She gnawed on the chicken leg with loud crunches, taking a bite of vegetables now and then. Zila wolfed down the lunch in the box.

She was so hungry that she couldn't keep up the grace a girl was supposed to have.

Bits of food fell all over her maid outfit, but she didn't care at all. Back on the battlefield, when she fought the demon race, her clothes would definitely get dirty in combat anyway. To deal with demons, she often had no time to bother with little things outside of battle.

Something as minor as dirty clothes was long normal to Zila.

But Xia Mo, who had never been on a battlefield, had a completely different attitude.

"Master, you got your clothes dirty again. Be more careful!" Xia Mo very responsibly brushed the food crumbs off Zila's clothes.

It should've only taken a few light pats to clean them off. Yet Xia Mo acted as if it took enormous effort.

She stayed pressed close against Zila's front, cleaning for quite a while without finishing. Of course, with all her attention on the food, Zila naturally didn't notice.

Ah, Master's body scent is so tempting. I really want to keep Master hanging by my side like a little charm.

With a calm face, Xia Mo whispered to herself in her heart.

"Take your time, Master. This is enough for two people!"

She'd heard her master hadn't eaten for days, so she worried it wouldn't be enough and deliberately bought an extra portion. Even someone who had starved for a whole week should've been full after eating two servings.

And her master had turned into a little girl. Compared to a normal adult, her stomach couldn't be that big.

But that thought was quickly shattered. Halfway through the second portion, Zila stopped her frantic movements and slowly put down the lunch box in her hands.

Noticing that, and seeing the troubled look on Zila's face, Xia Mo asked with concern, "What's wrong, Master? Is there something wrong with the food?"

Zila stared blankly at the lunch box in her hands. Her eyes were a little unfocused.

After a while, she finally spoke slowly.

"Why... am I still hungry...?"

She could clearly feel her stomach was full. Her belly had even puffed out a little because of it. But the hunger filling her stomach and throat hadn't lessened in the slightest.

And the weakness in her body hadn't faded much either. She was much better than before, but her hands and feet still felt weak.

Thinking back to what had happened before, Zila's brows tightened, and her expression turned grim.

"Master? Are you still not full? Should I go buy more?" Xia Mo glanced at the empty boxes beside them, so clean they didn't even have a drop of grease left.

The box in Zila's hands was already half empty too. But soon, as Xia Mo stared at it, a few drops of water suddenly fell into the food.

Following where the drops came from, Xia Mo was shocked to find they were tears from her master's eyes.

She had no idea what happened, but her master had suddenly started crying again. Xia Mo asked worriedly, "Master, what's wrong? Is the food not to your taste?"

"Waaah... Have I already become unable to eat human food? Waaaah! Nooo~"

She remembered the disgusting thing the Succubus Empress had fed her. Somehow, it had felt unbelievably delicious. She'd only taken one bite, yet it felt like she'd devoured several grand feasts.

And now, no matter how much human food she ate, she couldn't get full. An answer she hated rose in her heart, and Zila sank into despair.

"Waaah! I don't want to become a succubus! I don't want to eat that kind of thing! Damn Succubus Empress, waaah... turn me back! Wuuuh~"

Throwing a childish tantrum, Zila flung away the lunch box on her lap, rolled onto the bed, and thrashed around, pounding the mattress with all four limbs.

Hearing that, Xia Mo thought of the same issue too.

After all, succubi were part of the demon race. Their appearance was mostly similar to humans, even superior in some ways, but physically and biologically, they were still a different species.

What they needed as nourishment had to be completely different too. What did a succubus need to consume to sustain her body? The answer was obvious: essence.

And where that essence had to be drawn from... just thinking about it made Xia Mo feel strangely embarrassed. From her master's perspective, it felt disgusting instead.

Understanding how her master felt, and seeing this little girl crying and rolling around on the bed in misery, Xia Mo couldn't bear it.

"Master, come here to Big Sis Xia Mo!"

Xia Mo grabbed Zila by her slender waist, lifted the light little girl up, and placed her in her arms.

She patted Zila's smooth, soft back and stroked her head as she comforted her. "There, there~ Master, don't cry, don't cry. You're probably just not full yet. Little girls are still growing. Maybe if you eat more, you'll feel full."

Unlike Zila's hopelessly blunt emotional sense, Xia Mo tried her best to comfort the despairing girl reality had crushed.

"Wuuuh waah~"

"There, there~ Don't cry~"

For a moment, the warmth between the two of them seemed to gently warm the whole room, driving away the bitter winter chill.

An older-sister figure held a pitiful little girl from another race in her arms, giving her a kind of comfort others never would.

After a while, Zila finally stopped crying. Her hand loosened from Xia Mo's collar, and her tears had dampened a small patch on Xia Mo's chest.

Only after crying it out did Zila recover a little. She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.

"Master, be good~ It's okay~ There has to be another way!"

"I'm still hungry, but I don't want to eat disgusting stuff!"

"Big Sis Xia Mo knows. There has to be a way!" Suddenly thinking of something, Xia Mo lit up. "Right, Master, you were assimilated by the Succubus Empress, right? Did she put some kind of curse on you to make you like this?"

Xia Mo tried to guess what had happened to her.

But Zila only shook her head and replied with the remains of a sob in her voice, "I don't know. After the Succubus Empress assassinated me, I woke up like this."

After thinking for a bit, Xia Mo proposed a plan. "How about going back to school, Master? Go to Huangfeng Academy and become a mage?"

"Huh? A mage? Why?" Zila asked in confusion.

"Become a mage, learn spells, and research a way to remove the curse. Then you can turn back into a human, right?" Xia Mo said confidently.

"Huh? Become a mage? Learn magic? But my actual specialty is as a knight. That's what I'm good at. Is that even suitable?" Zila said, not too convinced.

"And looking like this, I probably can't even go to school."

Xia Mo raised one finger and waved it side to side, rejecting her master's words. "I do have a way. I remember Teacher Mo Feng, the dean of the mage department at Huangfeng Academy, has a lot of disguise tools. They're magic items that can be used for disguises."

"Does Master really want to stay like this forever? Don't you want to become human again?"

"Become human again..." Zila fell into thought and stared blankly at her two tender little palms.

"If you can't return to a human body, then you'll have to eat things that make you sick for the rest of your life, right?"

At that thought, Zila clenched her fists and made a little cheering gesture, jerking both elbows downward. "Mm! Xia Mo's right. I have to do my best! As a knight, I can't get discouraged over a setback like this!"

"And I promised her too. I said I'd become a strong and brave knight!" Zila encouraged herself.

Back then, Xue Yu had chosen to become a knight because of a promise with someone.

To become a strong and brave knight, she had rushed straight to the battlefield after graduating from Huangfeng Academy, saving people from disaster.

Someone brave and strong like her shouldn't lose heart. There was even a rule in the knight's code she had always upheld: never be discouraged in the face of hardship.

She'd already come this far. If she gave up now, then she wouldn't even count as a qualified human knight, much less a strong and brave one.

"That's more like it. That's the Master I know!"

"Mm! Thanks, Xia Mo. Then please help me go to that bookworm Mo Feng and get some transformation item or something. I'm counting on you!" Zila pleaded.

"Okay, Master. But if you're asking someone for help, you should ask properly." Xia Mo narrowed her eyes and smiled in a way that wasn't quite a smile.

Without even needing to think, Zila could tell from that expression alone that Xia Mo was up to no good again.

But Xia Mo was the only person she could rely on right now, so Zila could only ask, "Huh? Then what do you want me to do?"

"You have to call me 'Big Sis Xia Mo' in a cute way. From now on, whenever Master's in little-girl form, you have to call me that!" Xia Mo said with obvious delight.

"Huh? Th-that's just treating me like a child again! I already told you, don't look at how I am now. I'm older than you! I'm your master!" Zila protested.

"Mhm, mhm! But Master is a cute little kid right now!"

"I'm not a kid!"

"You are!"

"I'm not!"

"You are!"

"I'm not!"

Xia Mo had no intention of wasting more words with her master. She quickly threatened, "Master doesn't want the disguise item anymore?"

"You play dirty! Bad disci—"

"Hm?" Xia Mo cut her off with a meaningful look.

"Okay, Big Sis Xia Mo! You're the best to me, Big Sis Xia Mo, please help me~"

Zila hugged one of Xia Mo's arms and gently swayed her body as she pleaded. Behind her, her tail wagged obediently like a little puppy.