Ch.867Be Quiet!

– Thud. Roll, roll…

The severed head of the ginger corpse rolled across the ground like a ball, coming to rest at my feet.

[“…Mother.”]

Hersella murmured softly. With a voice mixed with all kinds of emotions—relief and regret, grief and anger, sorrow and joy.

The ginger corpse’s face was wretched.

Blood, burn marks, ash, and dirt had soiled it, leaving barely a trace of its original beauty. Even if Orhan came back alive, he wouldn’t recognize it.

Instead of stomping the head to pieces, I carefully picked it up and gently placed it next to the body that looked like a burst dumpling.

Technically, it was Amin’s head, but the appearance itself was still Imelia’s form.

If I had crushed it underfoot, Hersella might have had a fit.

‘It seems definitely dead… so, what now?’

I asked Hersella what we should do with the ginger corpse’s remains.

There were several options. We could bury it deep in the ground like before, or burn it to ashes to prevent any further misuse.

Or we could take it west for a proper burial.

[“…Meiharin said it. She added mother’s remains to Amin’s body to create this thing. So…”]

Hersella chose the last option.

She wanted to take it to Hestella first, then have the bones separated to distinguish her mother’s remains from Amin’s bones.

It was a nearly impossible request, technically speaking.

It’s not like we could check DNA—how could we possibly distinguish which bones belonged to Imelia and which to Amin among the mixed skeleton?

‘Alright. If that’s what you want.’

But I nodded without argument and hoisted the ginger corpse onto my back.

Technically, there might be no way to separate the two people’s bones, but wasn’t this a world where magic had half-replaced science?

I thought Ophelia might be able to solve this somehow if I asked her.

She was a woman who spent all her time handling animal corpses for her necromancy research, so she could probably distinguish bones. Probably.

—-

While I was dealing with the ginger corpse, Demian and Joshua had gone to the mouth of the Barun River to confront Meiharin.

For some reason, she was already dying, so there was no battle.

Meiharin tried to escape by throwing herself into the Barun River, but it was just a desperate, last-ditch effort.

The Sword of Giant Hunting split the river water to reveal the riverbed, and Demian, charging at high speed with Skywalk activated, caught Meiharin sprawled on the riverbed and dragged her back out.

A pathetic, almost comical end. It was laughable when compared to her arrogant words and actions when she first appeared.

Well, that’s usually how defeat goes.

Losing gracefully like in movies isn’t as common as one might think. Most losers meet an end that’s humiliatingly pathetic and miserable, just like this.

“Is this woman that Meiharin? The one presumed to be the leader of the eastern sorcerers…?”

“Ah, probably not. She seems too incompetent to be the leader of sorcerers, don’t you think?”

I gave Meiharin, who was glaring at me with a vicious face, a smile full of contempt and mockery.

“Don’t you agree, Jahan? If this kind of woman was the leader of sorcerers, they would have been exterminated long ago.”

It was a sneer that would make even Buddha forget his compassion and summon his wrathful guardians.

“When she was young, she might have been useful for seduction, but now that she’s old, even that’s impossible. This is clearly a throwaway piece. They probably just gathered some incompetent people to get rid of them.”

“Haschal…!”

Meiharin glared at me with murderous eyes, grinding her teeth. Her raw anger toward me was filled with resentment and bitterness.

Of course, I couldn’t care less about her anger.

‘…Her eyebrow twitched momentarily at the comment about not being the leader. But there was no reaction to being called a throwaway piece.’

While spouting all kinds of mockery, I was busy observing Meiharin’s reactions to each word I uttered.

‘Normally, she would deny it or boast that capturing her would be useless. The lack of reaction means…’

Perhaps she wasn’t a throwaway piece to begin with.

It’s a bit of a leap in judgment, but… it wasn’t completely without basis.

Honestly, I was just belittling her as incompetent to mock her, but Meiharin’s level itself was undoubtedly worthy of being called a great sorceress.

Even the final ginger corpse was an opponent I couldn’t have defeated without a real struggle on my own. Could a sorceress capable of preparing such a thing be just a throwaway piece or a mere executive?

Her defeat was unexpectedly easy, but that was only because our military power and aerial bombardment were overwhelmingly powerful beyond even my expectations.

It wasn’t because Meiharin herself was incompetent like Amin.

No, quite the opposite.

Meiharin was too strong and too capable for an ordinary sorceress. Strong enough to bring back a powerful figure from eight hundred years ago.

‘…I think it’s her.’

Therefore, I was already half-convinced.

That this woman, Meiharin, was the leader of the eastern sorcerers who called herself the “Snake of the White Valley”—in other words, the Third Apostle.

Of course, given the possibility of being wrong, I couldn’t give a definitive answer until I opened her head, but…

…Well then, let’s prod a bit more.

“You look quite pathetic now, Meiharin. As a snake, you should have quietly dug holes in the ground. When you stuck your head up to the surface, this is what happened.”

– Grr…!

Meiharin ground her teeth and her eye corners trembled. She was losing her composure to anger. A more satisfying response than I had expected.

So, I whispered my final, carefully saved words like driving in a wedge into her emotions.

“That’s why Feilandria abandoned you. Right? What use would she have for a woman who doesn’t know her place?”

“……!”

Shoulders that flinched in shock. Eyes that wandered aimlessly. It was a reaction as good as confirmation.

“How…did you…?”

Meiharin took the bait I had thrown.

It was surprisingly simple. I didn’t expect her to fall for such a simple leading question.

Well, whether as a great sorceress or as an empress, she had probably spent her entire life looking down on others as subordinates.

A woman who had lived like that was now thrown to the ground, so it must have been difficult to maintain composure.

You know what they say—if you want to throw someone into the abyss, first lift them high.

The greater the fall, the stronger the impact. Wasn’t Meiharin in exactly that state now?

“Being the ‘Third’ doesn’t seem much different from being the ‘Eighth.’ Is the order of Apostles not based on ability but just filling empty spots as they become available?”

“…Who are you… no, ‘what’ are you? What exactly are you, and how do you know such things…?!”

When I pretended to know more, Meiharin muttered in shock and confusion.

Who am I?

Asking such an obvious question… it seems she’s realized that I’m not really “Aishan-Gioro Haschal.”

How did she figure that out? Even Isabella couldn’t tell until she entered my subconscious.

Ah, did she secretly use Spirit Vision? If she really was the Third Apostle, she could certainly use it.

Spirit Vision.

The Third Apostle’s Phase 2 opening pattern, a third eye that combines all the psychic abilities coveted by sorcerers, including the ability to see souls.

That would make sense.

I don’t know when she looked, but if she had seen me with Spirit Vision activated, she would have been able to see two souls crammed into one body.

“Who am I? What a ridiculous question. Has your eyesight deteriorated, or have you developed dementia?”

Of course, I had no reason to answer her question.

No, it was more than that. If anything, I needed to silence her immediately.

The fact that Hersella was inside me was top-secret information known only to me, Hersella, and Jahan.

Fortunately, she had spoken in a whisper-like small voice and in the eastern language, so the rest of the group didn’t seem to have heard her words…

But since Nigel and Joshua could understand the eastern language, I couldn’t let her continue talking freely.

“Just go to sleep for now.”

So I swung my hand toward the back of Meiharin’s neck.

I intended to knock her unconscious until we returned from cleaning up after the battle and I could interrogate her alone in an interrogation room.

However.

“Not a chance! Do you think I, of all people, would become a prisoner…!”

The moment my hand made contact with the back of Meiharin’s neck as she suddenly roared—

– BOOM!

Her entire head exploded with a thunderous sound.

Crushed eyeballs flew out like baseballs, and bone fragments and brain matter scattered in all directions.

[“Ah, uh. No, what did you just…!”]

Hersella was shocked.

The headless snake woman’s body spurted blood with a hissing sound before falling backward and convulsing. Unmistakably instant death.

“Lord Haschal?! What suddenly…?”

“If you were going to blow her head off, you could have at least warned us…!”

The startled companions jumped and stared at me.

“No, I mean…”

I felt extremely wronged but had no excuse.

Since this happened the moment my hand touched her, anyone would think she died from being hit by my hand chop.

Moreover, everyone in the group knew well that “Haschal” and Meiharin were enemies. It was only natural that I would be viewed as having killed her impulsively out of hatred.

It took a very long time to explain.