Volume 2, Chapter 28-2 – Girl in the Mirror

“In any case, as long as you understand.”

Remedios picked up her quill again in satisfaction.

“Oh, right.” She said, casually tossing out a sweetener as though to placate an aggrieved sister. “About that mithril mirror you mentioned before… I checked the school’s history and found something of a lead.”

“Oh?”

A tiny spark finally lit up within Stella’s ashen, lifeless eyes.

“What did you find?”

“The school records say that before the first Principal died of illness, she left behind a mirror. But the demons discovered that it gave off no magical fluctuations at all, and looking into it revealed neither undead nor curses. It was unbelievably boring, nothing but a piece of junk, so they simply placed it in the gallery of the House of Art.”

“And after the House of Art closed down, it was treated as worthless junk and tossed into the Art Department’s storeroom along with a pile of artworks to gather dust.”

Remedios tapped her cheek with the end of her quill.

“Hmm… if the two of us spend a little time looking, it shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

“The Art Department’s storeroom?”

Stella looked around.

The place was packed with plaster statues missing arms and legs, oil paintings covered in mold, and all manner of twisted objects whose purpose was impossible to discern. Cardboard boxes were scattered everywhere, stuffed full of odds and ends and leaving almost nowhere to set foot.

“Isn’t that right here?” Stella blinked. “Don’t tell me you specifically asked me to meet you in this abandoned basement because you’d already found something?”

“How could that be? I don’t have the ability to see the future.”

Remedios tilted her head.

She stood up and patted the dust from her skirt.

“I just happened to come here to claim some territory. I can’t exactly make plans for shady dealings in the dormitory, can I? The Art Department’s tower has been vacant for ages, so there’s basically no need to worry about outsiders disturbing us.”

“Come to think of it, there was actually some poor soul assigned to the Art Department this year. Maybe that was a sign that the magic mirror was finally reaching the end of its lifespan… Oh, right. You already played with it until it exploded.”

“Poor soul?”

Stella instinctively thought of a certain little fool who drew triangular suns.

Rеаd οn KαtRеаԁіոɡСafе

An oddball who stubbornly wanted to paint sunlight in a school overflowing with violence and lust.

This entire room full of abandoned things was, without a doubt, the fate of art in the Abyss.

It was a lonely single-plank bridge.

Without conviction as strong as steel, there was no way to keep hold of one’s brush amid the Abyss’ mocking laughter. That conviction came from a love of art. If one truly loved it, then hardship did not matter, nor did straying from the values of the masses.

Choosing art also meant choosing a path of asceticism.

But perhaps…

For a girl who drew triangular suns, it was at least a happy road.

“Stop spacing out, Stella.”

Remedios’s voice interrupted Stella’s thoughts.

Miss Book Demon was already walking with light steps toward the depths of the mountainous heap of junk.

“Since it’s right here, let’s not waste time.”

Stella opened her palm.

The blood-red thorn mark symbolizing the Valentine family heir’s trial slowly emerged on her skin.

“By the way, Remedios. There’s something I want to ask you.”

Remedios began rummaging through a pile of junk. The dust she stirred up made her throat itch.

“Hmm?”

“About the Laxia Ritual, is there any way… not to go?” Stella asked softly. “Or to escape?”

Remedios stopped coughing.

She suddenly turned around and stared at Stella. It was as though she could already see Stella’s future fate, and something like grief and anger mixed with understanding appeared in her eyes.

“…They’ve already dragged you into something like that.”

Rеαԁ оn КаtRеаⅾіոɡСαfе

Remedios told her the truth.

“Unfortunately, once this mark has been planted, sooner or later, you will inevitably be teleported into the Corridor of Blood.”

“If you don’t complete the Laxia Ritual according to the rules, the only exit will never open.”

“The dead souls sleeping in the Valentine family cemetery will tear apart any descendant who attempts to defy the rules without the slightest hesitation.”

Remedios walked up to Stella and reached out a finger, lightly tapping the thorn mark.

“Only one person will ultimately walk out of the Corridor of Blood.”

“There is no other way.”

Remedios looked at Stella, seemingly weighing something in her mind.

She thought about that subtle and complicated illegitimate-daughter relationship between Stella and Cheryl, then finally sighed and shrugged.

“There really is nothing I can do.”

“Within the Corridor of Blood, the rules are absolute. Either you die, or Cheryl dies.” Miss Book Demon paused, then added. “Unless there’s something capable of breaking the restraints of space and directly pulling both of you out. But that’s the stuff of legends. At least in the records of the Abyss, I’ve never heard of any item or bloodline possessing such an ability.”

‘Break the restraints of space?’

The corner of Stella’s mouth twitched slightly.

That sounded like saying that if you did not want to drown, all you had to do was drink the ocean dry.

If she could cast a Holy Art on that level, she would have packed her bags and gone home ages ago. Why would she still need to sit in a dark, damp basement accompanying a succubus who wrote filthy rumors about her through one ridiculous farce after another?

‘Thank Lord. It seems the difficulty level of my spy mission is, as always, remarkably stable.’

‘Stable at hell difficulty.’

“Found it!”

Remedios let out a soft cry, interrupting Stella’s thoughts.

“This should be it.”

Rеαⅾ oո ΚаtRеadіnɡСafe

In a corner, standing between piles of dust-covered broken plaster arms and moldy canvases, was a full-length mirror coated in dust.

There were no ornate decorations. Its frame was a dull silver that had long since oxidized, while the mirror itself was gray with grime. It looked no different from the garbage surrounding it.

The only difference was that there was less dust around the mirror than elsewhere.

Someone had been here.

And not long ago.

Remedios narrowed her eyes and lightly brushed her fingers across the mirror frame.

“It really is every bit as ordinary as the book described.”

She made her judgment.

No magical circuits, no inscriptions. It was just like an ordinary piece of human glass.

“According to what you said before, the Girl in the Mirror should be dwelling inside it.”

Stella stepped forward and pressed her palm against the cold mirror.

There was no response.

There was no resonance from any divine power.

The inside was completely empty, as though no one were home.

According to the records in the Primordial Doctrine, this should have been the one.

“An ownerless weapon… punishing heretics who forsake the light… only by taking the command of a person of this world as its guide can the descent of the Girl in the Mirror be summoned,” Stella murmured to herself.

‘Could the Girl in the Mirror already have been summoned away?’

But it was still well before noon of the Sixth Watch. There was still quite some time before the ghost’s usual incident.

‘But…’

‘Why would a sacred mirror belonging to the Holy See choose a succubus?’

Rеaԁ οո KаtRеaⅾinɡCαfе

Logically speaking, a sacred relic of the Church should only obey humans. Even if it sensed the faintest trace of a demon’s presence, it should erupt with holy flames to repel them.

Unless…

This ancient mirror’s definition of a saint was completely different from the modern one?

That sounded rather heretical.

But when she thought about it carefully, a battered old book called the Primordial Doctrine had spent all its time trying to get her to rebel against and overthrow the Holy City, so somehow, it started to seem reasonable.

“Clearly…” Remedios withdrew her hand and rubbed the speck of fresh dust on her fingertip with her index finger, “Someone accidentally discovered this mirror, and then… accidentally obtained the power inside it.”

She looked around.

“But the Art Department’s tower has been abandoned for ages. Aside from rats and spiders, basically no one ever comes here. Much less someone who could accurately pick this particular mirror out from a heap of garbage.”

Stella did not answer.

Her gaze swept across an unfinished painting nearby.

Several dried-up tubes of paint lay scattered beside the easel, along with a rag stained all over with multicolored oil paint.

In the Abyss, where nothing mattered except strength, who else would spend day after day wasting their time inside an abandoned tower?

If the Girl in the Mirror was no longer here, that could only mean the summoner’s current power was already sufficient to ignore the usual restriction of noon.

And when Stella searched her memory for who had received the greatest baptism and advancement, she could think of only one girl who had stuffed herself with a lethal dose’s worth of Holy Communion at the Lionheart Society and then shouted that she had “made it.”

A girl who drew triangular suns.

Her name rose like a bubble breaking the surface of the water, then burst inside Stella’s mind.

“…Dorothy?”

Stella’s breath abruptly caught.

“I need to go find Cheryl first.”