Felimeth and Sophia had just appeared.
The expressions of both the elven children and the Reincarnators changed. The elven children shouted happily, "It's Big Sister Felimeth!"
"Tch, this is bad!"
"Why is Oka-chan showing up now..."
"She isn't planning to help the Elf Race, is she?!"
Even though Felimeth had risked coming back to save these Reincarnators, the Reincarnators did not trust Felimeth, who had brought them to the Elf Forest. So at the first sight of Felimeth, their hearts were filled with wariness. Meanwhile, the elven children were incredibly innocent; they didn't know Felimeth had long since betrayed the Elf Race, nor did they look down on her for being close to humans like the adult elves did. Instead, they immediately crowded around Felimeth, sweetly calling her 'Big Sister' one by one.
Sophia was about to take action. Although these children acted cute, this was a war of extermination. Although she didn't like doing such things, if necessary, she would. Because she knew the truth of this world, there were things one had to do even if they didn't like it. Moreover, these children would grow up one day; if they learned the truth of today when they were older, it would destined to be another tragedy.
But Felimeth stopped Sophia.
She said, "Leave it to me."
Sophia watched Felimeth, who had been shaken at first but quickly became...
...determined. The hand that had been gripping the hilt of her sword finally relaxed. She hadn't wanted to do this in the first place, and now that Felimeth had spoken and given her a reason to back down, she convinced herself to let it go. After all, her mission was ultimately just to provide support from the side; the one who decided what to do was Tsukasa. Since that guy wasn't here right now, then his subordinate Felimeth was in charge, and it wasn't her place as a reinforcement to start bossing people around in this matter.
"Can you let them go?"
Felimeth stroked a small child's head and asked softly.
The child said, "But they want to run away."
"It's okay, Big Sister is here."
Felimeth easily persuaded the children of the Elf Race.
"Alright then."
The spells on the Reincarnators were released, and they regained their freedom, but their expressions were complex. They didn't understand what Felimeth was trying to do. From their perspective, Felimeth shared the responsibility for everything they had suffered; she was the one who led the way in abducting them into the Elf Race. However, looking back, if Felimeth hadn't been constantly speaking up for them, their treatment within the Elf Race might have been even worse. Even the seeds they used for farming were basically provided by Felimeth; those elves wouldn't care if they lived or died, only tossing them a piece of fruit when they were on the verge of starvation.
The Elf Race only needed them to stay alive and didn't care about anything else. As long as they didn't die, being hungry or cold didn't matter. Those people would only step in when they were about to die. Without Felimeth's help, they probably would have gone insane long ago.
"Is everyone okay?"
Felimeth still seemed like the teacher they once knew.
Their Oka-chan.
But unfortunately, once a crack appears, it cannot be repaired to return to the past.
"What exactly do you mean by this?!"
One Reincarnator asked in confusion, "You abducted us to this place, yet you give us charity so hypocritically. You play both the villain and the hero—what exactly do you want from us?!"
"..." Felimeth looked at the distrustful eyes of her students, feeling saddened yet knowing full well this was the result of the mistakes she had made.
She sincerely apologized to the students: "I'm sorry, I was wrong."
Felimeth knew she was at fault. Although her original intention was to act because she wanted to change the premonitions of their deaths, she was unable to explain the truth to the students due to the restrictions of her skill. She had ignored the students' own wishes and arrogantly decided their future paths under the guise of doing what was best for them; she had committed the sin of hubris. Furthermore, she hadn't just arrogantly decided her students' futures; she had also failed to see her father's true heart, leading her students into real danger and causing them to be monitored and abused by the Elf Race. All of this was her fault.
She had to apologize to them, even if she couldn't be forgiven.
"Don't give us an apology, give us an explanation!"
However, seeing Felimeth's attitude only made the group of Reincarnators angrier. It made no sense—she told them nothing, decided their futures on her own, and now she expected their understanding with just a single apology? What kind of joke was this? That look of 'I have my reasons but I can't tell you' was incredibly annoying!
"..."
However, it was impossible for Felimeth to speak.
Because she didn't dare to.
Her skill bound her, making her afraid to reveal everything.
But in reality, quite a few people already knew the truth of this matter. Sophia, standing beside her, knew the truth because Spider Child had told her.
Long ago, Spider Child had learned all the information about the Reincarnators from D, including all their reincarnation privilege skills. She also received a clear answer from that Evil God's mouth: the teacher's skill was being controlled by this Evil God from behind the scenes. Those prophecies were written by the Evil God himself, as were the skill's restrictive warnings.
This skill was actually useless. The Evil God D had merely used an algorithm to calculate a rough future, but there was still a significant gap between that and actual precognition. True precognition sees the real future, but the future calculated by the Evil God was merely a possibility.
This Evil God wouldn't waste his game time on actual precognition; he just did some casual calculations and then wrote in some plotlines he found amusing to use as prophecies to scare Felimeth. Ultimately, this was just the Evil God's game.
And Felimeth was the poor soul chosen by the Evil God.
The so-called side effects were non-existent, though there certainly would be punishment. After all, the Evil God was a man of his word; if Felimeth truly spoke of the prophecies, the Evil God would take back the skill. Although Spider Child knew the skill was a total trap, she couldn't confess this to the teacher. If the skill were taken back by the Evil God, Felimeth would likely truly worry that the future was heading toward a broken end and could never be saved.
Therefore, Spider Child only told the Demon Lord, Sophia, and the others about the skill. However, she didn't tell them that the skill's side effects were fake; she only told them that Felimeth's skill could see a possible future, but that future was not a fixed fact—it was just that Felimeth seemed to stubbornly believe that future was set in stone.
Furthermore, once Felimeth spoke of the prophecy, her skill...
...would disappear.
Regarding this, the Demon Lord and Sophia naturally believed Spider Child. Moreover, as people of strong will, they didn't believe in things like precognition anyway; they believed the future would be created by them, rather than being bound by so-called prophecies.
However, seeing these former classmates getting into a conflict with Felimeth at this moment made Sophia very displeased. Even if she looked down on Felimeth's methods, she had to admit that Felimeth had truly poured all her heart and soul into these students.
"That's enough. If you want to argue, you'll have plenty of time later. But right now, we are still in the enemy's base. If you keep arguing, I won't mind knocking you out and carrying you back."
Sophia slammed her greatsword onto the ground, and for a moment, the earth shook.
The former classmates were all stunned by the tremor.
---------------------------------
If you'd like to read the next 70 chapters in advance, you can support me on Patreon.
I regularly post chapter previews there, so you'll always be up-to-date and won't have to wait too long.
patreon.com/SolyuraMT
And if you enjoy the story, don't forget to give me a Power Stone. Your support really motivates me to continue translating!