In the room within the castle, the girl’s淡 reddish long hair cascaded over her shoulders.
Her ruby-like eyes gave off a faint crimson glow in the dimly lit chamber.
Even though she was merely correcting documents with the quill pen in her hand, there was an air of calm about her that didn’t seem to belong to a succubus at all.
She possessed the demonic horns and the black heart-tipped tail characteristic of her kind, yet somehow she radiated an unmistakable stillness.
The girl slowly rubbed her temples, apparently 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 table grew like a mountain beside her.
She was both a succubus and a witch—yet neither label seemed to truly fit the girl before her.
“Circulating currency system… regionalized management of succubus desire release…”
“Conduct ideological education for newborn succubus young… even doing this much still isn’t enough…?”
As the master who had shaped this [Land of Desire], the Holy See only knew that a single witch existed within it.
No one knew her face or her name—only the cold, mechanical title: the Desire Witch.
Though called the Desire Witch, she appeared no different from an ordinary girl.
Only after she set the neatly organized documents aside did she seem to finally obtain a moment of peace.
Unrestrained indulgence in desire was what succubi were supposed to do—yet this witch had long since walked a completely different path from her kin.
A numb indifference toward desire.
The pursuit of true love.
She felt like a heretic within the Holy See, and she had likewise strayed from the survival instincts of her own race.
The girl glanced at the personnel movement records from the Holy See that another succubus had just delivered.
She flipped it open, skimmed a page or two of the messy handwriting, then casually tossed it onto the side table.
“So there aren’t even any high-order powerhouses stationed there? What in the world is the Holy See thinking…?”
Several border cities had already fallen—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 wondering whether she should feel relieved or simply indifferent.
With complicated feelings, the girl set the documents down and glanced at the photograph on the nearby table.
In the photo was a slightly petite succubus with the same long red hair and blood-gem eyes as hers.
Clearly, it was herself as a child.
But standing beside her in the picture was a nun wearing shackles.
In what should have been an ordinary photograph, two figures stood together who could never logically coexist.
Yet the moment she saw the nun in the photo, the girl froze for a moment.
In a daze, she gently traced the other 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.
Facing the unfamiliar world before her, she felt only calm and bewilderment.
She didn’t know who she was, or what she was supposed to do.
It was during this innocent, ignorant phase—when she was still called Lilian—that she encountered the being who would change everything: a gravely wounded nun collapsed in the wilderness.
At that time, she didn’t understand the difference between a nun and herself.
Seeing the same kind of face and body, she simply assumed the other was the same as her.
“Succubus? My luck really is terrible…”
The nun lay heavily injured beneath a tree stump, eyes filled with despair.
Looking at the naked girl standing before her, the pure and chaste nun let a single tear slowly slide from the corner of her eye.
The girl didn’t understand why the other was crying, but she knew tears meant sadness.
The nun was badly hurt 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 most shameful fate imaginable.
The nun seemed to have already accepted her fate 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 in that state—whether it was something to rejoice over or to weep about, even she didn’t know.
Succubi were a terrible race, but they also wouldn’t casually take a life.
They simply wanted to do lewd things with you—and sometimes, succubi would even treat injuries so they could proceed with those lewd acts.
“You…”
In the final second before losing consciousness, the nun heard the other say something.
She thought that when she awoke, she would surely already bear the other’s mark.
Time passed—she didn’t know how long.
When the nun awoke, the first thing she did was sit up in full alertness, arms tightly shielding herself.
“You! Don’t come any closer!!”
In a panic she tried to assume a defensive posture—only to realize her clothes were still neatly on.
Only her outer robe had been removed.
“My clothes… they’re still here?”
***
The red-haired succubus from before she fainted was still standing in the same spot—only now she was draped in the nun’s outer robe.
The places where the nun had been injured were 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 realized she had been saved by one.
A nun fainting in front of a succubus, yet not only were her clothes intact—the succubus herself was actually feeling shy.
At first the nun remained wary, but as they slowly spent time together, this succubus girl kept challenging everything the nun thought she knew about succubi.
Perhaps it was because she had received help from the girl.
It was around then that the nun began to feel that maybe—this succubus before her—was 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 nun’s words, she also 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 nun would praise the Goddess.
At the same time, as they interacted, the nun grew increasingly curious about this particular succubus.
A succubus who never tried to force herself on her—this was stranger than anything in storybooks.
Around this time, Lilian also came into contact with writing from the outside world.
As her strength grew, she would sometimes carry thick stacks of books back to the nest and ask the nun living there to teach her everything she knew.
Even an ordinary little nun could sense the girl’s overwhelming thirst for knowledge.
But as the questions multiplied, Lilian’s curiosity became harder and harder to conceal.
At the same time, a desire to change things began to take root in her heart.
She wondered why the succubus race had become something so detested.
Through their constant companionship, Lilian had already come to see the nun as her teacher—the one who helped her understand the world.
Though the nun found the title a little strange, she didn’t reject it.
After all, being called “Teacher” by a mythical species felt odd—especially one from the Chaotic Camp.
Still, the nun knew this one was different from other succubi she had known.
Even so, their identities could never allow them to become true friends.
Lilian respected the nun’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, you really don’t have to call me that. It feels weird. I didn’t exactly teach you much anyway…”
***
Lilian didn’t try to keep her.
The nun didn’t look back.
Though Lilian felt grateful, they were ultimately little more than passing acquaintances.
Perhaps because this was her first friend, or because the nun had taught her knowledge she never would have otherwise known, Lilian still held some affection for her.
“Maybe one day, if every succubus could be like you…”
“Then maybe we could all belong to the same camp~”
After reaching the border, the little nun left those words with a gentle smile and turned to leave.
Lilian watched her departing figure from within the forest, a flicker of hesitation in her eyes.
“Lilian is my name… but you never told me yours…”
She watched the other walk farther and farther away.
She had wanted to ask her name at the very end, but in the end, she never did. She simply lowered her hand.
“Never mind. Knowing or not knowing doesn’t matter…”
Lilian returned to the place of her birth.
Looking down at the succubus nest below her, she slowly closed her eyes.
In that moment, desire welled up from the depths of her heart—loneliness toward one person, longing, yearning, greed.
Lilian merely shut her eyes for a moment.
When she opened them again, the sixth great forbidden land had resolutely taken shape before her.
She watched her kin emerge one after another from the succubus nests.
On that day, the [Land of Desire] fully entered the awareness of the world.
Though born a succubus, Lilian should have been limited to mid-tier Order at best.
Yet she became a witch—a succubus who rose to become the ruler of this [Land of Desire]: the Desire Witch.
As Lilian gazed toward the distant cities, another thought took shape in her heart.
“Perhaps when I bring the entire world under my protection… there will no longer be any need for opposing identities…”