Chapter 27: An Abnormally High Favorability

“Big sister… you’re not angry, are you?”
Scarlet Night lifted her small face and looked at the slightly sullen Pelleti, asking cautiously.

“No.”
Pelleti stared straight ahead, her tone flat.

The two walked side by side along a bustling street. The weather wasn’t particularly cold, yet both of them were dressed in conspicuously thick clothing, wrapping themselves up tightly. With their overly striking looks, the two girls inevitably drew curious glances from passersby.

“But ever since we left, big sister hasn’t said a single word on her own,” Scarlet Night said, taking light, quick steps. Though her legs were short, she always managed to keep pace beside Pelleti, like a little tail.

“I’m just irritated,” Pelleti sighed, frowning slightly.

“Is it because of the Witch’s Banquet?”

“More or less. In the end, I just feel like I’m too weak,” Pelleti said, her shoulders drooping in discouragement.

As a witch, she was so weak that even a detection bracelet couldn’t register her. If other witches ever found out, it would be nothing short of the greatest humiliation in witch history—a lifelong black mark to be laughed at forever.

What was even more terrifying was that witches lived for a very long time—so long that no one even knew how long.

Which meant that this black mark would follow her forever.

“Then how strong does big sister want to be?” Scarlet Night tilted her head, looking utterly innocent.

“Well…”
Pelleti thought seriously, unconsciously winding a strand of hair around her finger again and again.

“Starlight Fourth—no, Starlight Fifth Tier would be enough.”

She remembered that Josuna was Starlight Fourth Tier.

As a Witch of Light, it shouldn’t be difficult in theory to fight an ordinary person of the same tier.

But then she reconsidered. Josuna was, after all, the current number-one candidate. How many Church resources she could mobilize was still unknown. What if, in the middle of a fight, she suddenly pulled out some divine weapon and blew her up? To be safe, Pelleti decided she needed to be one tier higher.

A one-tier difference wasn’t too much or too little—just enough to suppress Josuna without drawing the attention of those old monsters by reaching the Radiant Moon tier.

Pelleti had thought this through very clearly. She needed power, but not excessive power.

Being too strong in itself invited trouble. As long as she was stronger than Josuna—strong enough to firmly suppress her and avoid ever being locked into a dark little room again—that would be enough.

No matter how strong Josuna was, she couldn’t possibly leap across tiers to challenge her, right?

Impossible. That would be absurd.

Beside her, Scarlet Night scrunched her little face in confusion, clearly unable to understand what Pelleti was saying.

“Big sister, what is Starlight? Judging from the name… does it mean as many as the stars in the sky? Then it should be stronger than Sunrise, right?”

Pelleti abruptly stopped walking.

She turned her head and stared at Scarlet Night in disbelief for a long moment before hesitantly asking,

“You don’t know what Starlight is?”

Scarlet Night shook her head blankly, her amethyst-like eyes filled with sincere confusion.

Power tiers were named after the brightness of the stars, moon, and sun in the sky.

This was common knowledge—even Pelleti knew it. And yet this witch, who had lived for who-knew-how-long, didn’t?

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

“Let me ask you—after your Witch’s Banquet ended, roughly what level of strength were you at?” Pelleti’s tone suddenly became serious.

“Hmm… if I remember right, it was Radiant Moon Second Tier.”

Six hundred sixty-six…
She’d been walking around with a monster at her side and only realized it now!

No wonder Scarlet Night had never heard of Starlight—she started at Radiant Moon. There was simply no need for her to understand low-tier classifications!

A profound sense of powerlessness washed over Pelleti. She became a witch only to live in hiding, while this one became a witch and sailed smoothly all the way.

Did we even become the same kind of witch?

“Then let me ask one more thing. How old are you?”

“That… I’m not sure. It’s been too long; I never kept track. But among witches older than me, I remember there are only five.”

Only five?!

Pelleti didn’t know the exact number of witches in existence, but being the sixth-oldest among all witches was an absolutely staggering figure.

Judging by the time since witches disappeared from human sight, Scarlet Night wasn’t merely a few hundred years old as Pelleti had guessed—

She was over a thousand.

A thousand-year-old loli.

“So, big sister, what exactly is Starlight?” Scarlet Night continued to ask, still puzzled.

In her previous life, when she first met Qingcheng, Qingcheng had already reached Radiant Moon Fourth Tier and spent much of her time wandering among various races, becoming so famous that most powerful figures with any strength at all knew her.

A low-tier term like “Starlight” was something she had truly never encountered.

“Starlight is one tier below Radiant Moon,” Pelleti explained with a completely speechless expression.
“The weakest trash-tier there is.”

Now knowing that she was accompanied by a near-invincible powerhouse, Pelleti could no longer tell whether this was good news or bad.

The good news was that she didn’t need to worry about her safety.

The bad news was that she needed to worry about whether her poor heart could handle it.

“Oh, so it’s that weak.”
Scarlet Night nodded in sudden realization.

Pelleti really wanted to comfort herself with kids say the darndest things, but the so-called “kid” in front of her was a thousand-year-old witch wearing a loli shell. What kind of child was that supposed to be?!

“Then why does big sister want to stay weak? Don’t people usually want to become stronger?” Scarlet Night asked again.

“What’s so good about being strong? Unless you’re invincible in this age, all it brings is endless trouble. You end up running all over the world, unable to sleep properly, worrying about something going wrong every day. Just thinking about that kind of life sounds miserable.”

“Then big sister could build a house and hide in it,” Scarlet Night suggested innocently. “If you hide, trouble won’t be able to find you.”

She had actually done this herself—and verified that it worked.

“How could building a house let you hide?” Pelleti scoffed. “Someone would be knocking on your door in no time.”

“Nope~”
Scarlet Night’s voice suddenly softened, carrying a strange certainty.
“If you stay together with Scarlet Night in a little black room—sleeping, eating, playing—no one will disturb you for hundreds of years. Scarlet Night has tried it before. It’s very safe.”

Hearing this, Pelleti frowned slightly, realizing that things might not be as simple as she had thought.

After experiencing Josuna’s basement incident, and then learning about the concept of a “yandere’s little black room” from that book, she had developed a brand-new—and not very pleasant—understanding of those three words.

Hearing them again from Scarlet Night’s mouth, Pelleti felt an inexplicable sense of alarm.

Scarlet Night’s feelings toward her…

Why did they always seem a bit too high?

Was this really the kind of attitude the Witch of Night should have toward the Witch of Light?

Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, casting shifting patterns of light and shadow across Pelleti’s face. She looked at the innocent-faced Scarlet Night beside her and, for the first time, felt a deep sense of doubt about this so-called role of “protector.”

A protector… of a little black room?