The female demon named Sani awoke to a shocking realization.
She... was still alive.
She was merely tied to a stake, unable to move.
Why hadn't she been killed yet?
What on earth did that human lunatic plan to do to her?
"Oh, Miss Sani, you're awake. I made some preparations while you were unconscious."
Fíliya's signature wicked smile made Sani's body tense up instinctively, but... as things stood, she still felt no fear.
After all, for the Demon Race, death was instantaneous. Moreover, demons were largely indifferent to pain. Even if this madwoman wanted to torture her, it wouldn't amount to much.
"Your cooperation has allowed me to understand the Demon Race better, which is why I have the opportunity to do this. I'm very grateful."
Fíliya's tone was gentle and full of warmth.
But clearly, Miss Sani felt none of it.
"What are you going to do? If you're going to kill me, do it quickly."
Sani said, growing impatient.
"No, no, no... If I were to simply kill you, it would be far too unfair to all the lives that were lost, wouldn't it? The Demon Race is quite insensitive to pain, and death is just an instant. You'd feel hardly any suffering at all... That just won't do. If I killed you like that, I'd have no way to console the souls of those who died so horribly... Fortunately, I've come up with a plan."
Fíliya continued to smile, then reached out and infused a bit of mana into Sani's body—along with, of course, a certain magic.
"To show my respect for you, I spent a great deal, you know? I'm usually very reluctant to spend my points, but for you, I used one million of them to acquire this magic."
...Points? What points? It was a word she had never heard.
...The unease in her heart grew stronger. Under this oppressive sense of the unknown, Miss Sani's heart—the heart of a demon—finally began to tremble.
"What... what did you do?"
"You'll know soon enough. Very soon."
As she spoke, Fíliya generated a short sword from her mana and then... swung it directly at Sani's thigh.
"AHHHHHHHHH!!"
It was a sharp, violent scream. In that instant, the great Miss Sani made history for the Demon Race.
She was surely the first demon to ever feel such excruciating pain.
"Mm, the effect is outstanding. This 'Pain Amplification Magic'."
Fíliya was clearly very satisfied with the results.
Before this, she had hesitated for nearly an hour before purchasing this magic from the System.
Yes, that's right. Miss Fíliya possessed a System. Of course, she only knew that the thing in her head was called the 'System'. When she was a child, she had assumed everyone had a companion in their mind called the 'System', but after some simple tests, she discovered it was unique to her.
As long as she could provoke an emotional change in others, she would receive certain rewards from the System. The rarer and more intense the subject's emotional change, the more points she would receive.
And these reward points from the System could be exchanged for many kinds of magic.
In short, that was the mechanism.
The convenience of the System had allowed her to reach heights unattainable by her peers at such an age; at the same time, it had also, in a way, subtly influenced her personality, turning her into the eccentric that many of her colleagues called her.
She had originally wanted to save the points. At first, she tried invading Miss Sani's mind and activating all of her pain receptors, but with little effect.
This was likely because the Demon Race has very few pain receptors to begin with, so activating them all didn't produce a significant effect.
In the end, she had to tearfully buy this exceedingly cruel curse magic.
"You... you lunatic."
After her shrill scream, Sani could only manage a very faint, breathy sound.
"Lunatic? Hearing that word from a demon's mouth is quite novel. Miss Sani, I've been thinking, you know? Perhaps the reason the Demon Race is so cruel is that you can't feel pain... The average strength of a demon is far greater than that of a human, which naturally puts you in the position of 'predator'. At the same time, you are completely devoid of humanity, feel no pain, and experience no despair even when you are killed in turn by humans."
"A race like you, a Demon Race like this... how must you be reformed to help you evolve? I've been pondering this question ever since I was a magic apprentice."
"And this is the answer I've come up with. Only by finding a way to make you feel the exact same despair and pain as your 'prey' might your inferior race have a hope of evolving. For my entire life so far, I have thought every single day about how to express my love for you... Hmm? You don't understand? I have spent all my energy and youth thinking about how to help the Demon Race evolve, you see? Such an act is, without a doubt, love. So, you must stay conscious until you turn to dust, alright? Otherwise, I'll be disappointed..."
Miss Fíliya chattered on, her face flush with excitement.
In stark contrast, Miss Sani's face was deathly pale.
What in the world was this lunatic talking about? Sani could no longer think. If the Demon King were still alive, she would offer everything just to be allowed to die immediately.
The only thing she could be certain of was that the madwoman before her was the most inhumane human she had ever met.
Her spirit utterly broken, Miss Sani began to await her fate.
However, the excruciating pain she tensed her body in anticipation of did not come again.
It seemed that after chopping off one of her legs, the madwoman had gotten busy with something else.
What... what else could she possibly want to do? Wasn't this enough?! Can't she just kill me quickly?!
The demon named Sani, for the first time, felt fear in the face of this intense unknown.
Finally, she could no longer bear it and opened her eyes.
And then she saw, just a few meters away, the madwoman had skewered her severed leg on a stick and... was roasting it over a fire.
She...
She's going to eat me?!
Realizing this, Sani was nearly crushed by despair. At this moment, she surely regretted not having a way to quickly end her own life.
Fíliya noticed Sani's condition.
Because her System showed that a deposit of 200,000 emotion points had suddenly arrived.
This made Fíliya freeze for a moment, but she quickly burst with immense joy.
So the Demon Race isn't emotionless after all. As long as you're cruel enough, they can contribute emotion points too.
She laughed out loud.
Then she looked at Sani, a hint of apology in her eyes.
"Sorry... I'm so very sorry, Miss Sani. I'm not some pervert who eats people, you know. What I'm doing now is just 'equivalent retaliation'. See, it's always you demons eating humans, but humans almost never get the chance to eat demons, right? After all, the moment you die, you turn to ash... so I have to hurry and have a taste while you're still alive."
"I'm sorry, really... I'm really not the kind of pervert who enjoys torturing others for fun... You should blame the special constitution of the Demon Race... I don't want to do something like eating a demon alive, either. It's so embarrassing."
Towards the end, Fíliya's words even took on a coquettish tone, making it impossible to tell she was in the middle of such a horrifying act.
As for Sani, there was nothing left for her to fear. At the end of her life, she suddenly thought of the humans she had killed.
Their desperate screams, their vicious curses.
[You monster... you'll get what's coming to you.]
"'What's coming to me'... Does it mean... this situation right now?"
In a strange wave of emotion that she was about to understand, yet couldn't quite grasp, the demon girl Sani... died.
"Eh? She's dead already? The life force of the Demon Race is more fragile than I thought."
Fíliya shook her head in resignation, watching as the skewer of roasted meat in her hand rapidly disintegrated into dust.
She was, of course, curious about what demons tasted like, but eating a 'humanoid' intelligent creature would still cause significant psychological stress for a normal human. She had only been trying to scare the demon to see if it would generate any additional emotions.
What's that? Miss Fíliya isn't a normal person? How could that be? She's so cute.
In any case, with a mix of regret and relief, Miss Fíliya began to clean up the aftermath.
____
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