Prologue

Maria was born on the day of her eldest sister's birthday. Thus, she never felt that day was special for her, only for her sister.

Her big sister- Theresa, was a beautiful and bright child, their parents always liked to spoil her. Even though they were a middle-class family they always gave her anything her heart desired.

Maria, on the other hand, was an ordinary child. She had a gloomy and passable appearance, her grades were a little lacking and she had no friends to spend time with, unlike her sister who children flocked to at school.

When Theresa and Maria had a party for their birthday, Maria turning 10 and Theresa celebrating 12, friends and family were invited.

People looked at the gloomy Maria who sat to the side with her head down, and Theresa who was laughing with all of her girlfriends - gushing about her new dress.

Those girls' mothers went to comfort Maria's mother, saying that Maria was just a shy kid who hadn't bloomed yet, after all - some children only show their true beauty when they grow up.

Maria's mother nodded with a smile, but even her daughter could tell she didn't believe any of this.

When it came to the time of opening gifts, Maria finally started to get excited. She has been begging her parents for a while now for a certain kind of computer. Her classmate, who was enthusiastic about games, kindly showed her and let her play all kinds of games on his phone- which Maria also downloaded on her own phone. Yet that classmate said the best kinds of games are on the PC and she should get one so he could show her.

At the thought of all kinds of fun games and a possible first friend, Maria begged her parents for months for a special computer suited for gaming. Her parents looked hesitant at the price yet said they would try their best.

As Maria unraveled her gift, she laughed out loud with joy when she saw the gift. It was a computer! Although not the exact one she wanted, it was a much cheaper one, it was still a computer!

Her parents were stunned to see Maria laughing like this, her mother smiled gently while her father rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

Maria went to hug her parents tightly, her mother embraced her back gently, and her father let her embrace him and patted her back- Maria didn't even mind his sweaty palms.

The hugs ended when Theresa went to open her own gift. When the gift was shown to everybody Maria's eyes widened.

It was the same model of computer that Maria wanted in the first place, the one that her mom told her was way too expensive. Not only that, it came with its own special design in pink, while Theresa's name was written in glitter on the back.

Theresa's squealed in happiness and went to give a big hug to her parents, the beautiful smile on her face not coming down when she went to show the computer excitedly to her friends.

The grown-up guests' faces became a little weird when they looked at the obvious gaps in the gifts.

Maria's mother looked at her husband with anger. "We already decided on a butterfly dresser. What is this?!" She whispered-yelled at her husband. "This was exactly what Maria wanted!"

Her husband looked down guilty. "Well, she came to me one night and begged for it! You know I can't say no to those puppy eyes..."

Her mother looked at guests preparing to leave and toned down her voice even more. "Theresa is not even interested in electronics! How did she ask of you the exact same thing as Maria?!"

Maria's father sighed in frustration and scratched his head. "I don't know! Maybe she heard Maria talking about it!"

Maria's parents continued to argue quietly while not noticing Maria was still next to them. When she heard her father's last words, she turned her head to her sister who was sending out her friends.

Her big sister turned her head to her as well and smiled.

A month passed and Maria had to watch how her sister didn't even touch her new computer, filling herself with jealousy yet she couldn't say anything.

As maria walked back to her home from school, she glanced inside the ice cream shop she always passed by. She stopped in her tracks and looked at the two girls laughing inside, at first- she thought they were friends since they didn't appear to have a large age gap, but then the shorter one called out sweetly "Big sis" and pointed to all kinds of different ice cream.

The taller one laughed and ruffled her little sister's head, buying ice cream for the both of them with a smile.

Maria watched as they walked away. She didn't notice someone was sneaking up behind her, screaming loudly and scaring her so much that she fell.

Maria scowled at the laughing Nathan that didn't even offer to help her up, she got up by herself and patted away the dirt in her hands.

Nathan looked down at Maria and smirked. "Hey, shrimp. Where's your sister?"

Nathan was the tallest boy in her class, even though they were in 5'th grade in elementary school- where most girls get their hight-spurt and the boys are still shorter than them, Nathan's body seemed to ignore that and grow taller than everyone else.

Nathan was head over-hills over Theresa when she was still with them in elementary school. This year when she left for middle school- he declared that he was going to be Theresa's future boyfriend. Everyone laughed at him for thinking he had a chance with a 7'th grader.

Yet since he couldn't be with his beloved, he decided to harass her little sister instead.

Nathan showed Maria his Prince watch with pride. "Look! This is my new Prince watch!" He scowled at Maria. "I wanted to give one to Theresa at her birthday party, but you didn't invite me."

Maria bit her lips and hid her greedy look. She didn't invite Nathan exactly because she knew that he would gift Theresa such an incredible gift like this, a Prince watch was a high-fashion and extremely expensive thing that Maria's family could only dream about. She knew that it was selfish to do so- preventing her older sister from having one, yet she didn't care.

Why must she be a good person when no one was good to her? Why must she be selfless and kind? Why should she not be greedy and want the things her older sister was getting and even better?

Nathan saw no point in continuing the conversation, he bumped their shoulders and walked away.

Maria messaged her aching shoulder and continued walking to her home. She got to the Pedestrian crossing and waited at the red light.

While she was waiting, a woman in an elegant black dress came beside her. Maria heard the clicking heels and glanced up timidly.

The woman had wavy black hair with large sunglasses that covered half of her face, yet couldn't cover the bright red lipstick she had on her M-shaped lips. Her red-manicured hands held many papers which she clicked her tongue at, mumbling: "I can't see anything with those ridiculous sunglasses. Why did he make me wear them...?!"

Maria wondered why would someone force someone else to wear sunglasses, but she understood as the woman took them off.

Maria once thought that the most beautiful woman she ever saw was the supermodel Theresa copied her haircut from. But this woman's beauty was otherworldly, she couldn't describe it.

Maria wondered if she herself was this beautiful, would she lead a good life? Would people love her and give her gifts like her sister?

She felt that her thoughts were in a good direction... But wasn't there something missing?

As the light turned green, the woman hurriedly crossed the street; the loud clicking of her heels disguised the sound of a fallen item from her bag.

Maria picked the item from the ground and saw it was a plugin for a computer, the red letters which said "Devil's Game" let her believe it was a computer game. Maria put it in her pocket and ran back home.

Maria stormed to her room and locked herself inside right after lunch, not letting her mother even have a slight chance to speak with her.

As Maria plugged the game into her old computer, she was surprised it didn't need any time to upload, her computer screen just instantly turned red with the words: "Devil's Game".

As the red starting screen passed, she saw a little blond boy- who seemed to be 6 years old at least, looking up with a smile. "Hello, Lilit- AH!" The little boy looked frightened to see a stranger in front of him.

Maria wondered to herself if this was part of the game or a real child, yet her thoughts were cut off as a gentle hand found itself on her shoulder.

Maria wanted to scream in fright like the boy but found out no voice came out of her mouth. She looked scared at the familiar woman behind her.

"Hello, little thief," The enchanting woman smirked. "Let's have a chat without startling your mother, shall we?"

"So you're not from this world, correct?" Maria questioned hesitantly.

Lilith nodded and passed the floating pen to Maria. "That's right. Just like I told you, Satan and I came here to find a suitable host to come with us to other worlds."

Maria bit her lips hard as she asked with fright: "Are you the true... Lilith?"

Lilith smirked and smacked her lips. "Unfortunately, no." She sighed tiredly. "I was only named after her, just like little Satan over here."

Satan pouted. "You could have just let her think that we were."

Lilith rolled her brown eyes at Satan. When she looked at Maria - her eyes shone wickedly. "What do you say, my cute little thief? Want to escape with this beautiful big sister and boring child to a whole new world?"

Satan opened his mouth to scream profanities at Lilith but she clicked her fingers and his face at the computer screen could not make any sound as he moved his mouth.

Maria looked at the magic happening before her with fright and a little excitement. "What do I have to do in these worlds?" Her voice became a little mellow. "And what do I get out of it?"

Lilith laughed and unmuted Satan who fumed at her. "Well, looks like this little girl is no pushover," Lilith clicked her fingers once again, making the little boy appear in front of them.

Satan sighed in relief and looked seriously at Maria. "In the big premise- we work for a place that needs constant energy to exist. For you people in the normal planes- you perceive it as heaven, even though you got all the idea of it wrong.

This "Heaven" is not a place people go to when they die, most souls will reincarnate after they die. But there are a few who will get the chance to level up their consciousness and have a chance to live in such a place. In other words- it is a place where souls go when they become higher beings."

Maria glanced at the both of them in dismay. "And you, Lilith, and Satan... are higher beings?"

Lilith raised an eyebrow. "Don't give us that look, little lady. What you, people on normal planes, conjured up for yourselves is that you need to be a good person to have a good life, to have loving people around you, and to die and go to heaven." She sighed and checked her perfect nails for damage. "The souls who live at our plane are not 'good and holy people', they are souls who learn the lessons of life."

Maria looked confused as Satan sighed. "In short, souls who go there are not exactly the ones who were the kindest or 'good', but those who sought greater knowledge and awareness of the secrets of life."

Maria nodded even though her little head didn't get most of it.

Satan started speaking once again: "We shortly covered two planes that are related here- our 'heavenly' plane and your mundane one, now I will explain to you about the kinds of planes we send souls to gather energy from- Game planes."

"Game...?"

Lilith laughed as she leaned her slender body on Maria's bed. "We call them like this because we send our souls to - 'play a game' there, in games you can either win or lose."

Satan continued after a brief glance at Lilith. "These planes have an abundance of energy. Unlike the mundane plane we are currently in which has very little and poor quality energy, and our 'heavenly' realm- which only runs on other plane's energy to exist, these planes have so much energy and they are constantly regenerating it.

This happens because a story is already in place for these planes, we send our people and souls from a mundane plane who has the potential, like you, to gather energy from these worlds by completing missions that disrupt the natural order of that plane."

Maria fidgets with her fingers, picking on her nails. "But won't it hurt the people living there?"

Satan wanted to shake his head, saying that a few people might be hurt by the 'player' actions but it won't hurt the overall population. Well, majority of the times.

Yet before he had the chance to speak, Lilith opened her mouth. "Why do you care?"

Maria widened her eyes at Lilith.

Lilith, in turn, found a more comfortable position on Maria's bed and smiled charmingly. "Does it matter what happens to them? How does it affect you in any way?" She frowned. "And stop picking your nails, how do you suppose to have beautiful hands like that?"

Maria instinctively stopped picking her nails.

Satan sighed and told Maria what he wanted to say before Lilith interrupted them, making Maria nod in a daze.

"Overall- what you need to do is complete missions in other worlds, and in exchange, you get to be a soul who lives on our plane - but not before you complete a number of game planes, in this time you will live in the system space we will provide for you."

Maria clenched her hands tightly. "How d-do we start?"

Lilith chuckled and closed her eyes in serenity. "You have to die first."

Maria jumped in her seat and looked at Satan instinctively since he was the one who scared her less.

Satan sighed tiredly, sounding like a 40-year-old man coming back from a tiring day at his work. "It is a painless process." He smiled calmly at Maria. "And we won't force you, obviously. If you don't desire this, we will delete your memories of us and leave you alone."

Maria bit her lips and closed her eyes, hugging her knees to her chest in self-comfort. She wanted something else to happen, anything to change her current life. Yet she didn't want to leave- Mom, Dad, Her classmates, The English class she likes, the new game she started playing and was excited about the next patch, the ice cream her dad promised to buy on the way home...

Theresa...

Lilith looked at the crying girl, her black eyes revealing nothing. "It's hard, isn't it? You hate your life, yet there are many things you still love that make you hold on to them." She sighed and got up, pushing the crying girl into her bosom and caressing her hair. "But I am not giving up on you."

Satan nervously tried to make her back down. "Lilith..."

Lilith raised the crying girl's head and wiped her tears gently, like the most loving mother. "Silly girl, even if you were a child physically tortured by her parents day and night- I would have passed by you on the streets and not let a single thought of you enter my head." Lilith chuckled when she saw the terrified look Maria gave her. "Little girl, there are all kinds of pains in this world- there is the pain of being hated by everyone, and there is even the pain of being loved too much by a person. But your pain is different, isn't it?"

Maria's brain was a little broken by the woman in front of her, she was so beautiful yet poisonous. Her actions were gentle and loving- like the warm protective embrace of a mother, yet her cruel and sharp words iced the warm touch- making it almost painful to experience yet still wanting more of it.

"Your pain is the kind where no one sees you." Maria's eyes teared even more from her words. "No matter how much you try to shine in the sun and reflect its light, you are only a shadow on the sidewalk."

Maria wanted to agree, to beg them to take her away and make her shine. "But I..." She pulled her runny nose. "I don't want to die."

Satan sighed and shook his head at Lilith, signaling her to stop.

Lilith looked down at Maria. Instead of the disappointing look she thought will be plastered on her devilish face, it had a satisfied smile. "What? You thought I wanted you to be brave and take your fate into your own hands?" Lilith laughed heartedly and shook her head. "I don't need you to be a good, brave, and rational person." Her black eyes shone in a strange red light. "I want you- to want yourself things you've never imagined before in your upbringing. To be a selfish, greedy, petty, and cowardly person. Who doesn't need to be powerful themselves and do the hard work as long as there are other people who he can manipulate into giving those things to them. Whether from obsessive love or immense hate towards them- they will get it."

Satan glanced over at the both of them and understood why Lilith was so adamant about that child. Her eyes shone with a resonance to Lilith's words more than he has ever seen someone else have, the potential and longing reeked out of her like a black poisonous gas.

"Satan," Lilith called out to him. She turned her head, her eyes creasing with her innocent smile. "Set the system into this world."

"...What?" Satan coughed in surprise. "You crazy woman! You want to use the system functions here?!"

Lilith hummed and stroked the little head of the girl in front of her. "Hmm, let's give this little darling whatever her greedy heart desires. When she'll die of natural death, she'll come with us- with a set of skills she already acquired here."

Maria's eyes shone as Satan sighed and rubbed his aching temples. "You know that since this is a mundane plane we will get not even a pinch of what we can get at a game plane. And it has no story," He groaned. "Which means the missions will be weirdly randomized. We will also have to teach and give her many things for her to make due."

Lilith looked at Maria, a doting evil look in her eyes. "How is it to be spoiled, darling?" She caressed her greasy head which was not been properly washed for a while. "Does it feel good?"

Maria nodded.

Lilith kissed the crown of her head. "Good. Now, let me explain how this will all work and what you have to do. Okay?"