Volume 1, Chapter 43 – The Demon Realm— Is Terrifying

The silver fork struck the porcelain plate with a crisp clink.

Lainia lowered her head and brought another bite of food to her mouth.

After such a long period of captivity, even ordinary white bread could be considered a delicacy.

Lainia ate quickly, her cheeks puffed out.

‘So good.’

Halfway through her meal, Lainia seemed to realize something and suddenly paused. Only then did she notice that the other side of the table was completely empty. There were neither utensils nor food in front of Stella.

“…Aren’t you eating?”

Lainia swallowed the bread in her mouth and asked cautiously.

Stella said nothing. She merely propped her cheek on one hand, her violet eyes curving slightly.

Truthfully, tomorrow was her duel with Cheryl, and with her death day fast approaching, she was in absolutely no mood for a late-night snack.

‘…What am I supposed to do?’

Seeing Stella remain silent, Lainia’s hand abruptly tightened around her fork.

How had she forgotten?

The staple food of succubi was never ordinary mortal cuisine in the first place.

The reason Stella wasn’t eating was because her main course was currently eating.

That smile was clearly saying, ‘Eat more.’

Nourish your body and make yourself a little more delicious.

‘Tonight’s late-night snack…’

‘Is me.’

The bread in Lainia’s mouth instantly lost all flavor.

Sitting across the table, Stella quietly watched the nun’s face suddenly turn deathly pale, feeling somewhat puzzled.

‘Why has she suddenly stopped eating?’

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To save enough money on this meal so Lainia, who had suffered through quite a few hard days, could eat something decent, Stella had specifically gone to the cafeteria herself and mooched some free bread.

Forget it. As long as the other party was willing to eat, it meant her will to live was still intact. That made things easier.

She’d keep her around for now, then look for another opportunity to release her into the wild.

Stella lightly tapped her fingertip against the tabletop, considering how to phrase things.

Since she had been forced to use Holy Light in the Forbidden Forest earlier, continuing to conceal her identity was obviously pointless.

Lainia was a nun. There was no way she could be any more sensitive to the aura of Holy Light. Rather than let her wildly speculate, Stella might as well lay her cards on the table and tell Lainia that she was also from the Holy See and that they were comrades fighting on the same side.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Stella suddenly said.

Clang.

The fork slipped from Lainia’s hand and struck the edge of the plate.

‘She knew?’

Lainia nearly choked, her face turning pale.

Could this succubus have already seen through her little scheme of pretending to submit?

“…What?” Lainia swallowed the food with difficulty.

“Stop pretending. Was what happened in the Forbidden Forest not memorable enough for you?” Stella’s tone was indifferent. “Do I really need to remind you myself?”

Stella was naturally referring to how she had released Holy Light amid the swarm of insects.

Those sacred fluctuations were impossible for any member of the clergy to overlook. Any normal person could have guessed that she was a Saintess.

Lainia’s pupils contracted violently.

Of course it had left a deep impression on her.

She had seen how Holy Light had been forcibly enslaved like a beaten dog. She had seen that golden-red profane flame. More than that, she had seen… how Stella had modified dark cursecraft into Bone Joy, Heart Dance, a spell that toyed with the human heart.

The other party was clearly warning her about her little scheme.

‘But why… Why did Stella keep me around even after seeing through it?’

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“I…”

Lainia opened her mouth, her throat tightening.

“As for what will happen to you, let me put it this way.” Stella sighed and leaned forward slightly. “To tell the truth, I’d love nothing more than to deal with you right now… but it’s not time yet.”

Stella’s reasoning was simple.

This was the heart of the Demon Realm, after all, and she herself was already barely keeping her head above water. If Lainia ran around everywhere or let something slip, not only would Lainia herself be doomed, but Stella, the undercover Saintess, would be dragged down with her.

At the very least, the other party needed to stay put and wait patiently for a while.

“Just wait.”

To Lainia, Stella’s words were no different from a final ultimatum.

Stay by her side.

As emergency rations.

Wait until the proper time to be savored.

Lainia lowered her eyes.

‘Why?’

‘If Stella had already seen through my disguise, why didn’t she simply kill me?’

‘Am I beneath her notice?’

‘Or does this demon enjoy this game of cat and mouse, enjoy watching a devout nun slowly break beneath her tyrannical power, little by little turning false submission into genuine corruption?’

Lainia gritted her teeth.

‘If you want to play.’

‘Then I’ll play with you to the very end.’

‘This is a trial, a test given to me by the Lord.’

‘And I would never truly submit.’

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“…I understand.”

Lainia lowered her head, her hair concealing the light in her eyes.

“I’ll behave… Master.”

Stella let out a long breath of relief.

At last, they had managed to communicate properly.

‘If I make things any more obvious, there is always the possibility that the walls have ears…’

‘It seems that as fellow members of the Holy See, even without saying things outright, this sort of mutual understanding still existed between us.’

This matter seemed considerably easier than she had imagined.

“Once you’re done eating, go rest. The floor is yours. Don’t get on my bed.”

Stella waved a hand and stopped paying attention to the nun still struggling with her plate.

She turned around, took a yellowed sheet of parchment from the drawer, picked up her quill, and dipped it in ink.

It was time to report her work to her superior.

Although this so-called work currently looked like a complete mess.

Stella raised her quill. The tip hovered over the paper for a long time, yet she had no idea where to begin.

Looking back over these few short days of undercover work, the things she had done seemed…

To have deviated just the tiniest bit from the persona of a Saintess.

Her current public image was that of someone who possessed the privilege to torture students, had made the young lady of a prestigious family kneel in public immediately after enrolling, was suspected of using a voodoo doll to curse a classmate and leave her severely injured, had trespassed into the restricted section of the library, had vastly exceeded the requirements of her mind-control assignment, and even owned a human slave whom she had publicly walked around like a dog.

Late at night, she had studied dark cursecraft at the edge of the Forbidden Forest and even modified it into Bone Joy, Heart Dance, a spell that had amazed even Remedios.

And that still wasn’t the end of it.

Tomorrow, as the craziest freshman of this year’s class, she would be fighting a highly anticipated physical duel against the heir of the Valentine family, a family qualified to produce an Elector.

She really was an utterly evil succubus.

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If you ignored what she was actually like on the inside and looked only at this résumé, even the Queen of Eternal Night would probably have to offer her a cigarette.

Stella held her forehead, feeling a faint ache in her skull.

If those old fossils in the Holy See learned about this, there probably wouldn’t even be any need to wait for the demons to make a move. The Inquisition would send people to purge her from their own ranks first.

But what was she supposed to do?

She was desperate too.

To unlock the Primordial Doctrine, and simply to survive, she had been forced into all of this by circumstance.

Stella sighed. Her quill touched down, and she began writing in a sacred cipher that only high-ranking clergy could decipher.

In the letter, she slightly embellished how she had struggled to survive amid constant danger in the Demon Realm, indirectly playing up how miserable she was while requesting assistance. At the very least, she hoped they wouldn’t be as stingy with their support as they were with her funding.

Of course, the important part was asking for her next set of instructions, how she should deal with Lainia, and…

If she accidentally got beaten half to death by the heir of the Valentine family, did the Inquisitor have medical insurance that could reimburse her expenses?

Even a contingency plan for collecting her corpse would do.

By the time she reached the end, Stella recalled all the bizarre experiences of the past several days, and an indescribable sense of desolation welled up inside her.

She hesitated, then added another line at the beginning.

【Respectfully】

【Lady Inquisitor, the Demon Realm… is so terrifying.】

Translator Note

Yeah, Demon Realm is so terrifying xD