Via stared at Lucy’s outstretched hand in silence for a long while.
She was truly speechless. Why did this girl keep trying to talk to her?
“Sorry, Lucy. I don’t need your protection.”
“Are you sure? You’re only Iron-rank,” Lucy said, slightly puzzled. “Even though we’ll only be active on the outskirts of the Demon King’s Castle ruins, the magical beasts there start at Silver-rank.”
“If I can’t fight them, can’t I just avoid them? As long as I keep my distance from the beasts, I’ll be fine.”
“You really are naive, Via,” Lucy narrowed her eyes. “One day, that naïveté is going to cost you dearly.”
“Did you come all the way here just to say that?”
“Of course not. I was helping the teachers distribute these.”
Lucy handed over a teleportation crystal and a communication device.
These were Avalon’s safety measures for the students.
Once they reached the vicinity of the ruins, the instructors would set up teleportation arrays in the safe outer zone. If students encountered danger they couldn’t handle, they could use the communication device to call nearby classmates or teachers for help, or activate the teleportation crystal to return instantly to safety.
Via had already learned all of this before departure.
She accepted the crystal and the Avalon-marked communicator.
“Since you don’t want my protection, fine. I still have to hand these out to the others. Good luck, Via.”
With those parting words, Lucy went off to complete the task the teachers had given her.
“She’s finally gone. Peace at last.”
Via let out a sigh of relief.
She wanted nothing more than to keep a low profile during this expedition and avoid unnecessary attention.
The pink-haired girl glanced around. After her conversation with Lucy, a few people had indeed noticed her.
One of them was Owen.
His gaze was venomous, brimming with hatred. When their eyes met, he flashed an extremely sinister smile.
Via felt a chill and quickly looked away.
She also noticed that the usual lackeys who fawned over Owen were nowhere to be seen.
The fallout from the last assessment had clearly hit him hard.
Besides Owen, there was another person: a blue-haired girl in an Avalon uniform, watching her with a meaningful gaze.
Thump-thump-thump—
Via’s heartbeat quickened slightly.
Could this student be the mysterious girl from the underground black market?
She was deeply confused.
This blue-haired girl looked completely unfamiliar. Via was certain she had never seen her at Avalon before.
Who on earth was she?
Despite the flood of questions, Via didn’t approach to confirm. On the surface, she acted as though nothing had happened.
“I’ll head back to the cabin. We still have a long flight ahead.”
…
…
“Ugh…”
The magitech airship jolted through turbulence, waking Via from her sleep.
She opened her pink eyes, looked out the window, and squinted at the glaring sunlight. It was already the next day.
She had gone to bed early last night and slept soundly without dreams until morning.
She planned to freshen up and then head to the main cabin for morning roll call.
But the moment she got out of bed, she noticed something odd.
A slip of paper had been pushed under her room door.
“Who left this for me?”
Via found it strange. She picked up the note and checked the back—no signature.
When she unfolded it and read the contents, her brows shot up in surprise.
「Little rice cake,
There’s something wrong with the teleportation crystal and communicator Lucy gave you.
Remember to check them ♪」
“Lucy did hand me these two things yesterday…”
Via took out both items. She released her mana, enveloped them, and carefully probed their internal structures.
To her astonishment, the teleportation crystal had been completely disabled, and the communicator contained an extremely well-hidden interference spell that would activate at a specific time.
That time was…
roughly three hours after the airship arrived at the outskirts of the Demon King’s Castle and the expedition activities began.
“What exactly is Lucy planning by tampering with these?”
Via raised an eyebrow. She genuinely couldn’t figure it out.
But what baffled her even more was—who was the informant?
And why would anyone help her?
She had zero friends at the academy.
“This is getting weird…”
…
…
“Feeling better?”
Sophie channeled sacred arts, golden holy power flowing from her hands to heal the wounded cleric and purify the abyssal aura clinging to him.
“Thank you so much, Miss Sophie. You saved me,” the weakened cleric smiled gratefully. “If you hadn’t been here, they might’ve had to amputate my arm to stop the corruption.”
“Relax, it’s not serious.”
Sophie quickly finished purifying him.
She turned to survey the camp. Quite a few clerics had been injured this time.
Right now, she was near the Demon King’s Castle ruins, accompanying a Holy Knight squad on routine patrols to clear magical beasts in the surrounding area.
“You’ve worked hard, Miss Sophie,” the Holy Knight captain approached. “Would you like to rest?”
“No need. I’ll keep treating everyone first.”
“Then thank you for your help.”
“The Demon King’s Castle ruins… they really are that dangerous, aren’t they?”
Sophie sighed.
She had come here before with the Holy Knights and done the same thing—cooperating to eliminate beasts.
But this time, her feelings were completely different.
She was once again standing where she and Ville had fought to the death.
“Who would have thought—even after Demon King Ville fell, the ruins would remain so deadly? The deeper zones are filled with traps, deadly magic arrays, and even…”
The captain’s brow furrowed with tension.
After all these years, neither the Saint Luo Empire nor the Holy Land had fully explored the ruins.
Deep inside lurked a terrifying monster that had claimed countless lives. It was a headache for both Empire and Holy Land.
“I truly don’t know how Lady Silver Sword Princess managed to reach the Demon King’s throne back then…”
“That year…”
Sophie’s mind drifted to the past.
She had expected to fight through layers of demonic defenses before reaching the throne room.
Yet strangely, once inside the castle, she encountered almost no resistance. She marched straight in—as though someone had deliberately wanted her to meet Ville.
“By the way, Miss Sophie,” the captain suddenly said, “Avalon Academy chose the outskirts of the ruins for their expedition this year. They should be arriving soon. Looks like the academy is finally getting a piece of the pie after trying for so many years.”
“Avalon Academy is coming too?”
Sophie’s first thought was of her little sister, and she instantly felt nervous.
Then she dismissed the idea.
With Via’s timid personality, there was no way she would voluntarily come to such a dangerous place.
Her little sister definitely wouldn’t be here.
Bet