Chapter 53

The pre-dawn hours, just before the sky began to lighten.

The footsteps of the girl who rose earliest to prepare breakfast for others were exceptionally light-hearted.

Though the groceries she had bought last evening filled both her hands, making them likely heavy, recent events had made the weight feel inconsequential.

“…Sora seems to suit this well, and that guy also seems to be blending in properly lately, but I just can’t bring myself to do something truly sinister.”

“It’s fine. We’re friends, and if you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to. Where’s the necessity?”

“Inna!”

Of course, not everything went according to plan. If everything had gone perfectly as expected, Inna would have become a god a long time ago.

The world might make things easier for her, but it did not cater to her every whim.

That said, it’s not as if everything escaped her control either.

She had anticipated her friend’s actions might put pressure on Erica, but if Erica tried to reject everything again, then the role she had been expecting — one akin to a bomb waiting to explode — would shift.

Though not all her expectations were fully realized, nothing strayed completely beyond her predictions.

The church, presumed to be the base of the “School Queen,” was half-destroyed, and people scattered, puzzled expressions on their faces, hinting at unexpected happiness in this world.

Her steps could not feel heavy. Even though she did not capture the School Queen herself, the queen’s power must have slowed drastically due to the recent incident. With sustained effort from the Association and the school, capturing her would only be a matter of time.

With a joyful heart, Inna typed the password to Erica’s house and entered. There she found Erica’s familiar shoes and an unfamiliar white pair of flower-patterned slippers.

“Unless someone powerful enough to influence the two factions is helping the former queen…”

“Are you awake?”

Her casual question was unlike her usual ease, and her face bore cracks. Through these cracks, an ugliness ill-fitting for a young girl, a monstrous anger, emerged.

The previous queen of the school, active before Inna, was irrelevant as long as she didn’t interfere with their bond. Her formidable power was not Inna’s concern.

However, if this queen tried to interfere with their connection, her presence would not just be annoying but dangerously threatening, so much so that Inna could even imagine tearing her to shreds.

Though the queen had revealed herself outright, Inna knew that Erica, who was called the school queen, had been a pain to her. Hence, Inna had previously entertained thoughts of blaming all her own misdeeds on the former queen.

The situation concluded before the former or Erica could falsely claim the title “queen,” and the former queen had departed from the school.

“Still sleeping?”

Still, Inna kept an eye on the queen who had left the school.

That was because, during Inna’s first year before she had the queen’s influence, the former queen confessed to Erica and was rejected, leading to her tormenting Erica.

People thought that the student council president organized a group out of a sense of justice to overthrow the queen, but in reality, it was about protecting her lover, making the president an ordinary human after all.

And as for the queen? She hadn’t truly tormented Erica for some profound reason; she was just upset about her confession being rejected.

Both the former queen and Erica seemed unaware that their conversation then was a confession, and its rejection.

But Inna knew it was a confession. That’s why she chose to let it be, allowing Erica’s attempts to take down the former queen, as well as not interfering with the president’s help.

“So, she’s here.”

Though she was brisk and carefree on the way here, her steps up to the second floor now felt heavy, even sticky.

Recently, when the student president was inside Erica’s house, things were somewhat tolerable.

The president was someone Erica had liked since long ago. No matter how much Inna tried, Erica’s affection for the president could not be overturned.

But how could anyone not even try to make Erica like them properly and just harvest the rewards?

Such things must never happen. And if they do, then the one gaining undeserved success must inevitably be eliminated.

Standing before Erica’s door, the girl took a deep breath, trying to calm the heat rising inside her body.

She must not be angry. Erica claims she has lost her memory, yet sometimes she reveals information she should not have, acting as if she knew it, which strongly suggested she retained fragments of her past memories.

If anger prompted Erica to try to recover her memories to attack her, it would be Inna’s own loss.

As Inna was composing herself, a sound she should not hear at this time reached her.

“Why are you in such pain? You must’ve been very worn out yesterday?”

Pain? For what reasons? Though the voice seemed different from the former queen’s that Inna knew, she was sure it was her.

She knew the former queen’s taste for tormenting the girls she liked, so it made sense that the word “pain” was associated with her.

And besides, her intuition—the insight of love for the girl she cared about—told her that the former queen was exploiting the gap Inna had left by removing the student council president.

Inna’s intuition, gained through the power of being beloved by the world, was typically accurate.

Inna was certain of the identity of the person inside the room. But she did not believe for a moment that Erica, with her near-perfect defense—a defense only Inna had ever worked a lifetime to penetrate—had fallen victim to the former queen, who hadn’t grown stronger.

Just as she was about to fully believe this, a voice came through, broken in parts, seemingly in genuine pain.

“My…waist hurts. Please don’t touch it.”

Considering what might cause someone’s waist to hurt, Inna paused, deep in thought, even amidst the dim early morning hallway. She suppressed her growing irritation.

“Because you can’t sleep? Not getting sleep does make it painful. But since you were up late, it’s understandable. Sleep a little longer beside me, sister?”

“Wh…what?! Who is that at the door!”

Unaware that Erica had been kidnapped by the former queen, that her back pain was from resisting the queen, that she woke her while sleeping, and that Erica was both exhausted and in pain at dawn, Inna could only slightly misunderstand.

The kind of fun activities that could leave one with back pain, or things one normally does late into the night, or something intimate enough to call the former queen “sister”—

Yes. The former queen must have done last night what Inna herself had wanted to do with Erica. Though Inna’s intuition argued against it, intuition isn’t always correct.

“What about you? Shouldn’t you be headed to school? I’ll wake you, so why don’t you sleep a little more? I’ll just lie here quietly.”

“That… if I trust you and sleep! Hiiiiiiiiiiik!!!”

Up to this point. Erica’s excited voice was always a delight to hear, but only when it came from herself, not others.

Inna decisively opened the door. There stood a girl in a white nightgown, holding her waist and groaning, and a woman in a clean white uniform, her face buried in the girl’s shoulder, who turned at the sound of the door opening.

The woman, presumed to be the former queen, was playing with Erica’s sides.

It would be impossible for anyone to tease Erica with ticklish games against her will due to Erica’s protective aura—unless Erica gave permission, which meant it was likely so unless Erica had wasted her aura frivolously like last time.

Their uniformly white-clad playful interaction suggested a romantic relationship, making Inna genuinely and happily smile despite holding the grocery basket in her hands.

“Already here, huh? Awwwww!!!”

“Ah… this annoying woman has come, hasn’t she~. Listen, wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t invite her home if you want to be in a relationship like this with me?”

This relationship.

Even without clear words, Inna’s sharp intellect, evident from her top grades in school, quickly grasped what the former queen’s comments implied.

Erica had requested some sort of relationship with the former queen, a relationship that could be disrupted by Inna’s presence in this house.

Good.

If that is how Erica feels, it would be Inna’s duty to help her childhood friend. Inna maintained the smile that had turned into a dangerous one and spoke.

“Let’s k*ll her.”

“Eh, what?”

Though Erica seemed drowsy or perhaps suffering from the pain of last night’s incident, the message was clear: the queen who had seduced Erica with her seemingly pure demeanor was the target of Inna’s intent.

—I’ll k*ll you if you keep this up.

The fact that the former queen was older than Inna was irrelevant. The truth that the former queen was technically a senior to both Inna and Erica did not matter.

What mattered was who owned the spot beside Erica, and now, a woman was occupying it like a rat, after Inna had toppled the student council president.

“Hmm…?”

To Inna’s clear declaration of war, the former School Queen simply leaned on Erica’s shoulder, staring at Inna with interest.

In reality, she had been proposed a partnership by Erica, but she knew Inna’s interpretation would lead to entertaining outcomes, so she weighed how best to manipulate the situation.

—If you keep this up, I’ll k*ll you.