Volume 2, Chapter 13 – Private Lessons

The spiral staircase leading to the Vice Principal’s office was long and gloomy, with only the sound of two sets of footsteps echoing between the empty stone walls.

Tap, tap, tap.

Katerina walked ahead in silence.

Stella followed behind, drawing a cross in her heart with every step she took.

She had always felt that Professor Katerina gave her an especially strong sense of déjà vu.

How should she put it?

She was like the heroine of some tragic melodrama who had been swindled out of her entire fortune by the scumbag woman she loved, had her house burned down, was heartlessly abandoned on a rainy night, and in the end still had to take care of the “bastard child” that same scumbag woman had left behind.

‘Mm…’

‘That’s her.’

‘That’s absolutely her.’

If Stella had any choice in the matter, she really did not want to spend time alone with Professor Katerina.

Seriously.

What in the world had Principal Gehenna been thinking, telling Professor Katerina about Stella on her own initiative? Wasn’t she afraid this so-called vicious ex would eat Stella alive?

Stella couldn’t help complaining inwardly.

“Put away your self-important fantasies, Miss Darkfallen.”

Katerina stopped and looked back at her with an icy stare.

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“If I had a choice, I’d rather scrub the black grime from the cauldrons in the potions classroom with my bare hands.” She leaned slightly forward, closing in on Stella. “After all, compared to your face… at least the filth at the bottom of a cauldron is honest.”

Stella shrank her neck and did not dare answer.

Such overwhelming hostility.

“But as part of the deal for my promotion to Vice Principal, Principal Gehenna handed you, the Pale Daughter, over to me as though she were dumping off a burden… I had thought you possessed enough comprehension to understand the hint I gave you during Defense Against Holy Magic and come find me at the Seventh Watch. Evidently, I was wrong.”

Stella suddenly understood.

So that was why Katerina had knocked her on the head seven times before leaving.

‘Seven knocks meant I was supposed to meet her at the Seventh Watch?’

‘Who the heck could possibly have guessed that? Was there something stopping her from simply saying it outright?’

‘Why did she have to use some ridiculous head-knocking secret code? What kind of awkward tsundere girl did she think she was?’

No wonder Principal Gehenna had told her to be prepared before leaving, saying there might be a tiny little surprise waiting for her.

So this was what she had meant.

Stella rolled her eyes.

Back at the monastery, she had been especially good at dealing with matters between women. The thing people in relationships needed to avoid most was precisely this sort of guessing game where ‘you guessed what I was thinking, I guessed what you were thinking,’ and everyone kept guessing without saying a word.

‘Professor, you deserved to become an ex.’

“We’re here. Come in.”

Katerina pushed open the oak door to her office.

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If Principal Gehenna’s office was a messy cat’s den, then Katerina’s office was an utterly cold and oppressive cellar.

All four walls were completely occupied by black wooden shelves stretching all the way to the ceiling, filled with hundreds upon thousands of glass jars of every imaginable size.

The scattered books and musical instruments did not add even the slightest trace of life to the room. It was as though even the air carried a breath of sorrow, while a gloomy, oppressive atmosphere drifted through every corner and seeped into everything.

“Don’t just stand there. Close the door,” Katerina said coldly.

Standing in the middle of the room, she blended into it effortlessly, looking incomparably harmonious with her surroundings.

“Yes, Professor.”

Stella obediently turned around and closed the door.

“Let’s begin.”

Katerina seemed to enter an entirely different state of mind. She was no longer as aggressive as she had been in class, nor did she continue with the sarcastic barbs from the stairwell.

She turned her back to Stella and began fiddling with various bottles and jars in front of the specimen-filled shelves.

“Principal Gehenna said I’d find joy in teaching you. That was complete nonsense… Our principal might always turn everything into a mess, but there is one thing she was right about.”

Katerina picked up a test tube filled with silver powder and gently shook it.

“Your current situation is very dangerous.”

“Dangerous…?”

Stella looked somewhat bewildered.

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“Do you think carrying the names of Pale Daughter and Valentine’s illegitimate daughter merely means you’ll attract a little attention at school?” Katerina turned around, placed the test tube on the table, and met Stella’s gaze.

“Whether it’s the old Pale faction longing for restoration, the Valentine family that values bloodline as dearly as life itself, the opportunists lurking in the shadows who want to make a name for themselves with your head, or even forces of the human Holy See that have infiltrated our ranks… right now, in their eyes, you’re a juicy piece of meat.”

“Gehenna handed you over to me not so you could stand here as though you were being punished. She did it so I could teach you how to control that power inside you… the power belonging to ‘her.'”

Stella froze for a moment.

‘So I am going to receive special training?’

She could have said so earlier.

‘But do I really possess the Pale Lord’s power?’

Stella rubbed her right eye. She remembered that the Eye of the Black Mass had happened to take up residence there not long ago.

“I don’t expect you to reach the heights she once did. She was a lunatic through and through, and a genius who could never be replicated.”

When Katerina said those words, her voice lowered again, slow and heavy, almost like a whisper beside Stella’s ear.

“But at the very least, you need to learn how not to be devoured by your own power, and how to bite through the throats of those greedy wolves before they can pounce on you and tear you apart.”

Katerina paused, then her tone turned cold once more.

“However, I’ll make the ugly part clear first.” She raised one finger. “My patience is extremely limited, especially when I’m dealing with you.”

“I’ll teach you only once. Guidance, control, whatever you wish to call it. No matter how painful the process becomes, if you can’t demonstrate enough talent to satisfy me tonight, or if you become so frightened by your own power that you cower like a coward…”

Katerina withdrew her hand. Her black robes billowed as she sat down in a tall velvet armchair, picked up a quill, and began writing.

“Then my commission officially ends, and whatever happens afterward will have nothing to do with me.”

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“Do you understand, Miss Darkfallen?”

Stella nodded.

After what had happened in the Blasphemous Forbidden Forest last time, she had vaguely sensed that her Holy Light had changed. That change felt unfamiliar to her, yet somehow strangely compatible.

It was no longer the golden, warm sun extolled by the Holy See. After devouring the Eye of the Black Mass and merging with Valentine’s blood and the darkness of the Abyss, a portion of the Holy Light within her seemed to have undergone a metamorphosis, shedding its warmth, shedding its compassion, and transforming into the colors of ash and moonlight.

Stella gently closed her eyes.

Although she did not know the exact reason behind it, since the professor wanted to see it, Stella would show her something big.

Then Stella opened her eyes.

Her silver bangs rose from her forehead without any wind, revealing eyes that made Katerina’s breath abruptly stop.

Pale irises, ember pupils.

She looked pale and mysterious, like a lily submerged beneath the water.

“Enough, stop wasting ti—”

The final urging syllable from Katerina shattered in her throat.

The quill in her hand fell to the floor with a clatter.

Ink splashed across the carpet, spreading into a patch of pitch-black darkness.