Chapter 5: The Sauce-Scented Latte and a Sister’s Humiliation

“Come, try this,” Leila said, her voice lilting. “I hear it’s all the rage in the big cities.”

“Wuwuwu, wuwuwu!”

Ila, trussed up with ropes and gagged by a red ball, watched with utter dread as Leila presented a cup of unknown brown liquid. Knowing the terror of Leila’s cooking, Ila struggled with all her might.

Just moments before, Leila had forcibly dragged her into a closed coffee shop, claiming she had learned a new drink and wanted her adorable little sister to taste it.

Ila would rather be tormented by Leila for a day and a night than consume a single bite of anything she made.

Even the Blood Demon Princess Ila, who once had Leila occupying her every thought, had once succumbed to unconsciousness for three full days and nights after eating Leila’s tentacle-shaped chocolate cake—a feat five Magical Girls combined couldn’t achieve against her defenses.

‘Dark Demon Princess! She’s definitely trying to torture me on purpose!’

‘Demon!’

‘Bastard!’

‘Old hag!’

‘Does this kitchen idiot truly not know how awful her cooking is?’

Every one of these thoughts was heard by Leila with perfect clarity. As the Dark Princess she had personally brainwashed, Ila remained oblivious to Leila’s ability to eavesdrop on her inner monologue.

Listening to her sister’s flood of resentful thoughts, Leila’s beaming smile faltered, her expression stiffening. Yet, she forced the smile back, a subtle twitch appearing between her brows as she narrowed her eyes and approached Ila.

“My dear sister, this is the most fashionable Sauce-Scented Latte right now. Come, have a taste. Your big sister made it especially for you.”

Ila had indeed heard of this drink, popular only in major cities. It was rumored to be the offspring of baijiu and coffee, two utterly incompatible beverages, born one tipsy night.

But could someone please explain why the combination of brown coffee and clear baijiu had turned purple?

Did drinks undergo genetic mutations too?

“Wuwuwuwu!!!”

Ila shook her head like a rattle drum, her purple eyes fixated on the bubbling, unknown purple liquid in the cup.

‘I’ll die.’

‘Drinking this will definitely kill me!’

“Oh my, my sister is so eager! She’s practically begging me to let her drink it already. She can barely wait.”

“Wuwu!”

‘My mouth is gagged anyway; you can’t force it in even if you try!’

‘Indeed, even the Dark Demon Princess is nothing special after all!!!’

“Oh my, has my dear sister forgotten? This red ball… it has a hole.”

Leila’s smile was cunning, laced with a hint of irritation. She gently rotated the red ball 180 degrees, revealing a small, perfectly sized opening.

Ila, who had been feeling smug, instantly froze.

Then, she watched helplessly as the purple liquid descended from mid-air and entered her mouth.

Leila also noticed Yaya, the mechanical bat, stealthily descending towards Ila’s head. With a deceptively kind smile, she poured a little for Yaya too.

“Wuwu!!!”

Ten minutes later.

“Do whatever you want with me, kill or skin me, but your methods of torture are truly too crude.”

“Why did you drag me into torturing the second master?”

Ila, whose only remaining defiance was her sharp tongue, lay weakly on the table alongside Yaya. They continued their vocal resistance against Leila, their voices feeble.

Leila triumphantly glanced at the still-conscious girl and bat, then at the empty cup in her hand, nodding in self-satisfaction.

‘It seems my cooking skills have improved remarkably over the past five years. Even Sister Ila is still awake after drinking it this time, which means my five years of effort weren’t wasted.’

‘Indeed, replacing baijiu with high-grade wine, then adding a dash of soy sauce and perfume to match the ‘sauce-scented’ name, and finally grinding freshly picked coffee beans (unhulled) from the tree—only an elixir made this way is worthy of Sister Ila’s status.’

“What exactly do you intend to… *cough*” Ila, just about to speak, felt something rising in her stomach again. She hunched over urgently, retching the ‘poison’ she had just consumed into a nearby trash can.

Leila was pleased with Ila’s reaction. She had also sampled a cup herself, and such a delicious taste should indeed elicit such an endlessly memorable expression.

“Dark Demon Princess, since your target is me… don’t you dare go near my sister!”

Even though her body felt incredibly unwell, Ila steadfastly questioned the Dark Princess before her.

“You’re looking for your sister, and I’m looking to reclaim my sister. Is there any difference? Besides, I’m quite interested in little Mona as well.”

“Dark Demon Princess, don’t touch her!”

“Oh, do you still consider yourself a big brother? When you’ve clearly become a Dark Princess from head to toe?”

“That’s all your fault, you demon.”

“It seems my little sister has entered her rebellious phase. Just five years ago, she was following me around so sweetly, but now, in just five years, little Ila has changed her heart and won’t even call me ‘big sister’ anymore.”

Though Leila’s words dripped with feigned grievance, the playful smirk on her face didn’t diminish in the slightest; instead, it grew even more pronounced.

This condescending tone infuriated Ila. Memories from her brainwashing flooded her mind—recollections so graphic they needed to be blurred with mosaics even in her thoughts. A flush of shame and anger crept onto Ila’s face as she retorted defensively.

“You brainwashed me! Even if I jump from here, get pelted with cherries by you, or am forced to drink your dark cuisine, I will never call you ‘big sister’!”

Even if her body had transformed into a Dark Princess, her soul remained that of the righteous Magical Girl White Rose. To make her compromise with Leila was impossible!

“Is that so?”

Leila sat in her chair, gazing at Ila with a knowing, expectant look, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards uncontrollably.

She controlled the chair, pulling it closer to Ila until they were face to face.

Ila instinctively flinched, shrinking her head back. She had an ominous premonition.

‘What’s there to fear? If she tries to threaten me with my friends’ and family’s lives again, then I’ll just go down fighting, consequences be damned.’

She swore on the name of Magical Girl White Rose: she would absolutely not aid evil!

“Ila, you wouldn’t want the fact that you are the Blood Demon Princess to be exposed, would you?”

Ila’s eyes widened.

“If the world knew that the strongest Magical Girl White Rose was once the Blood Demon Princess who invaded and corrupted the world, what do you think would happen to your comrades and your sister~?”

“As far as I know, your sister Mona is a new Magical Girl in this town, and also the student I brought as my disguised identity in the surface world. In a roundabout way, she’s also my disciple, the Dark Demon Princess’s disciple.”

“With a big sister who is the Blood Demon Princess and a teacher who is the Dark Demon Princess, could your sister still be accepted by the humans of the surface world? With her strength, she can’t be transformed by the black mud like you, becoming a Dark Princess, nor can the Abyss accommodate her.”

“And what about your comrades, your friends from your Magical Girl days, and your teachers? How would they be treated?”

“The birth of the black mud itself originates from humanity’s darkness~”

Leila’s series of manipulative words once again left Ila deeply unsettled.

If her identity truly were exposed, little Mona would surely be imprisoned and tortured by those old fogies at headquarters. Her comrades, with whom she had faced life and death, would be condemned and reviled online, forced to live lives worse than death.

This was far more unbearable for Ila than simply dying.

Yet, despite it all, she stubbornly declared, “No matter what you say, I will absolutely not aid evil now!”

The sentence was firm, but her tone had softened.

“I don’t need you to help me corrupt the world anymore,” Leila said, pinching Ila’s chin to force her averted gaze to meet hers, a wicked smile playing on her lips. “I just need you to call me ‘big sister’ from now on. The rest is up to you.”

“Impossible!”

Ila righteously refused. To call Leila ‘big sister’ without being brainwashed—that was Ila’s absolute bottom line, something she could not do!

“Just change your words, call me ‘big sister,’ and I won’t expose your identity as my little sister. I’ll even help you with your disguise~”

“After all, I’m not controlling your actions, just asking you to say ‘big sister’.”

Leila’s words seemed to possess a magical quality, drilling into Ila’s ears as if alive, echoing in her mind.

‘That’s right, it’s just calling her ‘big sister’.’

‘As long as I maintain my conviction to oppose her, and always remember my identity as Magical Girl White Rose, even if I verbally call her ‘big sister,’ the long spear in my hand won’t be hindered from piercing Leila’s body.’

‘As long as my soul hasn’t fallen, then I’m not aiding evil.’

‘As for my bottom line…’

‘Under the pressure of reality, I’ll just temporarily lower my bottom line into the ground.’

“Big…sis…”

Ila pursed her lips, her face flushed with shame and indignation. She awkwardly clamped her hands between her thighs. Seeing Leila’s eyes filled with expectation, she lowered her head and turned her face away.

Pouting, she mumbled, her voice as faint as a mosquito’s buzz.

“My dear sister, what did you say? I can’t hear you.”

‘This bastard! Her smile is practically reaching her ears!’

‘She’s clearly toying with me!’

‘Ugh~’

‘This feeling is even worse than being brainwashed!’

Ila pouted, clenching her fists. Next to her fiercely purple eyes, tears of humiliation welled up, and the back of her ears turned involuntarily red.

“Big sister!”

One utterance wasn’t enough; Ila then unleashed a torrent of words like a machine gun.

“Bastard big sister, demon big sister, awful! Trash! Vulgar! Tasteless! Vile! Terrible cook! The most annoying, idiotic Dark Demon Princess big sister!”

After her cathartic outburst, she felt something named ‘integrity’ drop to the floor, and she collapsed weakly onto the table.

‘Someone, please brainwash her and make her forget this humiliating memory.’

The more words Leila heard, the more excited she became, showing no anger at all. She immediately embraced the limp Ila, burying her face into her ivory-white, tender ‘northern hemisphere’.

“Good girl, good girl. This is my dear sister, indeed.”

‘The first step of the plan was completed quite smoothly, wasn’t it~?’

‘Mhm~’