Chapter 242: Demon queen must die

Alice stood frozen, her jaw hanging slack, her amber eyes practically vibrating with shock.

"The Vice-Principal... saved me?" Alice squeaked out, her voice pitching an octave higher than usual. "The Demon Queen?!"

Eren grabbed a clean shirt draped over the back of a rickety chair, sliding his arms through the sleeves. He lazily began fastening the wooden buttons, flashing her an amused, unrepentant grin.

"Yep. That same breathtaking former monarch of the demon realm who happens to be our underpaid, ridiculously beautiful Vice-Principal," Eren said casually, smoothing his collar.

Alice surged forward, completely ignoring the dull ache in her sealed ribs.

"How can you stand there and say that so lightly?!" she demanded, looking at him with frantic intensity. "Eren, you don’t understand—she’s the Demon Queen! She would destroy half the imperial capital! I had a whole plan to assassinate her the moment this Killiyan thing was settled!"

Eren finished the last button, his blue eyes narrowing into a calm, steady gaze.

"Well, scrap the itinerary," Eren said, his voice dropping into a quiet, unyielding rhythm. "Because I’m damn sure not going to let her die."

Alice stared at him as if he had grown a second head, throwing her hands in the air with exasperated fury. "Are you out of your goddamn mind?! She isn’t some helpless damsel! She’s a calamitous entity who inevitably mutates into a bloodthirsty monster!"

Eren met her frantic eyes without flinching.

"So does Violet."

The room went dead silent.

The single sentence made Alice’s face drained of color, her hands freezing mid-air.

"V-Violet... is different..." Alice choked out, her voice trembling violently. "She’s an innocent student... she was poisoned by The Substance... she’s—"

Eren let out a sigh. He turned toward the cramped kitchen alcove to rummage through a battered wooden pantry, inspecting what they’d have for dinner tonight.

"Why is it so impossible for you to consider that Carolynn is in the same boat?" Eren murmured, pulling out a rusty iron skillet and setting it on the stone hearth. "Did you just assume the world handed everyone a villain nameplate at birth?"

"B-But she’s a demon," Alice stammered, crossing her arms defensively over her bandaged chest. "She’s the supreme sovereign of an invading race—"

"And she’s also our Vice-Principal," Eren interrupted, lighting the dried kindling under the stove. "And... she’s a mother."

Alice blinked. "A... mother? She has a child?"

"Tell me something, Saintess. In all those lives where you supposedly saved the empire by slaying the rampaging Demon Queen... how did you actually manage it? With your divine mana alone?"

Alice paused as the suppressed, fractured chronicles of her past lives rushed through her mind. She saw the smoking ruins of the academy courtyard. She saw the terrifying spatial distortions tearing the sky apart. And she remembered the brutal, heartbreaking climax—standing beside a lone, stoic figure who held the spatial counter-runes.

"I... I never could have broken her barrier alone," Alice whispered slowly. "There was always someone guiding my sword. Someone who knew the Queen’s exact mana frequency... Royal Academy’s lazy librarian."

"Norelia," Eren said, tossing a scrap of meat down to the purring Shadow Cat cub at his feet.

"Norelia..." Alice muttered, her voice laced with bewilderment. "Wait, why is she working as a lecturer this time around? And what in the world is her connection to the former monarch of the demon realm?!"

Eren turned around, leaning his hip against the wooden counter, his blue eyes softening with deep, quiet reverence.

"Carolynn adopted Norelia when she was barely an infant," Eren revealed, his voice smooth and measured. "Found her abandoned in the forest, took her in, and raised her with genuine, suffocating warmth. She taught her high-tier spatial mechanics, gave her a home, and loved her like her own blood."

He paused, letting the weight of the truth sink into the silence.

"And she also raised Norelia as an emergency contingency. Carolynn knew the demonic corruption in her own core was unstable. She knew that one day, she might lose her sanity to the void. So she personally gave her beloved daughter the precise knowledge, the counter-spells, and the weapons required to end her life before she could tear the mortal realm apart."

Eren’s lips curved into a faint, bitter smile as he looked at the stunned, speechless Saintess.

"A mother who spent years preparing her own daughter to be her executioner just to protect the world. Does that sound like a mindless monster to you, Alice?"

"So... you already prevented her disaster?" Alice asked, her voice hushed.

"Handled it weeks ago," Eren replied casually, flipping a sizzling strip of salted meat in the pan with the flick of a wooden spatula. "Even fixed her strained relationship with her daughter."

Alice pulled out a wooden chair and sat at the dining table, staring at him in utter disbelief.

"You really are a weird bastard, Volsver," she murmured, shaking her head. "I thought killing all problems beforehand would fix things. And here you are, solving half the problems."

"Brains over brawn, Goldy," Eren chuckled, dishing the seared meat and sliced tubers onto two plates. He walked over, setting one before her along with a clean fork. He pulled out the chair across from her and leaned back. "How are the injuries? Feeling better?"

Alice tested her shoulder with a careful rotation, wincing as a dull throb radiated across her bandaged collarbone. "Alive, but completely dry. I can’t cast magic right now, let alone swing a sword. No way I can fight."

"Good. Then you’ll be on spectator duty," Eren said, taking a bite of meat.

"And where is she now, anyway?" Alice asked, glancing toward the empty hallway. "The Demon Queen?"

"Basically told me to handle my own mess."

Alice let out a short, breathy chuckle.

"Right. We don’t have time for a scenic vacation. We need to wrap this up fast, because Theo is probably breaching the Rujgard valley by tomorrow morning," Eren said, leaning his forearms on the table, his sapphire eyes turning serious.

Alice nearly choked on her food.

Her amber eyes went wide with pure panic, her fork clattering onto the ceramic plate. "Theo?! What do you mean, Theo?! How in the world would that idiot even know I’m in Rujgard?!"

"Because of me," Eren confessed shamelessly, raising his left hand and flashing the plain silver band on his finger. "This little resonance trinket has a sister ring. When my Burst triggered and my life signs flatlined two days ago, it beamed an emergency SOS flare directly to my circle back in the capital."

Alice buried her face in her hands, groaning into her palms. "Gods...things are getting heavy now."

"Yeah, well, things are considerably bigger and nastier than your romantic reunion," Eren said dryly.

"What else happened?"

"Baron getting executed tomorrow Morning, right in the center of Rujgard’s grand municipal plaza."

Alice went rigid. "A public execution? But we need him alive!"

"Of course we need him," Eren said, his lips curling into a wide, dangerous grin that made the sleeping cub on the counter twitch its ears. "Tomorrow would be our last day in Rujgard, and the last day for Rujgard."