Chapter 211 - Chapter 207: IF Side Story - Still Getting Devoured (9)
Is this the afterlife...?
After being discovered by a human and losing consciousness, it was obvious what would happen next.
I probably died at the hands of that human, or my life simply flickered out from hunger and cold.
I can only let out a bitter laugh.
Ah... to think that after struggling so hard in such a cutthroat, brutal life, I ended up dying in the human world—and in some secluded alleyway, at that.
It was a truly pathetic end.
I still can't believe that after fighting so hard to make something of myself, I ended up dying alone on Earth, not even in the Demon World.
While I was lost in such futile thoughts, a strange, warm heat began to flow into my body.
I opened my eyes to investigate, and a bright light blinded me. A moment later, as my vision adjusted, I saw things I didn't recognize.
"What is this... didn't I die?..."
Looking around, it was clear this wasn't the afterlife.
I was in a small room, lying on a bed. There was a desk with a storage unit, and a square object on a stand whose purpose I couldn't fathom.
Items were scattered about that looked like the human goods that occasionally drifted into the Demon World.
Clack.
As I shifted my head back and forth, the door opened and someone walked in.
"Hick... hieek..."
The person saw my face and gasped in surprise.
"This... human..."
The person standing before me was definitely the human I'd begged for my life before passing out.
The unfamiliar room, the strange objects, and the human who had been staring at me—everything clicked into place in an instant.
I finally understood the situation.
Foolishly, this human had actually spared my life.
'For what reason?...'
That question could wait. Assessing my situation was the priority.
My magic was nearly depleted, making it impossible to return to the Demon World. If I were careful, I could use my succubus abilities a few times at most.
I lacked direct combat powers like charm or memory manipulation, so I'd be useless against hunters, but... standing before me was an ordinary, terrified human.
Turning an ordinary human into a puppet would be easy. I focused my remaining sliver of magic into my fingers.
I tried to lift my body, but my torso just flopped back down in a pathetic display.
"Ugh..."
I couldn't put any strength into my limbs. After two weeks of cold and hunger, my body was in shambles.
"Uhm... hey, are you okay?"
It was strange. They were terrified of me a moment ago, yet here they were, worrying about me despite knowing what I am.
Was this human insane? If I had any other intentions, they'd be dead already.
"Why did you save me...?"
"Because you said you'd be helpful if I saved you?..."
Ah... they really were insane. A human blinded by greed.
"The things I said while I was dying... didn't you think those were lies?..."
The human seemed to have shed much of their fear, realizing I was someone they could communicate with.
"In such a desperate situation, you spoke so coherently about mind control and aphrodisiacs while begging for your life, so I thought it must be true. People don't usually think to appeal to their own usefulness like that while asking for help. You probably memorized it in your head, just in case you were found."
"..."
Correct. Ever since my troops were crushed by that hunter, Park Yu-ra, I'd discarded my pride.
If I had to choose between pride and life, the answer was always life. Otherwise, there would be no reason to sacrifice all my troops just to survive.
"Gulp... but is that true?"
The human suddenly asked, swallowing hard.
"What do you mean?..."
"About the mind control... and the aphrodisiac."
They sounded like they couldn't believe it. It was unique. This human had saved me based on words that weren't even certain.
I couldn't get a handle on what this woman was thinking.
'It's definitely greed, but to bet one's life on such an uncertain story...'
Perhaps because of that, I became interested in her.
"It's possible, but... what do you intend to use it for?"
"There's someone I want to make my own."
Greed shone in her eyes. That glistening desire.
It reminded me of when I fought my eldest sister for the successor position. She wanted it so badly she'd trade her own life for it.
My ambition to take my mother's place—her desire must be similar.
I became interested. I wanted to know who she wanted to possess and what had driven her to such madness.
"It's not a repayment for saving my life, it's just that my interest has been piqued..."
Grrr.
I tried to maintain some dignity, but my stomach shamelessly interrupted.
"First, let's eat, and then I'll show you. What I want."
The woman picked up a black, rectangular object and began pressing it.
There was a language on it I didn't know.
"The order is placed, so just wait a little and the food will come. Let's talk while we eat."
Food appears just from that action?...
I realized again that this place was a completely different world from the Demon World.
It seems about a month has passed since that incident with Yu-rin.
For a while, I trembled because Yu-rin's appearance overlapped with the stalker, but she didn't try to inflict any harm on me.
Starting from that day, she seemed to repent, and her obsessive behavior disappeared.
For the past month, as I helped her with her streamer debut, I realized we had returned to being friends.
Now, every weekend, we do joint broadcasts at her studio apartment.
"Seon-ah, what are you thinking about for so long? Just read the bomb defusal manual already!"
The game involved one person reading the manual and the other performing the defusal.
"Yu-rin, what's the display number?"
"What's a display?"
Oh, right. Yu-rin was computer-illiterate.
"You know, the thing with numbers written on a screen as big as a smartphone. What's the number on that?"
"Ah... that? Number 1."
"Then press number 4 among the buttons below."
"Got it!"
It was going smoothly, but Yu-rin kept making mistakes, and the bomb had exploded fourteen times.
"Ah, I pressed the wrong one. Why is number 4 in the second position!"
"Hey!"
The buttons weren't in order, so she had to be careful, but she messed up again. That was the eighth time.
Yu-rin was good at physical games, but not at games that required using your head.
The chat window was plastered with "lol."
[Wow, her intelligence is really at a chick's level lol]
[Look at Seon-ah getting annoyed lol, that's real tension]
[They really don't have chemistry, like, at all lol]
I was annoyed, but it was a novelty. How long had it been since I played a game with this much sincerity?
It felt like a long time since I'd enjoyed playing a game.
Then, Yu-rin pressed something, and an explosion sound rang out.
"Ah... it exploded."
"I told you not to touch it before I say so! It's already exploded 15 times... The Jar Game we have to do together has already accumulated 15 hours!"
Because I had a penalty where 1 hour of the Jar Game was added for every failed defusal, I had to play seriously.
"Jar Game? Can't we just play that?"
"..."
[lol Yu-rin must not have tried it, Seon-ah gave up on the Jar Game after 40 hours last time]
[Back then, you were in a state where you couldn't even sleep, your eyes were hollow, and you were just mumbling nonsense all day, it was so funny when you went back to the starting village from the last stage lol]
Ah... as expected, my viewers are demons.
To think they gave it as a penalty and laughed every time I failed.
Even with 15 hours of Jar Game ahead, I was satisfied. Yu-rin streaming, the viewers—that incident with her felt like a dream.
At the time, I thought only such memories would pile up and that we'd only grow closer.
"Ah, it exploded again!"
"Ah... ahh..."
After the broadcast, the number of bombs Yu-rin had exploded was 44.
The next day, we played the Jar Game for 44 hours straight, and with all the tension released, we fell asleep in bed as if we had fainted.
There were two women watching Seon-ah broadcasting with Yu-rin.
The woman with blonde hair and brown skin, wearing a white hoodie, laughed.
"Hehehe... he looks even prettier than the sex slaves I saw in the Demon World... with looks like that, I'd quite like to have him, too."
"No! I don't want... other women's hands to touch Seon-ah."
"I'm joking. But you know? He's already stuck to another woman? Hmm... a joint broadcast? He's getting quite close to this streamer named Yu-rin."
Bianca was rolling a lollipop in her mouth, having adapted to Earth's culture.
"I saved you because of that, too! Seon-ah doesn't suit a bitch like that... Mind control... aphrodisiac... it's true that both are possible, right?"
"Why are you so suspicious? I showed you right in front of your eyes just two days ago. I did it by splitting the little magic power I had left. Aren't you being too distrustful?"
"Was that so?... Sorry for getting excited for no reason..."
The human had long since stopped using polite language and saw me as nothing more than a tool.
Every time she saw Yu-rin with Seon-ah, she bit her nails, and she was gradually changing.
Demons don't go crazy from jealousy, but perhaps it happens often among humans. It's not something to think about too deeply.
The woman in front of me, Sena, was Seon-ah's manager.
I planned to pretend to help her, then secretly spirit Seon-ah away, carve my Yin Mark on him, and extort his essence to recover my magic.
I needed that man to return to the Demon World and re-establish my foundation.
If I made Seon-ah, who was more beautiful than most high-class sex slaves, my partner and sold his body to high-ranking demons, I'd easily make enough money to raise the troops I'd lost. He was absolutely necessary.
My heart is pounding.
If my plan works, I might hold more wealth and power than I did in the Demon World.
"You know Seon-ah is an ability user, right?... What if your ability doesn't work because he's an ability user with an acceleration ability?"
"Don't worry, unless he's a mental-type, he won't be able to nullify my ability. Besides, he's a weak man, right? Even if he tries to use his ability... he's weak as hell, isn't he?"
He was a male with abilities more useful than a typical sex slave.
He wouldn't die easily, even if he were pinned down by other bitches and had his essence extorted countless times with that tenacious life of his.
Watching Sena, who couldn't hide her anxiety but still agreed with me, I smiled.
A bright smile, as if to say not to worry, that I would solve everything.
But inwardly, I laughed at her.
Seeing my smile, she let out a sigh of relief.
Without noticing my ulterior motives, she mistook me for a genie in a lamp.