I Was Just Enjoying the Discipline - Chapter 34

Yudel cast a faint, knowing smile at the woman lying collapsed on the floor. After straightening his trousers, he gently rolled her onto her back, smoothed her disheveled hair into place, and rapped on the interrogation room door.

Almost immediately, Cain opened it and stepped inside.

“You called for me, Lord Yudel? I was just wondering whether the essence extraction was proceeding—”

His words died in his throat the moment his eyes took in the scene before him.

The woman lying unconscious on the floor was hardly remarkable. It wasn’t surprising in the slightest. If anything, it was an everyday sight in a place like this.

Besides, Cain already knew Yudel intended to squeeze every last drop of essence from her without regard for her condition, so the sight of her sprawled across the floor did little to shock him.

What was another matter entirely, however, was the enchanted gemstone hanging from the collar around her neck. It was still glowing.

‘What in the world is she feeling right now?’

The woman was doing nothing but lying motionless on the floor. Nothing remained that could be stimulating her pleasure. She wasn’t even clothed.

Experiencing pleasure while unconscious, without any external stimulation whatsoever, defied everything that had been accepted as common knowledge in this place. In other words, it was something that had never once happened in the past several hundred years.

Just as peculiar was the strangely composed expression on Yudel’s face.

Yudel was a demon who would never forgive the woman who had dealt such a blow to Eligos’s trust in him and to his own unwavering loyalty. He had prepared himself to wring her dry, down to the very marrow of her bones.

Having exacted the revenge he had long desired upon the woman, Yudel ought to have been filled with satisfaction. Or else still burning with cold fury, convinced his vengeance had not yet gone far enough. Instead, his expression was strangely placid.

Cain had no idea what had transpired in the interrogation room over the past half day.

‘Did the woman somehow work magic on him?’

Impossible. Yudel was a high-ranking demon. A human’s petty tricks could never sway someone like him. Nor could she possibly have talked him into changing his mind.

“Why are you just standing there?”

Yudel asked the bewildered Cain in his usual even tone. At some point he had moved to the cabinet and was carefully sealing the crystal bottles one by one, each now filled to the brim with essence.

“Quit staring and take the human away. Wash her, give her the potion, then lock her in my room.”

“…A potion?”

At Cain’s cautious question, Yudel gave a quiet nod. The answer that followed unmistakably reflected a change of heart. The sharp edge in his emotions had noticeably softened.

“Yes.”

“Weren’t you planning not to give this woman the potion?”

“I was.”

When Cain questioned the order, so completely at odds with the original plan, Yudel answered without hesitation, fully aware of the contradiction himself.

Originally, just as Cain had said, Yudel had intended not to give the woman the potion at all.

The potion, the culmination of centuries of experience and research, restored and enhanced the stamina of humans, whose physical endurance was otherwise pitiful. It allowed them to withstand pleasure for far longer than they naturally could. Thanks to it, the demons could manage their captives’ strength efficiently and harvest essence over much longer periods.

Nearly every human brought here was made to drink the potion. That was only natural. Each of them was a valuable resource destined to provide essence for Eligos.

This woman alone had been the exception.

Driven by deeply personal resentment, Yudel had intended to wring far more essence from her than her body could bear, leaving both her flesh and mind in tatters. Once she no longer held any value as a resource, he would kill her with his own hands and complete his revenge.

“…But I’ve changed my mind. There’s something more I want to learn from this human. It would be inconvenient if she died now.”

“I see… But may I ask what it is you wish to learn?”

Yudel, who had been sealing the crystal bottles with practiced, flawless precision, paused for a moment and slowly blinked. Then he answered.

“I’m not sure. It’s difficult to put into words just yet. But I have a feeling this is going to make for a very interesting experiment.”

“…”

“I find myself rather curious to see just how much this human can endure.”

As Yudel stared off into space, his violet eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and a faint smile curved his lips. It was the unmistakable expression of someone savoring the experiments he intended to conduct on the woman, already imagining in detail the many ways she might respond.

What it was about the woman that had awakened the dormant researcher within Yudel, Cain could not begin to guess. Even so, it seemed unlikely that her ultimate fate would change all that much.

‘That’s a relief.’

Deep down, Cain, too, harbored resentment toward the woman who had caused Yudel so much trouble.

For that reason, he found considerable comfort in knowing her punishment would remain largely the same. If anything, the thought of her becoming the subject of Yudel’s experiments was enough to make her seem pitiful to the point of absurdity.

“Then I’ll have her washed, administer the potion, and lock her in your room as instructed, Lord Yudel. Shall I bind her as securely as last time?”

“Yes. Please do. It would be highly inconvenient if she managed to escape again.”

“Understood.”

Cain bent down and gathered the woman into his arms. Her body was as light as paper, yet it sagged limply against him like a quilt soaked through with water.

By then, the enchanted gemstone hanging from her collar had already faded, its crimson glow extinguished.

“Then I’ll take my leave.”

Cain gave Yudel a respectful bow and turned toward the door. Just as he was about to step outside, Yudel called after him.

“One moment. There’s one more thing.”

Cain stopped immediately and waited for the next order. Yudel cast a glance over the neat row of crystal bottles lined up atop the cabinet, each filled with harvested essence.

“Once you’ve washed her and locked her up, move all of these bottles to the storage vault. Set one aside separately, though. I intend to present it to Lord Eligos tomorrow.”

“Understood. I’ll see to it as soon as I’ve finished. Although…”

When Cain let the sentence trail off, Yudel looked at him as if to ask, What is it? Cain parted his lips several times before finally voicing the nagging sense of unease he had been unable to shake.

“If I may ask… were all of these bottles filled in a single day?”

“…They were.”

A slow smile spread across Yudel’s lips.

“Every last one of them was filled by the woman you’re carrying. All in the course of today.”

Cain’s gaze naturally dropped to the woman lying limp in his arms. Drenched in sweat, saliva, her own fluids, and sxmxn, she slept as though the world around her no longer existed.

She looked utterly spent, utterly exhausted. And yet, she was still breathing.

“She’s alive,” Yudel said. “She hasn’t died. Not yet.”

“…The fact that she’s still alive is astonishing. An ordinary human would have broken long before this.”

“Which is exactly why I told you. I have a feeling she’s going to make for a very interesting experiment.”

In the interrogation chamber, dimly veiled in shadow, Yudel’s deep violet eyes gleamed with a kaleidoscope of sadistic anticipation, as though already foretelling the future that awaited the woman.

Silently, Cain looked down at the sleeping woman, who slumbered on in complete ignorance of the danger that lay ahead.