The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 109: Thank God this is not a horror novel

Chapter 109: Thank God this is not a horror novel

"Why...is it dark?"

My first initial response was surprise.

I felt that one second of feeling like my heart dropped, which meant I had entered the compressed space between two portal gates. The moment my forward foot touched the ground, I should arrive in the Lord Castle’s garden.

But instead, my foot landed in a dark space. I said space because although I landed on a solid platform, I couldn’t be sure about it. There was nothing around me but darkness--no land, no walls, no sky. No Jade.

I realized then that I couldn’t feel Jade.

It wasn’t just a matter of ’It’s not there’ beside me, but I couldn’t feel the bird, my familiar, who should have been connected to me through our soul. Even if I couldn’t physically see Jade, I should be able to feel him, supposedly.

But I felt nothing. Or rather, something was obstructing our connection. Was it this darkness?

My second response should be fear, or at least worry. My brain logically thought about it. And yet, rather than feeling scared, I feel intrigued instead. For some reason, despite the isolation and the darkness, it didn’t feel uncomfortable or scary. It actually felt...familiar.

I feel like I had encountered a place like this before, once upon a dream. A dream that I couldn’t remember.

But once I acknowledge it, I started to feel something--there was something in this dark space. And that something was calling for me.

Now, I knew that my response should be ’Wow, Val, really? You’ll just saunter away to something they calling at you in the dark?’ or something like that. But listen--I was someone who took a hand of a stranger and negotiate with a Demon Lord while I was drunk. I was someone who followed people into a dark secret passage for funsies and just dipped into the art of transmorphing without a proper teacher. You should have known already how bad my situational judgment was.

And that was why, despite the suspicious, horror-like situation, my feet stepped forward. There was no path, there was no light. To be honest, I couldn’t even see my own limbs. But that ’presence’ was guiding me through, and despite not being able to see anything, I hadn’t stumbled even once while cruising through the darkness.

I had no idea how long I had been walking, since I couldn’t feel any bearing. I gave up on counting the seconds and steps after the hundredth, and just walked and walked. Strangely, I didn’t feel even a little bit tired, although I was sure I had been walking nonstop for a while now. It almost felt like I was in a dream. Rather than feeling tired, I was getting bored with the unchanging landscape of darkness.

That being said, the presence did become bigger and stronger the more I walked, so at least I knew I was walking closer to that something. Finally, before my willpower gave out, I no longer just felt it, but I could see it. In the distance, a flickering light.

As I walked closer, I found out that the light was coming from something like a cocoon. It was enveloped in a pulsing light, which followed the pulsing of the cocoon. Thump. Thump. Like a beating heart.

When I arrived not far from the cocoon, I realized that it was quite big and oval-shaped, with a darker color at the center of it, where the pulsing was coming from.

"What is this?" I muttered in the dark, and the cocoon suddenly twitched, as if reacting to my voice. I flinched in surprise, and just stood frozen for a while.

That was...should I try again?

"What are you, little one?" I asked, because this thing kind of felt like a fusion of larvae and an egg, which reminded me of the time Jade was born. Subconsciously, I treated the thing like how I treated Jade, and I talked to it in the same way I did with the little bird.

Again, the cocoon twitched, so I knew it was indeed reacting to my voice. Blinking in contemplation, my stupid little brain told me to raise my hand and touched it. You know, just like how we wanted to push a visible button, or peeled off a plastic covering...yeah, something like that.

And so I raised my hand and touched it.

I was so going to die first if I ever transmigrated into a horror movie, huh?

The moment my fingers touched it, the cocoon pulsed faster, like an increased heartbeat. And with that, my heart quickened too, as if resonating with the cocoon’s pulsing. And then, suddenly, a voice came into my mind.

[Not yet]

What...?

[You’re not one yet]

What was this thing talking about? No, wait--it could talk?! I couldn’t recognize the voice though, like whether it was a male or female, or whether it was old or young. To be precise, my mind couldn’t muster enough will and wits to think about it.

"What...what do you mean by ’one’? Who are you talking about? Can you tell me mo--oaaah!"

What the hell?! Before I could finish my question, I was yeeted out of there.

There was nothing I could use to describe it better. It felt like I was suddenly getting sucked, yanked, and thrown out of the space. And the next thing I knew, I was stumbling on the stony path, surrounded by grass.

"What..."

[Master!!]

"Ugh!" I clasped my ears in reflex, even though the loud yelling was sent through my mind rather than my hearing organs. "Don’t be so loud, Ja--hmph?"

Before I could restore my bearing or recover from the loud yelling of my familiar, a pair of cold hands were clasping my cheek and lifted my face up, where I was greeted by a pair of hard, cold silver orbs.

Natha said nothing, just looked at me hard and deep, and I was just blinking there, staring back at him in confusion.

[Nightmare! Let go of Master!]

A blast of water balls flew toward us, but it crashed into an invisible barrier before any of it managed to land on Natha. The Demon Lord, all the while, never averted his gaze from me.

"Umm...Natha?"

"Where were you?" he finally spoke, with the same face he made when he talked to me about going to the river.

"Where...was I?" I asked back in confusion, and Natha frowned in response. He pulled back slightly, but still held my face between his hands.

[Master! Master gone! Master gone for a long time!]

My eyes widened at Jade’s words. I wanted to look at the bird, but Natha held my face tight that I couldn’t move it. Also, those silver orbs were locking me in place like an invisible chain.

"How long was I..."

[Long! The sun already move!]

Well, that could be anywhere from the afternoon to the next day--since it wasn’t night. I had to teach the bird how to read the clock sometimes--wait, focus Val! This wasn’t the time to think about anything else!

At least, I understood that Jade got out of the gate alone, without me, some time ago, while I was stuck in that dark space. Was that why I couldn’t feel our connection? The bird probably panicked when it saw I wasn’t there, and then felt that our connection was getting obstructed and called Natha here.

So much for planning a surprise.

But what was happening exactly? Because it initially felt like a dream, I thought it was just a vision. But since the time seemed to flow still during the whole thing, it must have been a physical intrusion. But where exactly was I? Was I being sucked into a branching space while my body going through that compressed space between here and the Lair?

But then... that cocoon seemed like it knew me?

Ugh--what was it exactly? Was it the cocoon that brought me there? Or was it another force? And why did it feel familiar somehow? All those questions swirling in my head incessantly, making my queasy self feel even dizzier.

And how long exactly did it take me to get out of there?

I stared at the Demon Lord then, hoping for a more precise answer than ’the sun had moved’, but Natha’s face didn’t change at all, and he repeated his question.

"Where were you?"

Looking at those silver eyes, I knew he wouldn’t budge until I gave him a clear answer. Thankfully, this time, it couldn’t be said to be my fault, right? It wasn’t like I ended up in that place of my own will.

"Somewhere dark, I don’t know...I couldn’t see anything," I started to tell him. I heard the sound of flapping wings, and felt Jade--the big version--nuzzled into my side. "I walked for a long time, and found something there..."

"What thing?"

I opened my mouth to tell him, but soon realized that I couldn’t. I closed my mouth with widened eyes, and tried again. Nothing came out.

It was in my mind, at the edge of my tongue, but I couldn’t spell it. No matter how much I tried, the words dispersed before they could leave my throat.

"...why?" I traced my lips with my fingers, and that was when Natha finally let go of my face. "Why can’t I...?"

And then I remembered about something that felt similar to this; the Egg. Or seed--or whatever it was--that was staying in Natha’s treasure room.