Hero or Villain, Both

In the end, the teachers agreed with me and stopped looking at me with those strange looks.

But the one thing that they did before heading out again was hand me the green shards that they picked up.

It seemed that none of them wanted these green shards for themselves and handed them all to me.

It was as if they were recognizing that I was the one that did most of the work in taking down these monsters.

Since they were offering them to me, it wasn't as if I had a reason to reject them.

After putting them away, we headed off in the same direction.

This time, whenever we encountered monsters along the way, they didn't hesitate to get me involved. The teachers acted as bait to bring the monsters into the perfect line of sight for me to shoot them down.

It was almost as if they were treating me as the main damage dealer of our group.

Though that wasn't strange since I was able to pierce through the head of these monsters with just a single arrow.

This wasn't something that any of the teachers could do.

In fact, many of the teachers were even struggling to hurt the monsters as they fought with them. The skin of the monsters were just too tough for the teachers to penetrate through, so they weren't able to do any damage to them.

It was only when they used their strongest attacks that they would be able to pierce through the skin of these monsters.

But if they used nothing but their strongest attacks, then they would be worn out by the time that they reached their destination.

That was why it was better to let me handle it instead.

However, after a while, the teachers came to a stop and Nerina came over to ask, "Are you alright? Do you need a break?"

It was clear that they were worried about me since I was the one that was dealing with all the monsters that came to attack us.

I had to admit that I was a bit tired from everything that I had done.

It might not have been as tiring if it were just a few monsters, even a dozen would have been something that I could have dealt with. It was just that there were too many monsters that were appearing as we headed closer to our destination.

With how many appeared, it was almost as if we were drawing in all of the monsters that were being spawned in this forest.

So I had to admit that I did need a break.

Once we stopped, it seemed like the monsters also stopped coming.

"So they're guarding whatever we're heading towards. But what is it that we're heading towards?" I asked Nerina when we stopped in a clearing to rest.

When I asked this, Nimue and Rania couldn't help coming over to see what her answer would be. Fae didn't come over, but the way that she turned to look at us showed that she was interested in this answer as well.

Nerina didn't say anything as it looked like she was hesitating, but in the end…

"It's the core of this place. It's where the tomb of that high elf ancestor is."

Nimue and Rania revealed looks of understanding when they heard this since they had already guessed at what this place was.

However, I noticed that there was something strange about the look on Fae's face.

It wasn't noticeable, but I could see that there was a trace of a complicated look in her eyes.

It was clear that there was some kind of special connection between Fae and this place. Perhaps it might even be the reason that she transferred here in the middle of the school year in the first place…

But before now, it didn't matter until we reached the center and saw what happened.

I was on the side that wasn't surprised, even though I acted like I was surprised to hear this.

After all, I knew about this place a long time ago and it was the place that I wanted to reach all along.

Once Nerina explained this, she added, "That's why you'll have to listen carefully to my orders later."

Taking out what seemed to be some kind of stick, she said, "This is a special item that I'll be using to gain access to the core of that place. It's a magic item that was left behind by that high elf ancestor if anyone went wrong. If you don't have this, then you shouldn't even think about approaching that place since there are defenses in place."

This time, I was actually surprised to see this.

I knew that they had something like this since this was featured in the game, but this was an item that shouldn't have been in the possession of a teacher. This was an item that was entrusted to the headmaster of the Verdant Forest.

For Nerina to have it now, it went to show that they had already contacted the Verdant Forest and brought this item over.

It seemed that they had prepared far more than I expected.

But even then, they didn't know what was happening with all of these monsters as we were still being attacked by the different boss monsters as we approached.

This was a scenario that had never appeared in the game, so I really was actually out of my element for once. I had hoped that the teachers would have some idea of what was happening with this forest.

However, everything that Nerina just told and showed me proved that they didn't have an idea either.

It seemed that I would be going into this blind…

"I don't like this at all. The feeling of not knowing what is going to happen, it really is a scary one." I couldn't help thinking to myself with a secret sigh.

"Alright, we've rested enough. Let's keep going." Nerina suddenly said when she finished telling us everything.