Volume 3, Chapter 5-4 – An Exiled Dragon Needs No Tombstone

“Achoo—!”

Stella rubbed her nose, somewhat baffled.

‘Could succubi sneeze too?’

‘No, wait. I am fundamentally still human.’

‘Sneezing is perfectly normal.’

“Strange…” She muttered. “I keep feeling like someone’s thinking about me.”

“Thinking about you? Maybe that guardian you’ve never met is talking about you on Nightmare Street right now.” Remedios spoke without thinking.

“…Could you pick a different time to tell ghost stories?” Stella rolled her eyes. “That sounds kind of terrifying.”

Aetlana.

Cheryl.

Nightmare Street.

Put those three words together, and Stella could only feel that she was in serious trouble.

No.

She couldn’t delay any longer.

She had to leave immediately and drag her idiot little sister back before Cheryl ran into Aetlana.

Heaven knew what screw had come loose in Cheryl’s head for her to actually think about provoking a higher demon.

Aetlana was, at the very least, a terrifying figure who had followed the Pale Lord in conquering the world, a monster capable of carving her way out of the White Tower.

What made Cheryl, a succubus student who hadn’t even graduated yet, think she could win?

Stella stood up and straightened her skirt.

After taking only two steps, she stopped.

She remembered Gehenna’s warning perfectly clearly.

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Principal Gehenna had always acted swiftly and decisively. Today was the first day of the school break, so the guards at the gate must have received strict orders long ago not to let Stella leave.

Ask her Master to make an exception?

Gehenna currently had people from the Nexus Council clinging to her and refusing to let go. If Stella asked her to bring Cheryl back, the task would inevitably be delegated to someone else.

Who would she probably send?

Professor Katerina was likely the only choice.

Although Professor Katerina was certainly capable, by the time she finished whatever she was handling, leisurely made her way to Nightmare Street, and went through all the reporting and coordination back and forth, Cheryl would already have become dragon food.

No.

There was no time to wait.

She had to go herself.

And she had to be fast.

Stella turned her head and looked at Remedios, who was leisurely drinking tea.

“Do you know any secret passage? The kind that leads directly to Nightmare Street?”

Remedios was organizing her notebook. Hearing this, she raised her head, her expression turning slightly peculiar.

“A secret passage?”

“Yeah, the kind that… um, doesn’t go through the main gate, doesn’t get spotted by the guards, and lets you take a shortcut straight to Nightmare Street.”

Remedios fell silent for two seconds.

She set down her teacup, the porcelain base making a soft sound against the saucer.

“Stella, do you know how long it normally takes to get from Lilith School to Nightmare Street?”

“…About one Watch?”

“Three Watches by nightmare carriage. Why else do you think students prefer staying overnight on Nightmare Street?” Remedios raised one finger. “And that’s with the fastest nightmare carriage. Otherwise, are you expecting some secret passage that lets you run to Nightmare Street on your own two legs in less time?”

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Stella opened her mouth but said nothing.

All right.

That really wasn’t very realistic.

“However…” Remedios stood up. “This just happens to be the research result I wanted to tell you about.”

She snapped her fingers.

“Dorothy.”

“Coming, coming~”

Dorothy poked her head out from the lounge, the bells at the tips of her hair jingling.

She carefully shuffled out carrying a dressing mirror about half a person’s height.

The frame was carved with intricate patterns of Abyssal roses, while the mirror’s surface was covered in a faint silver glow. It reflected none of the furnishings in the room, showing only a hazy mercury-gray expanse.

“What do we need a mirror for?”

Stella studied the mirror, her silver-and-red hair swaying beside the edge of the frame.

“Remember the research I mentioned to you before?” Remedios walked over to the mirror and lightly tapped its frame with her finger. “The research about the world inside mirrors.”

Stella nodded.

Of course she remembered.

She had been unconscious for a month, and when she woke up, Remedios had told her she had made new progress.

But afterward there had been Lainia tearing apart the training grounds, Gehenna taking her to Firefly Dark Alley, the members of the Lionheart Society blocking her and demanding an explanation…

One mess after another had made her completely forget about it.

“So this mirror is the result?”

“More precisely, it’s the vessel for the result.”

Remedios stepped aside and gestured for Dorothy to come forward.

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The little succubus obediently stood beside the mirror and pressed both hands against its surface.

“The world we live in is only the surface layer.” Remedios spoke casually. “Behind it exists another world, the world inside mirrors. It isn’t a complete space. It’s more like an archipelago made up of countless islands. Each island corresponds to a particular mirror in the real world.”

Stella only half understood.

“So… Dorothy can travel between those islands?”

“Not merely travel between them.” Remedios gave her an approving look. “Dorothy’s ability is to build bridges between these islands. As long as she remembers and stabilizes the location of a particular mirror, we can use her to freely travel between mirrors in the real world.”

Stella blinked.

The Primordial Doctrine certainly hadn’t mentioned that the Girl in the Mirror could moonlight as a teleportation array.

“Put simply,” Remedios summarized, “As long as Dorothy remembers and stabilizes the position of a mirror in the real world, it’s essentially the same as being able to open a portal directly.”

“A portal?”

“Exactly.”

Remedios walked in front of the mirror and lightly touched its surface with one finger.

Ripples spread across the mirror. It became hazy and beautiful, like a lake covered in layers of thin mist.

“While you were sleeping like the dead, Dorothy and I took a trip to Nightmare Street. We successfully had Dorothy establish a long-distance link between Lilith School and Nightmare Street. In other words, we can travel directly between this mirror at Lilith School and Nightmare Street.”

“Of course, we tested it several times. Completely flawless.”

Remedios walked over to the sofa and picked up several shopping bags printed with dark-gold emblems.

Rustle.

She dumped everything inside them onto the long table in one go.

The items scattered across more than half the tabletop.

A copy of the Belphegor Compendium bearing slight scorch marks, its thick parchment cover pressing down several bundles of dried moonlight grass.

Two bottles filled with purple fluorescent slime extract.

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A dozen parchment scrolls engraved with high-level protective runes, tied together with red ribbons.

In the corner were even several packets of caramel cookies printed with the logo of a famous Nightmare Street dessert shop, which Dorothy had bought.

Stella’s gaze paused for a moment on Remedios’ light casual clothes.

No wonder she hadn’t been wearing her school uniform. So she had just returned from a shopping spree on Nightmare Street with Dorothy.

“The mirror leads to a hotel room we booked on Nightmare Street.” Remedios stepped aside, clearing the space in front of the mirror. “If you want to go, just step inside.”

“I’m going.”

Facing the mirror, Stella took a step forward.

Waterlike ripples spread apart. There was none of the hard sensation of glass, only the faint coolness of passing through a membrane of water.

Her body leaned forward and finally entered a halo of silver light.

The mirror returned to stillness and once again reflected the bookshelves and long table inside the clubroom.

Remedios picked up her now-cold black tea and took a sip.

“Speaking of which…” She muttered to herself. “The room I booked was the best Night King Suite at Cloudtop Manor, wasn’t it?”

Remedios set down the teacup and tilted her head.

“Hasn’t it already been well past checkout time?”

“But Cloudtop Manor is so huge. Surely another dignitary wouldn’t move in the moment the time was up, right?”

Translator Note

The good sister once again screwing with Stella xD