Interlude – Demon, and Human

―Hageueueueut?!!!!

__

Just as Sophia was about to return after receiving the recommendation letter from Erze, she stopped in her tracks, hearing a scream that sounded like a hallucination. The dining hall was only ten steps away, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. Cold sweat trickled down her back. The scream, spreading like mist, devoured the silence and finally reached her ears.

The second floor, where the dining hall was located, was deserted due to Erze’s control. Sophia clutched the bright yellow parchment and took a deep breath.

“Huu…”

The scream, echoing like a round song, seemed to fade a little.

Thud, thud. Sophia walked weakly, feeling the gazes of nameless masterpieces. Her heart was filled with the desire to run away, but she couldn’t help but move forward.

Her body and soul were already bound to the witch. To Sophia, Yujin’s orders were absolute, beyond anything else. How could she resist when he showed her power that resembled a god’s, time and time again?

Lights decorated with gold and silver. Passing through the dazzling symbols of wealth, she arrived at the dining hall, which was excessively quiet compared to the rows of tableware. Sophia carefully pulled out a neatly arranged chair and sat down.

It was silent.

However, the eerie feeling wriggling within the silence coiled around Sophia’s body like a snake.

One hour, two hours passed. It was too long to wait alone. But nothing could be heard. Was the scream she heard in the hallway really a hallucination? Only the ticking of the second hand and her own breathing echoed rhythmically, and no other sound was heard.

Even so. Sophia couldn’t let her guard down. Even after four hours had passed, Sophia’s back was still stiff.

Then.

―Kkiiieek…

The door to the ‘kitchen,’ which seemed to have been tightly closed and would never open, opened. It was the first time in 4 hours and 47 minutes. Sophia inhaled sharply at the faint smell of meat spreading out and raised her head.

In her line of sight, a middle-aged man with slicked-back hair, wearing a red apron, stood looking exhausted.

“I kept you waiting long, huh.”

“…”

Sophia narrowed her eyes and took a shallow breath. Pahar Chevalier von Britonia. She recognized an unforgettable smell coming from his body.

‘The smell of blood.’

The smell of human blood.

A strong smell of blood, strong enough not to be masked by the smell of spices, stung her nose. Sophia took another deep breath, smelling the acrid scent of blood. Even if Yujin died and returned to his true form, the act was not over.

The smell of blood spreading everywhere was not as severe as to fluster her. Compared to the stench she had smelled when she was a Dungeon Master… the blood flowing from rotten monsters was fragrant.

Above all, Sophia’s essence was a ‘Demon.’

To her, humans were nothing more than meat, like any other animal, and a delicious delicacy.

She was just too cowardly to hunt humans, but she had tasted humans before. Even if her personality and taste had changed after meeting Yujin, that fact did not change.

“Are you done cooking?”

Sophia said with a sweet smile. It was a flawless performance. Thanks to the brain simulations she had run during the four hours of empty waiting.

The Count shook his head and said.

“I haven’t put it on the plates yet.”

Plating. They say that food that looks good tastes good too. The Count’s ‘cooking’ was not complete until everything from preparation to cooking and decoration was finished. The Count asked her to wait a little longer and went back into the kitchen.

And a few minutes later.

―Deureureuk….

The Count came out pulling a large serving cart. On the tray were large and small dishes with lids on them. How much ‘meat’ would he have to use to make such a plate? There were so many trays that she couldn’t count them with her eyes.

He arranged the trays with solemn and dignified gestures.

The dishes filling the long, rectangular table made Sophia shudder, even though the lids had not yet been opened.

“Did you arrange them by part?”

“You have a good eye. Do you want to open them?”

She shuddered at the cruelty that rivaled that of a Demon. When the Count had filled about half the table, she couldn’t resist her curiosity and grabbed a lid. A cloud of rising steam momentarily obscured her vision. Sophia reflexively muttered at the shape flickering through the steam.

“Calf…”

The part, roasted to a golden brown, was a calf. From the calf to the foot. It was roasted whole.

The juices flowing from the cut surface would have looked appetizing if it weren’t for the presence of the toes, which said that this was a person. Moreover, the ankle was sunken and showed bone, as if telling her to grab it and tear it apart.

Sophia’s eyes naturally turned to the largest tray, the torso. The part that took up the most space on the table.

‘What is that…?’

However, there was something strange about arranging them by part. It was in the pelvic area in terms of location. But there was something round on top of it. The height of the lid was also higher than the other dishes.

“Are you curious?”

The Count spoke as he put down the last dish. Sophia didn’t answer. Instead, she moved herself to satisfy her curiosity.

“Euk….”

Sophia frowned and put the lid back on.

The unidentified dish contained a head. Sophia Clayde’s head, smiling happily with her eyes closed. The same face as her own was decorating the center of the table.

Sophia’s face turned pale.

She quickly returned to her seat before the Count noticed.

―Tak.

The plating ended a few minutes later, and all the veiled dishes revealed their identities. Calves roasted whole, thighs sliced into steaks, a torso split in half filled with unidentified meat, etc…

The meats, cooked in various ways, came together to form a single shape. It was Yujin’s body, who had been playing the role of a lively fifteen-year-old girl just a few hours ago.

Sophia wanted to escape this place immediately. Her stomach churned. If he wanted to eat humans, he should just eat them, what the hell was he doing? She was confused. That human’s desires were worse than a Demon’s.

“Haa…”

The Count only let out a sweet breath as he took in the sight before him.

He was ecstatic. Every time he looked at the young girl’s head on the table, he felt the pleasure of that moment. He couldn’t believe that he had taken the life of that talented girl with his own hands. The Peka Polis’s recommendation letter, still in the kitchen, stimulated the Count’s perverted sensibilities.

As the Red Witch said, it was the best stimulation he would never forget in his life. He felt like he could live for the next twenty years remembering this day.

“…Thank you.”

That was all the Count could say.

Sophia couldn’t bring herself to touch the food and only watched the Count’s reaction. Her tastes had changed since her horns had been broken and she had become a human. She didn’t feel disgusted by the food in front of her, but Sophia was now in a human body. She felt an unavoidable physiological rejection.

Sophia, unable to bear the continued silence, asked.

“…What are you going to do with this?”

“I’ll throw it away.”

“Yes?”

Immediate answer.

Sophia asked back with a dumbfounded expression. Throw it away? He had worked so hard to cook it for this long, and even plated it like this, and he was just going to throw it away?

“…Aren’t you going to eat it?”

“I don’t eat people.”

This bastard is crazy.

‘…Is this what a human is?’

Sophia was desperately realizing that fact.

“…Then, now that the cooking is done, can I go back now?”

“As you wish. I’ll just… I’ll just stay like this a little longer.”

* * *

The moment my guts spilled out and my breath was cut off, the chain link was activated along with an intangible sensation that snapped. A passage to the main body connected by a chain of Mana. Consciousness began to be transferred through this place.

It was instantaneous. In less than ten seconds, I awakened my mind in a new place. The magic tower, the laboratory where I worked with Clark. I came into my real body that I had put a protection spell on and thrown in the corner.

I contorted my face and twisted my body.

I was fine. I was too fine. I couldn’t feel the pain that had dominated my whole body until just now. This was, really, really. It was too much. It was the first time I had felt that way. A mild drug? Compared to the pleasure just before my breath was cut off, that kind of thing was garbage.

“Haa, heu.”

I scratched my head and pondered.

‘Just once. Should I do it just one more time?’

If I feel something like this, what am I supposed to do? That’s why I didn’t want to do it. But. If I know―

“Eugeuk….”

―No.

I scratched the floor without even realizing that my fingernails were falling out. I had to keep my sanity. If I couldn’t resist this, I would live miserably like when I was self-harming at the inn. I didn’t want to do that. I was finally finding meaning. Back to square one again.

Just, let’s forget it. I’m forgetting it. I’m going to pretend it didn’t happen and forget it. Kung, kung. I bang my head against the wall. I banged it so hard that my forehead was torn and the wall cracked. Once, twice. I banged it until I had a slight concussion.

“W, Witch-nim?”

Then. I heard a soft boy’s voice from behind. I turned around with eyes that were bloodshot and full of burst blood vessels and said.

“Cl, Clark?”

“Witch-nim, is that you?”

My lips, dry with hardened blood, cracked open. Clark couldn’t easily approach me. The sight of me distorting my face like a demon and banging my head was terrifying.

“Ah….”

Only then did I realize what I looked like, and I finally stopped self-harming. My strength drained and my body slumped.

“…I’m sorry.”

I showed him something he shouldn’t have seen. I sighed and used Reconstruction. My messed-up face returned to normal. But my disheveled hair remained, leaving traces of my hysteria.

“F, first of all! Get up…!”

Clark reached out his hand to me, who was sitting down, as if he felt sympathy. I stared blankly at Clark, then smiled and took his hand to get up.

“W, would you like me to get you some water…?”

“…No, I’m just going to rest like this. You can go back too.”

“O, okay…”

“Please.”

I’ll have to explain the situation later.

“Hueu….”

―Puleosseok.

I forced Clark to leave and lay down on the bed.

I should have just told him everything. But there were too many things I was hiding. Clark didn’t know that I was a severe masochist. He would probably think I was a sadist. That’s why it was hard to tell him everything. Even if I was tainted by me, he’s still pure. I can’t ask Clark to choke me and stab me with a knife.

I was frustrated.

Come to think of it, Shuriel was the only person I could freely talk about my tastes with. What a destructive relationship. If not Shuriel, then at most Certi, but she didn’t really like me either. It was from the time I became a dog with my limbs cut off in front of her.

Well, who would like someone like me? I have a bad personality, and my only hobby is self-harm. A gloomy woman who makes people around me feel depressed. A dry human who can’t smile without wearing a mask. I pulled the blanket over my head and curled up like a snail.

I should stay like this for a while. Sophia won’t come right away. She’ll probably come in about three hours. Until she comes, I can’t go outside the magic tower. It’ll be annoying to explain things if I become two people.

‘Shuriel is… probably trying hard too….’

Getting a recommendation letter as an agent is, of course, very difficult. It’ll be several times more difficult than it was for me. It’s someone else’s recommendation letter, after all. It’s bound to be difficult.

“….”

Anyway, I got the recommendation letter, so I have to meet him….

‘She’s not pushing herself because of me, is she….’