Chapter 12: The Black Rabbit and the Lady

The Church’s Seventh Hall is formally called the Dust-Cleansing Hall internally.

It is responsible for logistics, scene cleanup, and evidence erasure.
They clean battlefields after exorcist priests and nuns from the Ninth Hall and others finish their work.

They collect demon remains and remove all traces of supernatural presence. They make events seem as if they never happened. They are silent scavengers.

Their members are engineers, purification specialists, and wordless laborers. Their efficiency is extremely high.

They can erase all traces of demonic existence in just one night. They have witnessed the worst scenes among all the halls. But they never comment.

Except, of course, for the girl currently standing in front of Evelyn.

“Wow, you exorcised another demon!” “Evelyn-sis, you’re amazing! Oh right, here’s your new nun outfit!”

The short, wavy red-haired girl in a Seventh Hall uniform insisted on taking off the beaked mask as she bounced in excitement.

She shoved a bag into Evelyn’s hands.
Inside was the new nun habit Evelyn had specially requested Seventh Hall to bring along.

Evelyn glanced at the bag, then at the blood-stained noble dress she was currently wearing.
As someone who lived over twenty years as a man in her previous life, she had to admit she was rather uncomfortable with feminine clothing.

Especially noble gowns like this one, exposing cleavage and covered in gaudy, pointless decorations.

Thankfully, she had at least grown used to nun robes, which were relatively plain, after months of wearing them.

“Don’t call me sis…” Evelyn replied weakly.
The red-haired girl, covered in freckles, was named Matil.

She was one of the few people in the Church who actually got along with Evelyn.
And for some reason, she didn’t seem to dislike Evelyn the way the others did.

Evelyn rubbed her nose tiredly.
She had successfully exorcised a demon and gotten one step closer to her goal of joining the choir.
Yet the exhaustion weighing down her shoulders felt terribly familiar.

It was the same feeling she once had when overtime was forced on her and she didn’t dare complain to her boss.
That weary, soul-tired feeling.

When she came downstairs, she saw the Seventh Hall workers had arrived.
They wore long black leather robes and bird-beak masks, like plague doctors of old.
They were cleaning the abandoned room and the electrical room.
The altar had been completely dismantled and placed into a glass crate.
All ritual materials were properly sealed into containers.

Two plague-masked workers struggled slightly as they carried a covered stretcher.
A holy shroud with the Father’s cross emblem draped over it, hiding all but a blurry silhouette.

A pair of black, backward-jointed rabbit legs drooped weakly from a gap in the cloth.
They carried the stretcher outside, and in the wind and rain, stuffed Vivienne’s corpse into a pitch-black coffin and loaded it into a carriage.

They had come in old-style automobiles, yet still brought a horse-drawn carriage for transporting demonic remains.
Evelyn didn’t know why corpses had to be carried by a carriage—just that there was some kind of rule behind it.

Even Matil couldn’t explain the exact reason.

“This means you can probably get into the choir now, right?” Matil said excitedly.

“Not even close yet… She wasn’t the culprit behind the demonic possession case.” Evelyn replied weakly.

“And stop calling me sis.”

As someone who used to be male, she felt deeply uncomfortable with being called “sis” or “miss.”
She preferred people to just call her by name.

That at least felt tolerable.
She could endure being called “Sister Evelyn” back at work.
After all, as a corporate s*ave, she could endure anything once she was in work mode.

But the moment she remembered the prophecy she saw with Cyril in the study earlier…
She wanted to punch a hole through the Earth.

“Ah! Teacher is calling me!” Matil’s cheerful posture instantly wilted.
“I have to get back to work…”

“Go, go…” Evelyn waved impatiently.
Probably, a large portion of the people who hated her did so because of this terrible personality.

“Uuuh…”
Matil whimpered cutely, taking three steps then turning back each time.
“I found a super delicious dessert shop recently! Evelyn-sis, when you’re free I’ll take you there!”
Before Evelyn could refuse, she ran off.

Evelyn looked toward the direction Matil fled.
And froze.

Her teacher—the priest—
The very same priest who officiated her wedding with Cyril in the prophecy.

Damn it!
His face alone made her remember that entire nightmare scene again.

Evelyn turned away, grinding her teeth.
She happened to meet Pudge’s beady, dumb bird-eyes staring at her from her shoulder.
Just looking at him made her want to explode.

“What are you looking at?!”

“I didn’t see anything! I’m blind!”

…

Somewhere in Ingrey City.
Months of unending rain hammered the eaves of an ancient mansion.

Water dripped off stone gargoyles into mossy cobblestones below, blossoming into clear little splashes.

A man dressed like a butler wore a black-rabbit head covering and a perfectly tailored suit.
He pushed a silver serving cart down the corridor.

Four tiny casters squeaked softly over the wooden floor.
He stopped before a polished brown door and gently rattled the bell.

“Come in…”

The woman’s voice floated from the crack in the door.
From her voice alone, one could imagine her appearance.

She must always hold herself in a regal manner.
She must wear voluminous aristocratic gowns.
She must face all things with almost lazy elegance.

And she must radiate a decadent nobility.

The door creaked open.
The rabbit-masked butler pushed the cart inside.

Bookshelves filled the room to the ceiling.

Classics, social science texts, and poetry collections were neatly categorized.
The spotless spines showed how much the lady loved to read.
Only a desk lamp illuminated the room.

A carefully tended white flower bloomed on the windowsill, its branches stark against the storm-dark sky.

“Your supper, madam.” The butler lifted the silver lid.
A tall, delicate wineglass sat on the platter, filled with a blood-red liquid glowing under the lamp—bright as fresh blood.

The lady sat behind the desk, reading an old poetry anthology.
The light revealed only the words on the page.
Her entire figure remained cloaked in darkness, her face unseen.

“You have my thanks.”
A hand as pale as a corpse’s shroud emerged from the shadows and lifted the glass gracefully.
A gulping sound echoed.
The empty glass, still smeared with red, was passed back out.

“Vivienne is dead.” The rabbit-masked butler offered a towel.

“Yes. A timid little rabbit like her dying isn’t surprising.”

Fabric rustled softly and the towel came back out, marked with crimson lipstick.

“Anything else?”

“Yes, madam. Half an hour ago, the young master seems to have undone one of his seals.”

“Oh?” A soft laugh drifted from the darkness.
“My adorable son finally intends to accept himself?”

A bolt of lightning flashed outside the window.
The sudden light twisted the white flower’s branches into shapes like warped limbs.

It cast a silver sheen over the rabbit-mask’s black fur.

And for the first time, it revealed the lady in the darkness—

Her long white hair,
Her corpse-pale skin, and eyes as black as obsidian.