Volume 4, Chapter 6-2 – When Trouble Comes, Sleep It Off

Aside from eating, Lainia probably didn’t have room in her head for anything else anymore.

“What exactly is the job?” Lainia belatedly asked. “Am I going there to be a maid? I’ve learned quite a lot from Captain Riko lately.”

‘Maid training…’

‘Mm…’

Given the current employment situation, if she rounded things off a little, being a gatekeeper was basically the same thing, right?

“That’s right.” Stella cleared her throat. “I have a manor that I need you to look after.”

Lainia’s eyes grew even brighter.

“Really?”

“Of course it’s true. Starting today…” Stella gave Lainia’s shoulder a firm pat. “You’ll be the gatekeeper of Blood Demon Manor.”

Lainia froze.

“…Gatekeeper?” She tilted her head. “A security guard?”

Stella had a bad feeling.

Lainia’s expression clearly wasn’t very enthusiastic.

Well, that made sense.

A Holy See spy who had infiltrated the Abyss had somehow been demoted all the way down to a security guard watching the front gate.

Anyone would feel aggrieved by that kind of fall in status.

Especially when Lainia had just taken advanced professional courses in maid work.

But Stella really did urgently need a gatekeeper who wasn’t afraid of Chastisement spirits.

Stella’s brain began spinning at high speed.

Time to fall back on her old profession and talk her into it.

Besides, Lainia was already dumb. She was easy to fool.

“Lainia.” Stella cleared her throat, her tone turning solemn. “Do you know what a gatekeeper is?”

Lainia blinked.

“It’s… someone who stands at the gate?”

Rеαⅾ оո KαtRеαԁіոɡСafе

“Wrong!” Stella solemnly snatched up a soup spoon and declared with absolute conviction, “A gatekeeper is someone who stands there while bearing the weight of everything they must protect. Not out of hatred, not for profit, but out of responsibility. A gatekeeper is a noble watcher.”

“You are like a watcher. You plant yourself there, stand there, and remain at attention. The glory lies in the ordinary. The hardship lies in enduring it for so long.”

Stella’s tone grew more and more solemn.

“I can tell you with certainty that gatekeeping has transcended every other profession in this mortal world. Because the more ordinary and enduring a profession is, the more respect it deserves.”

“And Blood Demon Manor and I are precisely in need of a brave and fearless watcher like you!”

“Master… needs me?” Lainia murmured.

Stella was still spouting nonsense, but Lainia already felt there was no need to keep listening.

She had always been searching for a sense of security, and security did not come from obtaining something. It came from feeling, deep in her heart, that she was needed.

If Master needed her to become a gatekeeper…

Then what reason did she have to refuse?

Once she realized that someone needed her, a sense of fulfillment naturally welled up inside her. For someone as delicate and sensitive as her, the happiness brought by that sense of fulfillment was already enough.

“Don’t worry, Master! I’ll definitely prove worthy of the job you’ve given me!” Lainia clenched her fist, her gaze resolute. “From this day onward, the front gate of Blood Demon Manor shall become a gate that never opens!”

Stella froze.

There was no need to take it that seriously, right?

She had only wanted someone to stop any stragglers from slipping through, and conveniently watch the gate while she borrowed another’s blade to do her killing.

From what she could see, Lainia looked completely fired up, so she had probably managed to fool her successfully.

‘Forget it. Being serious is fine too.’

At least she wouldn’t run away in the middle of the night.

The hunting hounds and the night watchman were both ready.

Next, it was time to give all those predators lurking around her a tiny taste of Chastisement spirit shock.

Stella swept her gaze across the surrounding darkness.

The corridor was empty. Only a few dim yellow demon-crystal lamps hung on the stone walls.

But Stella knew that within the seemingly quiet shadows around her, all the black dots on the Marauder’s Map representing assassins from Samael, Bathory, Asmodeus, and the other Elector families were pricking up their ears and listening to her every move.

Reaԁ oո KatRеаdіոgСαfe

“You want to eliminate me from the tournament?”

Stella’s voice drifted lightly and quietly through the air above her listeners, like light and shadow, like the stars.

“If you want to, come find me at Blood Demon Manor, Third Intersection, Nightmare Street, during the Seventh Watch.”

“I’ll be waiting there for you.”

—————

Someone in the darkness let out a snort of laughter.

“You all heard that clearly, right?”

The Samael Dragon Attendants hidden in the shadows looked at one another.

“What did the Valentine heir just say?”

“She told us to go find her at Blood Demon Manor on Nightmare Street.”

“Alone?”

“Alone.”

After a moment of silence, the Dragon Attendants couldn’t decide whether they were annoyed or amused. In the end, they finally couldn’t hold back their laughter.

Within the grounds of Lilith School, Stella ultimately carried the title of Valentine heir, and Valentine’s Bloodthorn Guards were always standing by around her. Although the Bloodthorn Guards were inferior to them in direct combat, they excelled at all sorts of strange tricks and had the advantage in numbers, so the Samael family couldn’t simply go straight for the kill.

But now, Stella herself had personally told them to come find her at Blood Demon Manor.

“She’s challenging us herself… Does she think this is some childish game between students?”

“Maybe she’s been protected too well at Lilith School and has never seen what a real fight between demons looks like.”

“Could it be some kind of trap?”

“She’s just a succubus. What kind of trap could she possibly set?”

The Dragon Attendants exchanged glances. Their faces, twisted by arrogance, revealed nothing but overbearing contempt.

They were Samael Dragon Attendants, elite deathsworn of the Samael bloodline of Wrath and Conquest. Every one of them possessed the ability to transform into a dragon, and every one of them was a genuine higher dragon-type demon.

They might not be good at assassination, infiltration, or sneaking around doing underhanded things, but a frontal battle?

They had never feared anyone.

Rеаd оn ΚatRеаԁіոgСαfе

“Quiet.”

A deep voice rang out.

The Dragon Attendants restrained their laughter and turned their gazes in unison toward the depths of the shadows.

“Dragon Attendant Commander Ansel.” The Dragon Attendants said respectfully.

The Samael Dragon Attendant Commander slowly stepped out of the darkness.

His build was even more imposing than that of an ordinary Dragon Attendant. Dark-gold scales covered most of his face, leaving only one icy golden vertical pupil exposed. That eye swept across his subordinates before finally settling on the distant figure with silver and red interwoven hair.

“At first, I thought that since she dared to enter the Abyss Supremacy Tournament under her own name, she must at least have some courage.” The Dragon Attendant Commander said. “Now it seems she isn’t merely brave and brainless. She simply has no idea whether she’ll live or die.”

He looked over his five subordinates.

Five higher dragon-type demons in total.

With a lineup like this, even if they were deployed to the human world on the surface, they would be more than enough to slaughter their way straight through an entire fully armed Holy See knight order on a frontal battlefield.

Sending them to deal with a little succubus was practically using an ox-cleaver to kill a chicken.

Tonight’s hunt would be as easy as reaching into a bag and taking something out.

The Dragon Attendant Commander turned his head, his golden vertical pupil sweeping over the shadows in several other directions along the corridor.

They weren’t the only group lying in wait.

But the situation was already very clear.

Several wisps of pale pink mist on the left side of the corridor were rapidly dispersing.

Belphegor’s Nightmare Maintainers had already withdrawn. Those who controlled dreams had never liked stirring up trouble. Their purpose tonight had clearly only been to gather intelligence and report it to their own heir. They had no intention of interfering.

Behind a load-bearing pillar on the right, Bathory’s Commandment Arbiters quietly remained within the shadows. As enforcers of the Abyss’s rules, they would not interfere with Samael legitimately eliminating a rival.

As for Asmodeus’ Revelry Envoys and Mammon’s Tax Officers…

As allies of the Samael family, they had very tactfully left, giving Samael the credit for the first kill and surrendering the prey to them.

In other words, most of the families were maintaining a wait-and-see attitude. They would most likely also head to Blood Demon Manor on Nightmare Street to determine whether the Valentine heir was worth placing their bets on.

The only ones who would actively protect Stella were Valentine’s Bloodthorn Guards.

The Bloodthorn Guards truly did not fear death on a frontal battlefield.

Reαd on КαtRеαⅾіոɡСafе

But Lilith School was several Watches away from Nightmare Street.

The Bloodthorn Guards lacked the ability to fly over long distances, so they could only go to the logistics area and requisition Nightmare carriages.

And how could a carriage possibly travel faster than the bat wings of a giant dragon? As long as the five of them transformed into dragons right now and flew directly to Nightmare Street…

The Bloodthorn Guards would have absolutely no way to stop them.

Traveling from here to Nightmare Street by carriage took several watches.

But if they transformed into dragons and flew, it wouldn’t even take half a watch.

They could even simply find the right opportunity and attack the target halfway there.

And more importantly…

The Dragon Attendant Commander looked toward the girl standing beside him.

Veronica Samael.

The only child of the Samael Family Head, and also the executive officer leading their group.

The Dragon Attendant Commander’s attitude instantly became exceedingly respectful.

He knew Young Miss Samael’s true capabilities very well.

Despite being so young, not even thirty years old, her strength had already reached the level of a high-ranking dragon-type demon. But the price of that power was an unstable mind and an uncontrollable desire for destruction.

Every member of the Samael family knew that Veronica was a pure god of destruction.

She did not understand what it meant to hold back, nor did she understand what tactics were.

Anything she touched, whether a toy or a living demon, would be reduced to powder beneath her violent power.

Translator Note

Mm… Previously the Valentine’s maid assassins were called Blackthorn Guard. But now Bloodthorn Guard… Maybe they’re a different group?

It could be the author is changing the name without warning too