Who Says I’m Not a Legitimate Adventurer?

At this moment, on the other side—

Lance, covered in bloodstains, had absolutely no spare attention to deal with the chatterbox witch floating in midair.

His mind was currently a complete mess.

The Half-Elf girl he had gently set down had now completely lost consciousness. Her head drooped weakly as she quietly leaned against Lance’s broad chest, temporarily falling into a deep sleep.

But her body still twitched from time to time.

Lance’s brain was spinning rapidly.

This time, after they had been forcibly dragged into this Historical Projection, the commotion caused by the red Spell Formation outside had been far too enormous.

He guessed that by now, people had definitely already come to investigate outside in the real forest.

If those people saw Cecilia in this state when they went out later—

Without any hesitation, Lance immediately activated the ring.

A faint glow of mana flashed.

Without the slightest delay, he decisively selected the Zero-Ring Spell 【Cleanse】.

A gentle invisible breeze brushed across the two of them, rapidly stripping away all the mud and sand stuck to Cecilia’s clothes as well as the dust covering his own body.

Especially his own hands.

After that prolonged savage hand-to-hand battle earlier, his fingernails were filled with monster blood.

He immediately activated 【Create Water】 afterward.

Clear streams of water appeared out of thin air as Lance carefully scrubbed both hands over and over until every trace of blood scent had been completely washed away.

Then he used his hands to wipe Cecilia’s little face clean.

Finally, he consecutively cast 【Drying Spell】 three times.

The warm wind created by the spell wrapped around the Half-Elf girl, thoroughly drying every damp area on the hem of her dress that had been splashed earlier.

His entire sequence of movements was so practiced that even Ilysia beside him began suspecting this man might actually be a repeat offender.

After completing the entire cleaning process, Lance finally carefully carried Cecilia back onto his broad back.

At this moment—

He could already clearly feel the surrounding air beginning to distort slightly. This Historical Projection space was rapidly collapsing away.

They would probably be forcibly expelled from here within seconds.

Moreover, his System Panel was currently flickering wildly as though a huge amount of settlement information had piled up waiting to be reviewed.

“You’re leaving already?”

Ilysia slowly floated over before Lance.

As a Witch, she had also keenly sensed that this space was accelerating toward collapse.

Actually, this time it was not because Lance had perfectly completed the role-playing. Rather, the energy maintaining this Historical Projection had truly been completely exhausted by him.

The system could only forcibly default to Lance having fulfilled the conditions and begin the Fate Trajectory Grafting.

Ilysia stretched out her translucent hand and lightly waved toward Lance.

“Then bye-bye. If we still have the chance to meet again in the future.”

The beautiful witch paused briefly, her tone becoming somewhat meaningful.

“If you happen to encounter any pitiful girls from our Witch race out there in the future, especially hungry ones, remember to take extra good care of them, okay?”

Why would they be hungry?

Was the Witch race living miserably during this era?

Lance looked at Ilysia’s absolutely beautiful face smiling with narrowed eyes.

At this moment, her expression seemed extremely warm and friendly.

But deep down, Lance somehow felt that smile was a little strange.

For a moment, he could not quite put it into words.

The feeling was almost like she had already moved a little stool over and was preparing to watch a lively grand spectacle unfold.

However, Lance was far too busy right now. He had no spare energy to carefully ponder the hidden meaning in the witch’s words.

And the other party really had helped him understand the intentions of the mastermind earlier.

So Lance could only quickly nod and reply seriously.

“Thank you for your guidance. If I have the opportunity in the future, I’ll definitely do my best to take care of them.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Lance suddenly felt as though the flow of time around him had slowed down.

A massive spatial pulling force instantly wrapped around his entire body.

At the final moment before darkness completely swallowed his vision—

He saw Ilysia ahead suddenly open her mouth, smiling as though she was saying something to him.

“Be… care… ful… of… get… ting… drained…”

What did that mean?

It sounded like there was still one final word she had not completely finished saying.

Lance’s vision suddenly went black as his consciousness instantly plunged into a brief state of weightlessness.

……

The real world, the flower sea within Copper Creek Forest.

The campfire Lance had previously built beside them had long since completely burned out, leaving behind only a few wisps of faint smoke.

Two elderly men stood beside the crystal cluster with solemn expressions.

“The energy inside was actually completely exhausted. What kind of insane things did those young people do in there?”

Gideon’s face was filled with confusion.

According to his knowledge, the energy contained within these Mana Radiation Points born from Underground Dungeons was enormous.

Even supplying an entire city as a foundational mana energy source could sustain it for a very long time.

After receiving news of the interns’ accident earlier, he had directly used a high-ring spatial spell to forcefully jump over from White River City, then immediately dragged his old companion Necros to Cecilia’s mission location.

Fortunately, during the process, Necros had said he had already performed a divination using his unique Fire Theft relic.

And had confirmed that the Violet Academy students would not be in mortal danger.

Only then did Gideon’s suspended heart ease slightly.

But they still needed to determine exactly what had happened.

Thus, the moment he arrived, he crouched on the ground and began carefully studying the enormous Spell Formation.

As a top-tier scholar, he quickly confirmed that this was a composite formation designed to trigger Historical Projections, and that it involved the dangerous Fate-type Taboo Category.

What shocked Gideon the most was—

The other party had actually managed to use the Chaotic Aether crystal cluster as the stable energy source for the entire Spell Formation.

This could absolutely be considered technology ahead of its era.

As far as he knew, this was precisely the core subject currently being researched by the 【Council of Truth】.

Which meant that the person who had arranged this Spell Formation was perhaps one of the true high-ranking authorities within the Council of Truth.

Yet he had never heard before that this research had achieved any substantial breakthrough.

But judging from the stable operation of the Spell Formation before him, this technology had clearly already developed to a very mature stage.

Although he was certain this Historical Echo Projection would not physically harm those inside—

The reason Fate-type taboo spells were called taboo was precisely because regardless of the final outcome, whether the people involved gained good or bad results was extremely difficult to predict.

Once Cecilia safely emerged, he absolutely had to properly ask the little girl exactly what she had experienced inside.

At that moment—

The two old men simultaneously saw the gigantic red Spell Formation in midair begin slowly descending, while its originally dazzling glow rapidly dimmed.

Immediately afterward, scene after scene rapidly flashed within the remaining magical radiance.