บท 8: Interview with a demon

I stared blankly at the table in front of me. There, various spreads of food—cuisine—were laid by one (1) demon girl with six hands coming out of her back and another, more 'normal' looking woman with pinkish skin and small pair of membraned wings.

But even their foreign-looking shape couldn't take my attention away from the table.

Food. Solid, nice-looking food.

How long had it been since I faced such a thing? I had used to tasteless, saltless, hospital food and later, liquid food as my intestinal wall deteriorated. And then I woke up to a broken body that couldn't eat much, that also coincidentally broke because of the forced debt, so I could only eat sparsely.

"Don't eat too much, or your stomach won't be able to handle it," the strangely kind Demon Lord said, seating across the table. "But you can eat whatever you like."

His voice snapped me from the momentarily dazed produced by this *gulp* sumptuous meal that looked as dazzling as the Amrita. Which returned me to the absurdity of the situation.

Instead of answering my question about our whereabouts, he told me to bathe and change, and to go to the adjoining room after. He said he'd answered all my questions regarding our 'contract' there.

And so, after a very nice bath, and changed into very comfortable clothes that were a little bit loose on my body, I walked into the other room and was greeted with this...situation, of two demon girls—that were either servants or waitress depending on where this actually was—filling a fairly large table with delicacies upon delicacies.

The only thing I could do at that point was to wordlessly sit down because if I opened my mouth, I might disgrace the nice clothes with my drool. It was then that I realized how hungry I was, with the accumulated stress and the treatment, and the organ that finally functioning again and demanded to be filled with nutrition.

And of course, with how tantalizing the meal looked and how fragrant they were.

I had thought deep while the meal was being served, about whether it would be right for me to just eat in peace like this. Thought about poison or other strange substances surfacing, and I could see the Demon Lord chuckle when this happened. I thought I was sporting a good poker face, but perhaps it was written all over me?

I looked at him and he was smiling—or was that a smirk?—with an amused gaze in his moon-like eyes. And then I remembered his words last night, that it would be a waste of fixing me if I were to die and broken after.

Right. So it would be ridiculous if the meal had something in them, right?

I don't know why, but Natha didn't look like someone who would employ such an underhanded, boring trick. Like he looked too...elite, for that. It would be like having the top student in an advanced placement class resort to cheating during the tests. Unbecoming and disgraceful.

Right. Let's just eat then. Besides, I had no idea when I would be able to eat something like this again, so might as well savor it.

I recognized some of the food from Valmeier's memory, from where he had a rare chance of dining with nobles or rich merchants that wanted to employ his power in the past. But some food looked exotic, foreign to my and Valmeier's eyes; more vibrant and vivid in color, violet and blue and bright red, yet more subtle in fragrance. I wondered if that were the demon's specialty.

Haa...I wanted to try everything as if there was a glutton waking up inside of me. No, that wasn't right. I wanted to try everything, not guzzled them down. It was more like greed to try everything new, to try the things I couldn't do before.

Eating comfortably was one of those things.

But...wouldn't it be rude to just sample each plate? I wasn't eating alone after all.

When I struggled with the dilemma, the Demon Lord spoke again, but it wasn't directed at me. "Angwi, please help him," he signaled to the girl with six hands that swiftly and wordlessly took a little portion from a plate that I had been eyeing, put it in an empty, small plate, and laid it in front of me. And then she started to do it to other foods as well and soon, the space in front of me was filled with small plates with different kinds of food.

I realized that the flood of plates wouldn't stop until every sample of food was in front of me so I hurriedly started to eat, now eyeing the Demon Lord instead. He stared back at me, leaning on his chair with a teasing smile, and I asked suspiciously.

"Are you reading my mind?"

The smile turned into a chuckle. "Not really,"

Not really. So to some extent. The demon was being more honest than I thought he would be. But then again, he had no need to lie. A predator needs no pretense in front of prey after all. Should I test how far he would be willing to tell me?

"What did you do then?" I asked casually while stuffing my mouth, like it wouldn't matter even if he wouldn't tell me.

But soon I realized that my pretense wouldn't work in front of his ability by the way he chuckled after that. Damn, so stupid, Val.

"I can't read your mind, but I can sense them, somewhat."

Oh? He actually answered that. Was he being generous, or was it his way of telling me: you won't be able to hide anything from me?

"Sense?" I asked with confusion, no longer trying to keep a useless poker face.

"When people have strong thoughts or intentions, they projected that thought outward to some extent," he explained to me while sipping on his cup. "Their mouth might not say it, but their spirit usually shouts it out loud."

I blinked and had to put down my fork at that. "You read...soul?"

His smile deepened as an answer. I ate silently for a while, trying to distract myself by immersing in the taste of the food. But when the blasting sourness from one purple-colored jelly-like meat did not affect the tingling curiosity, I finally asked while biting my fork slightly.

"Who—" I paused for a bit, frowning, and then continued as I corrected the question. "What are you?"

This was what I was supposed to ask first. I had completely surrendered myself to someone I didn't even know the race of. Not that it mattered much, as long as he had what I needed, but it should help me to at least form some sort of contingency plan should things go horribly, horribly wrong.

You know, like how to rebel in case he asked me to smite some innocent children.

Yes, I knew it sounded prejudiced, but it didn't come from the fact that he was a demon—well, a little bit, but not all. It was because he too, in the end, was a Lord, an aristocrat. And knowing what kind of atrocities the nobles in Lenaar did, I didn't really have any high expectations.

"You mean my sub-race?"

I nodded while eating the purple jellyfish-like meat unconsciously and shuddered from the sour taste. The demon girl, Angwi, shoved a plate in front of me, like wordlessly telling me to eat it, so I did, and the honey-like sweetness from the piece helped me navigate through the exploding tingle in my mouth.

While I look at her with gratitude, the blue-skinned demon leaned back on his seat, propped his elbow on the armrest, and looked at me with crescent moon eyes. Instead of answering, he threw me a question instead.

"Why don't you guess?"

Ugh...my lips pursed in reflex. I didn't like quizzes. Didn't like guessing. Didn't like uncertain things that gave me hope.

In the first place, human knowledge about demons in general was less than decent. Much less me, who wasn't an original resident of this world. I also had no idea what kind of setting the author made for the demonkind. I supposed I knew that the final boss of book one, the Demon Lord of Wrath, Amar Ha Metta, was a red giant.

But from the information that humans managed to gather, demonkind had seven lords with different sub-race, which control seven territories under the Demon King's reign. But our information stopped there. Besides the defeated demon lord whose territory bordered the humans, no one knew about the other demon lords.

But just for the demon's amusement, I supposed I'd just try to guess.

But between the lack of knowledge on my side, and the only thing that I know about this man—which was his appearance—there was only one sub-race I could think of.

My mind was instantly flying to the time I woke up this morning, the time I saw his face and figure clearly. Something that seemed to exist for seduction, even to the calming voice and gentle disposition that for all I knew could be a trap. And the thing about 'reading souls' made me think about a type of demon that messed with people's minds.

When my mind wandered there, I bit my lips subconsciously, and narrowed my eyes at him. I spoke carefully then, holding my fork tightly. "Umh...Incubus?"

Instead of Natha, a sound came from the corner of the room, where the winged demoness who had been sitting in the corner chair grunted. When I turned my head to look at her, she was pouting and making an annoyed face.

And then laughter, from the demon lord himself. "Don't mind her," he said, waving his hand. "Zidoa had some unresolved issues with a certain Incubus, so she's rather sensitive."

Ah, so he wasn't one. I just shrugged, not really intending to get it right in the first place.

"Are you making that guess because of my trait with souls?"

It was actually more because he was hot, but the soul thing was also in my calculation, so I just nodded slightly while tilting my head, demanding an answer.

"Don't you think an Incubus would be more suited for the Demon Lord of Lust?"

Oh, that's true, why didn't I think of that? In that case, though, I didn't have any more guesses.

Fortunately, he didn't drag the guessing game.

"Well, to be fair, I have a bit of connection with the Incubus kind," he said with a smile. "Like a far relative or something like that."

Hmmm...didn't help. I still had no idea.

"Technically, they called me Soul Tracker. And then some became spiteful and change it into Soul Tricker," the silver eyes seemed like they were swirling, which was quite hypnotizing.

"But if we refer to modern terms then..." he looked at me straight, and somehow I felt my heart beating fast, as if I was preparing to hear a spoiler.

"They called me Nightmare."