Volume 2, Chapter 26-3 – Dragon Girl Guardian

“Remedios?”

Stella’s voice echoed through the abandoned cellar.

Compared with the innocent dream of sunlight in the gallery upstairs, this place felt even more deserted.

As the basement of the rearmost tower in Lilith School, this forgotten storage room was littered with books, furniture, and musical instruments, yet none of them added even the slightest trace of life to the place.

A velvet sofa with a broken leg, a harpsichord with snapped strings, an ornately carved cabinet hidden beneath a white cloth, and even an enormous brass armillary sphere… all of them were useless relics, and most bore an obvious surface-world style.

Stella truly could not understand why Remedios had arranged to meet her in a godforsaken place like this.

But on second thought…

For a shady duo like the two of them, who spent every day thinking about how to stir up trouble and sneak around doing questionable things, an abandoned place like this, where no one ever came and everything simply gathered dust, really was the perfect secret base.

“You’re here?”

A familiar voice came from deep within the darkness.

Stella followed the sound.

In a cleared patch of open space, she saw Remedios.

Miss Book Demon was not buried in a pile of books as usual. Instead, she sat alone amid stacks of old books, clearly having made herself at home here.

Remedios turned around. Her sea-blue eyes swept Stella up and down, while the corners of her lips curved into a smile that was not quite a smile.

“You slept for several days, and you’ve finally woken up.” Her tone carried a hint of teasing. “You possess such terrifying power, yet the moment you exert yourself even slightly, you collapse unconscious like a puppet with its strings cut… This is the first time I’ve ever seen a succubus with such a terrible constitution.”

“You’re practically a piece of glassware forcibly pieced together from expensive magical power circuits. One touch and you shatter.”

“I just… wasn’t in very good condition.” Stella could only brush it off with a simple reply, her gaze wandering.

There was nothing she could do about it. Who told her to be a human wearing the skin of a succubus?

Back in the Forbidden Forest, she had unleashed all of her Holy Light in one go while already in poor condition. The fact that she had not fallen apart on the spot was already a blessing from the Lord.

“Speaking of which, after what happened with the Lord of the Forest last time, were you alright…”

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“Don’t mention that thing.”

Remedios immediately crossed the index finger of her right hand over her left palm, signaling for her to stop.

“Anyway, enough idle talk.” Remedios raised a hand and tidied the hair hanging beside her temple, her expression becoming slightly more serious. “I called you here this time because there are several important matters I need to discuss with you.”

“While you were lying in the infirmary like Sleeping Beauty these past few days, I certainly wasn’t idle.”

Remedios beckoned Stella closer.

“The first matter…”

“To investigate the background that even you might not fully understand… I specifically went through some historical records from various families. Most of them were nothing but incoherent nonsense, but persistence paid off. I really did find something interesting.”

Remedios paused, her expression becoming somewhat complicated.

“About that… guardian you mentioned to me before, I found something.”

“Mhm, so it was my guardian. It’s good that you found something…”

Stella nodded out of habit.

The next second, she froze.

“…Huh? What guardian?”

Stella blinked blankly.

‘Since when did I have a guardian?’

Her only real guardian had been the old head of the monastery, and there was obviously no way that person could appear in some forbidden book in the Abyss.

Then…

‘Who exactly had Remedios found?’

The only time Stella had ever mentioned a guardian to Remedios was when she had casually fabricated a story to deal with Remedios interrogating her about her background.

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The gist of it was that her guardian had owed money to loan sharks and was eventually hacked to death by creditors, while Stella herself had wandered here while fleeing for her life.

She had completely made the whole thing up!

‘Could it be…’

‘No way.’

Stella pressed her lips tightly together.

“I understand. If it were me, I wouldn’t dare believe such a pleasant surprise either, but I really did find relevant records in a book compiled by my elder sister.”

Remedios took out a thick black tome.

Its title had been written across the cover in dark red ink.

《The Book of Embers, Recollections and Historical Research on the Remnants of the Pale Era.》

“I found a demon who fits the description.”

Remedios opened the book and pointed at a blurry illustration within.

It depicted a girl with a cold expression.

Rather than a girl, she looked more like a monster dressed in magnificent clothes.

She stood there expressionlessly, wearing a Lolita-style long dress covered in black-and-white lace and ribbons. Her pale blue hair had been woven into an elaborate ceremonial princess braid, yet even that could do nothing to soften the two jagged bone horns jutting from her forehead. Behind her stretched a thick, vicious dragon tail covered in thorny spines.

“A dragon-type demon…” Remedios said leisurely. “And one possessing an extremely high-ranking ancient dragon bloodline.”

“She was once a follower of the Pale Lord, Aetlana Samael, a rebel of the Samael family, one of the Elector families.”

“During the great purge that followed the Pale Lord’s downfall, she was one of the very few high-ranking demons who were not immediately put to death.”

“According to the records, she moved abnormally slowly while fleeing, seemingly because she was protecting some extremely important burden the entire time. Even when facing several times her own number of pursuers, she never abandoned that burden.”

“At the time, witnesses saw her carrying a silver-haired girl in her arms.”

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“To protect the Young Mistress from the furious purge of her enemies, she took all the crimes and debts upon herself and lured the pursuers away…” Remedios raised her eyes. “It fits the story you described before almost perfectly, doesn’t it?”

“…”

Stella was dumbfounded.

She opened her mouth, wanting to explain, yet had no idea where she could even begin.

‘Come on.’

‘I really had just made it up on the spot!’

‘Why had Remedios actually found a historical figure in the Abyss who matched it?’

‘And why did everything line up perfectly with my lie?’

‘But if that were the case… who exactly was the silver-haired girl Remedios mentioned?’

‘It could not possibly be me, anyway.’

“Mm, I have one more piece of good news for you.”

Remedios closed the book.

“What?”

Stella asked instinctively.

“Your guardian isn’t dead. Although the Abyss’ purgers would have loved nothing more than to tear her to pieces, temporary torture could never compare with long-term imprisonment. Besides, rather than risk offending the Samael family, it was better to throw her into a prison from which escape was absolutely impossible.”

Remedios raised a finger and pointed toward the ceiling.

“Right now, she is imprisoned in the human Holy See’s highest-security prison, the White Tower. Having a bunch of self-proclaimed righteous holy knights guard dangerous individuals for free is one of the Electors’ favorite tricks.”

Stella froze for a moment.

The White Tower.

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A demon guilty of serious crimes.

The contents of Inquisitor Itheria’s letter flashed through Stella’s mind like lightning.

【A serious prison break recently occurred at the White Tower of the Holy Prison. An extremely dangerous demon convicted of serious crimes escaped amid the chaos…】

【There is a very high possibility that the target has already fled back to the Demon Realm.】

The corner of Stella’s mouth twitched.

‘That so-called demon guilty of serious crimes…’

‘Could it possibly be…’

‘This guardian I had casually made up?’

Author Note

PS: I like dragon girls ()

Translator Note

Author based. But ngl, dragon girls are cute, aren’t they? ><

Also, after Stella got parents, now she got a guardian! xD