The Villain Reborn as Game's Final Boss-Chapter 99: All the Best

The scorpion’s head was smashed into the ground below, with blood splattering across the sand.

The moment the creature took its last breath, I could sense its mana essence trying to enter my body.

Naturally, I resisted the intrusion.

Though it was a bit difficult, as the mana essence of a creature at Silver 2 was more condensed and effective in ranking up.

I felt a little regret over the lost resources, but there was no need to dwell over the matter any longer.

"Noah?"

Diana’s soft voice broke my train of thought.

I had already sensed the guy approaching closer...

Looking up from the monster’s corpse, I gazed at Noah for a moment before returning my attention to my wasted spoils of war.

Sigh.

I jumped down from the monster’s body.

"Are you guys alright?"

Noah quickly appeared beside his teammates.

Typical protagonist!

With the in-built mana shields, there was no way for any of them to get hurt beyond repair, so what was the need for him to be so dramatic?

Ignoring their talks, I extended my mana sense once again, scanning for more monsters in the desert.

I felt like it was finally time for me to do some real work.

Though I could sense the number of Bronze core monsters was far higher than the Silver ones, I wasn’t disappointed.

A Silver-ranked monster might give an extra point compared to the Bronze cores, but I wasn’t one to discriminate.

Treating everyone with equality was one of the supposed motives of my life!

"How have you been doing?"

Hm?

I turned to look back, only to see Noah chatting with Diana.

If anyone saw Diana’s pristine appearance, none would say that she had been in any battle at all.

But Noah, for the hero he was, had to ask about her well-being.

Diana just smiled back in return.

Haa...

Kids!

Just as I was about to shift my gaze, Noah looked in my direction.

His eyes met mine.

There was a long pause before Noah waved his hand at me.

I just nodded in return, but the guy began to move towards me. I had the thought of ignoring him, but that would make me look like the bad guy.

I stood in my place, my gaze fixed on Noah, who was taking his time to reach me.

"I heard what you did there."

Noah had a big smile across his face.

"You didn’t have to save them, but you still took the effort. I must thank you for it."

Scratching the back of his head, Noah let out a light, awkward chuckle.

I didn’t add anything to his statements, which were filled with positivity to no end.

"..."

Seeing my non-expressive face, Noah’s smile wavered a bit.

"Umm... Did I say something wrong?"

Noah asked with genuine curiosity in his voice.

"They would have been eliminated had I not saved them."

I answered after a brief moment of silence between us.

"Uh... Yeah, I get that. And thank you for sa—"

"There was no point in weakening an already weak team."

I interrupted him.

Noah’s expression froze at my words.

"What do you—"

"There has to be at least some equal competition between the students. Had I not intervened, the second-ranked team would have placed first without doing much. That would have defeated the aim behind these tests."

My voice was even as I spouted some very logical words!

Noah’s eyes widened slightly at my words.

"You mean you wanted to see a proper competition between the first- and second-ranked teams, without either side getting a decisive advantage."

I nodded at his words.

Noah’s previously bright expression turned darker.

Though he quickly managed to hide it.

"Do you enjoy watching fights between others? I mean, don’t you want your team to rank higher?"

I tilted my head slightly at his question.

Did he seriously think we were in third place based on those rankings?

"All the best."

I gave Noah a polite goodbye before getting back to my business.

It was time for me to get serious.

Closing my eyes, I placed my right foot at the back and—

Swoosh!

I was ready to hunt.

***

"The students are performing better than expected."

"Yes. I think we should give more attention to these students among the commoners."

"Hey! What do you think of adding this to the curriculum?"

The instructors assigned for the first year were currently in a room filled with smart displays on all sides.

Each of the screens before them displayed live footage of all the students who were currently fighting in the designated area.

The rankings below the top three were constantly fluctuating, with some teams getting a lead over the others.

The back and forth between the various teams continued for the entirety of the time.

As for the top three, there had been no change in their rankings since the start.

Though each of them was gaining points with constant momentum, there was no change in the overall ranks.

The surprising part was that the group which was supposed to be at the top had stayed in third place without climbing up.

Though it was the duty of the instructors to analyse the battles of every student, currently all of them had their subconscious attention toward a certain group.

Since making the first kill, Kael hadn’t killed a single monster and had just let his teammates do the rest.

He was still guiding them when needed, but never interfered in any of the battles.

Was he being arrogant?

That was the thought in everyone’s head, until Kael had dashed toward a certain area where a group of Bronze cores were desperately trying not to get eliminated by the Silver-ranked beast before them.

The beast might have been injured; still, it was a Silver 2 monster and not some random pest.

Kael had not just killed it, but had done it so effortlessly that it made even the instructors doubt the monster’s strength.

And Kael’s way of killing the beast wasn’t exactly the most memorable thing to see.

The instructors weren’t the only ones in the room.

As the academy’s supreme student body, it was the responsibility of the student council to help instructors manage all activities arranged for the students.