The Protagonist Already Knows

"I didn’t see a single arrow hit Ha-"

Before I could even finish my sentence, Carissa was already reaching back into her quiver and grabbing an arrow.

"I’ll hit you, pest."

As she pulled back her bowstring, nocking an arrow, I didn’t hesitate to turn intangible and fly up, positioning myself right below the correct ceiling panel.

*WHOOSH*

*BANG*

*BANG*

The arrow flew straight through my body and hit the ceiling panel above me.

*CRASH*

*BANG*

Instantly, the ceiling panel shattered into dozens of pieces and fell down, revealing a gold-rimmed portal floating in the air above it.

"..."

"..."

In silence, the two of us looked up at the glowing purple portal.

Eventually, forcefully making my voice shaky and quiet, I asked.

"I-is that a portal to the Dreg Dimension!?"

There were two types of Dregs: Dreg Beasts and Dreg Demons.

Dreg beasts were the monsters that usually flooded out of the gate crashes. These beings were bred to be sacrificed by Demons in the Dreg Dimension and mostly had no consciousness.

Their only thoughts were..."Kill all humans!"

Alternatively, Demons that lived in the Dreg Dimension possessed an intelligence similar to humans and thus were extremely dangerous.

Under the Dreg God, these Demons had created their own kingdom in the Dreg Dimension, with different tribes and regions... there were millions of Dreg Demons there.

It was obvious... with a portal this small and so precisely placed above our room, this was no simple attack involving Dreg Beasts.

Hearing my question, Carissa didn’t answer: her pupils remained eerily still as she gazed at the portal.

Ah, right...hadn’t her brother died there?

Rematerializing and landing on the ground, I awkwardly glanced at her for a moment.

"I’ll go repor-"

"I’m going."

"..."

Coughing and glancing at the sliding door, I asked carefully.

"With me to report it...?"

Finally averting her gaze from the portal, Carissa scoffed and looked at me.

"The portal is weak enough that it’ll automatically close when I enter. Tell the teachers that I had to go in because the Dregs were about to go through and kill all unconscious students in this room."

"..."

As I looked at Carissa, who was dead set on jumping into the portal herself, my mind exploded into chaos.

What the hell was I supposed to do here!? I hadn’t considered the possibility...of her being a psychopath and wanting to enter the Dreg Dimension!

If she entered the portal into the Dreg Dimension, there was an extremely high probability she would die.

I couldn’t let Carissa die...could I?

As the thought that she had died in the original novel timeline anyway flashed through my mind, I immediatly shook my head and denied the thought.

No, there was absolutely no way...

But...what could I do?

I wasn’t her babysitter: I already knew there was no way I could stop her from entering the portal unless I fought her in a fight I was likely to lose anyway.

Maybe...logic?

Seeing me simply stand there, Carissa opened her mouth to presumably yell at me to go, but I immediatly interrupted.

"Do you ever hear how stupid you sound!? How are you going to get out once you go in? How do you plan to survive!? If even one Demon sees you, you’re dead...let’s just go grab a teacher or wait for our classmates to arrive."

Rummaging through a backpack that I doubted was hers, Carissa simply glanced up and muttered.

"Worry about yourself. Demons could come through there at any second...if they do, everyone here is dead."

Ah...right, in her eyes, perhaps a hundred demons could come out of that portal and instantly kill everyone.

The only way for her to protect everyone was to close the portal herself by entering it before the Demons could.

There was no way she would believe me...if I said I knew the future and that there was likely only going to be one demon coming out.

Slamming open the sliding door, I peered into the hallway and instantly began screaming.

"PROFESSOR SOOYUNG! PROFESS-"

There was no response.

Ah...perhaps, despite the change in date, this encounter was fated to happen.

Why hadn’t I immediately warned Professor Sooyung when I was eliminated...? Why had I waited now...? Why did I let her leave without saying anything!?

Because I was scared.

Scared of being asked questions or suspected for knowing about the portal. That was why I had set up this encounter with Carissa to "discover" it incidentally.

Now...that fear was going to cost me, wasn’t it?

Desperately, I glanced up at the large screen: there were five hundred and two students still remaining.

In less than a minute, the exam would end.

Would the Dreg Demon(s) flood out of that portal...then?

Sure, in the original timeline, everything had been fine with Ren and company, who eliminated the single Dreg Demon who came through the portal.

But...this wasn’t the original timeline. The exam was about to end a day early.

What if two Dreg Demons came out this time...or even more? Or zero?

What if the Dreg Demons were more powerful...?

Snapping me back to reality, Carissa dropped the backpack on the floor after taking a few things and stood directly beneath the floating portal.

My mind froze.

W-what was I supposed to do?

I could try to stop Carissa, but stalling her for a minute was simply impossible for me. And what if she was injured...then without her help, Ren could lose the fight to the Dreg Demon coming out of the portal.

And if... things changed and more powerful Dreg Demons came out, we were all dead.

But...if I waited and let Carissa go, the portal would close behind her, and my life and everyone else’s would be guaranteed...but Carissa was dead.

Ah...there was only one sure-fire way to save everyone, wasn’t there?

Interrupting Carissa, who was now climbing up a rope up the ceiling panels, I said.

"Let me go."