The bonus points were indeed important, but something was far more pressing at the moment. I decided to head back.

As I slowly opened my eyes, the mindscape around me collapsed, and my vision flickered like a dying light. I exhaled deeply, catching my breath as I looked around.

Grace was staring at me in shock, and the vast cavern, where the flames had once roared, was now silent and still.

“What about the Ember?” I asked.

She replied, “It... It’s gone. All of it was absorbed into you.”

Just as she said, the massive fire that had once blazed in the center of the cavern had vanished without a trace. However, the scorching energy inside the chamber hadn’t faded entirely, still burning fiercely.

It was similar to how a burning metal remained hot even a while after the fire went out. In this case, though, the thing burning wasn’t a piece of heated metal, but an entire landmass stretching for dozens of kilometers. It would likely take decades for the last traces of this heat to finally disappear.

“Good. That’s a relief,” I said.

“What do you mean, a relief?” Grace asked.

“At least the hot springs of the Termal Region will stay warm until the end of the field trip.”

Nevertheless, the hot springs would eventually vanish without the Primordial Ember. But that couldn’t be helped. We couldn’t keep a ticking bomb buried under there just to preserve a few hot springs. After all, compared to the Primordial Flame, the Ember was far less stable. That was probably why Grace had built her tomb above it to suppress its power.

Grace shook her head, half exasperated, half amused. “Haah! Worrying about hot springs at a time like this. Honestly!”

“Anyway, that’s it, right? The Ember’s completely gone?” 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Grace gazed at the now-empty cavern, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “Yes. And with that, my duty is finally over.”

Her voice was soft, tinged with melancholy.

I turned toward her, lips pressed tightly together. “That means...”

“Yes. No more wandering as a remnant soul.”

I didn’t know what to say. We hadn’t known each other for long. Yet the thought of Grace disappearing left an unexpected emptiness in my chest.

Grace smiled teasingly, glancing back at me. “What’s that look for? Don’t tell me you’re sad to see me go?”

“Well, it’d be a lie to say I’m not.”

It was especially so since she was, in a way, Iris’s mother. For someone like Iris, who grew up in an orphanage, the concept of “mother” would always hold a special kind of meaning. Most children from orphanages carried complicated feelings about the parents they never knew. Even I, in my past life, had spent countless sleepless nights yearning for the faces of parents I couldn’t even remember. Though by now, it had been so long that I hardly remembered what the word “mother” felt like.

Grace floated closer, placing a hand over my chest, and said in a soft voice, “You’re... a kind person.”

Even though she was only a spirit, I could somehow feel a gentle warmth where her hand rested.

Her voice trembled slightly. “It wasn’t for long, but while I watched you, that’s what I thought. You’re someone who’s been hurt deeply, more than anyone I’ve ever seen. You might not realize it yourself, but your soul is in shambles. It’s worn down, depleted, and twisted beyond recognition. Honestly, it’s a miracle you can even pretend to be fine.”

It was the same thing Professor Baldwin had once said to me.

“I’m not pretending to be fine,” I replied.

Her eyes, deep and solemn, seemed to pierce straight through me. “You’re not? Do you really believe that? You know it too, don’t you? That you’re not in a normal state.”

I stayed silent, meeting her gaze. She was right. After what I had been through in my previous life, something inside me had broken beyond repair. My life had never been one a normal human could endure. It was a life where I killed myself multiple times a day, endured the agony of burning bones and torn flesh each time I used my power, and accepted death hundreds, no, thousands of times when necessary. Expecting someone who had lived like that to remain normal would be a luxury.

Still, even so...

I smiled faintly at Grace and said, “Even if someone’s broken, they can still live. As long as there’s something more important worth living for.”

Grace’s eyes wavered faintly. She clasped her hands together, bowing her head. “May the blessings of the Seven Gods light your path.”

I didn’t know why, but hearing that old familiar prayer made my chest tighten. For a moment, I almost cried.

“Guess they don’t call you a great hero for nothing,” I muttered softly.

“Hm? What was that?” she asked.

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“Hehe. Then, shall we go back now?”

Grace rose into the air and floated toward the passage we came through. I followed her up and went through the gate until we reached the place where her statue stood, just like when I first arrived there.

Grace said, “If you go up the entrance from here, you’ll reach the ruins’ exit.”

“And you?”

“I’ve fulfilled my duty. There’s no reason for me to stay any longer.” She floated higher into the air and waved with a gentle smile. “Take care.”

Her form began to fade, her voice breaking up like a radio losing signal. “And... be careful... of...”

“Careful? Of who?”

“The six... heroes.”

I frowned slightly. “What?”

I listened closely to Grace’s voice echoing faintly inside my head. “Beware... of the sixth hero.”

Her voice vanished completely.

Baffled, I muttered, “The sixth hero? Beware of them?”

What on earth was that supposed to mean? She couldn’t be talking about the heroes of the present. She had been trapped here alone for five hundred years. There was no way she could know who the current heroes were. She was definitely warning me about someone from five hundred years ago.

But who was the sixth hero? Only five heroes, known as the Great Five Heroes, were given a special place in history. I had never once heard of a sixth hero, neither in this life nor in my past one.

“What the hell does that even mean?”

I was still frowning, lost in thought, when a faint metallic chime rang in my ears.

“Huh?”

I looked down to see a small white gemstone lying on the ground. It was a divine relic, an item imbued with the blessing of the gods. I picked it up, confirming that it was roughly the size of two joints of my index finger.

“With this size, I could turn it into a pendant.”

Thinking of giving it to Iris later, I slipped the jewel into my pocket and turned back toward Grace’s statue. “Rest in peace.”

I drew a rather clumsy sign of the cross, then followed the path Grace had shown me and made my way out of the tomb.

I muttered, “All right, time to continue the Treasure Hunt.”

Just then, a group of people came rushing down the corridor.

“D-Dale! There you are!”

Professor Kane furiously shouted, “You little bastard! Where the hell have you been hiding? You didn’t answer a single call!”

Why did everyone look so tense? Only an hour or two had passed since I absorbed the Primordial Flame, yet everyone was acting like it had been days.

“Did something happen?” I asked.

“‘Did something happen?’ Do you even know how long it’s been since your Hero Watch signal went dead?”

“How long?” I asked.

“Twelve hours, you idiot! The day’s about to end!”

“What?”

Twelve hours? I was shocked.

***

Late that night, after the search party had dispersed and all the cadets who had gone looking for me returned to their quarters, Professor Kane summoned me to his office.

He groaned and dragged a hand through his hair. “Unauthorized disappearance, trespassing on a sacred ground. What the hell were you thinking?”

“Trespassing on a sacred ground?” I replied.

“You really don’t know where you crawled out of? That’s where Grace’s tomb is.”

Grace’s tomb was, of course, classified as a sacred ground by the Holy Empire. It was strictly off-limits to the public. And I had been found in that place after being missing for twelve hours.

“You’re lucky that Her Holiness the Pope was merciful. Otherwise, by law, you’d be in prison right now.”

I just silently listened to him.

“Anyway, once we’re back at the academy, you’ll face disciplinary action.”

Disciplinary action? Again?

I jumped to my feet, panicking. “W-wait, hold on! It wasn’t like I wanted to go in there! I had no choice!”

“Oh yeah? And what kind of situation was that?” asked the professor.

“Well...”

I explained how I had encountered Grace’s lingering soul, carefully leaving out everything related to the Primordial Flame.

Professor Kane let out a dry laugh. “Let me get this straight. You just happened to run into the soul of Hero Grace, who was dead for five hundred years, and accidentally ended up inside her tomb?”

“Technically, I crossed through a gate and ended up there.”

“Ha! Dale, you idiot!” Professor Kane grabbed me by the collar and shouted, “You met Grace’s spirit and just strolled into her tomb? Do you even hear yourself, you lunatic?”

“I’m telling the truth! What do you want me to do?”

“Proof! You got any proof?”

I did have proof, the relic Grace had left behind. But showing it would make things worse. It would look less like an accident and more like grave robbery. Then there would be no mercy from the Holy Empire. I would be heading straight to prison.

“Uh, W-well...” I struggled to come up with something to say, then finally muttered weakly, “She said her duty was done and disappeared.”

“Ha! Of course she did.” Professor Kane grinned widely and patted my shoulder. “Congratulations, Dale. That’s your fourth suspension.”

So, after putting aside the whole Primordial Flame business, my newfound power known as the Cataclysmic Flame, and the secrets I couldn’t share, if I judged the trip by visible results alone, it was horrendous.

No bonus points, and another suspension on top. Hah! Life’s a damn fucking joke. Seriously, what did I ever do to deserve this?