The silence of the dungeon, shattered by the little girl’s tearful apology, then plunged into an even more taut, suspicion-charged vortex.
Furenna kept her head raised and her glare fixed. Her amber eyes were like frozen lakes, sharp and cold as they examined the thin, trembling figure a few paces away.
Pain still scorched every part of her, but a stronger sense of vigilance, like a bucket of ice water, temporarily doused the self-destructive agony and rage inside her.
This was the deepest part of the Demon King’s castle, the domain of the one who had just subjected her to the ultimate humiliation.
A human-looking little girl, carrying a towel and a bucket of suspicious liquid, appearing in her cage?
It was absurd. And dangerous.
“Who sent you?”
Furenna’s voice was terribly hoarse, each word grating out like gravel, laced with undisguised wariness and doubt.
“Treat wounds? On whose command?”
The little girl flinched again under that icy stare and the question. The old wooden bucket in her hand swayed, a few clear droplets splashing out to land silently on the dark stone floor.
She pressed her pale lips tight together. Tears welled in her lake-green eyes, but she stubbornly held them back.
She seemed to gather immense courage before answering in a voice that was soft yet clear:
“It… it was the Demon King. Her Majesty… She ordered me to come… to check on your injuries and help treat them.”
She paused, her voice dropping even lower, carrying a faint, barely detectable note of humiliation and resignation.
“Her Majesty also said… from now on, I… I am to be your personal maid. Responsible for… for tending to you, for helping you recover.”
When she said “injuries,” the little maid’s gaze flickered involuntarily to a deep purple bruise visible at the torn edge of Furenna’s prisoner garb near her neck—a mark that looked particularly vicious under the eerie green moss-light—before she quickly averted her eyes as if burned, lowering her head to stare at her own feet.
“Demon King,” “personal maid,” “tending to injuries”—these words strung together felt colder to Furenna than any direct mockery.
To send a “maid” to “offer care” immediately after committing such violence and humiliation? Was this hypocritical, cat-playing-with-mouse kindness? Another form of surveillance? Or some new, more twisted method of torture?
The dungeon sank into a brief, suffocating quiet.
Only the uneven breaths of the two intertwined—Furenna’s heavy and trembling with pain, the little girl’s faint and fraught with fear.
Furenna did not speak. She simply kept those cold amber eyes fixed on the little girl, unblinking, as if trying to see right through her, from the outside in.
The Heroine was assessing, calculating.
Should she accept this obviously dubious “kindness,” potentially easing her wounds and preserving strength?
Or refuse outright, driving this potential threat away?
The severe physical pain was a constant drain on her will. Every second of delay was exhausting, a pointless waste of her dwindling energy.
And this little girl… She looked far too weak, far too timid. She didn’t seem like a direct threat.
“…Fine. Come here.”
Heroine Furenna finally spoke. Her voice was still hoarse, but the earlier sharp edge of fury had receded somewhat,
leaving only profound exhaustion and a cold, business-like tone.
She even leaned back slightly, letting her chained hands rest at her sides, adopting a posture that seemed to relax her guard and permit approach.
The little girl visibly relaxed, her shoulders slumping a little, a flash of relief crossing her tightly drawn face.
She had hardly dared to breathe moments before, terrified this fierce, badly wounded “Heroine Sister” might suddenly lash out.
Now, though cold, the other seemed to accept her presence and purpose.
“O-okay! Heroine Sister, I’ll clean you up right away.”
The little girl hurriedly agreed, her voice tinged with an eagerness to please.
She picked up the bucket and moved forward cautiously, one hesitant step at a time,
stopping about an arm’s length from Furenna, crouching to place the bucket on the ground between them.
The liquid inside was clear to the bottom, reflecting the green light. It truly looked like water,
and carried an extremely faint, hard-to-describe scent of herbs and plants, not unpleasant.
The little girl fished the cloth from the bucket, soaked it, and gave it a gentle wring.
Then she looked up timidly at Furenna, as if asking where to begin.
Furenna did not move. She merely looked down at her, her gaze resting on the somewhat rough hands holding the damp cloth,
then moving to the young face etched with unease and a strained effort to please.
Now.
Just as the little girl finally mustered her courage, reaching out, the damp cloth about to touch the nearest welt on Furenna’s arm—
Furenna moved!
The Heroine’s motion was swift as lightning, utterly unlike someone gravely injured and weak!
Though her hands, bound by short chains, had limited mobility, her fingers were still powerful and precise!
Her left hand shot out like an iron clamp, seizing the little girl’s wrist that held the cloth!
Simultaneously, her right leg bent, using her knee as a pivot. Her body, coiled like a tightened spring, leveraged the forward momentum to violently lunge her upper body forward and down!
“Aah—!”
The little girl only had time for a short cry of shock before an utterly irresistible force wrenched her wrist, sending her world spinning!
Her thin, small body was tossed to the ground like a weightless leaf under Furenna’s cold, precise takedown!
Her back slammed onto the cold stone floor, the air forced from her lungs in a pained gasp.
The wet cloth flew from her hand, landing nearby.
The old wooden bucket was kicked over, its “clear water” spilling out, spreading a dark patch of damp on the stone.
Furenna pinned the girl with one knee on her side, her left hand twisting the small wrist in a vice-like grip, her right elbow pressed against the slender neck, establishing absolute control.
The entire sequence was executed in one fluid motion, bearing the ruthless decisiveness honed on the battlefield, not entirely lost even in her weakened state.
In that split second of the other’s approach and reach, the thought that flashed through Furenna’s mind was: A doll.
One of the Four Heavenly Kings—the Dollmaker Lili Ai—specialized in creating lifelike dolls.
Could this suddenly appearing “maid,” whose behavior seemed reasonable yet was处处透着蹊跷 all the same,
be a biomimetic doll crafted by Lili Ai for surveillance or to carry out some hidden order?
If so, subduing it might yield useful components, potential bargaining chips for future plans.
However, the sensation under her palm, the faint pulse beating beneath the wrist,
the vibrant, life-filled trembling and struggling of the body pinned beneath her,
and the warm tears that instantly welled up from pain and fright…
All this told her, with crystal clarity:
This was not cold, stiff synthetic material. This was a living, warm being who could feel fear and pain.
Not a doll.
But this discovery did not ease Furenna’s wariness; it deepened her suspicions instead.
A living… what? A demon child? Or something else?
She did not loosen her grip. Instead, she increased the pressure of her pinning arm slightly, making the girl beneath her cry out in pain, tears flowing faster.
“Talk,”
Furenna’s voice was low, but carried a chill like an ice spike, piercing the little girl’s eardrums,
“Who really sent you? What’s your true purpose? What’s in the bucket?”
Her gaze swept over the spilled liquid on the floor. The faint herbal scent seemed a little stronger now.
“Ow… it really hurts…”
The little girl sobbed, tears and snot smearing her face, struggling futilely under Furenna’s weight,
“I… I’m not lying… It really was the Demon King… The bucket has medicine for wounds… it’s a potion… Her Majesty gave it…”
“Medicine?”
Furenna let out a cold laugh, her smile devoid of any warmth.
“Then prove it to me.”
As she spoke, her left hand kept its grip on the girl’s wrist, but her right hand released the pressure on the neck,
reaching instead to pick up the fallen, still-damp cloth nearby.
The little girl seemed to sense what was coming, her tear-filled eyes widening in terror.
“If you say it’s healing medicine,”
Furenna held the damp cloth before the little girl’s face,
“then it must work well. How about I injure you first, then try it on you?”
“No! No!!”
The little girl burst into louder sobs, shaking her head frantically, her body squirming.
“I’m scared of pain! Heroine Sister! Please!
I’m really scared of pain! Don’t cut me! That… that really is medicine for healing! Her Majesty gave it!”
“Scared of pain??”
Furenna’s movement paused slightly, the mockery in her eyes growing thicker.
“A demon, calling me ‘sister’ so fakely, and saying you’re scared of pain?”
“Your acting, or rather, your master’s instructions, are truly meticulous.”
She deliberately emphasized the word “demon.”
“No! I’m not a demon! I’m human!”
In her desperation, the little girl blurted it out, almost screaming through her tears.
Heroine Furenna’s actions froze completely in that instant.
The knee pinning the girl’s side, the fingers twisting the small wrist, even the cold mockery on her face—all seemed to hit a pause button.
Only her amber eyes, pupils contracting sharply, churned with wave upon wave of shock and utter disbelief.
“…What did you say?”
Her voice suddenly rose, sharp with a near-hysterical disbelief, as if she’d heard the world’s most absurd joke.
“You’re what? Human? In the deepest part of the Demon King’s fortress, a human maid?”
“It’s true! I am human!”
The little girl, frightened by Furenna’s abruptly changed expression and tone, babbled through her hiccuping sobs, trying to prove herself.
“I… I… I was caught by a very, very pretty succubus sister… no, a bad succubus! She caught me!”
“She… she said I looked somewhat delicate, and my temper was… was somewhat obedient,
so she took me, wanted to… to keep me as her personal plaything…”
The little girl cried in fits and starts:
“Later… later, I don’t know how, the Demon King found out.
Her Majesty was very angry, said… said her succubus clan had long forbidden keeping humans as private pets, it’s strictly prohibited…
My original succubus mistress, she… she was punished by Her Majesty, put in confinement…
Then, then I was confiscated, became a public maid in the fortress, doing odd jobs.
Today… today Her Majesty suddenly summoned me, said I’m to serve you from now on, be your personal maid. This is my first time getting a task like this…
Wah… I’m really not lying, Heroine Sister, I really am human! I’m human!”
The little girl’s words landed like thunderclaps, exploding in Furenna’s ears.
This child… was human!