The syringe shot towards the Queen, but somehow, she avoided the first projectile. A loyal Mahwa had taken it on her behalf.
But the next one was inevitable!
The next syringe was inserted into the Queen's shoulder and injected its contents into the Queen's body. It was an extremely dangerous poison for the Mahwas.
"We have a hit on her, Illoin."
"Leave the rest to me."
Soon, arrows with terrifying speed and force poured down like a shower over the Mahwa tribes.
The Mahwa, who had sensed by now that things were going wrong for them, formed a shield to protect the Queen, but it was too late. The syringes that flew in with the arrows stabbed into the bodies of the Mahwas, taking away their energy.
"Fuck, it's the alchemist…!"
"How do we get out of this…!"
"You won't understand even if we start explaining it to you. Leo, come now!"
"Yeah!"
When the Mahwa tribe were stuck in place by the long-ranged attack, Leo Arpeta, whose ability was amplified after receiving a buff from Aria, a priest, grabbed a great sword and attacked them.
"Thank you for coming to your death party!"
The sheer pressure from the attacks took the Mahwa tribe by storm. Evan thought that Leo had gotten weaker, but that wasn't the case at all. His muscles were swollen, and his body was as vicious and agile as he was in his youth.
"Have you guys gotten weaker, or am I getting stronger? Haha!"
"Leo Arpeta…!"
The Mahwa tried to fight against him; going for a surprise attack was a big mistake.
"Oh!"
One of the Mahwas who directly received a hit head-on became blood splattered, and the rest of the Mahwas were pushed back as if struck by a bolt of lightning. It was a show of great power, indeed.
"Protect the Queen!"
"Hey, my strength is running out. Your Majesty…!"
What was more was the fact that Bernard's syringes and the solution contained in them were too fatal to the Mahwas.
Due to excessive poisoning, the strands of the Magi were cut, and their cells started to die, making it impossible for them to retaliate properly.
"The connection… is fading."
"How were the humans able to find the source of connection between the Mahwas?"
The most serious blow was that the connection between the Rose Queen and her servants was broken.
Originally, the Mahwas were connected to the Queen and received energy from her; now, the connection was disconnected!
"How is this happening!? To not be poisoned by you again, we created countless varieties and eventually evolved into much stronger living entities…!"
The Queen, who had pulled the syringe out of her shoulder, increased her body's magical energy and ground her teeth, trying meticulously to burn the energy of the medicine somehow.
However, the connection between the Queen and her servants, which had already been broken once, could not be restored. The moment the Queen was shot, the fight was already over.
"The 'species' of Mahwa have clearly evolved beyond the point that they cannot be annihilated by the drugs I made, I admit it. Now, I personally do not have the power to eradicate your kind. Probably not in the near future."
Bernard loaded another syringe into his gun. There was a slight smile on his mouth.
"But you also have weaknesses. It is that the Rose Queen is in control of a race that is too dependent on her. Knowing that, isn't the answer simple?"
"So it was you again…!"
"If you give into the contagious nature of the drug, you guys as individuals are pathetic… In the end, it wasn't so difficult to create a drug that weakened the Rose Queen. Moreover, just as you guys got secret information on us, we got enough data about you guys too. Especially about you, the Queen."
Bernard pulled out a black, glowing pistol. It was loaded with bullets containing the special drugs for the Queen.
It was also a drug he had developed over several decades and had recently progressed with it with Evan's help.
"Queen, you made only one mistake in the process of evolution. As a result of doing a little bit of effort to restore the individual's uniqueness, the process has made the connection with your children a bit blurred. If you think about it, isn't that natural too?"
"..."
"The moment I learned about it, I realized that four years of self-filled parts of my potion were very small. In other words, you and I made it together. Isn't it fun?"
"Bernard, the legendary alchemist…!"
When Queens died, they planted their seeds in the body of another child connected to her and then fled.
Bernard knew that killing the Queen again would eventually result in repeating the past unless he somehow solved the underlying problem.
This was the drug he had developed just for that reason. It was a drug that completely broke the connection between the Queen and her offspring, turning her into a completely different entity.
"This is the end of you, Rose Queen."
"No!"
The arrows, the great sword, and the shackles simultaneously hit the Mahwa group, and Bernard precisely aimed the pistol between the Queen's eyes.
Bernard didn't make any mistakes at such a critical moment. The bullet was shot right through the Rose Queen's head.
Some of the Mahwa who saw the Queen fall on the spot were dumbfounded.
They were now trying to get away!
"Catch them!"
"I'm still holding onto it! Oh?"
Aria crushed the Mahwa tribe by creating powerful spatial pressure in all directions.
Two of the Mahwa tribe, to their surprise, threw away their human shells, turned into small animals, and slipped out!
"They're the variants, and they're really gone!"
"Illoin!"
"On it!"
Illoin quickly shot arrows at the fleeing Mahwas.
However, one took the other as a shield.
In this way, it was able to escape all of the arrows of Illoin and hide in a large street. It was a move that could only be executed if it had planned to escape from the beginning.
"What was that? Were they not loyal to the Queen?"
"You fool, Leo, I just told you. The connection between the Queen and her children has been diminished. Maybe it's not just those guys. Other Mahwas who are still alive in the world may be rather delighted to have become independent from the Queen."
"Although they may have become stronger as individuals, they have also become much more fragile than before."
That's right. The Queen's obsession with taking revenge on Bernard had turned the Mahwas into something other than themselves.
Of course, their power was still lethal to mankind, and they let one get away.
What they needed to do now was to inform the Marquis' Knights who were waiting.
Bernard diligently fired his pistol to tidy up the Mahwas who survived.
Then he started firing all the remaining bullets into the Queen's body. The Queen's body, which had been tattered, melted halfway.
"She is already dead. You won't be getting any kind of a reaction out of her."
"Last time, I was so vigilant and still messed things up. I just missed the last guy too. Moreover… No, no. Anyway, she's dead. The Rose Queen will never appear again in the world."
"She was a really persistent woman… Not my type."
"That's right. She wasn't my type, either."
Bernard, under Leo's protection, carefully approached the Queen's body.
But then, a thorn vine popped out of the Queen's body, which forcefully smashed the great sword that Leo reflexively put out and wrapped itself around Bernard's wrist!
"Damn it! Bernard!"
"…It's okay, no surprises. The Queen has completely lost her ability to possess and reproduce. This is just… It's a curse that activates at the Queen's death."
According to Bernard's words, it was the last attack. A thorn was wrapped around Bernard's wrist, and the connection to the body was cut off, and the Queen's body completely melted and disappeared.
The bodies of other Mahwas also started disappearing, leaving no traces. All that was left was a thorn around his wrist. Its shape also looked like a bracelet.𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙚𝒘𝒆𝒃𝒏𝒐𝙫𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎
"Bernard! Are you okay!?"
"I'm okay. There is nothing to worry about."
Illoin hurried up and grabbed Bernard's hand. Some of the thorns had slightly lodged in Bernard's wrist. But Bernard's appearance was calm.
"I'm storing up my stamina and power… It's not so serious, don't worry. I can handle this curse."
"No, but a curse is a curse! We need to cleanse it right away… What? Divine power doesn't work at all! If I can't get rid of it with my divine power, this is something no one can touch…"
Just like a cursed artefact. If Evan had been here, he would have called it that way.
There were many ways a cursed artefact could appear, but now this was what appeared when a being with strong mana died with a terrible lust for revenge… It was extremely strong as it was left behind by Queen Rose, the last boss of Yo-Ma Great War 2.
"What the hell will you do with this, Bernard…! Leo, you couldn't handle that one!"
"You just didn't see me block it with the great sword! Look at my expensive great sword. It's broken, just like that! If it's something I can't stop, I can't stop it even if God himself comes!"
When Aria saw her dear friend being cursed in front of her eyes, she put out a double wick and slapped it in the back of her husband.
At that time, the cursed man, Bernard, sided with Leo.
"Leo is right. That's the original curse that can take away your life. It is not something that can be prevented by human powers. You'll have to take it and accept it."
"…Have you ever had a thought that this would happen, Bernard?"
Bernard nodded slowly at Illoin's question.
"A curse is a strong connection between oneself and the other more than anything else. Honestly, I can only say that I had suspected it. I knew it was inevitable. I tried to dodge it somehow, but I failed, so I just accepted it. At least if I do this, the Rose Queen will never be released again."
"Being such a fool…"
"Bernard…"
The party sighed, but Bernard's expression remained calm. He was really fine.
This wasn't a curse that could have taken his life, and even if it was, it did not mean that the Rose Queen could be resurrected.
"I feel like I've finished doing my homework right now. This thorn on your wrist is probably a penalty for delayed action on your part. So, there's nothing to look like that, Bernard. Anyway, there will be no problems in daily life, as the Rose Queen is gone forever."
"Aren't you going to hunt the remaining Mahwas with me?"
"Nope. I really did enough now. Now I will spend the rest of my life teaching Evan in this city about alchemy."
"…Dane."
Leo stopped asking at his friend's stubborn appearance.
"If something big happens with that thing, you have to report it to me immediately, okay?"
"Hey, what could you do if you knew about it? You focus on catching the remaining Mahwas, including the one that we just missed, and start killing them."
The two old friends eventually started laughing together. Aria smiled at seeing those two that way. Illoin, on the other hand, was only looking at Bernard.
Thus, a great war, which had been raging on for a long time, had now come to an end.
Of course, there were still some enemies left… But it was up to the new generation to deal with them.