Volume 1, Chapter 7 – This Is What Our Saintess Is Like

“Why… How could you…”

Cheryl’s eyes were filled with disbelief. Forced to her knees by the seduction, she looked as lowly as the dust beneath their feet, utterly lost and unsure of what to do.

Stella had originally wanted to say something, but she could not think of a single mocking remark.

With no other choice, she could only click her tongue coldly.

Cheryl had said before that she would teach her a lesson.

Although the circumstances were a little strange, her current posture should probably count as getting what she deserved. Fortunately, this young lady had only wanted to make Stella kneel before her. If she had actually followed through on her threat from back then and made Stella kneel down to lick her shoes, Stella genuinely would not have known what to do.

She was a dignified Saintess. If something like that really happened, it would go completely against everything she had been taught since childhood. She would probably be so embarrassed that she would not know how to react.

Stella lightly tugged at her sleeve and carefully wiped the sweat from her palm. Then, with just a few icy words, she immediately made Cheryl lower her eyes and fall silent.

“Who knows.” Stella took a step forward, her tone cold. “If you’re trying to win my sympathy, then you chose the wrong person. I won this time. I hope you can recognize the difference between us, Miss Valentine.”

“Ugh…” Cheryl clenched the hem of her skirt.

Stella lowered her gaze. When she saw the crystalline tears hanging from Cheryl’s cheeks, she immediately remembered the potion formula mentioned in the Inquisitor’s previous letter.

【Liquid sample from a succubus, such as sweat, tears, or other fluids】

【Collection time remaining: six days.】

Tears produced by the emotional fluctuations of a high-ranking succubus were undoubtedly the perfect ingredient she could ask for!

There was no better opportunity than the present.

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Stella took a deep breath, bent down, and spoke softly in a voice only the two of them could hear.

“Since you lost, you have to pay the price. You still remember the ‘privilege’ the Vice Principal granted me, don’t you?”

Cheryl raised her head in terror and met Stella’s violet eyes from mere inches away.

Then she saw Stella pull a slender glass test tube from inside her clothes.

“What… do you want?”

“Don’t move.” Stella’s slightly cool fingers clasped Cheryl’s slender chin, forcing her to tilt her head back. “Give me your humiliation. For you, this should be the most fitting punishment possible.”

Every succubus in the class stared in stunned silence.

From their perspective, Stella was elegantly forcing the young lady’s face upward so she could admire her tearful expression up close, and she had even taken out a vessel to collect them…

“My God, Miss Darkfallen actually has a hobby of collecting trophies like that…”

“Is this how abstinent-type succubi play?”

“So scary, so elegant… I kind of want her to collect me too…”

Stella paid absolutely no attention to these absurd fantasies. She was completely focused on catching Cheryl’s falling tears in the test tube.

One drop, two drops…

Oh no, that one was about to fall onto the carpet.

She couldn’t waste it!

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She caught the precious tear with perfect precision.

Stella elegantly pushed the stopper into place and casually put the test tube away. She straightened up, gave Vice Principal Mara on the platform a slight curtsey, and spoke in an even tone.

“Vice Principal, the practicum is over. If there isn’t a more interesting opponent, I think I can go back and prepare for the next lesson.”

With that, she withdrew the final trace of suppressive Holy Light, and the countering effect vanished along with it.

“Ha… haha… Hehehe… Haha… hahahahahaha──!”

The next moment, Cheryl’s laughter made Stella’s eardrums vibrate.

Stella could not help turning her head to look at her.

The succubus girl had risen to her feet, her mouth wide open as she laughed loudly.

She simply could not stop. She laughed and laughed, her entire body trembling like a flower in the wind, as though her slender shoulders might shake apart at any moment. Every inch of her radiated pure joy, making Stella wonder whether she could trust her own eyes.

‘No, seriously, is something wrong with you? What could possibly make you this happy?’

‘Because the seduction effect finally ended?’

‘No, that doesn’t make any logical sense either.’

‘Then why the hell is she laughing this hard?’

Before Stella could think any further, Cheryl spoke first.

“Stella, I truly think… meeting you was the best thing that could have happened to me. I’m not lying.” The succubus girl was so happy that her voice choked with emotion. Her bizarre reaction left Stella speechless.

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Cheryl gently wiped away the remaining tears at the corners of her eyes. Within her reddened, swollen eye sockets, those blood-red pupils now glittered with a kind of passion Stella found difficult to describe.

“…?”

Cheryl took a deep breath. A flush spread across her face, with not the slightest trace of her previous humiliation remaining.

“No one has ever dared to treat a Valentine the way you have. They either fear my bloodline or covet my beauty. Only you… Stella, the way you look at me is different from everyone else. Yes, I’m noble and beautiful, but my nobility comes from trampling others beneath my feet. What’s so remarkable about that?”

“…”

The corner of Stella’s eye twitched. Cheryl’s words left her completely baffled.

‘No, I really was just collecting a sample to save my life… Literally.’

“Because you’re SSS+.” Cheryl took another step forward, startling Stella. “Because there’s nothing ordinary about you. Your personality is twisted and gloomy… and you’re an aloof abstinent-type on top of that. I’ve never seen a succubus like you before… Thanks to you, I finally…”

She paused for a moment, then continued brightly with a deranged smile.

“I finally found a goal worth chasing.”

“A goal… worth chasing?”

Stella’s voice had gone slightly dry.

Cheryl’s breathing quickened as she lifted the hem of her skirt and performed a textbook old-fashioned curtsey.

“I’ll keep watching you, Stella. I’ll observe your abstinence, observe your habits, observe how you elegantly reduce desire to nothingness, observe how calmly you collect the tears of the defeated, observe the cold expression you wear even as you crush someone else’s dignity…”

Cheryl was actually answering in complete earnestness a question Stella had asked merely to hide her own nervousness. Yet she kept meeting Stella’s gaze, while her own little gestures betrayed her awkward hesitation. She wanted to step down from the platform immediately, yet hesitated out of embarrassment. Her lip was lightly caught between her teeth, and her chest rose and fell with each breath.

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“Until one day, I’ll personally drag you down from that aloof altar of yours. Then I’ll see whether you can still be this cold.”

With that, she returned to her seat like a peacock overflowing with fighting spirit, under everyone’s awed gazes.

“Oh… Wonderful.”

Vice Principal Mara’s applause slowly rang out. Behind her lenses, her eyes gleamed with affectionate light.

“See? This is what Lilith Academy should be like. Competition, fighting spirit, and… delightful distortion. Cheryl Valentine, Stella Darkfallen, ten credits each!”

Stella stood frozen in place, feeling like a rabbit caught in a snake’s gaze.

Although this particular snake seemed to have something seriously wrong with the way its brain worked.

‘Lord…’

‘The Demon Realm really is far too strange.’

Translator Note

Yeah, the Demon Realm is so strange, but you collecting tears as your trophies is strange too, Stella…