Volume 2, Chapter 21 – Do I Know You?

Stella frowned slightly and reached out, gently brushing her hand across the enormous half-length mirror before her.

Several extremely fine cracks marred the smooth surface of the mirror. They radiated outward from the center, as though something had tried to burst out from within, only to retreat again in an instant.

“These traces…”

Stella narrowed her right eye as the black prism slowly rotated.

Under the gaze of her pallid vision, the magical power traces left behind on the mirror became clearly visible.

Each particle of light carried only the faintest trace of warmth and radiance, yet its presence was something no one could ever erase.

Without a doubt, these were scorch marks left by a high-level Holy Art. No wonder Professor Katerina had confidently insisted that the incident was related to Holy Arts.

“Hm?”

Stella leaned closer. Between the thin layer of moisture and the scorch marks, she made out a tiny line of writing that was almost imperceptible.

It had not been written in ink. The words had been etched into the mirror with divine energy.

【This is retribution upon the unbelievers.】

‘Unbelievers?’

‘Unbelievers in what?’

In the Abyss, at a succubus school, talking about unbelief to a group of demons who had been born having turned their backs on God?

That was as absurd as charging into a fishpond and accusing the fish of being unable to fly, or barging into a goblin nest to lecture them on table manners.

‘Isn’t it perfectly natural for demons not to believe in God?’

That was practically their factory setting from the moment they came into existence, the very law by which they survived. If the culprit merely wanted to kill, there was no need to come up with such a sanctimonious excuse.

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Stella reached a conclusion in her heart.

The culprit was clearly some religious lunatic whose head wasn’t screwed on quite right.

Come to think of it, she had heard the Disciplinary Committee Leader mention earlier that this attack had been interrupted midway. That meant the attacker had noticed Lainia intruding, or perhaps had been forced to withdraw because of some kind of restriction.

The victims’ wounds had been caused by Holy Light.

The incidents always occurred around the Sixth Watch, which corresponded to noon in the Human Realm.

“The Sixth Watch…” Stella repeated inwardly.

Come to think of it, what had she been doing around that time today?

Oh… She had been in the Lionheart Society activity room, busy forcibly pouring lethal Holy Communion down the throats of those twelve unlucky souls.

Right. Next clue.

The incidents occurred unusually often in washrooms, and the common feature among them was mirrors.

Holy Light… noon… mirrors…

Stella immediately recalled the mysterious girl she had caught a fleeting glimpse of in the washroom mirror after Defense Against Holy Magic class.

There was no doubt that the girl in the mirror was the culprit.

But that was strange. If these were indiscriminate attacks against succubi, then why had Stella, the famous SSS+ succubus, just happened not to be attacked back then?

Could it be because she was too pretty?

Or… had that ghost sensed Holy Light of the same origin within her and mistaken her for an ally?

If it was the latter, things were getting even more interesting.

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But how was she supposed to catch her?

The other party did not seem to exist in the real world. During their previous encounter, Stella had only been able to see her through the mirror. Was she supposed to smash every mirror in the school?

Come to think of it, since this was related to Holy Light, why not go back and ask the Inquisitor?

There was nothing else left to investigate.

Stella stood up and was just about to leave.

Boo——!

A deafening explosion suddenly erupted from outside the door. The floor beneath her feet shuddered, and the demon crystal lamps on the ceiling flickered twice before a cloud of dust showered down.

Stella’s hand jerked, and she nearly slammed headfirst into the mirror.

“…What’s going on?” She turned toward the door in disbelief.

‘What the hell?’

‘An earthquake?’

‘Has the Holy See finally launched its attack?’

Immediately afterward, Stella heard a rapid succession of fighting sounds.

There were the dull thuds of fists smashing into flesh, the shrill screech of metal being twisted, and the booming crashes of heavy objects slamming into walls. It sounded as though a demolition crew were throwing a wild party in the corridor.

‘Hm… surely the commotion outside had nothing to do with Lainia, right?’

‘No way. I had only told her to wait outside for a bit.’

The corner of Stella’s mouth twitched.

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Something she knew nothing about was happening somewhere she couldn’t see, and it involved someone she cared about. Her imagination instantly became frighteningly vivid. The more she imagined, the worse it became, and the more worried she grew.

Stella no longer had any attention to spare for investigating some mirror ghost. She yanked open the washroom door, but before she could even shout a reprimand, the scene before her forced the words right back down her throat.

“…Wow.”

“Principal Gehenna is going to go insane when she sees this, isn’t she?” Stella murmured.

The silent, gloomy corridor from moments ago had been reduced to a devastated ruin. The walls were riddled with horrifying dents, while the marble floor had been torn up as though someone had plowed straight through it.

And amid the wreckage.

Several demons dressed in black-and-white uniforms were hanging from the walls or sprawled across the floor in all manner of twisted positions.

Some were embedded in shattered masonry, their masks broken.

Some clutched their stomachs, curled into balls in agony.

Others had their swords snapped cleanly in two and were struggling desperately to get back on their feet.

They had clearly encountered some kind of simple, savage, completely unreasonable crushing force.

At the center of the battlefield, Stella saw Lainia kneeling on one knee, gasping heavily for breath.

Her filthy maid uniform was already in tatters, covered in dust and blood. Her stamina had clearly reached its limit. Unable to maintain even her kneeling posture any longer, she collapsed forward onto the ground, her entire body trembling violently. She struggled to breathe as though someone had seized her by the throat, while blood streamed down from her forehead and smeared across her amber right eye.

And opposite Lainia, Stella saw the only person in the entire area still standing.

She stood before a shattered window, the remaining shards of glass rattling in the wind as damp air and rain poured inside and whipped through her scarlet hair. Her posture resembled that of an executioner preparing to coldly and methodically dissect her prey into pieces, leaving five colors spilling everywhere in a ghastly and shocking display.

The instant she saw Stella step through the door, the woman’s movements came to a halt.

“So you’ve finally decided to come out?” Riko said coldly as she flicked the blood from her rapier. “You deliberately waited until your loyal watchdog was gravely wounded and had exhausted our strength before finally revealing yourself to reap the rewards…”

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“Just to test the extent of our strength, you’re even willing to sacrifice your own diehard loyalist without hesitation.”

“What a clever scheme, Stella Darkfallen.”

‘Huh?’

Stella blinked.

She looked at the half-dead Lainia on the ground, then at the unfamiliar demon across from her who was talking away all by herself.

A gigantic question mark practically appeared above Stella’s head.

‘What watchdog?’

‘What test?’

‘And also…’

‘Who are you?’

‘Do I know you?’

Translator Note

AHAHHAHAHAH Stella’s reaction is so amusing xD