Volume 2, Chapter 12 – Twelve Apostles

Dorothy Wesley was not dead.

Not only was she not dead, Stella could tell that her condition was almost absurdly good.

She did not even seem to need her round-framed glasses anymore. Stella could see that Dorothy’s eyes were extraordinarily bright, as though they would never dim.

When Stella looked into them, she could even sense a kind of purity. That vigorous, penetrating force seemed capable of scorching away all darkness and illuminating the light.

Katerina released Stella almost immediately and crossed the distance to Dorothy in just a few strides, running her hands over her as she began an examination.

The feedback from her magical power completely exceeded Katerina’s expectations. There was absolutely no sign of Dorothy’s internal organs dissolving. Her pulse was strong, her magical power circuits were dense and vigorous, and the blood surging through her veins was fervent and active. It flowed slowly, yet with unstoppable force, endlessly renewing itself.

“…How is this possible?”

Katerina murmured softly.

She was far too familiar with the toxicity of the Apostle Brew.

It was, in every sense, an agonizing trial on the road toward the extraordinary. Theoretically, no one should have been able to survive it.

Under normal circumstances, what should have been flowing through Dorothy’s veins right now was boiling acid, not magical power so abundant that it was practically overflowing.

Unless… unless someone had introduced an extraordinarily powerful variable during that lethal process.

A neutralizing agent capable of forcibly suppressing the potion’s violent medicinal properties and guiding them onto the proper path.

Katerina’s pupils contracted slightly as her gaze turned toward Stella.

“What did you do just now?” Katerina asked coldly.

“Me…? You mean me?”

Stella hesitantly pointed at herself.

“Mm… I just shared a meal with everyone, that’s all.”

She spoke softly.

In truth, Stella herself had absolutely no idea what was going on. Other than the customary Holy Communion prayer, all she had really done was poison them. Surely it could not have been because she had deliberately recited a prayer and somehow bestowed a blessing through it.

‘Impossible.’

Katerina did not believe Stella’s words at all.

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‘Shared a meal?’

An obvious excuse meant to brush her off. Stella had clearly used some medicinal catalyst outside the original formula to forcibly neutralize the lethal nature of the Apostle Brew.

One survivor out of twelve would already have been an astonishing feat, even if it came down to luck.

Stella clearly possessed outstanding talent for potions. It seemed she had improved the formula. If she had even half her mother’s ability, then perhaps she would become an existence the future Demon Realm could not afford to ignore.

Katerina let go of Dorothy and quickly stepped in front of Stella.

“…Professor?”

Stella asked guiltily.

She turned her head, loose strands of hair drifting around her. In the dim light, her entire figure seemed to curl inward, surrounded by floating silver strands that made Katerina involuntarily remember someone all too familiar.

Vilpana.

She looked like her. She really did.

How could Katerina possibly look at that woman’s daughter without any bias whatsoever?

Back then, she had watched her too.

She had watched the tips of Vilpana’s leather shoes step along the stone road beneath a checkered skirt. She had worn a sleeveless white blouse and a broad-brimmed white hat. Beneath it flowed long hair woven from two colors, the silver-white ends blending into the moonlight as they fluttered in the wind.

Katerina grabbed Stella’s hand again.

But no matter how one looked at it, Stella’s wicked experiment had killed the other eleven students. A student born with such viciousness had to answer for it.

“Ugh… ah… I feel awful. I think I just saw my great-grandmother,” Patolize said as she staggered upright, her joints cracking several times. “Though I don’t think she’s actually dead yet.”

Almost unconsciously, she grabbed the armrest of the solid oak chair beside her.

Crack.

A crisp snap rang out.

The hard wooden armrest shattered into splinters in her palm and pattered to the floor.

Patolize froze and stared blankly at her own hand.

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“Another one got up?”

Katerina muttered to herself.

‘Is this luck too?’

Before Katerina could even recover from Patolize’s sudden resurrection.

“Cough, cough…”

“Haah… so hot…”

Ophelia, Beatrice, and the remaining members of the Lionheart Society began climbing up from the floor one after another.

There was none of the bone softening or organ failure Katerina had expected.

Instead, from every student who stood back up, Katerina gradually began to sense a scorching aura.

It was like a pile of dry firewood catching flame. Their joints crackled and popped, and faint purple demonic patterns even began surfacing beneath their skin.

The clubroom, which had been deathly silent moments before, became lively again.

“My eyesight… What’s going on? I can even see the dew on the spiderweb in the corner of the room.”

“My magical power circuits… all the blocked nodes are actually open now?”

“This feeling is like my organs were washed in lava. It hurt like hell, but now… this feels freaking amazing!”

“So this is the President’s blessing? Even a so-called Succubus Grand Duke couldn’t be much more impressive than this!”

Twelve people.

Not one missing.

Every single one survived.

Katerina stared at Stella in disbelief. At some point, the hand restraining Stella had already loosened.

‘Could she really be a genius?’

As a master of potions, Katerina understood the value of the Apostle Brew better than anyone.

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This was a lethal formula dangerous enough to be entered into the catalogue of prohibited books, an experimental method Vilpana had used to create war machines.

Even the Pale Legion of those days had not dared use the Apostle Brew to mass-produce soldiers.

And now?

One hundred percent.

Everyone survived, and even… everyone evolved.

Stella had not merely inherited Vilpana’s formula.

She had improved it.

She had even… surpassed it.

“Professor, are we still going to the Academic Affairs Office?” Stella asked tentatively.

“What do you think?” Katerina replied coldly.

There was no longer any case of poisoning anyone to death, so she had absolutely no reason to punish Stella anymore.

She even developed a faint and absurd illusion.

Perhaps Vilpana’s madness from back then had truly been perfectly inherited and elevated within this child.

But Katerina had come here for another purpose.

“No matter what, you still have to come with me.”

“…Alright.”

Stella lowered her eyes in resignation.

Before she was hauled off to the Academic Affairs Office so they could notify her “guardian,” she had to take care of the real matter first. No matter what, the Lionheart Society had to be dissolved.

“Everyone, please wait. I still have something to say.”

Stella cleared her throat.

Pairs of eyes and faces all turned toward her. Drawn in by those gazes, Stella suddenly felt as though she were being swept into something.

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Unable to control herself, staggering along, carried by the crowd, swallowed by the waves of voices.

Stella opened her mouth. The dissolution speech she had prepared rolled around on the tip of her tongue, yet no matter what she did, she simply could not say it.

The eyes fixed upon her were too fervent, too heavy.

Stella paused and thought carefully.

If she dissolved the club right now, would these people turn love into hatred and tear her apart on the spot?

The atmosphere had already built up this far. If she dared pour cold water on it now, there would be backlash, right? There absolutely would be backlash!

“Since everyone is… uh, full now, today’s activity will end here. Go back and… digest properly. We’ll see each other next time.”

Stella forced out an awkward smile and struggled to squeeze out those words.

There were actually many more things she wanted to say about all this.

Things like, ‘I was actually trying to poison all of you.’

Things like, ‘I came here to dissolve the Lionheart Society.’

After a while, Stella gave up.

“Long live the Lionheart Society! Long live the President!”

Stella listened to the deafening cheers.

At this point, she could no longer bring herself to say anything about dissolving the club…

Translator Note

And thus, they became the twelve apostles HAHA XD