And So, I'm A Monster?

The way things are going, it's easy to guess what exactly is happening. It seems a dark mage of unknown tier invaded the school exam and is causing havoc by creating teleportation circles around the forest and luring the monsters to be teleported around the school. Even from this deep in the forest, the screams of students can be heard from far away. But all in all, this is too obviously a distraction. So then, what is their main objective?

"We have to go!" Larien exclaims, forming a fire sword in his hand using magic and slicing a few monsters heading towards the teleportation circles.

Could they be after Larien? Is this a terrorist attack aimed for the royal palace by capturing prince Larien? No. They're skilled enough to manage almost a three dozen teleportation circles around this forest, capturing Larien would've been easily done by now. Then are they aiming for something in the school? An artifact? Relic? Maybe ancient spell? Tch! This is almost sort of irking the hell out of me. I hate it when my plans are ruined, especially by an unknown party.

Knights will be flooding this place soon, so I might as well leave it to them. There is a lot of attention and benefits from helping the situation, but I don't know who the culprit is, and I'd like to see the strength of the city guards. Though since it won't take long for the news to spread that a dark mage is responsible, I can expect a few knights to appear, and that'll make this even worth the while.

I turn to Larien and respond, "Okay. Since it's an easier route anyway, we'll use the teleportation circles too. Feran and Turnan, you guys can wuss it out here. You'll get in the way."

"Wha- How dare..."

"Alright. First we have to deal with the incoming monsters," Larien says, cutting Feran's retort.

I nod in agreement, looking at the swarm of monsters heading quickly in our direction. I need to clear enough away to give us time to use the teleportation circle. Ah, I think this'll work.

"Hail Storm," My hand glows with a faint blue light as I summon an array of hailing ice that stabs through the multitude of monsters approaching, clearing away a few trees at the same time. "Let's move."

Larien shifts his expression from a look of amazement to one of seriousness and follows me to an open magic circle.

"Prince Larien you can't be serious about following this madman into an unsafe circle!" Feran disputes.

"We don't even know where it may lead!"

"Pussies," I accidently blurt, causing all three nobles in my midst to flinch and gasp at my vulgar language.

I push Larien into the teleportation circle and follow immediately after, then quickly cast <Gale Wind> to blow the annoying noble brats away so they don't interfere further. I also can't stand pansies.

A flash of light appears around us, and before the blink of an eye, we were standing near the east entrance of the school, that led to what looked like a club building.

"Ha! I've thought this before but, you really are a guy who only looks straight ahead aren't you?" Larien gasped, letting out a small chuckle.

Looks like we arrived relatively safely. So the teleportation circle wasn't restricted to just monsters. That's weird. If you wanted to cause havoc, why give the examinees an escape route as well? Well, I guess no other examinees are daring or dumb enough to go through an unknown magic circles that monsters were attracted to.

Hm? Okay scratch that. There is one other.

"A-Alice?!"

The familiar voice of Darius draws my attention to him and the person walking beside him. Lunela Hanglis.

"Don't tell me... you actually went through the teleportation circle too?!" Darius exclaimed as he looked at Larien and I with disbelief and exasperation.

"It looks like you were dragged through," I respond, glancing at the silent Lunela trudging lightly behind him.

Larien smiled as he uttered, "Looks like we weren't the only ones who came to the same conclusion..."

Lunela and Darius pressed their lips, dawning a serious expression as they surmised the same thing.

"... the school is under attack right now."

Lunela took a few steps forward before glancing in our direction. "I sense dark magic."

"You're right. Those circles attracted the monsters to them. But... who could have the power to create that many?" Larien agreed, bringing his hand up to his chin in a ponder.

"Attention all examinees! The exam has been temporarily cancelled. Please follow the instructions of the professors and other staff on the scene, and follow them calmly!"

An alarm was raised concerning the situation, however...

"They didn't ask us to leave." Larien muttered as if following my train of thought.

I sigh and put my hands into my pockets, glancing in the direction of the school main entrance. "Probably because we can't leave."

With magic detection, I was able to sense that all the exits from the school were sealed with magic. They're not difficult to break, but with the collective strength of the individuals of this school I've seen so far, it would probably take a while before they can break all of them. Which also means, the guards will be relatively useless. Until word gets to the knights, it seems we'll be stuck here.

"You're right," Larien agrees, biting his lower lip in thought.

"So what do we do now?" Darius asks, looking over to me.

Soon, all three of them stare in my direction like I somehow have the answers to the questions of the cosmos.

I exhale and say, "Nothing."

"Huh?!"

"We do nothing. It's not like doing anything will give us some reward. To begin with, what exactly are we helping with? It would be wise to follow the instructions given and head to were the other examinees are."

"Are... are you serious?" Darius looks at me with disbelief.

The atmosphere drops to silence and their gaze turns fixed on me.

I let out an exasperated sigh and say and glance towards an abstract direction. I can sense a few chaotic scenarios going down. "I guess... we can help with that?"

"Hm?" They all hum in unison, wondering what I'm talking about.

A loud scream coming from the direction I was gazing at answers their question for me.

Without hesitation, Lunela forms an attack magic sword using her mana in her hand, and charges towards the direction, Larien following in tow.

Even though all around me, I can hear screams, and cries for help, as well as sense the attacks coming from all over the campus, yet, in the midst of all that, I can only think of how bored I'm getting. I know I definitely wasn't like this before. This is a new development, although I can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing. The inability to feel compassion. Why would the tato system give me this? Maybe Net felt, that the path ahead of me would be ten times rougher than what I'd imagined. Cause for me to lose such a vital part of being human, isn't he basically asking me to dump my humanity and become a devil or something? There's something he told me. Right before I vanished into the magic circle that brought me here, he whispered two things to me with a devious grin on his face. I think one of them was a question. He said "How willing are you to become a monster to rule over monsters?" Or, something along those lines.

The second thing pissed me off but this question, I didn't really understand it until I ripped that adventurer's arm off and felt nothing of it. It was funny to think that before that day, I used to be incredibly squeamish to blood, and at the time it gave me a slight shudder. But now, even as I sense people dying, I honestly still don't want to do anything. I can only think about what benefits it'll bring me. And yet, I can only contemplate if that's a good thing.

"Alice?" Darius calls out to me, snapping me back from my thoughts.

I breathe out another sigh before looking at Darius. "Let's go."