Volume 3, Chapter 11-1 – How Did It Get to Me?!

The Corridor of Blood receded silently like an ebbing tide.

The scarlet eye blinked unwillingly a few times, its gaping mouth opening and closing slightly before it slowly shrank back into Stella’s shadow.

The shadow returned to its well-behaved appearance, obediently curling up behind Stella’s heels.

But Stella could feel that there seemed to be something extra inside the shadow.

Something difficult to digest.

It was Lavinia’s essence.

The blood shadow had plundered Lavinia’s essence and was now slowly digesting it.

There was none of the sudden, violent transformation that had occurred when it devoured the Lord of Blood’s essence back then. Instead, it felt like melting ice and snow, slowly trickling away bit by bit.

Stella lowered her eyes.

She looked at the shadow beneath her feet, then at the faintly visible holy mark on the back of her left hand, and finally raised a hand to touch her horns and long tail.

“…Just what the hell am I?”

Stella muttered to herself.

Holy Light, Pale Power, the Valentine bloodline, Mia’s essence, Laxia’s rules, and now there was the blood shadow too…

Now it had even swallowed the essence of a higher dragon species.

The Holy Light and Abyssal powers within her were probably on the verge of becoming completely unbalanced. The Abyssal components inside her were becoming so overwhelming that they were practically spilling out.

She was basically some kind of stitched-together monster.

‘Am I really going to turn into a Succubus Saintess someday…?’

‘No, no, no!’

Although her status as a heretic was practically confirmed at this point, and although she was definitely going to sneak a few bites of the offerings, no matter how one looked at it, she was still fundamentally a Saintess.

But the problem was…

How was she supposed to strengthen her Holy Light and make herself fundamentally more like a Saintess instead of looking like the vicious and wicked succubus she was now?

The Primordial Doctrine mentioned that the only way to greatly amplify the Holy Light within one’s body was to absorb the pure power of a Chastisement spirit.

But Chastisement spirits were the exclusive jailers of the Holy See’s White Tower.

She couldn’t exactly run back to the surface now, slaughter her way through the Holy See’s defenses, infiltrate the White Tower of the Holy Prison, and seize the pure power of a Chastisement spirit, could she?

She might as well hope Lainia attained sainthood and carried her back to the Holy City.

Stella sighed.

‘Forget it. I should stop thinking about that for now.’

She should think about something more practical.

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‘What am I supposed to do next?’

Stella looked around.

The forest was completely empty. Not even bone fragments remained of Lavinia and the two dragon attendants.

Although there were no corpses, in the Abyss, if someone’s fate was unknown, they were presumed dead.

So now came the question.

The observer sent by the Nexus Council to Lilith School, a higher hound of the Elector Samael family, had simply vanished without explanation in the area surrounding Lilith School, together with two dragon attendants.

‘Would this eventually make its way to Principal Gehenna?’

Come to think of it, Principal Gehenna really was one miserable succubus. She had taken in a troublemaking disciple like Stella and hadn’t enjoyed a single peaceful day since. All she ever did was clean up Stella’s messes.

Crk, crk.

Dragging footsteps approached.

Stella looked back.

It was Aetlana.

She limped toward her.

Her bone armor had completely withdrawn back into her body, revealing the battered body beneath. Her long ice-blue hair was covered in dirt and blood, while scraps of ruined clothing hung from her body, barely covering a few places.

Her left arm hung limply at her side, bent at a strange angle. It was clearly broken.

Aetlana stopped in front of Stella.

She raised her hand, placed it on Stella’s little head, then gently rubbed it.

“You’ve grown up,” Aetlana said. “Now you can protect yourself.”

Stella froze for a moment.

She didn’t know how to respond to Aetlana’s words.

Aetlana withdrew her hand and lowered her eyes.

She would never allow anyone to hurt Stella, yet she herself had gone against that very intention. Whether she had meant to or not, the harm had unquestionably been done.

If Stella hadn’t truly possessed extraordinary abilities of her own, she would have died here as well.

Shame crushed her to pieces, slipping through the gaps between her fingers like sand.

“I’m sorry,” Aetlana said. “I didn’t mean to deliberately bring trouble to you. No… I just couldn’t bear… I’m sorry…”

Stella felt as though Aetlana was trying to tell her something, something that couldn’t be put into words, something that couldn’t be conveyed face to face.

Yet Stella didn’t understand what it was.

There were far, far too many things Stella didn’t understand.

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“I should leave now.”

“Leave?”

Stella blurted out.

Aetlana nodded.

“No one will come after you because of what happened tonight. I’ll take full responsibility for the deaths of Lavinia and those two dragon attendants,” she said. “As long as I leave traces of myself at the scene, they’ll naturally assume I killed them and fled.”

“You…”

Stella tilted her head up slightly, her mind a complete mess.

‘Leave?’

‘Just like that?’

Aetlana had risked being hunted down and traveled all this way to Nightmare Street just to see her once?

She had fought her way out of the White Tower of the Holy Prison with her life on the line just so she could ruffle Stella’s hair and say, “You’ve grown up”?

And then she was going to leave?

“Didn’t you come looking for me because you wanted to revive your old lord?”

In the silence, only the wind passing through the forest could be heard.

“That truly was the reason I first encountered you, just as it had been my reason for a very long time,” Aetlana said, shaking her head. “But I came to meet you because I wanted to make amends to you.”

“But…”

“I don’t want to disturb your life because of that. I have no right to twist your life or occupy it.”

She smiled self-deprecatingly, yet there was something sorrowful in it.

“You have a lot now, don’t you?”

“Enjoying something is more precious than possessing it. We enjoy the air, but we cannot possess the air. We enjoy the stars, but we cannot possess the stars. In the same way, we enjoy friendship and familial love, but we cannot, and should not, want to possess that friend or family member. We also enjoy romantic love, but we cannot, and should not, want to possess the person we love. Just enjoy it. Enjoying something is far more precious than possessing it.”

“Whether it’s friendship or love, they’re all rare and precious things in this world. Once you have them, you need to know how to cherish them. When you want happiness, love others and let yourself be loved! Only love is truly precious. Nothing else matters.”

“It’s just…” Aetlana took a few steps backward, then asked. “Can you tell me one last thing, Stella? Are you happy now?”

Stella fell silent.

She didn’t know what sort of attitude she should take in answering those words.

At first, she had been certain that the other woman had come to capture her and use her as material for some resurrection ritual.

But after the fall and the battle tonight, what Aetlana had shown was an entirely different emotion.

Stella couldn’t tell what it was, yet it felt very warm.

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‘No…’

She really had received Aetlana’s feelings.

She simply couldn’t respond to them.

The problem was that this guilt and warmth that had crossed mountains and rivers were directed toward the true “Pale Daughter.”

Not toward Stella, the Saintess.

Everything she possessed in the Abyss now had been built upon a false identity.

And the person who truly had the right to answer that question

was not her, but the genuine Pale Daughter whose whereabouts were unknown.

Stella felt that perhaps she ought to have been moved, which left her feeling a little embarrassed.

She gazed at Aetlana’s face, covered in mud and blood, hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

“I understand.”

Aetlana nodded in satisfaction.

She turned around.

Her leather boots took two steps across the muddy ground.

Then stopped.

“Kiss me.” She said softly. “Kiss me before we part.”

“…”

Stella fell silent. She knew Aetlana was pleading with her, yet at the same time, she felt a kind of emptiness born from feelings that could not be conveyed.

Everything Aetlana had said churned through Stella’s mind, and she had to admit that the love within those words was sincere.

Mixed into it was the love between mother and daughter, and perhaps even some kind of romantic affection that could not be clearly explained, both pure and innocent, yet chaotic and blind.

Aetlana regarded her as light, as someone to entrust her heart to, and as the place where her dreams resided.

Yet Stella could vaguely sense that Aetlana truly loved her.

She was an extraordinarily quiet woman. Within her golden eyes dwelled a gentle yet stubborn spirit, like an utterly exhausted mare who knew full well that she could no longer pull the cart of life, yet still forced herself to drag it forward with everything she had.

And so, Stella stood on tiptoe, cupped Aetlana’s face in her hands, and planted a firm kiss on her cheek, leaving behind a red lip print like a scar.

“Goodbye,” Aetlana said.

She walked a few steps away.

With such a hasty farewell, one always imagined there would someday be some grand occasion to make up for it. In truth, nothing in this world could ever truly make up for anything, and so she set off just as hastily upon the long road of exile.

But she suddenly discovered the meaning of exile. It made punishment distant, while at the same time prolonging happiness.

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Thud.

Without warning, Aetlana fell forward.

“Aetlana!”

Stella rushed over.

She helped Aetlana up and discovered that her body was frighteningly hot. Her breathing was so weak that it was almost impossible to feel, and her face was as pale as paper.

She seemed on the verge of losing consciousness.

Stella immediately realized that Aetlana had been forcing herself to remain upright this entire time.

From the fall to the battle, from the battle to their farewell, she had been relying solely on willpower to sustain a body that had long since reached its limit.

“No…”

A faint murmur escaped her lips.

“Not now. Don’t let me fall asleep…”

Aetlana’s voice grew weaker and weaker.

“Don’t…”

Stella froze for a moment.

Then she saw it.

Aetlana’s back was glowing.

A complicated white brand could faintly be seen there.

The darkness around them was gradually replaced by light. White motes of light emerged from every direction, one after another, growing more numerous and more densely packed.

Then they began to gather.

Gathering into a hazy outline.

A human shape.

Translator Note

It supposed to be dramatic but my mind just filled with:

Stella seeing the light spirits: Oh! Finally some Holy Light food! xD