Chapter Three: Result, Cleaning And Lethe

Fumiko felt unimaginable pain. Her bones felt like they were breaking, maybe they were. And every part of her body was searing hot, and it felt like it was blistering and constantly bleeding.

She didn't know if the pain was real, or if it was fake, and she was too afraid to open her eyes to find out. Afraid that it might actually be happening or the pain in her eyes would get worse.

All she knew for sure, was that she wanted this pain to end.

She was lying on the ground of the metal container, just curled up in her usual defensive position, maybe a subconscious thing that hoped that it would lessen the pain.

But nothing stopped it. It only felt like it was increasing with time, and by now her voice was too sore to scream and there were no more tears to shed with all of them already gone.

She kept letting out silent screams. While her perception of time was completely gone, had hours passed? Days? But Fumiko eventually passed out from the pain, or maybe the pain was easing up and she just passed out from the relief, she didn't know but she was glad it had finally ended, even if she was going to die once she fell asleep.

On the outside Zerad kept waiting. He was using his magic to keep check of her, to make sure she was still alive or until he could finally open the chamber without fear of getting hurt by the power of the Seven Orbs.

And it seemed it had finally ended after an agonisingly long hour. He finally opened the chamber and saw the results. Smoke escaped the chamber and when it finally cleared he saw the human girl.

He looked down on her and saw that nothing had changed about her. Well, nothing much on the surface level, but beneath that, inside of her, a lot had changed.

The bruises that covered her when she first came here were gone and in its place was fresh unblemished skin. And surrounding her under her and some of it on the walls was lots of blood.

But that made sense to Zerad, if the Orbs weren't compatible with her before then they would try and change her until she was.

And now that he analysed her a bit more, her affinities had changed. Before she had no affinities or what some call neutral affinity, but now she had an affinity for anything dark. Like darkness, curses, shadows which was a subtype of darkness, and was more compatible with the more dark side of other elements. Like demon flames, black lightning and others, although those spells were only basic in Zerads opinion.

And with a bit more probing into her with his magic he realised that the Orbs really did fuse with her. And they were constantly changing her as well, as he was thinking that she had already changed about fifteen times in minor ways that no one would really notice, perhaps she had changed even more and he just didn't notice it.

He left her in the chamber before leaving the building that had been built on short notice. Although the implantation of the Seven Orbs hadn't exactly gone to plan, it did work out in the end. And the building was solid enough that nothing had escaped it during the process.

When he walked out of the building he passed by his two personal guards, and spoke to them with a voice full of authority. "One of you get a trusted servant to… bring our 'guest' to a good room. Make sure they won't kill her, she'll be useful."

After he finished speaking one of them vanished with unimaginable speed in just a second to find someone to fulfil his master's orders.

"Was it a success, Lord Zerad?" The other guard asked as his face remained in an emotionless state.

Zerad stopped and turned around to look at the guard with his brows furrowed together in annoyance and anger. "Are you questioning my skills?"

The guard knew he messed up as he tensed and sweat started to form on his head. "No Lord Zerad. I just wanted to be the first to congratulate you on your great success." He then started clapping while his spear was tucked on his arm.

It would have looked more genuine except for the fact that the guard didn't display any emotions while saying it or clapping. It was just a stone face constantly.

Zerad looked at the guard questionably before deciding it wasn't worth punishment. After all the demons that the guards were a rare type that had great potential, but usually died young. So it would be a waste to kill him even if it would give him temporary pleasure, it wasn't beneficial in the long run.

Zerad let out a groan and just kept walking, while his hairs followed a bit behind him, more calm now that it seemed that Zerad wasn't going to kill him.

At most a minute later a group of demon maids made their way into the building that was recently built that also held possibly one of the most dangerous things to all demons, a hero.

Of course there was no official news of the Demon Lord summoning a hero, but rumours spread around fast in the castle. And since he didn't make an announcement to anyone about what the building was about, the maids rightfully assumed that it held a hero in it.

When they walked in, with a different guard than the one who ordered them to get a room for the person in here, since he was most likely already back at the Demon Lord's side.

They saw the gigantic metal container with its door open and the human girl lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of it.

She was definitely one of the ugliest things the demon maids had ever seen, and the guard that was with them wondered how she could be so ugly, he had seen humans before and they weren't as ugly as her. While the demon maids wondered if that was what all humans looked like, while also thanking the Demon Lord that they were born as demons.

The head maid took one look at the girl in the weird clothes on the floor full of blood and decided that she wasn't going to dirty herself by carrying her. And she wasn't going near that pile of blood in case the Demon Lord needed her, she wasn't going to present herself while being a bloody mess.

She turned to the group of maids she had brought with her, some of which were carrying cleaning tools, and then she turned to the guard who had came with them, who was just there because he had to protect the hero the Demon Lord had summoned in case anything happened to her.

The head maid came up with a basic outline for what to do. "You five clean up this blood, I don't want to see any when I come back." She said pointing towards five maids who nodded their heads. The head maid then turned and pointed at two others. "You two will get this… human out of here and into a suitable room."

The two maids nodded their heads before grabbing the girl, one with her legs and the other with her arms. While the guard seeing that they were moving the hero moved along with them when they left the room.

The head maid then turned to the five that she had spoken to before and spoke again. "I'll be back in an hour, if this place isn't spotless by the time I come back all of you will be punished." She ordered as she then left the room, not bothering to help cleaning as she felt doing something so menial was below her.

The other maids sighed a little at that but didn't bother to go after her, knowing it wouldn't be worth it. So they grabbed cleaning tools and started cleaning the big metal container.

The maids brought the hero to one of the better rooms in the castle. They put her on the bed before leaving while wiping their hands on their clothes, disgusted at themselves that they helped out a human, a hero no less, but orders were orders and they couldn't disobey.

While the guard stayed outside the room, doing his job and making sure no demons got any ideas of killing the hero because they were human.

The next day when Fumiko was waking up, her head was killing her. She opened her eyes, squinting because the light was making her headache worse.

She was in what looked to be a really expensive room. The bed was ginormous and her body only went half way down the bed and even if she spread her arms out both ways she wouldn't reach the edge of the bed.

But she didn't remember how she got here. She remembered Suzue beating the fucking shit out of her, but after that she didn't remember anything.

It annoyed her, she could tell something had changed or maybe something important happened and she couldn't remember it. Whatever it was somehow made her really angry.

She took a deep breath in and out to calm herself down. She didn't know why she got angry all of a sudden, she wasn't naturally an angry person but of course she did get angry sometimes and curse people out inside her head.

The door to her room opened suddenly. Fumiko jumped a little, pulling the blanket covering her up a little despite still being in clothes.

She looked towards who had entered the room and… kinda looked at him in awe.

He was a tall man with dyed blue hair and olive skin. For some reason he looked familiar to Fumiko. He was wearing a suit that looked like a trench coat that was white while the inside was a bright blue.

He didn't have any emotion while looking at her and didn't say anything until he sat down at the end of the bed looking at Fumiko.

"What's your name?" He asked rudely, his tone wasn't courteous unlike what his appearance might suggest.

"Fumiko Genji. W-who are you? You look familiar." Fumiko asked. She was somehow calm, she knew she would be usually freaking out but she was glad that she wasn't freaking out.

Zerads eyes widened a little in shock. He looked Fumiko in the eyes, trying to assert whether she was lying to him about whether she recognised him.

He looked into her eyes so much that Fumiko turned away in discomfort. But that time was enough for Zerad to come to a conclusion.

She did in fact not remember him. Which meant he could change the story a bit in his favour.

"You don't remember?" He asked softly, his face in a sympathetic smile while his eyes were full of kindness, the complete opposite of what he was like before.

Fumiko, although shocked at his sudden change, answered the question so that she could go to him sooner. "N-no. Why? Did something happen?"

Zerad played along and sighed softly. "I can't believe you don't remember what they did to you." He mumbled, but loud enough for her to hear. He then cleared his throat and wiped away a fake tear. "You were summoned as a hero for humans, but you… unfortunately weren't able to handle the power they were trying to give you and they cast you out."

Fumiko's breath hitched before she spoke again. "What are you trying to say?" She asked as she squeezed the bed sheets.

Zerad let out a breath before speaking. "You are in a different world than your own. I don't know what yours was like but in this world we have magic and monsters, and races different from humans." He explained briefly and simply.

Fumiko's thoughts paused as she tried to process it. She… was in another world… magic and monsters… it had to be a lie, a prank gone too far from someone looking for some fame. "You're… you're lying."

Zerad only shook his head before opening his palm, showing Fumiko that nothing was in it before a small fire appeared in his hand. He then manipulated it to cover his hand before having it fly around the room and then back to his hand.

While this was happening Fumiko could only watch in shock… and a bit of despair and hopelessness. Her world might not have been the greatest to her, but she was still from there. And now she might not even be able to go back.

But a small voice in the back of her mind asked one simple question, over and over again. 'Did she really want to go back?'