Volume 4, Chapter 8-2 – The Power of Colleagues, the Power of the Holy See! Delicious!

She wasn’t very smart to begin with, and now her head was even more of a muddled mess. Her consciousness was practically still trapped inside the dream.

‘Forget it. I could put the Remedios problem aside for now.’

If she wanted to think about anything serious, shouldn’t she at least wait until she woke up first?

But the problem was, how was she supposed to wake up?

Logically speaking, after taking such a huge shock just now, she should have woken up long ago.

Stella looked around, then froze.

The space around her was changing.

Blood Demon Manor’s dark red corridor, the brand-new wallpaper, the classical landscape oil paintings on the walls. Everything was gradually losing its color, like a cheap watercolor painting that had been splashed with water.

Stella lowered her eyes.

She was still standing in the same spot, but there was absolutely no sign that she was waking up. Instead, the dream seemed to be shifting into another space.

Pink mist gradually began rising around her.

The mist seemed alive, surging in from every direction, swirling and gathering until it gradually outlined a blurry silhouette.

Stella froze for a moment.

Again?

She had only just experienced Ariel’s death and thought the dream was finally over, but now it was telling her there was a second round?

An inexplicable anger immediately surged up in Stella’s chest.

Fine.

Once wasn’t enough, so now there had to be a second time?

She might not be very smart, but she wasn’t going to fall for the same trick twice.

She didn’t care whether it was some remnant of a fallen dynasty or some residual memory phantom.

She would just blast it apart with Holy Light!

Stella had already made up her mind.

No matter what ridiculous scene the dream conjured up next, or what strange person appeared, she would say nothing and immediately open with a Holy Light Eruption, blasting every last illusion to pieces.

As one of a Saintess signature Holy Arts for clearing the field, Holy Light Eruption had an outrageously overbearing mechanism.

It could indiscriminately shatter every hostile target in the surrounding area. Even if the caster was restrained, shackled, or completely suppressed, they could still forcibly communicate with Holy Light and activate it.

The last time she used it, she had blasted Principal Gehenna’s Lord of the Forest, which possessed the strength of a higher demon, completely senseless.

It specialized in dealing with all kinds of flashy illusions and control effects.

More importantly, the incantation for Holy Light Eruption was extremely simple.

It had been simplified from the “Kyrie.”

Rеad оո КаtRеaⅾіոgCafе

Stella effortlessly dug those few lines of prayer out of her memory.

Without hesitation, she closed her eyes and began to chant.

“May the Lord have mercy.”

Stella clasped her hands together and held them against her chest.

Her voice was very soft, almost like singing, gentle and tender.

“May the Lord have mercy.”

The pink mist around her grew thicker and thicker, while the humanoid silhouette became increasingly clear.

“May the Lord have mercy.”

The instant the third line of the incantation fell, Stella suddenly opened her eyes.

Holy Light Eruption.

Hazy colors gradually spread through her eyes as specks of dazzling brilliance emerged.

Holy Light blossomed within the dream like a sharp sword piercing through the darkness.

Within the mist, someone seemed just about to speak.

“…Hmm? What’s going on here?!!”

“Holy Light? What the hell?”

Her voice echoed through the radiance, filled with obvious bewilderment, before abruptly cutting off.

The pink space of the dream was instantly replaced by blinding, deathly white light.

A storm of divine energy destroyed every illusion around her.

The light swept over the newly formed mass of pink mist like a tsunami, tearing it completely to pieces.

Immediately afterward, the dream began to collapse.

The gray-white space shattered inch by inch like broken glass, turning into countless tiny motes of light that scattered into the void.

Her body demanded sleep, yet her consciousness refused it.

Like a pendulum wavering between the two, amid the eternal night of the Abyss, the courtyard of Blood Demon Manor was filled with noise and commotion, and at last, she woke up completely.

At the very end of the dream, Stella vaguely remembered hearing some kind of voice.

‘Hmm…’

‘For some reason, that voice…’

‘Sounded a little familiar?’

—————

Stella opened her eyes.

Reαԁ oո KαtRеαdiոgCаfe

Moonlight, blurred beyond any sense of time, lay scattered across the bedroom floor.

Stella stretched. Even the pajamas she had only just changed into were a little wrinkled.

She glanced up at the clock.

It was now the Seventh Watch.

She hadn’t slept for very long. At most, it could only count as a nap.

A nap was still a nap.

Better than nothing.

Stella rubbed the sleep from the corners of her eyes.

How was it that ever since coming to the Abyss, she always had an endless pile of things to deal with?

Even when she obediently lay in bed and went to sleep, the ghost of some secondhand mansion would come running over and forcibly send her a dream, one thing after another without end.

Since when had sleeping become something that required intense concentration?

Stella recalled the dream from just now.

The “Remedios” who called herself the Colonel had clearly come for Ariel’s method of bloodline rebirth, which could resurrect the dead.

After obtaining it, the Colonel had used a loophole in Bathory’s covenant without hesitation to silence Ariel permanently.

Sure enough…

Demons who stayed shut inside their homes like Ariel tended to have clear, innocent eyes. A few words were enough for someone to easily trick them out of everything they knew.

Still, Ariel had pulled a little trick before she died.

The five essential materials she had told the Colonel about were Bowlstone powder from the River Styx, a Thousand-Eyed Jade Branch from the Wailing Wasteland, Fire Rat hide, Five-Colored Dragon Jade, and Beian Stone.

They sounded bizarre as hell.

Most likely, she had made up a fake recipe on the spot just to stall for time.

Who knew how long it would take the Colonel to get her hands on all five bizarre materials?

Her face had probably turned green by the end of it.

Thinking of that, Stella couldn’t help laughing.

Ariel’s move was actually pretty clever.

If you couldn’t beat someone, disgust them instead and make them search the entire world for things that didn’t even exist.

If it had been Stella, she probably would have done the same thing.

Still, Stella was rather curious about exactly who the Colonel who killed Ariel had wanted to revive using the secret art, and whether she had succeeded.

A simple look at Blood Demon Manor’s completely pristine furnishings in the dream was enough to know that all of this had happened a very long time ago.

The grudges and entanglements surrounding this haunted mansion had to trace back at least several decades.

Rеаԁ οո KаtRеαdіngCafe

Stella propped her cheek on one hand and lounged comfortably as she thought carefully.

The only part of Ariel’s family massacre that had any connection to Stella was probably the “Remedios” who called herself the Colonel.

But Stella trusted Remedios.

Without a doubt.

From the moment Stella had first arrived in the Abyss all the way to the current guidance from the Chalice of Sin.

Remedios had helped her many times and screwed her over many times too, but Stella didn’t believe Remedios would actually harm her.

If Remedios truly wanted to make a move against her, she’d had plenty of opportunities before. There was no need to take such an enormous detour.

But the problem was, why did the Colonel have a face identical to Remedios’?

Stella remembered Remedios’s ridiculous tendency to forget things.

Book Demon.

A race that frequently suffered intermittent bouts of forgetfulness.

Stella wondered whether Remedios might have erased her own memories.

Could she have deleted all of her dark history of murder and robbery from decades ago?

But if that really were the case, then given a Book Demon’s habits, Remedios should at least have a memorandum recording those matters, right?

If Lilith Miscellany I was the memorandum Remedios used to record miscellaneous affairs at Lilith School, then could there be other memorandums as well?

If there really were, then perhaps she could find a chance to sneak a look at one.

The more Stella thought about it, the more confused she became.

Whether she was smart and whether she had lots of crooked ideas were two different things, after all.

Smart people could make exquisite deductions, while people with lots of crooked ideas could come up with a whole pile of possibilities.

Right now, her head was packed full of possibilities, but she had no idea which one she should believe.

In any case, she would pay more attention to it.

The Chalice of Sin’s first tournament riddle would be appearing soon.

That would be the perfect opportunity to meet her good sister Remedios and probe around indirectly.

Maybe she could manage to coax something out of her.

Stella rolled over and changed positions, intending to catch up on some sleep.

Suddenly, her knee bumped into something small and soft beneath the blanket.

Stella immediately froze, cold sweat breaking out all over her body.

No way?

Stella swallowed.

Reαⅾ οո ΚatReаԁіոɡСafе

Had she laid another egg during a simple nap?

Please no.

She did not want to become some Abyssal pigeon that spent all day laying eggs.

If word ever got out that a Saintess of the Holy See spent every day curled up beneath the blankets in the Abyss laying and incubating eggs, how could she possibly have the face to stage a glorious return of the Saintess when she went back to the Holy Land someday?

Trembling, Stella reached out and touched it.

It felt a little different from last time.

Stella fished it out and brought it in front of her face.

After taking a closer look, she immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

It wasn’t an egg.

It was a small pink plush toy.

It looked like a kitten.

Round, fluffy, and soft white.

Its little ears lay softly against the back of its head, colored an exceptionally vivid, tender pink. Its eyes were large and round, with the pure cherry-pink irises unique to a small child. Its lips were slightly pursed and were a soft, moist pink as well.

It was completely and utterly a lifeless kitten plush toy.

Stella was a little confused.

Why had a pink plush toy inexplicably appeared on her bed?

She had checked before going to sleep. Although her bed was large enough for seven or eight people, there had been nothing on it except the silk bedding.

Could Ariel have deliberately stuffed it there while Stella was asleep?

Maybe Ariel had felt embarrassed after forcibly sending Stella that dream and slipped her a small gift as an apology?

It wasn’t impossible.

Ghosts could answer requests, so conjuring up another plush toy shouldn’t be anything unusual.

Stella fiddled with the plush toy a couple of times.

Besides, it was extremely soft and pleasant to the touch, and it really did look quite adorable.

Translator Note

Franleya got caught on her own expertise for the second time!! xD