A week had passed since the incident I had caused in the middle of the Royal Academy, and let’s say that a lot of things had happened during that short moment.

The first thing that happened was that Alexandra resigned from her position as the director of the Royal Academy on her own. I hadn’t done anything about that.

However, what was truly the “big” part of this whole thing were the articles circulating everywhere about me.

It was the first time in my life that there was a ‘spotlight’ on me and my actions. Questions were being thrown around quite heavily as it seemed that I had entered the crossfire of most media around the world. After all, they probably looked up information on me and never found anything.

That’s why most articles that came had similar titles, which were honestly clickbait titles.

[Mystery Man declares that Demons have infiltrated society!]

[An Unknown Man Announces that Demons are Back!]

As I was looking through those articles on my desk, I couldn’t help but be annoyed when I read them. They were so badly written that most of them ignored the facts, hearing them from bystanders who had been panicked by my actions.

Most of those articles painted me in a bad light. It was as if I had been the one who had done something wrong when I was the one who had just revealed the truth to everyone across the world.

Was that fair? No way.

Still, now that a week had passed, I had spent a bit of time with Amelia, and I had observed Ava.

To be honest, Ava seemed clean, as far as I could tell. There was nothing about her that could make me think that she was 100% a demon. I had even asked her if she was one straight to her face, and my lie detector skill had indicated that she was telling the truth.

I knew that it wasn’t 100% sure. But it was better than nothing.

That’s why I quickly dismissed my worries about Ava being a demon. Instead, I focused on what I should be doing next.

There was only one thing that I really needed to do at the moment, and that was to figure out that Black Heart and how they had managed to demonize humans and others to such a degree without anyone noticing. Derek had used a skill to change his appearance. But the Ice Elves I had met hadn’t.

They were literally demons, but they appeared to be normal. That was the thing that worried me the most. The fact that there was no way to tell them apart from normal people. If it continued to develop this way, there would be no way to win this war, no matter what I tried to pull off.

That’s why today was the day that I announced to all my students that I was departing once more.

This time, I decided to let them stay at the Academy because I thought it would be safer than being around me for one simple reason.

The fact that I had killed Zero.

Alexandra was clearly right about what she had said about his siblings. They would try to get revenge against me soon. And I did not want them to use my students to do so. I could handle them. They couldn’t. Continue your adventure with empire

Nevertheless, you must be wondering where I was going, right?

Well, it was to see a good friend of mine.

Someone who was known around the world as the best alchemist.

She had been the one I thought of at first when I discovered the Black Hearts in the monsters I had killed. However, there was just one reason why I hadn’t given them to her. She was quite far from the Human Kingdom.

She resided within the Elf Kingdom, which was the place that I would be heading next.

The Elf Kingdom was on the opposite side of the Snowy Mountains, in the South. There was also another reason why I had wanted to find information without contacting her. It was the fact that… our relationship wasn’t the best. Let’s say that we weren’t exactly on friendly terms.

Still, I was ready to endure her hatred if it meant that I could get information about the Black Heart.

I took back the Black Heart that I had given to Ava, and I was finally ready to leave for the Human Kingdom.

However, I wouldn’t be leaving alone. Amelia was accompanying me. I had tried my best to make her stay here, but no matter what I tried to say or pull, it was useless. There was nothing I could do, she was decided. And honestly, it would be nice to have her around and have someone to “distract” me.

“Ready to leave?” I asked Amelia.

“Yes! I’ve never been to the South Region! I can’t wait to see how it is over there.”

I smiled at her naiveness. However, I was also unaware of how the South was. I had never been. I had only heard a few rumors, such as that it was just one big mystical. And I had also heard that elves, in general, despised humans.

Still, I wasn’t too worried about their hatred. After all, everyone I met loved me. Right?

***

It took around a week once more to reach the South Region, but we had finally arrived at the mystical forest that I had heard about so many times.

We had already ventured inside a little, and it was certainly unlike anything I had seen before. The energy within the forest was some of the purest I had felt in my life, but that wasn’t all. I didn’t know what it was, but there was something strange about this forest and the energy it was emitting. In fact, it had managed to block off some of my senses ever so slightly.

“Do you feel anything different about this place?” I asked Amelia as soon as I realized it.

“What do you mean?” She muttered with a look of confusion. “Am I supposed to feel something different?”

“Your senses? Is there anything strange about them?”

“Nope, they seem fine.”

‘Hm…’ I thought.

That meant either one of two things. Either Amelia wasn’t affected because she was technically an elf, or she couldn’t feel the slight oppression of our skills.

As we continued to walk in the forest, I made sure to pay attention as much as I could, even with my senses reduced in terms of strength.

-Bwoong!

A loud noise suddenly resounded on my right side as if a piercing noise was heading toward me.

“Amelia, dodge!” I shouted as fast I could as I turned my head toward the arrow heading in our direction.

If I had reacted 0.01 seconds later, we would have most likely been both dead. Still, as I dodged, I tried to look around, but I couldn’t feel or sense anyone’s presence, which made it even clearer that something was weird about this place.

“Who’s there!” I shouted as I couldn’t sense their position, no matter how hard I tried. I wasn’t sure why, but this forest was making things harder for me… “Show yourselves! We are not here to attack the elves or anything like that, please.”

I was practically convinced that it was elves who were currently attacking Amelia and me; however, I still found it quite strange that they had not announced themselves or tried to ask us why we were in their territory. It was definitely strange and something that stayed in the back of my mind as I continued to try and spot those who had just tried to kill us.

“Grrrr…”

I turned around when I heard the growl, and what I saw was troubling. Before me, at the very least, fifteen demonic beasts are staring me down.

Alright, scratch that. The ones who attacked me are part of Perdere, without a doubt.

The energy I felt from the demonic creatures was different from those I had met before… they were much stronger, and their demonic energy was much worse than anything he had felt from a beast before.

‘The situation regarding the Black Hearts just keeps getting worse as time passes… I need to move faster.’

Without saying another word, I dashed forward at the beasts, killing every one of them with my sword without much struggle. After all, they were simple beasts; they were no match against me. Still, it was clear as I fought them that there was someone who was telling them what to do and how to fight against me.

-Bwoong!

Another arrow passed right before my eyes, and once more, I couldn’t feel the presence of the one who had shot it. The people currently attacking me were certainly very powerful assassins whose only goal was to assassinate me one way or another.

‘Wait… what about Amelia?’ I suddenly thought as I realized that I had stopped paying attention to her because of the wolves.

And for some reason, my sense of hearing seemed to have stopped working, as I could no longer hear those around me. Instead, a constant high-pitched noise was resounding in my head, again and again.

And when I turned toward where I had last left Amelia, I finally saw the face of one of the people who had just tried to kill me. It was a demon, just like I had guessed, and he was currently holding a knife against Amelia’s neck, threatening to kill her.

“Move, and she’s dead, Caedrel Stuart,” the demon muttered, his voice dark and gloomy.

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