Lina suddenly lifted her head, eyes instantly flooding with a mix of humiliation, anger, and shock.
She stared at Seraphina in disbelief, then glanced at the whole piece of bread. The surge of emotions was abruptly suppressed.
Seraphina held up the bread, expressionless, patiently waiting as if following a predetermined ritual. The cold morning light outlined the faint weariness in her jawline.
A few seconds of awkward silence stretched through the study.
Finally, Lina slowly reached out, trembling fingertips accepting the bread from Seraphina’s hand as if touching a red-hot iron, quickly pulling back the moment their skin made contact.
Her fingers inevitably brushed against Seraphina’s cold skin.
She held the bread but didn’t immediately eat it, her gaze locked tightly on Seraphina.
“Now, eat it quickly.”
With Seraphina’s order, Lina knew she had no choice. She thrust the bread to her mouth and bit down hard. The bread was dry and tough, and she nearly swallowed it whole, her throat struggling to swallow.
Seraphina quietly watched her actions, lifting the cup of milk to her lips and slowly drinking half before setting it down. As for the jam—something clearly off—she didn’t touch it.
“I once snuck into the Human Nation. The food there was delicious, but sadly, what we have here… it’s enough to make you sick. If you knew how to make food from your world… then maybe we could have a few good meals.”
When Lina finally swallowed the last bite, her eyes were already red, but her gaze was full of confusion.
She was baffled that this powerful Demon Race leader could infiltrate the Human Nation and walk away unharmed!
Before she could dwell on it further, Seraphina’s command came again.
“Clean this up.” Seraphina pointed at the half-finished cup of milk on the tray. “I dislike waste. Drink it, then start your work for today. Sort the documents and maintain absolute silence.”
Lina stared at Seraphina in disbelief, then at the half cup of milk, a bit of milk still clinging to the glass reminding her it had just been drunk from.
“Hm? Disgusted by me? Hmph, you don’t have that right! Hurry up.”
Under Seraphina’s watchful gaze, Lina finally drank the milk, holding the glass from the opposite side Seraphina had used. That half cup washed away the suffocating dryness left by the bread.
By this measure, Seraphina was at least somewhat kind to her, though the way she expressed it… Lina was not used to it.
“Mm… take it away. No need for the jam.”
Lina silently stepped forward, lifted the tray, and turned to leave, her footsteps heavy.
The door closed gently behind her.
Only then did Seraphina sigh and press her fingertips hard against her faintly aching lower abdomen. Even the slight irritation from half a cup of milk made the soreness more pronounced.
Lina carried the tray out, the door shutting behind her, sealing off the presence of the Regent whom she both hated and questioned.
The cold chill of the corridor made her shiver. She forced herself not to think about sharing that cup of milk with Seraphina, but the warmth lingering in her body didn’t lie—it eased the emptiness in her stomach and the torment from the night before.
A Demon Race maid waiting outside took the tray expressionlessly, her sharp eyes silently signaling Lina to follow.
The small room next to the study held cleaning supplies and some spare stationery.
After giving instructions, the maid quietly left.
The tasks were simple: tidy scattered documents, but absolutely no reading or touching the already reviewed or pending files on the desk. She was only to pass documents upon the Regent’s command.
To Lina, it felt nothing like the Demon Realm. It was more like being an assistant to a leader in her own country.
When she returned to the study, Seraphina didn’t even look up, her head bent over the documents.
The languages of humans and demons were similar in speech but wildly different in script, which explained how Seraphina could communicate with Lina.
After watching Seraphina for a while, Lina finally picked up the cleaning tools and began tidying.
After some time, Lina finished cleaning every corner of the study, and Seraphina finally spoke in a faint voice, “It seems you learned the first lesson quite quickly, at least on the surface.”
“Hygiene isn’t something you need to take too seriously; it’s clean enough here already. Your main task…” Seraphina’s gaze lifted from the papers and settled on Lina, then pointed to the empty inkwell beside her.
“See it? Go get a fresh bottle of ink, and a new pen. When you come back, sort the documents I’ve reviewed according to their ranks. The number in the top left corner is easy enough to understand, right?”
“Mm…” Lina responded briefly and went out with the cleaning tools, returning quickly with the requested items.
Although she couldn’t read the text at all, she could understand the basic numbers. Compared to the focus needed for reviewing and annotating, this was effortless.
Before long, Lina fell into Seraphina’s rhythm, though Seraphina worked slower than her, leaving long stretches where Lina just stood idly by.
“The Hunting Ground Border flared up again… Tch, all for a few heads of food, always fighting and killing,” Seraphina muttered under her breath, then quickly annotated, “Enforce the last ruling. Violators pay an extra year of Tithe. Read.”
This was just a ten percent tax increase—this world’s special term for it.
As her pen lifted from the document, her left hand instinctively reached for another paper. Fortunately, it wasn’t her injured right hand this time…
These small movements were still manageable with her left hand.
“Really… never a moment’s peace.” Seraphina sighed softly, and her peripheral vision caught Lina. Was she so bored now that she was staring at those obscure, incomprehensible totems?
Of course, she couldn’t understand them. Seeing her helpless and confused expression, Seraphina felt an absurd sense of kinship.
“That one’s the Totem of the Sea Domain, very boring—put it at the lowest rank.” Seraphina’s voice suddenly cut through the study’s quiet, calm as ever.
Lina jumped and looked up sharply, meeting Seraphina’s gaze filled with vigilance and a hint of embarrassment at being caught.
She pressed her lips tight and moved the document to the outermost pile.
Seraphina glanced briefly out the window; it was about time for a break.