A woman wearing high-waisted puffy shorts and an oversized robe was headed down a corridor. The sound of her sandals clapping against the cold stone echoed throughout. She walked with purpose in her stride.

She was a member of the beastmen race, the rabbit-kind specifically. Two ivory bunny-ears sprouted from her short, wavy pink hair that was chopped bluntly at her chin. Her beautiful face was set in a serious expression, her eyes were the same bright pink of her hair but her pupils were gold and formed a four-point star. Her pale skin also had a pinkish tint to it.

Her name was Lilian.

The cold-hearted servant of the Demon Lord Erebus.

She was currently serving as the interim leader until Lord Erebus would return.

Lilian had to deal with countless things as the interim leader. One would be the meetings with other Demon Lords who were constantly involved in land disputes. Lord Erebus would normally attend these meetings with her. But, since he wasn’t here, she had to deal with the fools by herself.

She shook her head and let out a sigh. She was currently headed to deal with another fool who had returned not too long ago.

A fool by the name of Vyne.

Lilian’s hands tightened into a fist at her side. That idiot had kidnapped one of the wives of a nearby Demon Lord.

For one of his experiments, no doubt about that.

Lilian hoped the poor girl was still alive. She had seen a couple of end results from Vyne’s experimenting(torture), they were gruesome.

Lilian unlocked the door to the dungeon and called out, “Vyne? Where are you at?”

“Lilian, to what do I owe this honor?” Vyne said, appearing in front of her. The look on his face said it was anything but an honor to see her. There was blood on the smock he wore over his clothes and he was wiping even more blood off of his hands and onto a towel.

“Where’s your latest experiment at?”

Vyne’s eyes filled with apprehension. “Since when are you interested in my experiments?”

“Ever since you started kidnapping the wives of important people.”

“Oops?” Vyne raised his hands in a ‘what can you do’ manner. He clearly didn’t care in the slightest.

“Show me the experiment.”

He sighed and turned back around. “Come.”

The two walked down a torchlit hallway until they arrived at one of the last cells in the dungeon.

Lilian scrunched her nose up, the air reeked of the metallic scent of fresh blood. Just what has this idiot been doing?

“Here we are,” Vyne said, pushing open the cell. “I’m not sure if you’d want to give her back to the important person, though. She looks a little different. She may have broken, also. She stopped screaming.”

To say she looked a ‘little’ different was an understatement. She was dangling from the bar on the ceiling, thick iron bars clamped around her wrist. The bars had irritated the skin causing it to be red and some of it even started to peel. Her eyes were covered with a black cloth, tear marks stained her bloodied cheeks.

Her purple body was completely naked. Including the skin in some places, patches had been removed revealing the muscle that lay underneath. There were multiple incisions along her body that had been stitched shut neatly. Underneath the stitches, small circles were emitting a glow.

“Vyne...” Lilian pressed her hand to her temple. “Just what were you testing?”

“Revolutionary things, my dear,” he answered proudly. “I was testing how mana stones with healing properties affect the body. The progress is a little slow but, in some areas where I removed the skin, if it was close enough to a stone that I placed in her body, the skin would grow back within a couple hours without scabbing over.”

“Intriguing.”

“Not done yet! The skin that regrew was much tougher than the normal skin on her body.”

“Meaning?”

“Not only did the mana stones heal her body perfectly. The mana stones reinforced the spots that were healed!”

“Intriguing,” Lilian said again.

Vyne grinned. “Not. Done. Yet.” He wagged his finger in her face with every word.

Lilian heaved out a sigh. “What else, Vyne?”

“I found out from Lord Erebus that dragons were able to digest mana stones. So I thought to myself, what about the other races? The lady here is a member of the demon race. Thanks to her, I was able to find out that demons, too, can digest the mana stones.

“But! Whereas Lord Erebus felt no pain from eating the mana stones, the test subject did. She was hacking up blood for the longest time.” Vyne’s eyes were lit with delight as if it was the most interesting thing. “It was incredibly painful for her.”

“Your point?” Lilian just wanted to get out of here. The smell, coupled with the kidnapped woman’s appearance, was starting to make her sick.

“The mana stones are toxic to the demon race. And probably to the other races, too. I wish I could test it out but getting my hands on an angel could prove to be a little tricky but may--”

“Vyne,” Lilian interrupted. “Where exactly did you get this test subject, dare I ask...”

He clapped his hands together. “Well, I, uh, well.” He pressed his lips together in a thin line, forming a hyphen. “I found her?”

“Is that what you’re going with?” Lilian asked monotonously.

Vyne crossed his arms. “Does it really matter where I got her from? It’s fine, I swear.”

Lilian’s cool gaze didn’t change at all. “Where?”

“One of the guestrooms,” he muttered.

“So you knew exactly what you were doing.”

Vyne glanced at his test subject. “They shouldn’t be so trusting. This is a life lesson.”

Vyne had acted he was in love with the woman. They had been messing around ever since she arrived for the annual Demon Lord meeting. The wife had no problem with being with such a handsome man, her husband closely resembled a rat... it was a nice change.

So, when Vyne had changed their usual meeting place, she was none the wiser as to what was going to happen.

Lilian continued to stare evenly at Vyne after he explained everything. “I don’t care if you have an affair with a married woman or if you used said woman for an experiment. Do it in such a way so I won’t have to deal with it.”

Vyne nodded.

“Besides, you wouldn’t want to trouble Lord Erebus when he returns, would you?”

The demon fell to the ground. “I... I have done the ultimate sin.” He clutched his heart. “To cause Lord Erebus trouble...”

She knew how to manipulate the others, that was for sure.

“As long as you understand.” She left the dungeon cell. Vyne would be more careful with how he got his test subjects. “Get her wounds healed even faster and make sure she doesn’t speak about what happened. That’d cause us even more trouble.”

Vyne nodded his head once more, he was still in shock.

Lillian headed up the stairs back to the lower level of the castle. She could tell the Demon Lord that his wife was fine and would be back within a couple of days. It was close enough to the truth, and she was sure that Vyne would make it so the woman wouldn’t speak of what happened to her.

She would tell him tomorrow, she was exhausted now.

Lilian passed by Tear, Magnus, and Stone who each stopped her so that they could have a discussion. It was more of Lilian being corralled by them and listening to their complaints about how annoying the visiting Demon Lords were.

After Lilian managed to wrestle herself away from them, she pushed the doors open and stumbled inside of her room.

It was not what would be expected of her to live in. It was a fearsome room, actually.

There were paintings of Erebus on the walls, even the bedspread was a picture of Erebus in his dragon form. Lined up on the headboard of her bed were multiple plushies of Erebus. The plushies were... everywhere. On shelves on her wall, on her dressers, on the floor. There was even a suspicious area that looked like an altar dedicated to Erebus.

She had done this all herself.

Lilian fell onto her bed, grabbing a near life-size doll of Erebus and hugging it closely to her body, rubbing her cheek against the soft head.

“Ah, it’s so lonely with you, Lord Erebus. Come back soon.” Lilian squeezed her eyes shut tightly.

Another day at the estate of the Demon Lord Erebus came to a close.