“…Are you alright?”

Rajie asked without thinking. He felt compelled to ask.

Romei, who had been silently staring outside, turned her head to look at him. Her face showed slight puzzlement and surprise, wondering why he would suddenly ask such a thing.

“What do you mean?”

“Well… I mean…”

Rajie tried to explain the melancholy and emptiness he had just glimpsed in her eyes but trailed off.

When he actually tried to explain, he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he meant to ask about. He had only spoken because he felt the question was necessary.

While Rajie was flustered by his inability to provide a proper answer, Romei gave a faint smile.

“I’m fine. Since I’m okay, you don’t need to struggle to find words.”

“…”

“Don’t worry. There’s nothing wrong enough to warrant telling Barmas.”

“…But why did you ask that just now?”

“Ask what?”

Romei questioned back, though she understood what Rajie was referring to. This indicated she wasn’t particularly fond of the topic, but Rajie didn’t back down easily.

“About the possibility of being with familiars other than Lord Barmas, or about orgies.”

“…”

“Why did you suddenly ask about such things?”

“I told you already. I just wanted different stimulation.”

“Is there no other reason?”

Rajie couldn’t read what was going on in her small head. However, figuring he had nothing to lose, he pressed further, determined to get to the bottom of it.

Faced with his pointed question, Romei simply laughed it off. She responded with feigned innocence, seemingly surprised by his question.

“What reason would I need for wanting new stimulation?”

“…”

“Oh, perhaps you know if there’s a suitable reason I could give to get Barmas’s permission to do it with Rajie too?”

“…The moment those words come out, I would likely be dragged to the t*rture chamber. So please refrain from such curiosity.”

“Ah, I see…”

At the mention of a t*rture chamber, Romei immediately dropped her strange curiosity and closed her mouth. Her face, which had shown traces of amusement until moments ago, hardened.

Rajie watched with concerned eyes as Romei turned her head back toward the window.

Though she claimed she was fine and that there was nothing for Barmas to worry about, he couldn’t help feeling uneasy and couldn’t simply let it go.

Knowing he might be overstepping, Rajie suggested:

“There’s time before dinner. How about taking a walk?”

“…”

“Or perhaps some sweet snacks…”

“I’ll just lie down for a bit.”

Romei cut him off and answered firmly. She still hadn’t turned her head or given him a single glance.

Rajie silently looked down at Romei’s profile as she lay covered by the blanket, blinking quietly. Swallowing a sigh, he stood guard beside her in silence.

* * *

“Mmm, hnn… haah, ungh…!”

Clear fl*id poured down with a pattering sound between Romei’s legs after she had been moaning in pain for dozens of minutes with her limbs bound.

Barmas momentarily put down his pen and looked up at Romei, disturbed by the vulgar sound that tainted the quiet, clean atmosphere of his office.

Romei was hanging halfway from the office door with her limbs restrained, trying to steady her rough breathing.

With her arms fixed behind her back and her torso bound with rope like a beehive, the rope extended through a gap above the door to the outer doorknob. This arrangement made it possible to suspend Romei without special equipment like those in a t*rture chamber.

The rope maintained a precarious length that allowed her to barely touch the floor with her tiptoes. This ensured that when her knees weakened at the moment of cl*max, the rope digging between her private parts would stimulate her cl*toris with the full weight of her body.

Despite this cruel torment, Romei surrendered herself to pleasure, her trembling legs stretched out.

A snake-shaped shadow familiar slipped out from between her legs, looking satisfied with its work.

Barmas, who had stopped another snake that was caressing her chest from moving downward, asked her. It was the coldest voice she had heard in the past two months.

“Have you finally decided to talk about why you said such things?”

“…”

But Romei didn’t answer.

From the moment Barmas had called her to his office and hung her from the door, this kind of interrogation had continued, but she deliberately hadn’t said a word.

The way he tormented her during this interrogation stimulated her senses much more than usual.

Now that pleasure was finally cutting into her flesh like a knife, she didn’t want to ruin this enjoyment by opening her mouth.

She merely savored the afterglow of her cl*max while waiting for the next wave of pleasure and release.

In response, Barmas clicked his tongue, then rose from his seat and approached Romei. He grabbed her chin, which had been hanging limply with her gaze fixed on the floor, and forcibly lifted her head.

Barmas’s red eyes glowed fiercely with anger as he looked at Romei.

“Speak.”

“…”

“Didn’t we agree that in exchange for embracing you as much as you want, you would behave prettily? Why are you being so unpleasant today?”

“…”

“Or do you expect me to throw you to the familiars if you provoke my anger this way? Don’t be ridiculous. That will absolutely never happen.”

A sneer crossed Barmas’s lips as he spoke, seemingly making her recognize that even if she deliberately provoked him, she wouldn’t get what she wanted.

However, whether Barmas was angry, mocking, or torturing her, Romei remained calm. She didn’t even move her lips to refute his insulting remarks.

Her complete lack of reaction made Barmas’s blood boil instead. His fingers tightened around her chin.

Barmas shook her chin, demanding an answer.

“Speak.”

“…”

“I said speak. Can’t you hear me?”

“…”

“If you haven’t forgotten that you agreed to serve me in exchange for your friends’ lives, answer me right now. If you still want to be in my arms and cry, open that mouth now.”

“…Why.”

Romei finally spoke.

Barmas flinched, feeling a sense of dissonance at her dry voice, which showed no trace of moisture for someone who had been crying in pleasure just moments ago.

Romei blinked slowly, making the movement clearly visible as she looked back at him.

Barmas’s heart pounded with a sense of disconnect and anxiety, like someone waking from a pleasant dream to face reality, as he met Romei’s gaze, which was as emotionless as her voice.

Romei said:

“Why are you curious about that?”

“…”

“And I don’t understand why this warrants such anger. Even now, I’m being violated by a familiar under your command.”

Saying this, Romei smiled brightly. It was all the more strange because it was so fresh and beautiful.

Barmas, who had so much to question her about until just now, lost his words the moment he saw Romei’s smile.

He wanted to ask whether her desire for group activities meant she wasn’t satisfied with him alone, whether her inquiry about the possibility of being handed over to familiars meant she wanted to be with them rather than him, or if there was a familiar she was intimate with. Or perhaps she found that familiar more appealing than him.

He had so many questions, but none came to mind. Only one thing circled in his head: the ominous whisper of a premonition that the curtain of misfortune was about to rise before his eyes.

“You…”

While Barmas stared at Romei, frowning and unable to utter any of the words lingering in his mouth, she calmly asked. It was also a cruel question.

“Shall I tell you everything truthfully?”

Barmas feared the truths Romei might reveal, but he soon answered.

“…Tell me.”

“I feel nothing when Barmas embraces me.”

“…”

At this statement, far more shocking than he had anticipated, Barmas’s hands lost their strength. The hand holding her chin fell limply.

‘Nothing, she feels nothing…’

Unable to recover from the shock, Barmas stared blankly at Romei. He desperately hoped his ears had deceived him, but betraying his hopes, Romei continued nonchalantly.

“I was thinking about why I’ve become numb to stimulation, and wondered if it was because I’ve only been with you, so I asked Rajie. I wondered if it would be different with a familiar.”

“But… you clearly felt something until just now. The floor is soaked with your fl*ids, how can you lie like that…”

“Of course, it’s not that I feel absolutely nothing. But it’s less than before… Before, I would tingle just from you squeezing my chest, but not anymore.”

“…”

“Perhaps because being tightly bound with rope is new, I was quite excited today and felt more than usual. Intense pain seems to be stimulating. That’s why I wasn’t saying anything, but I was surprised by how seriously angry you became.”

Romei spoke with a face so composed it was hard to believe she had just been flushing red and squirting fl*ids like a fountain multiple times. Then she asked:

“But why were you angry? If you don’t like orgies, you could just say so. If you can’t permit it, you could just say you can’t.”

“…”

“Oh, or were you pretending to be angry to tease me, and I just didn’t catch on?”

Barmas didn’t answer her continued questions. Instead, he took a step back from her.

And for the first time since becoming intoxicated with the feeling that she had become his, Barmas seriously looked not at Romei’s words or actions, but at her eyes.

Surprisingly, in those clear blue eyes that had always reflected her emotions transparently like a clear lake, he could read no emotion at all.

Like a puppet with cut strings, or a body robbed of its soul by a demon, her face showed boundless exhaustion.

It was exactly like when she had awakened after twelve days.

In that moment, the conquest and satisfaction that had intoxicated Barmas—the excitement and possessiveness that came from the fact that she was completely in his grasp and submitting to him—vanished like a mirage.