Volume 3, Chapter 6-2 – Franleya Belphegor

Stella had figured it out. Not a single one of the Electors’ demon offspring was easy to deal with.

Cheryl, the Valentine family’s daughter and Stella’s bargain-bin little sister, had disliked her on sight the very first time they met.

She had immediately confronted Stella head-on, looking as though she wanted to stab her full of holes with her gaze alone.

And now, Miss Belphegor…

Was even worse.

She had tried to hypnotize Stella right from the start.

Although objectively speaking, Stella had barged into someone else’s bedroom without permission and disturbed the young lady’s peaceful sleep.

But when all was said and done, this was entirely Remedios’ fault.

If it weren’t for Remedios, how could she have ended up in such an awkward situation?

But…

Stella looked around. Nothing seemed to have changed. It was still the bedroom in Cloudtop Manor.

“Because what our nightmare clan excels at most is crafting dreams.”

Franleya’s voice rang out.

“It’s not merely a feast for the eyes and ears. We can let you experience absolutely everything in its entirety. Taste, inner emotions, stimulation of all five senses, thoughts and memories… nothing is left out.”

“So before you even realize it, you’ll come to believe that the dream is reality.”

Stella looked back and found Franleya sitting on the edge of the bed, casually eating pineapple.

“This is also what we Belphegors are most renowned for throughout the Abyss. No one can surpass our illusions…” Franleya paused, then added with a hint of embarrassment, “Almost.”

She said no one could surpass them, but up until now, there truly had been one person whose illusion arts surpassed Belphegor’s.

An Archsuccubus with eyes like dying embers, who had once set the entire Abyss ablaze, and whose very name people did not even dare mention.

But Franleya had no intention of bringing that up. Being a little vague would save her an enormous amount of explaining and make it much easier to bluff people.

“Now… let’s take a look at your fear.”

Then Franleya tapped a finger in midair.

Pale-pink magical mist spread outward, surging continuously as though some presence within it were slowly taking shape.

Franleya tilted her head slightly and leaned forward with great interest.

As Valentine’s most prominent legitimate heir, what could she possibly fear?

The chief judge of the Nexus Council?

The terrifying Holy Light of humanity that clung like a maggot to the bone?

Or some indescribably horrific giant beast in the Abyss?

The magical mist dispersed.

Franleya saw a girl standing quietly on the surface of the water.

Her silver-and-crimson hair was tied high, secured with a purple velvet ribbon fashioned into a bow. Her dark-black Lilith School uniform was fastened meticulously all the way to the top.

Cool, aloof brows and eyes, and a fair face.

Without question, it was Stella.

“…Huh?”

Franleya blinked. She stared at the girl formed by the dream for a while, then turned to look at the real Stella beside her.

They were identical.

“You… are afraid of yourself?”

Franleya tilted her head.

“…More or less.”

Stella shrugged.

She wasn’t surprised at all.

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The thing she had feared most up until now was probably having everyone she knew see through to her true self.

Just thinking about all the identities everyone had forced onto her by now was enough to make her feel like she couldn’t deal with it anymore.

Principal Gehenna regarded her as the blood descendant of her beloved disciple, the Pale Daughter, firmly believing Stella was her finest student with grand ambitions. She was wholeheartedly convincing herself that she wanted to be Stella’s good Master.

Vice Principal Katerina, meanwhile, regarded Stella as the child left behind by someone she had once loved. Every time she saw Stella, the complicated emotions in her eyes were enough to fill a million-word saga of love, hatred, grudges, and entanglements.

The Ash Drinkers led by Mara were even more convinced that Stella was their Young Mistress. Sooner or later, they were probably going to drag her off to the Ashen Sanctuary to resurrect their old lord.

Vivian Valentine and Cheryl Valentine, the mother and daughter pair, were equally dead set on Stella being a member of their family.

One gave her a mansion, the other called her Elder Sister.

The members of her Lionheart Society also believed that she was a genius succubus who aspired to become the Queen of Eternal Night, and were willing to follow her in prying the Abyss apart from within.

Each title was more impressive than the last, and each script weighed heavier than the one before it.

But Stella alone knew perfectly well.

She was a counterfeit.

A Saintess candidate.

Even though crimson strands had now grown into her hair, even though she had laid an unfertilized succubus egg, even though her shadow had grown full of eyes and sharp teeth, a counterfeit was still a counterfeit in the end.

Although the real one had long since died without leaving a trace, the problem with an imitation was never what it looked like, but how it had been made.

Once the truth was exposed, once her true nature as a Saintess came to light, every expectation would turn into killing intent, and every protection would become a death sentence.

Thinking of this, Stella couldn’t help but feel sorrow well up in her heart.

Just what kind of miserable life was she living, day after day?

Franleya’s pale-pink eyes flickered slightly.

Her original reason for dragging Stella into a dream had not merely been for entertainment.

The Belphegor family’s diplomacy and expansion of its connections throughout the Abyss had always depended on its command of intelligence regarding the major powers.

Knowing the weaknesses and desires of someone in a position of power was equivalent to gaining another heavyweight bargaining chip at the negotiating table.

She had originally intended to use this opportunity to see all of Stella’s vulnerabilities, so she could keep a firm hold over her in the future.

But Franleya had never expected Stella’s nightmare to actually be herself.

Three-quarters of all the evil and suffering in the world came from fear of the unknown.

It kept people awake at night over tragedies that had already happened and left them trembling in fear of disasters that had yet to arrive.

Fear was never some ferocious monster baring its fangs and claws. It was a seed, silently taking root deep within the soil of the soul and feeding on its host’s darkness as it grew.

But…

Afraid of herself?

Franleya narrowed her eyes.

Why would Stella be afraid of herself?

What was she afraid of?

Her bloodline?

Her power?

Or perhaps… her beauty?

Franleya didn’t know.

But now, she was even more curious about the Valentine heir in front of her.

“Very well. Since your nightmare is so obscure…”

Franleya raised her hand and lightly tapped a finger.

“Now, let’s take a look at your desire.”

‘Desire?’

Stella froze.

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‘No, come on, girl.’

‘Was peeking at my fears not enough? She had to peek at my desires too?’

Although she had somehow managed to muddle through the last one by being afraid of herself, she couldn’t exactly say that she desired herself too, could she?

That would be ridiculous.

Who desired themselves?

She wasn’t a narcissist.

The problem was…

What she truly desired most was to become a legitimate Saintess of the Holy See!

Since Franleya had genuinely managed to use the dream to pry into her fear just now, what if she also successfully uncovered Stella’s desire?

What if she discovered that the real Stella wasn’t a succubus, nor Valentine’s legitimate heir, but a human Saintess standing on the opposing side of the Abyss?

‘I am finished!’

Stella didn’t dare imagine any further.

“Um…” She attempted one final struggle. “Actually, desires are very complicated too. You don’t necessarily have to look. Even if you look, you might not understand. Even if you understand, you might not necessarily…”

“Shh.”

Franleya raised one finger and placed it against her lips.

Her movement was exactly the same as before.

As expected…

The daughters of the Electors were all troublemakers cut from the same mold.

Each one was better at threatening people than the last, and each one was worse than the last.

Once she got back, she was definitely writing the culprit Remedios’ name in her little notebook a hundred times.

And from now on, if she ever met another daughter of an Elector, she would avoid every single one of them.

But could she really avoid them?

Stella thought about it. She was now openly recognized as Valentine’s legitimate heir, so contact with other powerful families was unavoidable. Vivian also seemed to have some intention of getting her involved in politics.

If the other families also produced some strange young ladies…

Stella shuddered.

She couldn’t think about it. She absolutely couldn’t think about it.

“Don’t worry, Valentine.” Franleya raised a hand and snapped her fingers. “Let me see your desire. Just one look, and I’ll let you leave.”

In an instant, the surrounding magical mist expanded severalfold, swallowing the light of the obsidian chandelier in the blink of an eye and burying both the round rosewood table and the heavy curtains from sight.

Stella instinctively took a step back, only to find empty space beneath her foot as the scene around her began to distort.

The Night King Suite melted stickily into the mist, leaving nothing but white all around them, like ice cubes floating in mint liqueur.

Gradually, even the ice melted into water.

The mist thickened, and Cloudtop Manor disappeared.

Then sunlight streamed in, carrying dust within it, countless tiny motes dancing and drifting through the pillars of light.

Sunlight from the Human Realm.

Stella stopped where she was.

She saw tall columns rise on both sides, the pure white stone glowing with a warm luster beneath the sunlight.

This place…

It seemed to be Holy Trinity Cathedral within the dream.

The dream was reshaping itself according to Franleya’s command, recreating the scene Stella desired most.

Stella began to panic.

If she allowed Franleya to keep constructing the dream…

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What appeared next would most likely be herself in a pure-white robe, holding a scripture in her hands.

A version of herself with absolutely no succubus traits, looking every bit like a Saintess.

If Franleya saw that a succubus carrying Valentine blood desired, in the deepest part of her heart, to become a human Saintess…

There was absolutely no way she could muddle through afterward with some simple excuse.

She couldn’t exactly brush it off with some bizarre explanation about admiring human Saintesses and wanting to become one, could she?

What succubus would dream of becoming a Saintess?

Just thinking about it was absurd.

She couldn’t let the dream finish taking shape. She had to find some way to wake up.

But how?

What could break the dream and shatter Franleya’s illusion?

Stella instinctively closed her eyes.

It took only a thought.

A sharp pain stabbed through her right eye, as though something were slowly rotating within her eye socket.

Stella instantly realized that the Eye of the Black Mass had activated on its own.

Valentine’s scarlet pupil was immediately covered in pallor.

Her iris turned pale, while a cluster of black embers ignited at the center of her pupil.

It slowly rotated within her eye socket as Pale Power spilled from the corner of her eye like burning white ash.

Professor Katerina’s warning still rang in her ears.

As a higher demon, Katerina had chopped Stella on the forehead and strictly ordered her never to use the Pale Lord’s power in front of outsiders.

But right now, Stella couldn’t care about that anymore.

She had always had this bad habit. The moment she panicked, she would hand in a blank exam paper. Afterward, she would suddenly understand everything perfectly, but in the moment, her brain would simply jam and stop turning, so she might as well charge straight ahead.

White ash gradually spread outward with Stella at its center.

“Sunlight? Sunlight that only exists in the surface world?”

Franleya tilted her head slightly, her pale-pink eyes reflecting the dream taking shape around them.

White columns, stained-glass windows, golden light pouring down through the vaulted ceiling.

This place was… the human world?

But why did it have to be the human world?

Why?

The heir of the Valentine family, an illegitimate daughter who had once wandered the streets, desired more than anything else the sunlight of the human world?

Franleya couldn’t understand it.

And in the distance, within the hazy glow, there seemed to be someone standing there.

Franleya instinctively took a step forward, wanting to see that person’s face clearly.

Before she could make it out, Stella’s voice sounded from behind her.

“You’ve seen enough, haven’t you?”

Her voice was very soft, as though it had crossed thousands of mountains and rivers to reach her from some unknown place.

Franleya instinctively turned around.

The instant her eyes met Stella’s, she saw Stella’s right eye.

Against a pale foundation, a cluster of black-and-red embers slowly turned, like sparks gathered together that could neither be suppressed nor extinguished.

Gorgeous, frantic, cold, sharp, proud, decisive…

“…”

Disbelief filled Franleya’s eyes.

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Although she had never seen an eye like this before, that did not stop her from having heard of it.

Pale as the iris, embers as the pupil.

Franleya knew that throughout the history of the Abyss, only one person had ever possessed eyes like these.

An existence who had once set the entire Abyss ablaze, whose very name people did not dare casually utter, and an Archsuccubus whose illusions and dreams had surpassed even those of Belphegor.

——The Pale Lord, Vilpana.

Franleya went still as air. And just like air, only when one drew closer and looked against the light could one see the turbulence and boiling currents raging within.

But why…

Why would the eyes belonging to the Pale Lord appear in Stella’s pupils?

Franleya didn’t understand. She wanted to retreat, wanted to avert her gaze, wanted to…

But it was already too late.

Her gaze was drawn into those eyes, sinking little by little into that field of burning embers.

Everything around her began to lose its color.

The columns disappeared.

The sunlight disappeared.

The stained glass disappeared.

Only those eyes remained.

Larger and larger, closer and closer, more and more…

‘W-Wait!’

Franleya felt a strange trembling of the soul she had never experienced before, as though her body had lifted five or six centimeters off the ground.

‘Could it be…’

‘Have I fallen under Stella’s illusion?’

Franleya immediately tried to release her control over Stella’s dream and sever the connection between them.

But she quickly noticed one terrifying fact.

She seemed to have… lost control of the dream.

Stella’s dream was no longer under her control.

Her concentration was collapsing, like a sheet of paper burned through by flame, its edges curling, blackening, and crumbling into ash.

Within those vividly colored eyes, Franleya saw her own reflection.

Only her reflection.

“…You…”

Franleya murmured.

“You are…”

“The Pale Daughter?”

Translator Note

oof.

Expose her desire to be a saintess

or expose her Pale Daughter identity?

Either way, Stella is screwed xD