"Hey, this is way more manageable than I expected?!"

A trace of excitement crept into Helga's voice.

Her confidence had probably grown after effortlessly incinerating every ordinary monster that came near.

Of course it's manageable.

Perhaps it was because insect-type monsters emerged in swarms of dozens or even hundreds, whereas most distortions produced only a single monster.

A swarm was certainly terrifying.

But each individual creature was comparatively weak.

How weak?

Weak enough that an ordinary person could theoretically beat one to death with a fireplace poker.

That didn't mean anyone actually should.

A single bite would almost certainly leave them poisoned.

And when an insect-type monster exploded, the fluids spraying from its body were not only toxic but also contained pheromone-like substances that attracted nearby monsters.

In the original novel, Reisir handled them by scattering lightning everywhere.

Before he mastered control over his output, however, he often failed to regulate the voltage.

The monsters would explode instead of simply being electrocuted.

Whenever the centipede monsters swarmed, the battlefield became utter chaos.

Having Helga and her fire-attribute Ether ability with us was truly fortunate.

"Dad. You said a boss monster is an enhanced version of the monsters that appear in its Demon Realm, right?"

"That's what I've heard."

"And the Demon Core is located inside its heart?"

"Correct."

"Dad, do you know where a centipede's heart is?"

"...!!"

At Helga's question, everyone abruptly stopped walking.

It seemed they had only now realized that rushing off to fight the boss monster without understanding where the Demon Core might be was a terrible idea.

"As far as I know, creatures belonging to the arthropod phylum possess a very different circulatory structure from mammals. Their heart is an elongated tube. In the case of myriapods such as centipedes, whose bodies consist of numerous segments, they possess multiple consecutive heart chambers arranged along the body."

A scholar truly was a scholar.

Djúpr specialized in botany.

But because plants and insects were deeply connected ecologically, knowledge at this level was likely basic for him.

"Then does that mean the Demon Core might be split into multiple pieces? One for each segment?"

"I've never heard of multiple Demon Cores existing. However, Demon Realms remain poorly understood. It's difficult to say for certain. It could be as you suggest, or there may be only one located somewhere among the segments."

"Ugh... Either way, doesn't that mean we'd have to search all of them?"

That was exactly what happened in the original story.

Djúpr controlled branches and roots to dig through the corpse of the decapitated centipede boss monster, examining segment after segment.

Meanwhile, Reisir fought off the endless stream of ordinary monsters.

Unfortunately, the Demon Core had not been located in the torso at all.

It had been inside the head.

Perhaps because arthropod hearts differed too greatly from the common image of a heart.

Or perhaps Author Senna had simply wanted her protagonist to suffer a little more.

As mentioned back in Chapter 150, a boss monster could not die completely unless its Demon Core was destroyed.

Given enough time, it would revive.

And the centipede boss monster Djúpr and Reisir fought in the original novel was well over fifteen meters long...

While Djúpr searched through all those segments—

The revival timer expired.

As a result, the two of them were forced to fight the boss monster a second time before finally locating and destroying the Demon Core hidden in its head.

"Heli. If you reduced the boss monster to ashes, couldn't we find the Demon Core without having to search through the body?"

"If I could do that, why would I have asked where a centipede's heart is? Look at the ordinary monsters we killed. Their corpses are still intact. If I can't turn those into ashes, how am I supposed to cremate a boss monster?"

"Ah... So you weren't holding back to conserve Ether?"

"Nope."

Reisir's suggestion was immediately rejected.

If Helga couldn't even reduce ordinary monsters to ash, then even enhancing her ability with 【Encouragement】 wouldn't make a meaningful difference.

Boss monsters possessed at least twice the attribute resistance of ordinary monsters.

"Could it be that the Demon Core isn't located in the organ responsible for circulation... but in the creature's fatal weakness?"

Lowering my gaze, I lightly rested my hand against my chin as though thinking deeply.

Then I casually muttered the thought.

Immediately, Reisir's interest was piqued. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said. A boss monster can revive if its Demon Core remains intact. But once its life functions cease, it can no longer protect that core. To minimize the number of vulnerabilities, perhaps the Demon Core is normally placed inside the heart rather than the brain, since a skull is much harder to target."

"So for a centipede-type boss monster, whose tubular heart can be damaged or even severed without immediately stopping its activity..."

Reisir's eyes brightened.

"...its greatest weakness would be its head, where its sensory organs are concentrated. Therefore the Demon Core would be located there?"

"I never said that was definitely the case. I'm merely proposing a hypothesis."

I deliberately spoke cautiously.

I wanted to make it clear I was offering a theory.

Not the correct answer.

"Right. It's only a hypothesis until we verify it. Still, I think there's a good chance you're right. It sounds much more convincing than the idea of multiple Demon Cores or one randomly hidden somewhere in the body. And most importantly..."

Reisir nodded.

Then his expression abruptly turned grave.

"I absolutely do not want to search through every segment of a giant centipede. So I sincerely hope you're right."

The earnestness in his voice was overwhelming.

So was that why he left that task to Djúpr in the original story?

It wasn't a matter of role allocation?

A suspicion quietly surfaced in my mind.

"If memory serves, a centipede's cerebral ganglion is located between the antennae and the mandibles."

"Pardon?"

"I'm saying the structure corresponding to the brain should be near the center front of the head. If you're attacking the head anyway, that's probably where you should aim."

In the original novel, Djúpr had suffered immensely while examining every segment.

The current Djúpr clearly hoped Reisir would avoid that experience.

He offered every piece of useful information he could.

"Now that the strategy meeting is over, can we start moving again?"

Helga, whose question had started this discussion in the first place, finally urged us onward.

There was one thing left to do first.

I asked her to wait.

Then I turned to Yor.

"How much farther?"

「 Almost there 」

That was the answer I received.

The buffs were nearing the end of their duration anyway.

Rather than waiting for them to expire, I simply refreshed them now.

"Thanks, Karvaldr."

"Hmph."

"Ahahaha! Now that we're fully prepared, shall we go slay a boss monster?"

The protagonist of someone else's novel laughed brightly.

For some reason, it was incredibly irritating.

Then he saw the boss monster.

And stopped laughing.

"How many body segments does that thing even have...?"

"At least a hundred, wouldn't you say?"

"...I really hope the Demon Core is in the head."

Reisir answered Helga without taking his eyes off the monster.

His face had become completely rigid.

Gripping his spear tightly, he unleashed three arcs of lightning and charged forward.

At the same time, Djúpr manipulated the surrounding vegetation, using roots and vines to restrain the creature.

It would have been ideal if he could immobilize it completely.

Unfortunately, the boss monster's strength was overwhelming.

"The ordinary monsters were ridiculously weak, so why is the boss monster this huge and strong?!"

Helga complained as her fireball struck the creature and accomplished almost nothing.

Worse yet, the boss monster could spit venom.

The ordinary monsters had to bite their victims to inject poison.

This thing launched it from a distance.

As a result, Reisir struggled to approach its head.

Even so, his circumstances were far better than they had been in the original story.

Helga was handling every ordinary monster summoned by the boss.

That allowed Reisir to focus entirely on dodging venom and searching for an opening.

As for me...

...What exactly am I supposed to do?

I doubted striking a creature covered in a hardened exoskeleton with a whip would accomplish much.

Even if I somehow shattered part of the shell, it would probably make things worse.

Every violent movement would spray toxic bodily fluids everywhere.

After considering the matter carefully, I reached a simple conclusion.

Doing nothing was probably helping the most.

That didn't mean I could relax.

Reisir might have been holding the boss monster's attention.

But its venom could easily be directed toward us.

A surviving ordinary monster could slip past Helga.

One might even emerge from underground and bite our ankles.

Yor and I remained alert, guarding our surroundings while the others fought.

To skip to the conclusion—

The situation I feared never occurred.

The battle ended without a single injury.

"Karvaldr~~! The Demon Core really was in its head!!"

Standing atop the monster's head with his spear still embedded in it, Reisir waved enthusiastically.

That was an incredibly dangerous thing to do.

Even real centipedes continued twitching and moving for a time after their cerebral ganglia were destroyed.

The centipede boss monster was no different.

Even after the Demon Core shattered and the membrane covering the sky dissolved, the creature continued moving for a while.

At least Reisir learned an important lesson.

Never let your guard down immediately after a battle.

Fortunately, he escaped unhurt.

"Ray, how can you behave so carelessly when your safety hasn't even been fully secured? You could have been seriously injured. If it resembles a centipede and possesses similar biological structures, you should naturally assume it may continue moving after death. Furthermore—"

As Djúpr's lecture began, a dark shadow settled over Reisir's face.

Still.

He had brought it entirely upon himself.

There was nothing he could do except listen.