Chapter 48

After the conversation with Stella, Evan walked into the hospital room as if he had been waiting for the moment.

It was surprising that Arhen had come along with Evan, but given the circumstances, there must have been many things to discuss, so it wasn’t that unusual.

For now, regardless of everything else, it was simply a relief that Evan was unharmed.

I was briefly puzzled that he had sustained no injuries at all, but if the only one who had shown up to kill him was the Demon of Confusion, Nightmare, then it was understandable.

Even if he had suffered some physical injuries, it wouldn’t have mattered much since I was there to help, and in fact, I could maintain the theme while also enjoying the small happiness that came with it. Just to be sure, I approached Evan to check if he had any injuries.

“Lie down.”

Considering how many had died, Evan was really in good shape compared to me, who hadn’t fully recovered yet. In turn, I ended up receiving the worries and was somewhat forced to lie in the hospital bed.

Ahem.

Just to make it clear, I absolutely did not wish for Evan to be hurt.

No matter how you looked at it, wishing for someone to get hurt to maintain a theme or for a small happiness in daily life is surely not a normal human thought.

Well… I spent two years in this world and thought I might be going crazy, but regardless of how abnormal I was, I never thought that way as a human.

Moreover, since the opponent was Nightmare, getting physically hurt would be even stranger, and I was well aware of that fact, so wishing for injuries was just as odd.

Definitely… not…

Hmm…

Anyway, it must have been incredibly difficult to deal with, but he managed to get through it.

In the game, when facing Nightmare, there were no HP bars, and since you couldn’t hit it, I had died in a clumsy manner.

To be honest, although it was a monster in name, it simply stuck around and kept applying debuffs.

When MP and mental strength decreased to an unmanageable level due to the stacking debuffs, your HP would suddenly drop to zero, resulting in instant death. Furthermore, it was not of the demon race but of a special race, a mental entity, which meant it lacked physical form, making it hard to hit.

So, I had to purify thin air… I miss it.

In fact, Nightmare was scarier than ordinary monsters.

Dealing with it was different from facing typical monsters.

Even if it only appeared in the story, catching it was incredibly difficult, and it was only towards the later stages of the game that you could finally defeat it, so even if Evan had handled it well, capturing that demon would have been challenging.

Thinking about that high-ranking demon, which was partially dissected and used for research, its abilities were absurdly overpowered.

“[I apologize for this incident. I failed to notice it in advance and ended up letting this happen…]”

With Evan, Stella, and Arhen, who I still didn’t understand the reason for their presence, all present, I cautiously offered an apology to the three of them.

It wasn’t entirely without fault on my part.

I should have noticed something was off with Albert when I was distracted by the exam.

If I were to make an excuse, the inherent trait of being a mental entity made it relatively faint, and it was hidden so well within Albert that even with Divine Power detection, I couldn’t sense it properly.

I was in a situation where I needed to strive harder as a Saint.

If I had been a little better at handling Divine Power, I could have quickly noticed something strange and prevented things from reaching this point.

Of course, while I was dying by Albert’s hands underground, I genuinely felt happiness, but I almost ruined things because of that pleasure, so my apology included some self-reproach as well.

But…

“What are you talking about, Aria! You did nothing wrong!”

Oh, wait?

“Aria… if you say that one more time, I’ll hit you.”

Oh, that’s a bit tempting.

Should I say it one more time?

“Yeah, as Evan said, you did nothing wrong. Rather, it was my fault for not noticing that something was wrong with my student at the exam…”

“[Is that so…]”

Honestly, I thought so too.

I did feel a bit uneasy, but I thought Albert was just that kind of guy, and that was my biggest error in judgment.

Besides, I had no other faults…

It’s a bit unfair.

In that situation, the only thing I could do was to revert Albert to his original state.

If I used the stone of enlightenment, I could achieve a one-shot cut, but even if I did, how would I search that vast space alone and find Evan in any reasonable amount of time?

What good would it do to expand the detection range? No amount of searching all day would guarantee I would find Evan.

In that case, I might as well enjoy some time with Albert and just revert him back to normal later, acting as if that was my plan all along.

I truly had no ulterior motives.

However, I understood that I had caused a lot of worry, but what could I do?

There was no point in regretting now what had already happened.

If I went back to that moment, I would still confidently nod and make the same choice.

Anyway,

I didn’t know exactly why Arhen had come here, but if he had sought me out, it must have been for something important.

Evan must have told him about the situation by that point, but since the magic that unfolded caused us to be separated, I thought he might have come to ask me about what I had experienced.

That part would likely be addressed by Arhen first, so it wasn’t a big deal. Still, there was something I needed to say before Arhen asked.

“[Uh… this may be an unreasonable request, but could you please keep this incident confidential?]”

I had been attacked twice.

This was undoubtedly a serious matter, but having it disclosed to the public was somewhat, no, extremely dangerous.

Even now, this situation hadn’t gone according to the story, which I had not predicted, right?

Because of that, I was almost in serious trouble, and if the fact that the Academy had been attacked by demons became known across the continent, what would happen?

I couldn’t be sure, but one thing was certain: I didn’t know how much more the situation would change now.

If that were to happen, it would become impossible for me to manage what would occur in the future.

More than anything…

‘The Holy Kingdom and the Northern Duke won’t stay silent…’

The Academy would become chaotic in many ways.

Since I wanted to avoid that, I brought up the need to keep this matter confidential, despite knowing it might be received with strange expressions.

However,

“Yeah… I thought you would say that.”

Ah.

As expected of Arhen… the Grand Magician!

He had already anticipated what I would say!

If that were the case, I probably didn’t need to emphasize the need for confidentiality regarding this incident.

“[That’s a relief…]”

“Unfortunately, that’s not possible.”

What? Seriously?

“Rumors about this incident are already spreading, and we have an unrelated victim, Albert, who is right here.”

“…”

That’s…

Hmm.

I felt sorry for Albert, but it seems my only option would be to use memory erasure.

If I forcefully knocked his head against the wall, wouldn’t he completely lose his memory of that moment?

…

That sort of thing is probably impossible…

“Most importantly… now that we know who is behind this, we can’t just bury this incident.”

“[Behind it… you mean…]”

“The officers of the Demon King Army, just like me, the Grand Magician.”

“[That can’t be helped…]”

In fact, this was to be expected.

Regardless of the circumstances, if a demon that had concealed its presence for hundreds of years suddenly appeared, and that too attacking an esteemed educational institution known as one of the safest places in the Empire, the entire world would go on high alert just based on that fact alone.

And it was indeed something that warranted an alert.

It was even more concerning that I was the one asking for it to be kept hidden.

Thus, I could not press any further.

“Phew… then I suppose I should get up.”

“[…] Aren’t you going to ask what happened?”

“Ah… well, you can ask Evan over there. I have places I need to go.”

Places to go, huh.

Maybe he’s going to meet Asclyna.

“I need to do something about this old barrier first.”

The barrier…

In addition, there might be various controversies regarding Arhen’s qualifications as the Dean, so it seems he would be quite busy.

Arhen waved goodbye and left the room.

Now then…

“[Um… Brother Evan?]”

“Um… huh?”

“[Could you tell me…?]”

I felt a bit anxious.

Surely, considering the way he had behaved until just now, that couldn’t be possible, but…

He wouldn’t have seen through me… right?

He must not have.

“Um… got it.”

Upon hearing Evan’s response, I sat down and turned on my listening mode.

Although Estelle had suddenly popped up and disrupted the flow, it was okay.

It was genuinely a relief-filled topic.

‘Thank goodness we didn’t cut it short…’

It would have been a disaster if something had gone wrong…