had begun happening to his hand—not the fist shattered by her gloved punch, but the one torn open when he struck her cheek.

HISSSS...

Blood turned black. Lumpy growths erupted. Muscles twisted and spasmed. Along with these drastic changes, as though he had been drenched in dozens of poisons, came a dreadful pain that seared his brain despite his lost sense of pain.

"GRAAAAGH!"

From his hand to his arm, then his shoulder, the mutation spread like ink across blank paper. The giant screamed as the agony mounted with its advance.

"No, on reflection, perhaps he never told you at all. To that man, subordinates are nothing more than expendable supplies."

Maia remained unmoved by the sight, as though she had seen it many times before. She merely walked slowly away from Arbella and toward the giant, taking hold of the glove on one hand.

Like a snake shedding its skin, the glove covering her arm up to the elbow slipped off. It revealed a hand as fine and beautiful as white jade, so pale it seemed never to have seen sunlight. With that slender hand exposed, its skin so white it seemed translucent, Maia continued.

"If you did not know, learn it now."

One step, then another. She approached the giant embedded in the wall and slowly reached out.

"Why you must never touch me."

And with those icy words, the moment her bare white hand touched the giant's body—the explosion began.

CRACK! CRRRACK!

"Grr, hng, hhk, grraah."

He did not burst and scatter blood and flesh like the subjects who had detonated themselves. Yet his transformation was so violent that it could only be called an explosion.

His already swollen body rapidly expanded to several times its size. But instead of firm muscle, black tumors and highly acidic venom filled it. Sharp projections sprouted from his bones like thorns and tore through his body, while his organs turned plant-green and sent out roots.

When the transformation ended, nothing resembling a human remained. Something that looked part plant, part animal, something both alive and dead, writhed there: a ball-like mass of swollen tumors tangled with branches of bone and plant stems, spewing venom like blood.

Perhaps unable to withstand even its own venom, it melted alive. Maia watched with a savage sneer, then turned away.

She approached Arbella to check her pulse, only to flinch at the sight of her own white skin and withdraw her hand. After gazing down at it gloomily for a moment, she put her glove back on and turned to the researchers who had retreated to one side of the laboratory.

"Take Arbella away and finish treating her."

"Yes, Your Highness."

Only then did the researchers, who had been watching Maia with fear and awe in their eyes, approach. They carefully placed Arbella on a stretcher and carried her out, taking care to keep a certain distance from Maia.

Maia accepted this as only natural. She was the Green Dragon Princess, a descendant of the Venomous Green Dragon Lord of Medicine.

Silently watching the researchers carry Arbella away, she ordered them to summon Barbara, desperately ignoring the pain rising in her chest with every passing moment...

* * *

Dealing with the aftermath took considerable time. Not only had part of the laboratory collapsed, but the giant's remains, which had finally melted into a small pool of poisonous liquid, had contaminated the entire facility.

Maia had to contain the poison herself. Only after handing the remaining cleanup to Barbara, who came rushing over, did she return to the artificial garden.

She walked across the flower beds toward the jade throne. Or rather, she tried to. Before she had taken more than a few steps, a violent coughing fit brought her to her knees.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

Perhaps because she had pushed herself to treat Arbella before her attack had subsided, Maia coughed incessantly through a fit incomparably worse than the last. Each cough brought a surge of blood and a pain as though her chest were tearing apart, draining still more color from her already pale face.

To quell the fit, she struggled to control her psionics and take her medicine. But that was a futile hope. Despite her efforts, the coughing only worsened, and her trembling hands could barely open the medicine bottle.

"Cough!"

TAP.

The bottle rolled away.

To make matters worse, Maia finally collapsed to the ground. Watching the bottle she had dropped roll between the flowers, she clenched her teeth and reached out to retrieve it.

Little by little, she forced her convulsing body to move. Just as her straining hand barely reached the bottle—

"Cough, cough!"

Another cough made her fingers spasm and knock it away again. Maia bit her lip. Under normal circumstances it would have been nothing, but now, when she could barely move a finger, the bottle was far too distant. She could not help regretting her decision.

'Was it... a mistake?'

Whatever dream she had had that morning, she should have taken her medicine when she felt unwell. Then she would not have suffered a sudden attack in the middle of a fight, nor would Arbella have done something so foolish.

But who was it who had said that regret, however soon it comes, is always too late? Just as that saying warned, Maia, now barely able to move through the severe attack, could only endure everything in regret.

The pain tearing her chest to shreds. The beautiful flower beds turning black around her. And her own condition deteriorating even faster than the flowers.

There was nothing she could do. Only her two close attendants were permitted inside this artificial garden. But Arbella was receiving treatment after barely escaping death, and Barbara was occupied with the disaster in the laboratory. No one from the Green Dragon Clan would come to help her.

"... Tsk. I had a bad feeling, so I hurried over, and look what I find."

At that moment, however, Maia remembered the sole exception outside the Green Dragon Clan who could enter this artificial garden: her utterly insolent temporary slave, mad enough to remodel it as he pleased without so much as asking her permission.

"Are you all right, mistress?"

Quite the image of a slave concerned for his mistress, the black-haired young man approached, asking after her as she lay among the flowers. Seeing him about to step casually across the boundary of the blackened flower beds, Maia cried out before she knew it.

"S-stop!"

Perhaps because she had forced herself to shout, her already terrible pain doubled, and clots of blood poured from deep within her lungs. Even so, Maia desperately spoke again.

"Cough, cough, cough! Do not... come near me... No, leave this place at once."

"... Is that an order?"

"Y-yes."

Limon wore a peculiar expression, as though this were entirely unexpected, but Maia did not take back her words. Approaching her during an attack meant risking one's life even for a Green Dragon Clan pharmacist of unit-captain caliber.

In that case, she was better off alone. Here, the poisonous vapors from the flower beds would restore her body, however slowly. It did not matter that recovery might take hours, or that she would have to suffer all that time. Enduring the pain was a million times better than watching someone else fall ill and die because of her.

"Well, if it's an order, this slave has no choice but to obey. I'll take my leave, then."

"Go... quickly!"

"Yes. I'm going, I'm going."

Limon had been staring at her as though debating what to do. When he finally shrugged and turned away, Maia felt inwardly relieved for that very reason.

But a moment later, her eyes flew wide.

"Whoops, my foot slipped!"

"...!"

Pretending to lose his balance after stepping on something, he seemed to topple backward—then performed three consecutive somersaults through the air. He not only crossed the boundary of the blackened flowers but landed right in front of Maia with perfect ten-point form. Looking at her dumbfounded face, Limon scratched his cheek as though terribly embarrassed.

"My apologies. I was trying to leave as ordered, but this clumsy body wouldn't cooperate, and I made a mistake."

"You... lunatic...!"

Perhaps because it was so utterly absurd, Maia stared at Limon in a daze. Hearing his shameless words, she shouted before she could stop herself.

"What... do you think you're... Cough, cough!"

She wanted to angrily demand whether he knew how insane it was to approach her now, but another violent fit of coughing struck before she could finish.

Then she went pale. She had seen the dark blood she coughed up spatter Limon's cheek.

'... In the end.'

Maia closed her eyes. From the moment her blood had splashed onto him, Limon's fate was as good as sealed. This was precisely what she had feared when she forbade him to approach. Lamenting his folly in bringing ruin upon himself, and her own inescapable fate, she waited for the tragedy to unfold.

But after a moment, she noticed something strange. Not only were there none of the screams she should already have heard, but all she could hear was a rustling, as though someone were rummaging through the plants.

When she opened her eyes again to discover the source of that peculiar sound, Maia froze.

"How many pills?"

"... What?"

"This medicine. How many pills do you need to take?"

By now, his flesh should have begun melting, or at least shown signs of paralysis or something similar. Yet despite being splashed with her poisonous blood, Limon was not merely unharmed—he was shaking the medicine bottle with a perfectly nonchalant expression. Maia could only catch her breath.