The Protagonist Already Knows

Looking down from the rope at me as if I were some sort of ant, Carissa narrowed her eyes and responded.

"What!?"

Shrugging my shoulders, I simply said.

"I found it, right?"

Taking a deep breath, I honed my intent, feeling the speed at which blood circulated through the golden orb instantly speed up tenfold.

At that moment, I finally understood the purpose of the golden orb.

It further infused my blood with intent, making it more effectively attract mana.

Despite my usual cooldown being above four minutes, I managed to gather enough mana to activate Anubis’s Ferry within two.

Without skipping a beat, I flew up into the air and instantly deactivated Anubis’s Ferry after only a second, rematerializing on a ceiling panel beside the portal.

Glancing down at Carissa, who was halfway up the rope, I simply held my Dao out and smiled.

I didn’t want to smile, but I forced myself to.

In the novel, she had died at my hands in both timelines.

But now, since that was no longer a possibility, the thing most likely to kill her was her obsession.

Even now, she was about to enter the Dreg Realm because of it, knowing that it was likely she would never return.

Someone had to tell her, and I knew Ren wouldn’t.

He was far too encouraging and kind.

If she continued on with this obsession of trying to find her brother by entering the Dreg Realm, she would die.

So, I quietly said, avoiding her amber-brown pupils, which were looking up at me.

"You’re doing this to check on your brother, right? Well, he’s dead. So, stop trying to act like some sort of hero by sacrificing yourself to close the portal."

"If one sheep in a herd dies, it’s manageable, but if the shepherd dies, everything explodes into chaos."

As my words echoed through the room, her pupils widened and trembled with an indescribable rage.

At that moment, I was scared to even mark her. Perhaps she might have been able to take my past words as sarcasm and banter.

But even I knew this was too far.

"..."

Even I didn’t know why I had said it.

I could have just entered the portal, silently, right?

Ah...no, I couldn’t.

If I never came back, she would probably feel extremely guilty, and her obsession with entering the Dreg Realm would grow further.

I had to make her hate me.

So, I slid my sword forward, watching it easily cut through the rope.

As she fell, momentarily looking down and away from me, I finally glanced at her.

Seeing her sorrowful expression, I regretted everything instantly, but alas, I looked forward at the portal before me.

The reason she had used the rope in the first place was that she didn’t want her gifted ability to be on cooldown as soon as she entered the portal in case something happened.

But now, if I wasted another moment, she would use her gifted ability to enter instantly.

In fact, an arrow was already flying upward at the portal, not me.

As I leaped inside the portal, the arrow suddenly vanished, and in the air, where the arrow had just been, Carissa appeared right below me, her mouth wide open as she released her bowstring mid-air and sent another arrow up.

"DIE! I HOPE YOU DIE! DON’T EVER COME BACK!"

If my plan had worked...why did I feel so grim?

As her voice reverberated through my ears, everything turned pitch-black, and in the next moment, a bright light blinded me.

Re-opening my eyes, I instinctively looked up at the sky, finding it covered completely in a crimson-red...no stars, sun, or moon.

The whole world was painted a crimson-red.

Looking forward, I found myself atop a stone-brick watchtower, and as I peered off the ledge, all I could see was forests for miles, the trees pitch-black and the leaves a mute-grey.

"There’s nobody he- *AHEM*."

As I rapidly breathed in and out, I realized the air entering my lungs was extremely smoky, causing me to break into a coughing fit.

"AHEM, AHEM"

Desperately covering my mouth to prevent any sound from leaking out, I instantly got up off the stone ground and turned around

"Huh?"

The golden-rimmed portal filled with purple particles was still there.

*WHOOSH*

In the next moment, before I could comprehend that the portal was still there, an arrow surged forward from the purple particles, aiming straight at my stomach.

*BANG*

As a resounding bang echoed through the air, I instantly felt my stomach explode with pain as if a baseball had hit me, and I flew backward off the ground.

Was it a trap!? What was g-

*BANG*

As my back collided with the ledge of the watchtower, my head rang with pain as I desperately tried to grasp onto the ground in front of me to not fall out of the watchtower to my death.

However, I didn’t feel the hard stone ground.

I felt a soft and silky surface on my fingertips.

"..."

Barely managing to open my eyes, I glanced downward...finding a familiar figure lying on my knees, her head pressed against my stomach and hair in my hands.

"Why the hell can’t anything go to fucking plan!?"

Rubbing her eyes as if she had just woken up, Carissa eventually glanced upward, meeting my gaze.

"..."

"..."

*WHOOSH*

In the next second, breaking the awkward silence, a gust of wind suddenly passed by, and as we both looked ahead...the portal had vanished.

Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, three voices, with one particularly statically, suddenly came from right below us.

"*Their exam’s ending early. YOU TWO HAVE TO GO NOW BEFORE THEY LEAVE!*"

"But...wasn’t Jay supposed to inf-"

"*He’s still traveling here. If no one goes now, THERE’LL BE NO INFILTRATION*"

"B-but, neither of us has ever been to the h-"

"*DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH WE SPENT TO FIND A DISTORTION!? YOU TWO SHOULD BE MORE THAN ENOUGH TO KILL A FEW F-RANK STUDENTS*"