Succubi Chapter 209. We Should Stay
Succubi Chapter 209. We Should Stay
Fair. Because I didn’t even sound convinced.
My voice came out like a man giving a heroic speech while his knees were still negotiating peace with gravity. I gathered the remaining pieces of my dignity from the ruins of the bed, stacked them in my chest like fragile plates, and forced myself to sit up properly.
Bad idea.
The blanket slipped.
The cold air touched my skin.
My body immediately remembered everything.
My brain coughed politely and said, ‘we should stay.’
My scholarship screamed, ’we should run.’
Then my system flared.
[You just leveled up!]
I stared at the invisible notification hanging in the corner of my mind.
“I know,” I muttered. “I’ll check later.”
Lilith propped herself on one elbow, hair falling over her shoulder, looking like the living embodiment of “skip class, ruin your future, but in a pretty way.”
Sera, on the other side, was already half asleep again, somehow looking like she might nap mid-seduction and still win.
Lilith’s lips curved. “You’re really leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I can smell myself.”
Sera blinked slowly. “You smell nice.”
“That’s the problem.”
Because I smelled like Lilith.
I smelled like Sera.
I smelled like sweat, heat, bed, and decisions that could get me academically executed.
And today?
Today I had Professor Callahan’s class.
That man could probably smell moral failure from across a battlefield. If I walked into his classroom smelling like this, he wouldn’t even ask questions. He would just look at me, adjust his monocle, and write “failed” on my forehead with magic ink.
No.
Absolutely not.
I grabbed my clothes from the side of the bed and started putting them on with the chaotic elegance of a man escaping a crime scene. Shirt backward first. Fixed it. Pants almost inside out. Fixed it too. Wrinkled. Terrible. Whatever.
This was an all-girls dorm.
Technically, I shouldn’t even be here.
Lilith watched me with that lazy amused gaze. “Why don’t you play with us more~?”
I froze for half a second.
Damn her.
Damn that voice.
Damn the way she said “play” like it meant ten different things and all of them involved me being late.
I looked at her. “I want to.”
Her expression softened slightly.
I swallowed, then added, “Believe me. I really want to. But I can’t.”
Sera opened one sleepy eye.
I sighed and ran a hand through my messy hair. “I got here with a scholarship. I’m not the best student, but I have it. And skipping class could be the end of my life here. So yeah… better no.”
Lilith didn’t tease me after that.
That was worse.
She just smiled softer.
Like she understood.
Like she remembered I wasn’t just some awakened demon walking around with overpowered stats and a weirdly active love life. I was still a student. A scholarship student. A first semester nobody who somehow got thrown into the spotlight and was still trying not to drown.
I moved quickly.
Because if I slowed down, I’d stay.
I left Lilith’s room, crossed the hall, slipped back into my own room, grabbed my towel, toiletries, fresh uniform, and everything else I needed. My body was moving in survival mode now.
Shower.
Uniform.
Class.
The bathroom was outside my room, shared but thankfully empty. I stepped in and locked the door behind me, exhaling like I had just escaped a boss fight.
The tiled room was cool. Clean. Quiet. Steam from other showers had faded already, leaving only that faint soap smell in the air. I placed my things on the bench, leaned against the sink, and stared at myself in the mirror.
Hair messy.
Neck faintly marked.
Expression?
Disaster.
“…You look like you got loved too aggressively,” I muttered to my reflection.
My reflection looked back like, ‘and you liked it’.
Rude.
I turned on the sink and splashed water on my face. Cold. Sharp. Necessary.
Somehow, I still couldn’t understand how Lilith and Sera looked so relaxed in the morning. Shouldn’t they be more responsible? More worried? More “oh no, academy rules”? More “Evan, hurry, you’ll be late”?
I huffed.
Nah.
Forget about it, Evan.
Sera was a Saint House genius. Sleepy menace, yes, but still genius. She could probably nap through a disaster and wake up with full marks.
Lilith was… Lilith. Sexy teacher? Mentor? Dorm mother? Dangerous woman who could probably walk into an academy disciplinary hearing wearing that robe and make the officials apologize to her.
And me?
Yeah.
Just a normal first semester student.
Okay, maybe not normal.
I just rose a bit.
Got a little name here and there.
Beat Ares.
Survived a mission.
Leveled too fast.
But people would still consider it luck.
Hell, even I considered it luck sometimes.
Don’t get me wrong. I had confidence in my skills. I knew what I could do. I knew my instincts weren’t fake. I knew my power was real.
But usually…
Usually something happened.
Minor things.
Small things.
Annoying things.
A headache before an exam. Lost notes before a presentation. Sudden exhaustion at exactly the wrong moment. Someone “accidentally” submitting something wrong. A delay. A mislabel. A mistake.
Nothing big enough to prove.
Everything big enough to ruin timing.
I hated that.
That feeling of almost reaching something and having the floor shift under my feet.
But here?
In this academy?
Somehow…
I hadn’t experienced that.
Or not yet.
I wasn’t sure.
Maybe I was just lucky for once.
I stared at myself in the mirror again.
I liked this place.
That was the problem.
I liked the academy.
I liked the freedom here. The danger. The madness. The people who looked at me and saw me.
That mattered.
A lot.
I blinked.
“…Okay, stop monologuing.”
Seriously.
Morning shower.
Not tragic memoir.
I brushed my teeth quickly, aggressively, like I could scrub away emotional vulnerability with mint. Then I stripped, grabbed my soap, stepped under the shower, and turned the water on.
Warm water poured over me.
I closed my eyes.
Ten minutes.
Quick shower.
Enough to erase Lilith’s scent, Sera’s scent, and whatever evidence Professor Callahan might detect with his terrifying professor senses.
“Do you need my help?”