Chapter 3: The Pilfering Miss Emil

Emil closed her eyes, tears streaming from the corners.

Her fate was already sealed.

Though she didn’t want to accept it, it wasn’t up to her.

Feeling the man’s disgusting hands roaming down her body, the fear in her heart grew stronger.

The man’s hand suddenly froze, stopping at Emil’s waist, unmoving for a long time.

Emil timidly opened her eyes and saw a horrifying sight.

The three men who had tried to assault her now had nothing above their necks, with blood spouting from the severed stumps.

“Ah… what?”

Her tear-filled eyes now showed confusion.

She shrank back, wrapping herself in the moldy blanket.

Her purple eyes warily scanned the surroundings.

Aside from the headless men, the alley was as dark, damp, and rotten-smelling as ever.

Now it also had a strong smell of blood.

Emil’s confusion grew stronger.

Just moments ago, those men were about to do that to her.

But when she looked again, there were only corpses.

“Who… saved me? What’s going on?”

Suddenly she felt a pair of eyes watching her from above.

She couldn’t help shivering.

Slowly looking up, her purple eyes widened.

Hanging upside down in midair above her was a man, watching her.

She didn’t know when he’d appeared.

Their eyes were now only inches apart, staring at each other.

The man smiled when he saw Emil had noticed him.

“Hi, lovely miss. Were you looking for me just now?”

Staring intently at the Emil below, he saw her eyes roll back and she fainted on the spot.

Seeing Emil faint, the man twitched his mouth, then dropped from the void and stood normally.

He started to doubt his life.

“Am I that scary? I’m the great Sword Saint, you know.”

He picked up the emaciated girl from the ground, his eyes fixed on the two horns on her head.

A thought suddenly appeared in his mind.

‘Do demon and human races have reproductive isolation?’

Holding Emil, he vanished in an instant.

Only a few headless corpses and an old wooden house remained in the damp, cold alley.

—

Ah… so tired and hungry.

Emil slowly opened her eyes, filled with confusion.

She propped herself up with one hand and pushed off the blanket covering her.

“I… where is this?!”

She looked around at the decoration of her current location.

The whole room was about the size of her previous dwelling.

The walls were decorated with various cute maiden portraits, but to her dismay, all of them showcased the feet of the girls in the paintings from various angles.

“What… are all these?”

‘The owner of this room must be an absolute pervert,’ she concluded.

Otherwise, why would he hang so many maiden portraits?

Aside from those on the walls, the room’s decoration was quite simple.

On the nightstands on both sides were exquisite electric lamps, obviously expensive.

On the right side of the room was a desk piled with rough paper and books.

But because Emil was lying on the bed, she couldn’t see what was drawn on them.

It wasn’t much different from an ordinary house.

But what she was most curious about was why she was here.

Her mind suddenly flashed back to the last scene before she fainted.

That strange man.

A white light flashed through her mind, and a bad premonition rose in her heart.

“No… it can’t be. Is this place the home of that weird guy?”

She swallowed hard and immediately knew what she had to do now.

‘The first thing I have to do is run away.’

She got off the bed, tiptoed to the door, pushed it open a crack, and poked her head out to check if there was anyone else in the room.

After confirming no one was there, she came out of the room and looked around the layout.

There were no embarrassing portraits like in the previous room; instead, it was extremely plain.

Grrr…

Emil’s stomach started protesting loudly again.

“Forget it. Since no one’s here, I’ll look for food first. Running early or late, it’s the same—a little while won’t matter.”

She scanned around but didn’t see anything that might store food.

In the kitchen, there was something she had never seen before.

A pitch-black square iron lump, about one and a half times Emil’s current height.

The iron lump seemed to be split into two parts.

There was a gap in the middle, and the two parts had grooves in the center.

Since it was something she’d never seen, Emil couldn’t help studying it.

She tried pushing it to the sides and inward, but it didn’t budge.

But when she placed her hands on the grooves and pulled toward herself, the iron lump opened.

A burst of cold air rushed at Emil, making her shiver.

But when she saw what was inside, her eyes lit up.

Inside, there were fruits, vegetables, bread, meat, everything.

She took out several ingredients and placed them on the cutting board.

She casually picked up the knife placed nearby and started preparing.

She poured hot oil into the iron pot on the stove and turned on the fire to heat it.

She sliced the meat she had just taken from the fridge and evenly spread salt and other seasonings on it.

Luckily, she had learned to cook for a while back when she was in the demon race with her little sister.

This made her somewhat familiar with human cooking.

She put the meat in the pan to fry, then took the bread she had just warmed and assembled it.

In no time, she made two sandwiches.

She picked one up and took a small bite.

She chewed slowly.

She hadn’t eaten for days.

Although this sandwich wasn’t particularly delicious—just edible—after all, she was about to run away; why would she waste time making something time-consuming?

She picked up the juice she had taken from the black iron cabinet and took a small sip.

The cool, sweet liquid flowed into her mouth.

She had never drunk anything so good in the demon race.

Soon, she had drunk most of the bottle.

Her stomach felt a long-lost satisfaction.

Chewing slowly, she put down the half-eaten sandwich.

She walked toward the bedroom.

‘I’m going to steal… ah, no, borrow some money.’

She had only a dozen copper coins left, enough at most for a few slices of the worst rye bread.

That stuff wasn’t good—bitter and hard to chew.

Over the past month or so, she had eaten plenty of it.

The taste was truly indescribable.

She set her sights on the nightstand and the cabinet under the desk.

She started with the nightstand.

The left drawer had almost no money.

After rummaging through a pile of odds and ends, she only found a white bag.

She decided it could be used to hold the money she would find, so she took it.

When she searched the other side, she was disappointed.

Inside were only two pitiful silver coins.

Though two silver coins wasn’t a small amount—at least enough for two months of black bread—that didn’t stop her from being disdainful.

She pinned her hopes on the last cabinet.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled open the drawer.

Her face lit up with joy.

Inside were dozens of gold coins casually tossed in.

These gold coins would at least last her a good while, and she wouldn’t have to eat that disgusting black bread.

She tossed all the coins into the white bag she had found, humming a happy tune.

She restored the drawers to their original state.

She planned to eat the leftover sandwich and then run.

She gently pushed open the door, but the scene outside made her jump.

The white bag of money in her hand fell to the ground.

Her eyes were full of surprise, confusion, and fear.