And one more thing. It happend to me, that the demon in this story looks like allegorical portrayal of ... mathematics. Both are ancient, eternal and from beyond this world (abstractions and concepts don't exist in our world), both can look scary, both require to be approached in thoughtful and careful way in order to communicate with them and even when they answer they are very laconic and every their "word" has weight. By systematically asking them both will, piece by piece, reveal you about the world beyond our world. And in both cases they know so much, that you will never learn all in your lifetime.
Thus we can view it as story of a woman who found joy and solace in becoming an amauter mathematician. Who decided to spend her limited time on Earth to explore eternal world of mathematics, rather than experience ephemeral things of our ever-changing mortal world.