Following Real Chris’s gaze, I turned my head, and sure enough, the final battle was racing toward its conclusion.

A life-or-death struggle between the Demon Lord and the Protagonist.

“Michael, you can do it!”

“You can’t lose! If anyone can do this, it’s you!”

“I believe in you, my greatest rival!”

The cheers were deafening. So this was the part where the companions rallied their strength for the Protagonist.

‘If the Protagonist wins here, the war between the Demon Lord and the Holy Emperor ends, and after that, the Protagonist adventures across the entire continent as a true “hero,” right?’

I dropped out not long after, so I don’t know the details, but he’ll probably manage fine on his own.

He no longer needs a teacher on that path. For a Protagonist who has completed his growth, a mentor is nothing but a hindrance.

‘Disappearing with only my back showing right after his fight ends would be the perfect exit.’

The evenly matched contest of power continued. But eventually, the Demon Lord was sent tumbling to the ground.

“Cough! To push me this far… you’ve grown splendidly. But I do not die. As long as my blood flows within you!”

“I am no longer swayed by such curses. Demon Lord, your ties with me end here!”

The moment the Protagonist finally drove his blade into the Demon Lord’s heart, I pressed the quest confirmation button.

“……Huh?”

I couldn’t help but doubt my eyes.

[Main Quest: Request of the Earth God 5-15

Excellent. Thanks to your hard work until now, Michael has matured sufficiently. Now it is time to harvest. Take this sword, cleave your disciple’s chest, extract his heart, and offer it to the Earth God.

Reward: A new life, the title of Savior of Earth and This Planet

Failure: Death, the destruction of Earth and This Planet]

“What…… is this.”

My mind refused to process it. The text was in Korean, but the meaning refused to register.

[Cheon Sae-ra. Take up the sword.]

Before I knew it, my hand felt heavy. Something was in it.

A sword so battered it had lost its entire edge—literally falling apart.

“What…… what kind of nonsense is this, Chris? Why a sword……”

[Because that is your role.]

“You’re joking, right? Wasn’t my role to teach the Protagonist properly?! Why do I have to do something like this! Explain yourself!”

[Hah……]

Real Chris let out a short sigh. Her expression remained as infuriatingly blank as ever.

[Michael Foxin, that boy’s heart is pure power itself, stronger than any Magic Stone. Everyone wants to claim it. That’s why it becomes the seed of all conflict. This time it was the war between the Holy Emperor and the Demon Lord, but next time others will emerge. The wars will never cease, and eventually this planet will be destroyed.]

So the root cause of this war lay in the Protagonist’s heart. Was that also why the Holy Emperor and the Demon Lord had taken such particular interest in him?

Through Real Chris’s translucent body, I could see people cheering. The Protagonist had claimed victory.

[And your planet, Earth, is also facing destruction from environmental pollution. Restoring it requires tremendous power. Power like Michael Foxin’s heart.]

The Protagonist, who had been smiling brightly, looked around as if searching for someone, then fixed his gaze on me.

[One planet with too much power that needed to be discarded, and another planet that needed to obtain great power to survive. The gods of both planets made a deal to save their children.]

He waves. His lips move. He’s carefully mouthing the word “teacher,” syllable by syllable, with deliberate precision.

Strange—his voice didn’t reach me. Only Real Chris’s words flowed into my ears.

[Michael Foxin is an unstable boy. They needed a “harvester” to stay by his side and manage things so nothing went wrong when his heart was extracted.]

Perhaps puzzled by me standing there blankly, the Protagonist tilted his head. Then he sprinted toward me with full force.

Completely unaware of what situation he was in.

[Judging by that face, he’ll gladly give it up. You’ve done well all this time, Cheon Sae-ra.]

“Ha, haha……”

Done well? You fucker, is that really something to say right now?

Letting me get deeply attached, deliberately guiding us to grow close.

And now you’re telling me to kill my disciple with my own hands?

“Wow, that backstab hurts like hell. I thought we’d been living like friends all this time.”

[……]

“But you never once considered my feelings or his, did you? You deceived me from start to finish.”

Real Chris offered no excuse. She wore the same face as the very first moment we met, as if she felt nothing at all.

“You think I’ll do it? This pathetic quest—”

[Then you die. And your family and friends on Earth, too.]

“……”

[You can’t return to Earth anyway, so perhaps that’s fine? Then let me tell you about this side. The disciples you cherish, your fellow professors—they too will die in petty, ugly conflict. The opportunity given to these planets is “only once.”]

“Fuck, that’s one hell of a proper threat.”

Not one world at stake, but two.

Sacrifice just one person, and countless lives could be saved.

How would the Protagonist react if I explained the situation?

Would he say, “I’ll gladly sacrifice myself for the sake of the world”?

Like a true Protagonist?

I’d rather flee from this situation forever. But no Spatial Magic could make that possible.

“Was there really no other way? Without ripping out the heart of a kid who just came of age, you absolutely couldn’t save those damned worlds……”

I couldn’t believe that the solution devised by beings calling themselves gods amounted to nothing more than that.

It was too simple. Too irresponsible.

“Professor? Is something wrong? You don’t look well.”

The Protagonist had closed the distance and was right in front of me. Seeing him reach out with concern, just like the first time we met, made my stomach churn.

[Time Remaining: 00 Minutes 50 Seconds]

A blood-red window blocked the Protagonist’s face.

When words fail, resort to force, is that it? I was so dumbfounded I felt like crying.

But there was no time to cry. I took a deep breath and raised the sword.

“If Earth is destroyed, that’s because the adults—including me—couldn’t even sort the recycling properly.”

“Professor?”

“If this planet is destroyed, that’s because the Creator God or whoever designed it wrong from the start and created an unbalanced world. So there’s no reason this child should have to take responsibility for it.”

“What are you doing……”

“I’ve been diligently completing quests all this time, so this body’s heart should be my fair share, wouldn’t you say, Chris.”

And the gods who were surely watching me through the System.

I’m sorry, but you bastards made one fucking huge mistake.

“I’m S-rank, so this should be serviceable as a temporary substitute, right? So take this and fuck off, you sons of bitches.”

If you were going to possess someone for that kind of purpose, you should have picked someone more unhinged.

Not someone with common sense like me.

Thunk.

“No, Professor! Stop!”

A teacher who kills her disciple is a failure as a teacher. I’d rather crack open my own chest.

“Gurk, gasp……”

Pain unlike anything I had ever felt shook my skull. I’d die of shock before bleeding out at this rate.

Ah, and here I’d been thrashing about all this time because I didn’t want to die. Is a person who’s died once just destined to die again?

‘But I don’t feel bad about it. At least this way, I didn’t let them play me to the very end.’

“Ah, the blood, the blood won’t stop…… Professor, why, why……? No, without you, I……”

The Protagonist’s wailing voice rapidly grew distant.

Sorry for making you witness something like this.

I wonder if this will leave you with trauma.

Nothing to be done about it now, though.

‘The end.’

My dimming vision soon went completely dark.

I died.

……That must have been what happened.

* * *

How many times have I used the phrase “When I came to my senses……”? For someone with the strongest character roleplay, my number of blackouts was embarrassingly above average.

But this time was different.

[So it’s you. The “error” that Cheon Sae-ra created.]

“……Keu-ssaem?”

It was simply that, as if a scene had transitioned, the sight of a man and woman conversing unfolded before me.

‘The perspective is strange, too. It feels like switching from first-person to third-person camera while playing a game.’

This must be what it feels like if an omniscient observer had a viewpoint.

‘The man is Narrow Eyes, and the woman is Real Chris?’

Real Chris was part of the System, so there was no reason for Narrow Eyes to be able to see her.

‘It seems various problems arose after I died.’

I had anticipated this, but…… it was bitter. I’d given them a heart with S-rank mana, so I thought it might help at least a little.

‘Just looking around, things are already a complete mess.’

The landscape looked as though it had been bombed to oblivion. In the midst of it all, fragments of destroyed buildings drifted unsteadily through the dark sky.

It looked as though the planet was losing even its minimal gravity.

‘Is that bisected statue the gatekeeper gargoyle from the Academy’s front gate?’

This appeared to be Bedallua Academy.

It had been so thoroughly devastated that its former appearance was unrecognizable, making it difficult to identify.

Meanwhile, the conversation between the two continued.

“Are you perhaps the ghost I’ve only heard rumors about? Is that why your body is so transparent and you can’t be touched……”

[Shut up. There’s no time, so just listen. Soon this world’s spacetime will warp and collapse. Michael Foxin has gone on a Rampage.]

“What? Th-then you’re saying all of this was caused not by the Demon Lord, but by that student?”

[A new Demon Lord. Or perhaps the birth of a calamity even worse. We have failed.]

“We……?”

Narrow Eyes looked confused, but I could understand.

‘She’s talking about the gods.’

The fact that he was only now realizing this was beyond absurd.

What you needed was a teacher who could show a child how to wield great power responsibly.

Not a tool to cleave open his chest and rip out his heart.