Xuelan's first reaction was to stare blankly.

Why?

The cage door swung open, and she stared at it in confusion.

Why had Kien left it unlocked?

Should she slip out? Run away?

The 24-year-old froze. Now that the choice was suddenly presented in front of her, Xuelan didn't have the slightest clue about what to do. Her knowledge of this universe was limited, and she only knew a few details from the Encyclopedia entry that she read yesterday. Was it possible for slaves to escape? Was there even any place that she could run away to?

Xuelan shook her head in a daze.

No. There were other people who needed attention more urgently than herself. Even if she did manage to somehow flee, she wouldn't be able to live with the guilt of leaving all these other slaves behind. Besides, she didn't even have it that bad compared to the others. Aside from raping her, at least Kien hadn't tortured her to the brink of death...

...Wait, was that the new standard now? Not engaging in sexual torture = good guy?

Somehow, Xuelan felt like her reference point for normalcy had been corrupted... Even if Kien was a lot better than all of these horrible men in Hell, it didn't mean that he was an inherently good person. In her teenage years, she had been perfectly self-aware that although "bad boys" like gangsters were hot on a fictional level, they were definitely no good for long-term relationships. This was part of the reason why she had only been comfortable dating Kien online, yet freaked out when he showed up in real life.

Ultimately, Kien was the one responsible for enslaving her to begin with. She couldn't forgive him for that.

She definitely hadn't asked to be dragged down to Hell, although her ex-boyfriend did call her an 'accomplice'.

An accomplice.

Did that mean there was a crime?

Maybe it was the terrorists and the bombings and the explosions? Was Kien somehow involved in all of that?

Was Kien a terrorist?

Xuelan really wanted to ask him, but she wasn't sure if he'd give her a straight answer. He never seemed to explain anything, and Xuelan always had the thought in the back of her head that he was hiding things from her.

The black-haired girl crept out of her cage and slipped over to her neighbor's prison. 

She stared at the lock from the outside. The design was honestly very simple. There was a tiny light on the lock that glowed red if it was active. However, when Xuelan walked in front of it, it turned green, as if there was some kind of sensor that detected whether there was someone outside of the cage. The obvious conclusion was that this lock was designed so that it could only be opened by someone physically standing on the outside, and it would remain locked in the 'red' mode if the prisoner tried to fiddle with it from the inside.

Xuelan twisted open the lock, and it opened with a simple click.

The slaves in the other cages seemed to hear Xuelan rummaging around, and someone whispered nervously.

"Is someone out of their cage? What's happening?"

"Huh? They forgot to lock someone's cage?"

Xuelan froze for a moment as the gossip started spreading among the pile of crates.

She thought about things for a brief moment, and then whispered back into the confused pile of cages.

"I'm out of my cage. If anyone wants theirs unlocked too, speak up." Xuelan said.

"Are you crazy?! You'll get all of us into trouble!"

"N-No thanks! I don't want to be punished..."

"Runaway slaves... are confiscated from their owners and become the Demon King's property... and sentenced to public displays of torture in the Imperial Capital for the rest of eternity... it's so horrible..."

"Please... go back to your cage..."

"Don't do this... Seriously..."

Frightened by what she was hearing, Xuelan immediately stopped talking and went silent, leaving the chorus of slaves to whine and whisper amongst themselves in the darkness. Fortunately, none of them could see, so they had no way of knowing what she was doing. Xuelan was like an anonymous specter, and they didn't even know her identity.

Xuelan crawled into her neighbor's cage and stared at the half-dead corpse of a girl.

Escaping... was probably impossible...

But at the very least in the meantime, she could try to alleviate her acquaintance's pain?

She stared helplessly at the mess of blood and gore.

Xuelan was only a pre-medical student, but there was so many injuries on the slave's body that she didn't even know how to start.

She was trained in CPR, which emphasized "Airway-Breathing-Circulation", but it barely seemed applicable with such catastrophic wounds. Chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth hardly felt appropriate in this kind of situation. Xuelan had also learned on her first day that it was impossible for humans to die from asphyxiation, which likely also meant that catastrophic blood loss was unlikely to kill a person either.

Given all these facts, was there even anything that she could do?

Perhaps... the most merciful approach was to put the girl to sleep...?

Twist her neck? Induce a coma? Render her unconscious?

Suddenly, Xuelan felt sick.

She had wanted to go to medical school because she wanted to help people.

All these horrors unfolding in front of her ran counter to all of her ideals and beliefs. Xuelan felt the tears rising in her eyes again, and she felt hopeless. This was a nightmare. She didn't understand anything anymore. She didn't know what she believed in, and she didn't know who she was. She didn't even understand why Kien had unlocked her cage, especially if she couldn't do anything. What was the point?

Xuelan's vision was blurry as she lifted the girls' head and put it on her lap.

She firmly grabbed the slave girl's chin and mandibular bone for leverage.

...Just one...

Twist...?

+ + +

Suddenly, the black tarp was pulled off the pile of cages.

Xuelan almost cried out from surprise, and she instantly let go of the slave girls' neck.

"Huh... peculiar... I was wondering why there was so much whispering..."

It was a man's voice, and it wasn't Kien's.

The night sky was visible up above, but there weren't any stars. An oddly shaped moon faintly glowed in the darkness.

"Twisting the girl's neck is a reasonable thought, but it's actually bad idea," the strange man said.

The shadowy figure walked over to the cage and casually shut the door on the two slaves. It closed with a loud bang, and he twisted the lock until the light turned red, effectively locking Xuelan inside the cramped cage together with her severely injured companion.

Xuelan swallowed, her body suddenly trembling.

She had been caught.

"You're right that it will make them unconscious and spare them of the pain," he continued. "However, that's only for the short term. Their soul will wake up again eventually, and then the pain will be twice as bad. Dismemberment and decapitation is quite cruel, you know? Can you imagine how much it hurts to be headless? Or to have your neck broken and unable to move? Humans are immortal in Hell."

Xuelan's hands were shaking.

She... didn't mean for any of that to happen...

The man squatted down right outside of the cage, and Xuelan suddenly recognized him.

It was the incubus named Neiel. 

She mainly remembered him because he wanted to use her mouth as a toilet inside the train...

Xuelan shuddered, and the incubus laughed softly.

"You're new, aren't you?" He said. "Did Kien catch you recently? How did you get out of your cage?"

Xuelan squeezed herself against the far corner of the cage, trying to get as far away as possible from the sex demon.

"I... I... thought you were going to the brothel with the rest of the incubi..." She stammered.

Then she remembered that she forgot to include a slave's proper form of address, and belated tacked the honorific on at the end.

"...Master."

The red-haired demon laughed, as if he found this very amusing.

"What's your name, slave?"

"...X-Xue." She whispered, her body shaking with fear.

"No. Wrong. Slaves do not have names."

Xuelan immediately stiffened, but the incubus smiled.

He shifted so that he was sitting down on the ground, leaning with his back against the bars of the two girls' cage.

"Don't worry though. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm definitely a pervert, but I don't get off on pain."

"...Why are you here... Master?"

The incubus shrugged.

"I don't like crowds. I don't like hanging out with the bros. Would rather spend time with the ladies."

"But... the brothel...? There's plenty...?"

"Say Xue, do you like animals?"

"What?"

"I lived on a farm when I was human. I often liked to hang out in the stables. Animals are nicer companions than people."

"...You're saying that slaves are like animals...? ...Master?"

"I've never had a slave try to kill me, for one. Other demons... well not quite so. I get uncomfortable when there's too many demons crowded around in the same place."

"So you're saying that you're into bestiality, Master?"

The red-haired incubus suddenly laughed.

He turned around and looked at Xuelan in the eyes.

"Bring me that other slave girl. And pull out that metal pipe in her chest."

Xuelan stared blankly at him, unmoving.

"It's a bad habit to make a Master say something twice," he said.

Having no other choice, Xuelan slowly placed her hands on the metal pipe, and tugged until it came out of the half-dead girl's torso. It took a lot more force than she expected, and Xuelan fell on her rear end when the entire length of steel finally slipped out. A large pool of blood immediately came spilling from the new wound site like a fountain.

The incubus reached his hand in between the bars, and he was holding something in his palm.

"A healing salve," he said.

Xuelan gingerly took it from him. It was a waxy substance that was a lot like a stick of butter.

"It won't be enough for everything, but you should be able to use it to stop the bleeding from the major wounds," Neiel explained.

The 24-year-old glanced back up at the incubus, and then she started rubbing it against the girl's injuries.

Xuelan was quiet for almost a minute as she moved her hands.

Then, she suddenly spoke up.

"Why?" She asked.

Neiel was sitting with his back against the cage. He was looking up at the night sky, even though there weren't any stars to admire on the celestial canvas of darkness. His expression was quiet, and he seemed content to sit in silence.

"Why not?" He replied after a long delay.

Xuelan didn't know how to respond.

The red-haired incubus did not say anything more.

+ + +

A short while later, Xuelan was finished with applying all of the healing salve. It had melted away as she rubbed it against the girl's skin. Currently, the other slave was unconscious, so Xuelan was awkwardly left in silence with the other incubus.

Neiel slowly stood up from the ground.

"Hey." He spoke.

Xuelan looked up.

"I like you."

She blinked, unsure how to process this sudden drop of new information. She wasn't even sure if he was serious, or if it was a skilled womanizer (or sexual predator?)'s technique to flatter a girl in order to butter her up. In either case, Xuelan was reflexively skeptical, because she never had a guy tell such a thing to her face in all the 24 years that she lived on Earth. Kien didn't count because their relationship was virtual. In terms of real-life relationships, Xuelan had never been very popular outside of flings and hook-ups. She knew that her face was mediocre and that her personality was boring.

"You'll be in serious trouble if the other incubi find you outside of your cage," Neiel said.

The black-haired girl stared at him wordlessly.

Clearly, it was this incubus's fault for locking her inside this cage along with the other injured slave.

"I also have a water bottle and an apple," he continued. "My guess is that Kien hasn't fed you at all."

He smiled sweetly at Xuelan.

"Suck me off, and I might consider helping you out."

Neiel slowly started undoing the belt around his waist.

"Will you do it?"

 

∎