翁公和媛媛在厨房里猛烈进出

"I TOLD YOU, IT WASN\'T ME!"

Matching Kevin\'s tone, Liam shrugged his shoulders and replied.

"yeah, yeah, that\'s exactly what a guilty person would say."

"...what the hell would AN INNOCENT PERSON SAY THEN!?"

"Well, they wouldn\'t say what you said... that\'s all I need to know."

"..."

As silence finally descended amongst the group, Albert took the moment of silence to gather in his frantic thoughts.

Was it all a dream...?

Recalling the familiar figure of that damned person who had taken up so much of his time, Albert couldn\'t help but shake his head.

There was no way he could have snuck into the palace... the security was the best.

Yeah... I was probably hallucinating from yesterday\'s events when I saw him today...!

As Albert began to create more and more delusional scenarios in his head to convince himself that he hadn\'t seen Ren today, Lily silently walked next to Alya.

After being knocked unconscious inside the tree, Lily suddenly woke up in the bedroom of the Elven palace with no recollection of how she had gotten there.

Recalling the bout of the fog about to hit the tree before she was knocked unconscious, more confusion was added to Lily\'s thoughts.

How had the tree been saved?

That much smoke should have killed it...

Looking outside the window, Lily could easily see that the tree was back to its normal state.

This was because of Lily\'s special ability to directly see and understand magic.

If a fireball spell was cast, Lily could read the spell procedure from the fireball and completely mimic it within seconds.

Of course, the time would increase with more complicated spells, but given enough time, Lily could replicate any spell by just seeing it once.

Lily could copy a world-shattering skill that took a magician millions of years to create within a few months.

So, when Lily woke up, she immediately cast a spell to test if there was still corruption within the tree.

When she cast a simple water spell, she realized that the magic was pure and clean, unlike before, when parts of the spell were tainted and corrupted.

The only way for this to happen is for all the corruption within the Tree to be removed.

The question is then begged: how?

As more memories rushed into her head, Lily recalled the small purple light she had seen as her consciousness faded.

The queen... did she save the tree?

The only way for the tree to be completely cleansed of corruption is for someone to have replaced it... but the queen was still standing there, right in front of Lily.

Was there another way to cleanse the tree...?

If so, who had figured out the other way and done it? Had it been the queen?

Sighing, Lily decided to put aside her thoughts for the time being: the present was more important than the past, after all.

"You can\'t move forward if you\'re always looking back."

Of course, this was only for the time being; as soon as Lily arrived back in the academy, she would continue her investigation.

For now, all she had to do was act oblivious... which wasn\'t hard considering everyone else was doing as well.

Everyone in this group probably knew the World Tree had been healed as the Queen was no longer acting strangely, but they kept silent, not asking any questions.

Even Albert and Alya didn\'t ask their mother questions about the World Tree\'s sudden and abrupt cleansing and what happened after they were knocked out.

As Lily turned to Alya to strike up a conversation, Ruby and Irene also began talking.

"You seem happier than usual."

Puffing her shoulders up, Irene had a smirk on her face as she replied.

"Well, I just helped save the World Tree and the entire Elven realm, so I\'m quite content!"

"And how do you know it\'s saved?"

"Do you really think we\'d be leisurely walking around with the Queen if the Elven realm and World Tree were still in danger?"

"I guess so."

"And what about you, Ruby? You don\'t seem that excited."

Shaking her head as she recalled yesterday\'s events, Ruby covered her face with her hands and replied.

"n-no, I\'m just as excited as you."

Although Ruby knew there was a high percent chance that, for whatever reason, the queen didn\'t stop and run her over, she still decided to teleport in front of Ren.

But... in the end, it had paid off.

She was alive... and Ren, or at least Ren\'s phone, was alive.

Ren was right... what types of criminals and villains were they...?

Both of them had done more good than bad at this point!

Were her and Ren even villains at this point...? No way... could they be considered heroes...?

As the group arrived at the dining room under the guidance of Liana, they were all shocked to see someone already sitting down.

Right at the edge of the table, a familiar figure sat, mindlessly staring upwards and completely oblivious to their existence.

"AHHHH"

At that moment, a single person dropped to their knees with tears streaming down from their eyes as they stared at the roof.

"WHYYYYY!?"

"Get up, Albert."

Regaining his composure from his mother\'s words, Albert stood up and immediately asked.

"Mother, why did you invite s-such a person to th-"

Ignoring Albert\'s question, Liana interrupted.

"You\'ll have to get along with that boy well, soon enough, so at least try to be friendly, alright?"

Without waiting for Albert\'s response, Liana left for her chair at the very top of the table.

Then, as the rest of the group members stared at Ren\'s figures with expressions ranging from confusion to nervousness to disgust to not even caring, Liana spoke up once again.

"Alya, be a proper host and welcome our guest, will you?"