Volume 1, Chapter 66 – Professor, Am I Your Best Student?

Stella could not have been more certain.

By now, Principal Gehenna had already come to dislike her.

The very Principal whom Inquisitor Itheria had repeatedly warned her to stay on good terms with had come to dislike her.

But she really was a good student.

She had an innocent heart, a pure and kind heart, a beautiful heart, a solemn heart.

It was just that she had… occasionally… been forced to do a tiny bit of something out of line.

Really, if she carefully went through everything, there actually wasn’t that much.

On top of the few insignificant little things from before, all she’d done was add one radical declaration attempting to overturn the authority of the Electors, along with founding the Lionheart Society, a club in name but a heretical organization in reality.

Fine. Enough with deceiving herself.

Stella covered her face.

She had no choice but to admit it. What kind of good student was she? She was clearly an irredeemably evil succubus.

‘How do I salvage the Principal’s rapidly collapsing favorability when I’ve involuntarily committed every bad deed imaginable?’

“Um… the illegitimate daughter is coming in now?” Stella timidly raised a hand.

The instant Gehenna saw Stella, Stella distinctly noticed the former’s movements pause ever so slightly.

Then Gehenna slowly straightened her back, and the dispirited posture she’d had while slumped in her chair vanished without a trace.

Come to think of it, she was an Archdemon who had lived for hundreds of years. What kind of storms had she not weathered? How could she possibly lose her composure over something as trivial as badmouthing a student to her face?

“…Come in and sit down,” Gehenna said coldly.

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Stella didn’t dare speak. She obediently sat down, placing both hands neatly on her knees.

Only after getting closer did she notice that Gehenna had deliberately used books to raise the height of her chair.

‘Hmm…’

Stella considered it for a moment.

Growth potions had to be ruled out.

To be fair, she wasn’t actually someone who liked making snide remarks, but right now she was nervous, so secretly slandering Gehenna was the only way she could calm herself down.

After all, Gehenna was completely different from Vice Principal Mara, who doted on her. Gehenna held absolute power over whether she got expelled.

If Stella managed to get herself expelled not long after enrolling, forget Itheria fulfilling all those promises she’d made. She might not even be willing to take Stella back.

“Let’s speak plainly. Do you know why I called you here?” Gehenna put down her quill and asked, “Were you serious about all of it?”

Of course Stella knew.

The Lionheart Society’s presentation had practically been earth-shattering heresy.

If she didn’t dissolve it in time, it wasn’t impossible that word might eventually reach the Inquisitor. What would she do if Itheria ordered her to infiltrate it and gather information on the mastermind behind the organization?

Under circumstances like these, she should just honestly admit her mistake. Maybe she could still salvage things a little.

“I have to admit, Principal,” Stella sighed and said in a leisurely tone, “the way things developed really did exceed my expectations.”

“Exceeded your expectations? What do you mean?” Gehenna tilted her head and repeated.

“Because I was only… going along with the atmosphere at the time and improvising.”

Stella’s attitude was extremely sincere.

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Everything she was saying right now was the truth.

Deep down, though, she didn’t actually think Gehenna would truly believe her explanation. After all, who would believe anything spoken by a terrible student like her?

“Hmm…” Gehenna pondered for a moment, then said, “You mean that what you said during the Lionheart Society’s presentation wasn’t what you truly believed, and you only said those things because of the atmosphere and emotions at the time?”

Her words made Stella’s eyes light up.

‘Gehenna believed me and understood?’

‘Seriously?’

This was the first time. This was the first time Stella had encountered such an understanding teacher at Lilith School.

She was so moved.

‘Principal, even knowing how many mistakes I had made, you still chose to understand me, to realize that I am actually a good child who had no choice but to follow the crowd in order to fit in…’

“Yes, yes.” Stella nodded vigorously.

Gehenna interlaced her fingers beneath her chin. Her pale golden eyes narrowed slightly as her purple hair fell freely around her.

She didn’t smell a lie.

As an Archdemon, her sense for lies was sharper than a hunting hound’s.

Stella Valentine was not lying.

Those weren’t her true thoughts.

She had deliberately said them merely to test people’s hearts?

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That was why the outcome after going along with the atmosphere had exceeded her expectations.

In other words, Stella wasn’t the kind of student Gehenna had expected, one who had passionately spoken out because of anger.

That kind of student might be troublesome, but at least she would possess a sincere heart.

But Stella wasn’t like that.

She didn’t believe any of it in her heart, yet she could calmly wield those words as a weapon and toy with the students’ emotions in the palm of her hand.

Merely for the sake of the atmosphere, she could casually throw out a subversive declaration, not even take it seriously herself, not even bother pretending otherwise, and openly tell Gehenna exactly what she’d been thinking.

There was no doubt about it now.

Stella was some kind of ambitious schemer.

An ambitious schemer who had already seen through the human heart and possessed extraordinary powers of incitement.

Gehenna knew perfectly well how terrifying demons like that could be.

What made them terrifying wasn’t their evil or their authority, but those captivating qualities they possessed.

And so, they could push, guide, and incite even more demons toward fanaticism.

Gehenna had once known a demon like that, and ‘she’ had once caused almost the entire Demon Realm to burn for her.

‘She’ never shouted loudly, nor did she ever openly display cruelty.

She was the perfect Prefect, a gentle and refined model student, always carrying herself with a humble demeanor that made everyone lower their guard.

‘She’ could also effortlessly gather a vast number of followers, precisely perceive the deepest and most secret desires in others’ hearts, then weave those desires into a web with the most beautiful words.

And so, Gehenna once again thought that Stella truly did share something in common with ‘her.’

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That was precisely why Gehenna had felt an aversion toward Stella from the very first moment she saw her.

For an instant, Stella’s face overlapped with ‘hers.’

Someone had once sat in the exact same place, wearing the same neat robes, with the exact same long silver hair, a lace ribbon tied at her chest, and a white blouse paired with a black skirt.

Her soft cheeks had been flushed with lively color, and her pink lips had parted as though she were asking a question…

“Principal Gehenna? Principal?”

Seeing her remain silent for so long, Stella tilted her head in confusion and cautiously called out to her.

“Professor?”

That call seemed to come from somewhere far away, from some distant point in time.

“——Professor, am I your best student?”

“…Vilpana.”

Gehenna’s cool voice was almost too faint to hear.

Translator Note

Ohh~ Principal’s backstory?