CH 243

“Taula, cover your nose with something!”

Apparently I noticed something is wrong and warned her just a little too late.

Taula’s eyes look drowsy as she looks up and starts saying something incomprehensible in delirium, before falling limply in my arms.

Her sword loses the purifying light as it falls from her hand, and makes a shrill noise as it hits the ground.

In the meantime, many white petals are still pouring from the ceiling, and the intense stench is still filling this area.

I gently place Taula on the ground, and face forward.

I see Hipopo brothers throw their eight legs and fall with their bellies on the ground one after the other, like their legs can’t support their weight anymore.

And then, as the petals keep falling, the main body of the ‘Third Seat of Immorality’ finally moves.

The impressively large white flower in the center of the underground lake rises, like its roots are pushing itself from the ground.

What appears from the ground after the white flower is a giant rhizome, that looks as if it was molded in the shape of a person.

Many roots start wriggling as they grow, seemingly to support the rhizome. This large number of roots restlessly and with short and repeated movements move the main body of the ‘Third Seat of Immorality’ across the lake.

Part of the rhizome starts changing shape with creaking sounds, into a not very well constructed human face.

The mouth part opens, and a rough sounding voice echoes.

“Ah… I really, really dislike showing this form. That’s why I spread so much of my marvelous fragrance. I figured you could instead see a nice dream. Regular beings would lose handily when I spread it so thickly. I wonder why you seem to be fine, Master Rust. It has always been this way, since the white mask party.”

The ‘Third Seat of Immorality’ speaks with Lily’s tone and a rough voice. Part of the rhizome tilts as it speaks, like its tilting its head.

The giant white petals move like they’re its hair.

And then, between the petals, I get a glimpse of what looks like a human leg.

I’m sure it’s Lily, who plunged and sank into the petals.

The scale kind of makes her look like a twig stuck in its hair.

It dangles every time it moves its head, and the flowery smell around me becomes even worse.

Judging by what it said, is this some sort of sleeping or hallucination gas? I remember smelling this when I first met Lily, but that was all it was, a smell. Does drinking too much potion also make me resistant to drugs?

I move to return the Hipopo brothers, who are now sleeping, to the scrolls.

But then I feel like something is slightly off.

An attack is coming from the front, hidden behind the large white flower petals dancing in the air.

It’s two roots.

Their sharp pointed tips pierce through the petals and are closing in on me.

I repel one with the knife I’m holding with an underhand grip.

The purifying light of the knife wraps around the root, and with a sizzling sound, destroys the root of the ‘Third Seat of Immorality’.

The other one comes soon after, and I don’t make it in time.

I have to dodge it almost like I’m falling over.

The root passes just barely above my head, and pierces the ground where I was. I get up and slash it horizontally.

Purifying light stays where I cut it, and it starts destroying this root too.

I don’t think it’s going to give me the chance to control scrolls, and I don’t think I have the time to take out potions either. But the purifying light has a great effect on the main body.

The main body of the ‘Third Seat of Immorality’ is watching me closely.

I stopped breathing, but the moment I exhale and breathe in again, that smell pierces deep inside my nose.

“Now now, there is nothing and no one in the way, so let us go at it against each other as much as we like, Master Rust.”

I hold up my knife with my left hand, looking like I can’t be bothered answering the ‘Third Seat of Immorality’s’ boasting.

I can’t just leave Taula and the Hipopo brothers and run. Ah… But how long can I last in hand-to-hand combat?

I purposefully smile to make it seem like I’m not worried, and run toward the ‘Third Seat of Immorality’s’ main body.