Chapter 104: A Cruel Poison

"..." Chrysaria looks out over her kingdom being devastated. She’s been fighting for hours now, exhaustion hitting her hard as she breathes with difficulty. The deaths only keep mounting as she stops atop a house, kneeling on the roof, gasping for air.

Drops of sweat roll down her forehead, dripping onto the rooftop while she still hears the screams carrying on. She’s easily eliminated 1,500 to 2,000 monsters, but to do so she used practically everything she had, while a considerable portion of those monsters died near human corpses and then merged with them, spawning more monsters.

The process of firing flames as a beam and then stopping is draining, extremely and inevitably so. After so many attacks, she can no longer generate flames or fully eliminate the monsters.

"Your situation seems dire." Chrysaria hears an elegant voice, but her entire body reflexively flinches, her wings spreading protectively while her tail tucks itself between her legs. She lifts her head, seeing a strange woman who arrived without her even noticing.

"W-Who are you..." She tries to breathe deeply to be ready to unleash flames, but it makes her cough, feeling pain in her throat.

"...Just call me Typhon. Considering the context, a long introduction feels unnecessary." Typhon has arrived far closer than Nio could have imagined. Typhon’s tracking ability is simply absurd even with few clues, though she is still distant from Nio.

"This looks like a rather mediocre Raid..." Typhon murmurs as she looks at the monsters, knowing this is Nio’s doing, which excites her because now she knows she isn’t so far from her beloved wife.

Despite that, Typhon feels a bit deceived. She sensed Nio’s energy and thought it was her. The fact that she got confused makes her feel somewhat disappointed in herself, that she’d grown so weak she could no longer differentiate Nio’s residual energy from magic coming directly from her.

"W-What are you..." Chrysaria stands up with a serious expression, sensing something very wrong from the being before her.

"I have a small question. Could you tell me if you know anything about a girl called..." Typhon thinks for a moment about Nio. She knows Nio wouldn’t use her name, but she also wouldn’t hide her nickname.

"Nio." She speaks with a serious tone that makes Chrysaria step back.

"W-Why do you ask about the saint?"

"Saint? So she’s considered a saint?" Typhon gives an amused smile, liking that Nio was bold and didn’t really try to hide herself in that regard.

"You seem to be the queen of this place by your attire. I’d like to propose something. I can kill all the monsters in your kingdom. In exchange, I want a good updated map. Do you accept?" Typhon notices the magic being drained from the deaths and decides to disrupt Nio a little, knowing Nio is the one collecting that magic for something.

"..." Before saying anything, Chrysaria looks down from the house, at the blood-soaked streets, and knows she won’t be able to save her kingdom. Many of her soldiers have died, she’s exhausted, and there are no more adventurers to help.

"I-If you save my people, I don’t care about granting any request!! Be it a map or anything!! Just kill those things..." She speaks in a slightly desperate tone, though she tries to appear more composed and strong.

"...That sounds good enough to me. I’ll kill all the monsters." Typhon gives a simple snap of her fingers. Immediately, Chrysaria sees a kind of small green orbs beginning to fall from the sky onto the monsters. She staggers slightly as she watches one of the tiny green orbs touch a monster’s body.

It gives a small pop, spreading a green smoke in an extremely simple manner. It almost seems like it did nothing, but not even a minute passes before the creature begins to writhe in agony.

Its skin melts under a level of deadly radiation, yet it isn’t just radiation. It’s a mix between normal radiation and Typhon’s magic. The monsters’ bodies form blisters filled with a pungent green liquid that burst, spreading more of the infection across their bodies.

Chrysaria watches, nauseated, as the monsters’ bodies begin to lose pieces—small and large chunks that fall like rotting flesh sloughing off bones in a grotesque display.

"..." Chrysaria wonders if she should be grateful for the monsters’ deaths, but then she remembers a certain threat that was supposed to appear and asks herself if the threat from Saint Stelaria’s letter was this woman.

"I-I thank you for the help." Chrysaria tries to be polite to the person who helped after she demonstrated such power.

"No need to thank me. So, could you kindly provide me the map I asked for? That’s all I need." Typhon doesn’t want information so as not to destroy the trail she’s already been following on her own. Information would only hinder her at this moment.

"Of course... I have a map..." Chrysaria looks down, seeing that the monsters have completely stopped moving without even managing to merge with the corpses on the ground. She lets out a sigh of relief, not imagining that the entire environment has become an area of extreme radioactive contamination. The levels are alarmingly high.

Of course, Typhon fulfilled her part. Typhon emphasized implicitly and not so clearly that she would kill the monsters, never putting into words that she would save anyone.

Radiation makes no sound, emits no specific smell, and worse, it isn’t something known to the people of this world. And Typhon didn’t even think much about it. She didn’t necessarily do this to slowly kill everyone in the kingdom, though that is the result of having accepted her help.

She simply used something that was effective, though she knows exactly what radiation does. Even without her magic to potentiate the radioactive damage, the people exposed to this environment would die in just days to weeks in pure agony.

"You only want a map?" Chrysaria, who doesn’t know this, even asks, somewhat confused that Typhon desires only a map.

"Yes, just that and I’ll take my leave. I’m on a little treasure hunt with my wife." Typhon’s gentle tone eases a bit of the extreme suspicion Chrysaria holds.

"I see... I hope you find what you’re looking for."

"I hope so too." As they walk, Typhon stares at the radiation spreading through the air and soil. She can literally see it. She doesn’t mention anything, but she’s curious about it.

Why has radiation never affected any being near her, Beings with cosmic powers, divine beings who would never be affected by mere radiation. Typhon’s own body is already capable of emitting radiation at a lethal level. That’s why Typhon wonders how the defenses of this world’s mortals will handle it.

Perhaps for Chrysaria, if she ever learns that the radiation spreading through the place is the fault of her having accepted Typhon’s help, the worst would be knowing that if she had refused Typhon’s help, Typhon would have simply left without doing anything and without attacking.

"Your magic is kind of frightening... are you some National Rank?" Chrysaria tries to make conversation as she searches her city’s surroundings for living people, and to her relief there are still people alive in hiding. She’s glad they were at least saved.