“Did something happen while I was gone?” I asked as I got back and saw something quite unusual from my students.

All of them were seen in a circle, talking about things. The main speaker was Ariella. It seemed she was talking about some of the things I had done back at the Auction House, which might have been a small problem since I didn’t want it to spread in the first place.

‘Hm…should I erase their memories about it?’ I thought in the back of my mind, as I didn’t want this information to spread.

After all, this could put everyone at risk, and that was the last thing that I wanted at the moment.

However, I decided against it. I didn’t believe that one of my students would spread that information. Maybe I had softened a little, but that was still my decision for the moment.

“Ah, no! Everything was great. Ariella was just talking to us about how cool you were back at the auction house!”

I rubbed the back of my neck in an embarrassing manner. “Right, well, it wasn’t nothing too impressive.”

“Hmpf, so you did something more impressive than everything she just told us?!” Darla asked, her eyes filled with stars.

It had been quite some time since I had spent some time with her since all the other students had arrived. But she was looking much better than before. It seemed I had given her some much-needed confidence, especially with everything that had been happening within her family.

“Maybe, I did…maybe I didn’t. Who knows? Anyway, everyone gets up. We’re not stopping until we reach the Snowy Mountains!”

I expected some cheers, but it seemed that they didn’t quite like what I had just said.

Oh well. Too bad. We were still going to do it.

***

A day had passed, and we were now definitely getting to the northern parts of the continent as the cold and glacial gushes of winds intensified, brushing against all our faces. We were on the verge of reaching the snowy parts. But more importantly, we were finally outside of the Royal Forest.

As soon as we got out, we managed to see a village from far away. My students were asking to rest there, and I wasn’t too sure if it was a good idea.

There was…I don’t know how to say it, but some kind of weird aura surrounding that village. It was a vibe that I had noticed as I had gotten closer and closer to the Snowy Mountains.

“Please~!” They all begged as all of them were extremely tired.

They looked at me with those cute eyes that dogs would do, and honestly…it worked.

Yes…I got convinced because of how innocent and cute they looked. But this was the last time that it would!

“Alright. But we won’t be staying long. I hope all of you know that. We spend the night here, and we leave by tomorrow morning.”

All of them nodded their heads heavily as we walked in the direction of the small village that was situated in the middle of nowhere.

It actually wasn’t impressive whatsoever, and I couldn’t help but wonder about the people living inside it. There had to be something here for them to willingly stay here. After all, there was probably a city or a kingdom nearby.

Within minutes, we reached the village, and we were met with two quite burly humans stopping us right by the door.

However, as much as they were humans, they were much bigger than normal ones, their muscles were much larger than normal, and their height was extremely high. But what truly caught my eye was the color of their skin. They were extremely pale. It almost looked sickly.

Looking at them made me think of Vikings.

“Who you, and why you here?” One of the two guards said. He seemed to struggle to speak English correctly as if it wasn’t his first language. As he said those words, he even placed his hand on the helm of the huge axe that was on his back.

“We are on our way to the Snowy Mountains, and we are looking for a place to stay tonight,” I said without lying.

I didn’t believe that those men had any connections from the outside, from the way they spoke to the way they dressed. They were definitely isolated from the rest of the world.

“Snowy Mountains? You? HAHAHA!” He laughed his heart out. However, that laugh was definitely short-lived. “Human, you not strong enough. You die if you go.

Return.”

“Mhm, did you ever go to the Snowy Mountains?” I asked, interested, if they had any information.

“Yes, very dangerous. Energy bad there.”

‘Oh. Bad energy? They can detect demonic energy?’

That was the conclusion I came to from the little of what he said. However, I still needed to know more about it.

“What kind of bad energy?”

“Bad. Hurt our people. So, leave before happens to you.”

My students were all behind me, hearing this conversation, knowing that things would get a lot more dangerous the more we approached the Snowy Mountains. After all, we were right at the frontier from entering that territory. It was either we went back or we continued ahead.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t leave. We need to go to the Snowy Mountains. Could we stay the night here?”

“Wait. Me ask chief of tribe.”

‘Tribe?’

I looked back toward my students with a frown on my face. After all, I ignored a lot of things about this world. So, there was a chance that one of them had information about them.

One of the guards was still looking at us without saying anything. However, I didn’t mind him.

“Do any of you know about this place? Olivia?” I asked Olivia since she was the most likely to have heard of it in the past.

“Mhm, I’m not too sure. I read somewhere in a book that there was an ancient tribe living near the Snowy Mountains, but that was the only place that it was ever mentioned.”

“Anyone else?”

There was no answer.

“Was something, uh, special mentioned in that book of yours?”

“Yes, they were said to be a Superior Form of Humanity.”

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