At this moment, inside a room within the castle, the girl’s淡 red long hair cascaded over her shoulders.
Her ruby-like eyes emitted a faint reddish glow in the dimly lit chamber.
Even though she was merely using the quill in her hand to review and correct documents, an air of calm surrounded her—one that felt entirely out of place for a succubus.
She possessed the characteristic demonic horns and a black heart-shaped tail identical to those of other succubi.
Yet there was an unmistakable sense of quietude about her.
The girl slowly rubbed her temples, seemingly trying to ease the headache brought on by poring over paperwork.
No matter how much she worked through them, the stack of documents on the desk continued to tower beside her like a mountain.
She was both a member of the succubus race and a witch, yet neither label seemed to truly fit the girl before her.
“Circulating currency system… regional management of succubus desire release…”
“Conducting ideological education for newborn succubus young… even this level isn’t enough, is it…”
As the mastermind behind the formation of this [Land of Desire], the Holy See only knew that a witch existed within it.
No one knew her appearance or her name—only the cold, rigid title: the Desire Witch.
Though she was called the Desire Witch, she appeared no different from an ordinary girl.
Only when she set aside the neatly organized documents did she finally seem to gain a moment of peace.
Unrestrained indulgence in desire was what succubi were supposed to do.
Yet this witch had already embarked on a path completely different from that of her kin.
A numbness toward desire, the pursuit of true love—these thoughts made her feel like a heretic within the Holy See, and she had long since abandoned the way her race survived.
The girl glanced at the personnel movement records from the Holy See that another succubus had just delivered.
After flipping it open and skimming a page or two of the messy handwriting, she casually tossed it onto the nearby table.
“So there isn’t even a high-order powerhouse stationed there? What exactly is the Holy See thinking…”
Several border cities had already been occupied—two or three at least—yet in the end, the other side hadn’t even dispatched a single high-order Order powerhouse.
She couldn’t help but wonder whether she should feel fortunate or simply indifferent.
With complicated emotions, the girl set the documents aside and glanced at the photograph on the nearby table.
In the photo was a slightly petite succubus with the same red long hair and blood-gem eyes as herself.
It was clearly her younger self.
But standing beside her in the picture was a nun wearing shackles.
In what should have been an ordinary photograph, two figures who could never logically appear together were captured side by side.
When her gaze fell on the nun in the photo, the girl froze for a moment.
In a daze, she gently traced the figure with her fingertip.
“So many years have passed… I wonder if I can really do it, Teacher…”
Succubi were a race that combined stunning beauty with dreadful personalities.
Yet within such a tribe, an utterly incompatible existence had been born.
The girl had emerged from a succubus ovum.
Upon opening her eyes to the unfamiliar world, her heart held only calm and confusion.
She didn’t know who she was, or what she was supposed to do.
It was during this innocent, bewildered phase—when she was still called Lilian—that she encountered the being who would change everything: a gravely wounded nun who had collapsed in the wilderness.
At that time, she didn’t understand the difference between a nun and herself.
Seeing someone with a similar face and body, she simply assumed the other was the same as her.
“A succubus? My luck really is terrible…”
The nun lay against a tree stump, heavily injured, her eyes filled with despair.
Looking at the naked girl standing before her, the pure and chaste nun slowly let a tear roll down her cheek.
The girl didn’t understand why the other was crying, but she knew that tears meant sadness.
The small nun was gravely wounded and powerless to resist even a young succubus.
For an ordinary nun of the Holy See, falling into the hands of the Chaotic Camp and suffering humiliation was the greatest shame.
The nun seemed to have already resigned herself and closed her eyes.
Perhaps because her injuries were too severe, after shutting her eyes in despair, she fainted from the pain.
Being discovered by a succubus at such a moment—whether it was something to rejoice over or to weep about, no one could say.
Succubi were a deplorable race, but they would not casually take a life.
They simply wanted to do lewd things with you.
At the same time, there were cases of succubi healing girls so they could then engage in those lewd acts.
“You…”
In the final second before losing consciousness, the nun seemed to hear the other say something.
She thought that when she awoke, she would probably already bear the other’s mark.
Time passed—how long, she didn’t know.
When the nun awoke, the first thing she did was sit up abruptly, full of vigilance, clutching herself tightly with both arms.
“You! Don’t come any closer!!”
The nun instinctively moved to defend herself, but then realized her clothes were still neatly in place—only her outer robe had been removed.
“My clothes… they’re still here?”
***
The red-haired succubus from before her collapse was still standing in the same spot.
But now the other was draped in the nun’s own outer robe, and the places where she had been injured had been carefully bandaged.
The nun was stunned that all of this had been done by the succubus before her.
Yet the girl merely turned her head shyly and tugged the robe tighter around herself.
“I’m very sorry for taking your things… but being naked felt so embarrassing…”
Hearing such words—“embarrassed”—come from a succubus girl, the nun’s shock was no less than when she learned the succubus had saved her.
She, a nun, had fainted in front of a succubus, yet not only were her clothes intact, but the succubus herself felt shy.
At first the nun remained wary, but as they slowly spent time together, the succubus girl continued to challenge everything the nun thought she knew about succubi.
Perhaps because she had received help from the girl,
the nun began to feel, at that moment, that this succubus before her might be different from the ones she knew.
“How about the name Lilian~?”
During the time she spent with this nun, Lilian gradually came to understand the world.
Through the other’s words, she learned about her own identity.
She was of the succubus race, while the other was of the human race.
Lilian felt no dissatisfaction with her origins.
Instead, the more time they spent together, the more curious she became about the Holy See.
Because every few sentences, the other would praise the Goddess.
At the same time, as they interacted, the nun grew increasingly curious about this particular succubus.
A succubus who refused to force herself on others—this was something more miraculous than any story in a picture book.
It was also around this time that Lilian came into contact with writing from the outside world.
As her strength grew, Lilian would sometimes carry armfuls of thick books back to the nest and ask the nun living there to teach her everything she knew.
Even an ordinary little nun experienced, for the first time, the other’s overwhelming thirst for knowledge.
But as the questions multiplied, Lilian’s curiosity could no longer be contained.
At the same time, the desire to change things began to take root in her heart.
Why had the succubus race become something so detested?
Yet through their constant companionship,
Lilian had already come to see the other as her teacher in understanding the world.
Though the nun found the title a little strange, she did not reject it.
After all, being called “Teacher” by a mythical species felt odd in itself—especially one from the Chaotic Camp.
Even though the nun knew this succubus was different from the others she knew,
their respective identities ultimately prevented them from becoming true friends.
Lilian respected the other’s position.
When the nun’s injuries had fully healed, Lilian escorted her to the border.
“Will we be able to meet again someday… Teacher…?”
“Uh, please don’t call me that anymore. It feels weird. I didn’t really teach you anything…”
***
Lilian did not try to keep her.
The nun likewise did not look back.
Though Lilian felt gratitude toward her, the other had ultimately been little more than a passing acquaintance.
Perhaps because she was Lilian’s first friend, or because she had taught her knowledge she had never known before, Lilian still harbored some fondness for this friend.
“Perhaps one day, if all succubi could be like you…”
“Then maybe we could truly be of the same camp~”
After the little nun reached the border, she left those words with a smile before turning and departing.
Lilian watched her retreating figure from within the forest, a flicker of hesitation in her eyes.
“Lilian is my name… but you never told me yours…”
Lilian watched her grow more distant.
She had wanted to ask for her name at the very end, but in the end, she never spoke the question.
She simply lowered her hand again.
“Never mind… it doesn’t matter whether I know or not…”
Lilian returned to the place of her birth.
Looking down at the succubus nest beneath her feet, she slowly closed her eyes.
And in that very moment,
desire surged from the depths of her heart—a lonely desire for one person, a yearning for what she sought, craved, and longed for.
Lilian merely closed her eyes gently.
When she opened them again, the sixth great forbidden land resolutely took shape before her.
Lilian watched as one after another of her kin emerged from the succubus nests.
The [Land of Desire] officially entered the sight of the world on that day.
Though she was a succubus who should have been limited to mid-order strength,
she became a witch in her own right—the ruler of this [Land of Desire], the Desire Witch.
Gazing toward the distant cities, another thought arose within Lilian’s heart.
“Perhaps when I bring the entire world into my embrace… there will no longer be any opposition of identity…”