Ep. 8 - Chat Over Food

The panicked girl took a step forward to do something that she didn't know what but something that she would've found on her way and something that would help the burning woman. But before she could take a second step, the coal haired woman raised her head and looked at Melanie. Or at least Melanie thought she looked at her but she couldn't have known, because the woman's eyeballs were vaporized, her lips were dry and her skin was peeled off.

*knock* *knock* *knock* "Lady Melanie, may I come in?"

Melanie rubbed her eyes, still lying on the bed. She opened her eyes to a different room from she slept in. No, it was the same room, but the existence of sunlight changed the room completely.

The little girl jumped from the bed to open the door to the kind voice she recognized. She ran up to the door and opened it.

It was Mastria waiting on the other side of the door. The tall woman tittered at the sight of Melanie. "Bathroom is the last door on your right, if you want to wash your face I mean.", said Mastria to the girl whose hair was a mess and face was disheveled.

Melanie smiled and walked down the hall to the bathroom. She washed her face, did her hair and stared at the mirror for a long time. "It was just a dream, a weird one, but still a dream."

After convincing herself, the girl left the bathroom with a forced smile on her face to see Mastria waiting right outside the door.

"Let's have breakfast, if you wish so. Everyone else already ate their meals, so there shouldn't be anyone to disturb us."

Melanie nodded while realizing that she hadn't eaten anything for a whole day and she didn't know how she wasn't already starving.

Mastria smiled and started walking towards the door that led to hell, at least it did in Melanie's dream. Melanie instinctively blocked her face as the red haired woman reached for the handle to open the door. The door opened, and there were no flames, just the main hall.

Melanie, still a bit anxious, passed through the hell's door and stopped while Mastria followed by closing the door behind them and taking the lead.

The two went through the door to the right of the main staircase, which Melanie knew that it led to the room of royal siblings.

It was the same corridor again, just mirrored. The two girls walked through the doors on the right ,which Melanie figured were guest rooms just like hers, but they stopped in front of the big door on the left. Melanie remembered that door from the previous day when Alys made her hide behind her because of some noises coming from the other side.

Mastria took a second to listen and opened the door after confirming no one was in there. After pushing the door open, the red haired woman stepped aside to let Melanie enter first.

It was an ample room surrounded by black cobblestone walls and lit by three chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. There were long dining tables surrounded by exact copies of the same dark wood chair. There were flags hanging from walls that Melanie saw in different parts of the castle.

Mastria walked to a chair that she seemingly picked randomly and pulled it for Melanie. The little girl wasn't used to this kind of treatment so she felt weird, but still she sat on the chair.

Mastria left through a different door then they entered and returned holding a tray which had two plates and two glasses on top.

The woman approached the table Melanie sat and placed the tray at the edge of it, bringing plates and glasses one by one, starting from Melanie's.

The woman sat in from of Melanie with her own meal. "Bon Appetit!", the woman cheered and took a bite out of her meal while Melanie was inspecting hers. The little girl mixed her food all over, turned stuff on her plate upside down, trying to understand what it was. Realizing this, Mastria quickly interfered;

"Don't worry there is no thing in your meal that a human wouldn't eat normally. We have human staff working in the castle, so we have some chefs who are skilled at cooking food that would suit your taste."

Relieved by Mastria's words, Melanie took a bite from her food. The moment she took a bite of this delectable delicacy, her taste buds awaken to an explosion of flavor that tantalizes every sense. The perfect blend of spices, herbs, and aromatics harmonize together, creating the best meal that Melanie had ever had the pleasure of eating.

The two were enjoying their food, when Melanie decided to break the silence with her curiosity;

"I know that it's none of my business, but I'm just asking out of curiosity. Where did the prince go? Is he...you know...collecting other humans because I didn't become a sacrifice?"

Mastria tittered with the little girls words, making the girl embarrassed.

"It's so sweet of you to think of other people, but no he didn't. I think Alys had talked to you about this but we don't consume much human flesh, some of us even straightup doesn't eat any.

Human meat is like a, how can I say this, a booster for us. As you know demons require Chi to stay alive and use Zenchi or Tanchi.

Although you cannot see it, Chi exists everywhere like oxygen. But we can get too much of it from air, just enogh to stay alive.

This is where human meat comes into play. The demons whose jobs consist of fighting consume human flesh to get additional Chi to get the upperhand in battles.

This is also why we only request one human every month or so."

Melanie looked at the plate of the woman with glasses for the first time since they sat and realized it looked disgusting. It had a little bit of everything mixed into a monstrosity of a soup.

"Prince went to talk about your adoption matters with the father of your church. He was supposed to return yesterday evening, but some issue must have occured. Or he is just at The Cerulean Syndicate again, hanging out with his friends over there."

"Oh, I see." said Melanie with a relieved tone in her voice. "Wait, what is The Cerulean Syndicate?"

Mastria put down the glass she was drinking from.

"I'm so sorry, milady. I didn't consider that a human wouldn't know about hierarchy in demon world, let alone names of major clans.

There are three types of demons who lives on world. Clansman, like our prince, Villagers, who doesn't belong to any clans but lives in a group of demons, and Rogues, who lives alone.

Prince Arthern, Sir Boram and Lady Sandra are all part of the "Clansman" group. Clans are rooted families of demons who possess similar Zenchi attributes. For example members "The Red Sun" clan, which Prince is a member of, all has fire and heat related Zenchi attributes. The clans have power dynamics between each other as well but you don't need to know that much.

"Villagers" are demons who isn't part of a clan but still live in groups of demons or occasionally humans. Alys and I would be a good example of villagers. Our Zenchi attributes are also passed onto us from our ancestors but we don't have big family trees like clansman has.

Finally there are "Rogues". They are the demons who live solo, in rare occasions form groups of two or three. They are usually criminals who committed crimes against big clans and running away from them, or people with a few screws loose up in their heads.

What do you think about our contracts with your village, do you think it's unreasonable to demand human sacrifices? do you think that it is evil?"

Melanie nodded slightly implying she disagreed with the situation. Mastria continued her words;

"Well, it's not a one way contract. We offer your village, and many others, protection from these rogues in return. I ensure you if we didn't do such thing, your village would be destroyed decades before you were even born."

Mastria took a deep breath after talking this much without a break.

"I don't want to overwhelm you with the internal clan hierarchy. Only thing you need to know is Prince is the most authoritative person after the clan head. After him siblings of the clan head and then siblings of Prince comes."

Now that Melanie was in the demon world, she was starting to understand that it was not a bunch of monsters killing each other, but rather a systematic organization.