Volume 2, Chapter 18 – A Nun’s Tale of Suffering

“Lord, this must be part of the trial You have bestowed upon me…”

Lainia lowered her head and muttered to herself.

She felt that the world of succubi was filled with hostility.

Before, at worst, she had only despaired over Stella’s torture and torment as her master. Now, she had discovered that things were even more hopeless without Stella around.

At present, her hands had been roughly shackled, a wooden placard reading 【CRIMINAL】 hung from her chest, and the succubi surrounding her had even decided that she was the mastermind behind everything and were preparing to eliminate her.

And the source of all this was that Stella Darkfallen, her primary shelter from the storm, the Lord’s trial, and her long-term meal ticket, had disappeared.

Looking back over the past few days, it was practically a tale of a nun’s suffering so tragic that anyone who heard it would grieve and anyone who listened would shed tears.

Ever since her wicked succubus master had vanished without a trace, Lainia had fallen into a survival crisis in the dormitory because there was no one left to feed her. To avoid starving to death, she could only follow the scent of food all the way to the school cafeteria and attempt to cling to life with the meal card her master had left behind.

Originally, there had been nothing wrong with that.

As a nun who knew moderation, she would at most eat until she was eighty percent full.

The problem was that recently, in order to resist Stella’s tyranny, she had been undergoing high-intensity special training at the training grounds every single day.

The harder she trained, the faster she got hungry.

And so, after she unknowingly ate through the entire stock of the eighteenth serving window…

Stella’s meal card gave out.

The cafeteria auntie, who looked like an orc, detained her with a vicious grin.

“No money? Then pay with your body… Oh, no, then wash the dishes!”

And thus, a dignified nun of the Holy See was forcibly reduced to a dishwasher in an Abyssal cafeteria.

But that was nothing!

Lainia gritted her teeth and comforted herself.

Washing dishes was also a form of training!

She treated every greasy plate as Stella’s face and scrubbed so fiercely that sparks practically flew, leaving her mind wonderfully clear and refreshed.

But just a moment ago, after she had finally finished today’s quota of three thousand plates and was clutching her growling stomach, preparing to sneak into the kitchen while no one was around and steal some leftovers to fill her belly…

She passed by the washroom.

A scream came from inside.

Driven by a nun’s instincts, she rushed in.

The moment she pushed open the door, she saw a succubus student floating in midair, surrounded by white flames that looked really, really hot.

Before Lainia could even remember that she wasn’t supposed to rescue demons, the succubus student fell to the floor with a splat and passed out, while the white flames inexplicably vanished as well.

And after that, the nightmare began.

A group of ferocious-looking Disciplinary Committee members charged in like hyenas that had caught a scent.

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They looked at the unconscious student, then at Lainia, who was still holding half a piece of bread she had been secretly eating.

Without another word, they slapped chains on her.

Obviously, as the only other person present, she had been treated as a criminal suspect.

But she really didn’t know any spell that could set people on fire.

All she knew how to do was make things like bread and clean water.

If she had that kind of combat ability, she would have strung up that wicked woman Stella and beaten her long ago. Would she still have ended up washing dishes here?

The Disciplinary Committee members obviously had no intention of listening to her explanation.

The shoving, the scolding, and the schadenfreude in the eyes of the passing succubi…

If washing dishes hadn’t been so peaceful for so long that she had forgotten to resist, then with her current physical abilities far surpassing what they had once been, as long as she started running a marathon, none of them would have had any hope of catching her.

But now, she probably wouldn’t be going back.

What awaited her would be an inhumane interrogation room, whips, candles, and all the cruel methods of succubi…

‘Farewell, beautiful world… Oh, no, wicked Abyss…’

‘Farewell, leftovers I never got to eat.’

Lainia closed her eyes and silently followed the Disciplinary Committee members toward the school’s dungeon, preparing to face the judgment of fate.

Click, click, click.

Then, she heard the steady, elegant sound of leather shoes striking the tiled floor.

Just like the person herself…

Unique and impossible to mistake.

Could it be…

Lainia abruptly opened her eyes and looked toward the source of the sound.

Several Disciplinary Committee members stopped and vigilantly turned their heads.

“Who’s there? The Succubus Disciplinary Committee is conducting official business. Uninvolved personnel…”

The leading succubus stopped halfway through her sentence as the light finally revealed the newcomer’s face.

Silver hair cascading like a waterfall, red eyes like blood.

“S-Stella Darkfallen?!”

“She’s my… uh… slave.”

Stella walked up to the Disciplinary Committee members and slightly raised her chin.

“Without my permission, how dare you casually take away my property?”

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“…Master.”

The instant she saw Stella, Lainia lowered her eyes and instinctively murmured.

For some reason, tears flooded her eyes, and her voice grew damp with emotion.

In that instant, her heart, which had suffered so much bullying and mistreatment, shamefully skipped a beat.

Could it be…

Had this wicked succubus really come specifically to save her?

The first thing her long-missing master did after returning was come to bail her out?

“Your property?”

The leader of the Disciplinary Committee clearly hesitated.

Normally, if someone tried to shield a suspect with such an arrogant statement, she would have swung her club at them long ago.

But the person standing before her was someone she absolutely could not afford to provoke.

A person’s reputation followed them like a tree’s shadow.

Recently, the name Stella Darkfallen could truly be said to be blazing like the midday sun throughout Lilith School. One could even say her fearsome reputation had become notorious.

Beating the eldest daughter of the Valentine family senseless, establishing a mysterious secret society called the Lionheart Society, possibly being the illegitimate daughter of the Valentine Family Head… and, according to the latest rumor, facing a Holy Art attack in Defense Against Holy Magic without suffering so much as a scratch.

Any succubus student with even a little common sense no longer dared to casually provoke this walking calamity.

“Miss Darkfallen, we have no intention of offending your authority, nor do we intend to seize your… private property.”

The Disciplinary Committee Leader took a deep breath, forced herself to meet Stella’s gaze, and did her best to maintain the firmness expected of someone carrying out official duties.

“But this is not an ordinary disciplinary violation. It concerns the ghost attacks that have recently thrown the entire school into a state of panic.”

“Ghost attacks?”

Stella frowned slightly.

She really had heard about this.

Professor Katerina had classified the incidents as burns caused by Holy Art, while on the surface, Lainia was the only human in the entire school.

Stella had already suspected that, given the Demon Realm’s tendency to prefer killing a thousand innocents by mistake rather than letting one suspect escape, Lainia might eventually be directly labeled as the ghost, then publicly executed as a criminal.

She hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly.

“Yes. Over the past several days, several students have already been attacked by an unidentified assailant during the Sixth Watch. The victims are often severely burned before they even realize what’s happening.”

The committee leader stepped aside, revealing the scene behind her.

Two members were carrying an unconscious female student on a stretcher.

The student’s eyes were tightly shut, and her face was pale.

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She looked somewhat familiar to Stella.

Stella seemed to have seen her earlier during Dorothy’s speech.

Back then, the girl had clearly been terrified by Dorothy’s remarks condemning the Electors. Her face had been filled with fear, as though she were deeply frightened by such radical rhetoric, and at one point she had even wanted to leave early.

“Just now, during the Sixth Watch, we detected an abnormal magical power fluctuation erupting from this area.”

The committee leader pointed toward the nearby washroom.

“When we arrived at the scene, the victim had already collapsed unconscious. Fortunately, we arrived in time. The perpetrator apparently hadn’t had the chance to inflict further harm.”

“And at the time, aside from the victim…”

The committee leader paused, then coldly raised the short club in her hand and pointed it at Lainia.

“She was the only person there, and she was sneaking around while attempting to leave the scene of the crime.”

“She had a motive, her race is suspicious, and she appeared at the scene at the exact time the crime occurred.”

“Miss Darkfallen, every link in the chain of evidence points toward the same conclusion.”

The committee leader narrowed her eyes and delivered her final judgment.

“She is the true culprit behind the ghost that has been wandering around campus and attacking innocent students.”

Stella looked at the ceiling as though she was tired.

‘Give me a break.’

‘That bottomless pit Lainia couldn’t possibly be the culprit.’

‘Forget attacking anyone…’

‘This girl is nothing more than an incompetent, defeated nun.’

‘If you told me that Lainia had attacked the cafeteria leftovers until not a scrap remained, that would be entirely believable.’

‘But using Holy Art to hurt someone…’

‘With that half-baked Holy Light of hers that only ever decided to work when she prayed, there is absolutely no way she could hurt anyone.’

Stella looked Lainia up and down, then remembered that this girl had emptied her meal card and that she herself was currently going hungry because of it.

Irritation immediately welled up inside her.

“Disciplinary Committee Leader, if I heard you correctly, you just said… the victim was burned by Holy Art?”

Stella slowly raised her eyes.

“Since she is my slave, then her will is my will, and her power is my power.”

“Then, according to your line of reasoning…”

Stella’s voice abruptly turned cold.

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“Are you implying that I, her master… Stella Darkfallen, am actually the mastermind behind this entire series of attacks?”

“Are you also suspecting that I, an SSS+ student with Valentine blood and the Principal’s personal disciple, am actually a Saintess colluding with the Holy See and using Holy Art?”

“N-No!”

The committee leader’s face instantly turned deathly pale, cold sweat sliding down her temple.

Suspect Stella?

She wouldn’t dare even if someone gave her ten extra lives!

“W-We absolutely aren’t suspecting you!”

The committee leader hurriedly took half a step back and lowered her head as she explained.

“We’re only… only addressing this slave’s individual actions…”

“If you aren’t suspecting me, then remove those filthy chains.”

Stella coldly interrupted her and extended one hand, palm facing upward.

“She is my private property. If she truly made a mistake, then that simply means I wasn’t strict enough and failed to discipline her properly. At Lilith School, when it comes to dealing with a disobedient slave, I don’t believe it’s an outsider’s place to interfere, is it?”

Stella narrowed her eyes slightly.

“Of course, if it truly was her fault.”

“Then I will personally…”

Stella lightly drew a finger across her throat.

“Execute her.”

Author Note

The sensitive-word filter is seriously unbearable. I’ll replace the Disciplinary Committee with the Student Council later.

Translator Note

Mm… That author note above, I suppose it was about the novel’s platform, maybe like, prohibited words or something. Either way, that won’t change the fact that the author might change the term Disciplinary Committee to Student Council. I still don’t know when will it be.

Anyway, I’ll just translate what the author wrote in the future chapters.