The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 160: And you think magical world wouldn’t have Chernobyl

Chapter 160: And you think magical world wouldn’t have Chernobyl

"What happened, my Lord?"

The vassals climbed to the ship’s deck when they realized Natha was going to the quartermaster and the ship ended up stopping, hovering close to the storm cloud. The airship was supposed to either go through the storm or go around it, so of course, this was perplexing for them.

"Val is sensing something," Natha replied briefly.

He was standing behind me, hands never left my shoulder as I observed the dark cloud ahead. I clutched Jade in my hands, who, just like me, was squirming uncomfortably. The four vassals, including Opti who joined us after Lu’ann, stopped behind Natha.

"In that storm?" Lesta asked, confusion palpable in his voice. I bet the others were confused too, for so was I.

"Jade," I whispered to the fidgeting little bird, who replied with a weak exclaim in my head.

[Stink!]

"The cloud?"

[Dirty cotton! Air too! Air stink! Wind stink too!]

So it wasn’t just my imagination. Jade had been sensitive to mana since birth, and I always used the little bird as some kind of mana detector. If my feelings were vague, Jade’s would be the deciding factor. I turned around to face the Demon Lord then. "Natha--"

"Yes?"

"The air inside the barrier, is it coming from outside?"

I could see a frown started to form on his forehead. "Yes. The barrier reflects physical and magical impact, but the air for breathing does not consider an impact."

I bit my lips and pondered about it, about the ’stink’. "So, if--just if--the air is poisonous, it can still seep in?"

"No, poison uses substances with bigger particles than air. It is considered as ’impact’," Natha explained, still frowning. He was probably trying to identify what was wrong, but feeling unsettled because he couldn’t sense anything. The crews and the vassals also didn’t seem to sense anything wrong, but Natha wouldn’t doubt me, which made him feel frustrated.

That being said, it meant the stinking feeling wasn’t from poison. "What about mana?"

"Mana..." he paused, brows raised and eyes gleaming slightly. "Is that the thing you sense?"

"I think so," I nodded after mulling it for a few seconds--I didn’t want to make baseless conjecture, you see. "Jade says the cloud, the wind, and the air stink."

"Stink..."

"Jade is sensitive to mana," I told him.

"Of course, it’s an elemental bird," Natha told him, and then froze at the thing I said next.

"I want to try purifying the air within the barrier."

I could see the hesitation in his face. He had expressed his disapproval regarding me working on air elemental mana before, due to the event of me transmorphing into water. And so, I used my weapon.

"I won’t go deep. I can do purification without blending now," I gripped his arms and looked up, staring at him with pleading eyes.

"...alright," he finally agreed after a stretched-out silence, before shifting his gaze toward the other demons. "Captain, keep as many people inside as you can, only put minimum crews outside."

"Understood," the Captain nodded and immediately went to fulfill the order.

I looked at the vassals, but they immediately spoke before I could even say anything.

"We’ll stay."

"Can we stay?"

They sounded strangely eager. "Umm, it’s not for me, but..."

"You might feel uncomfortable," Natha told them.

But the demons just looked at us with a plethora of ’it’s okay’ and ’yes’, so I nodded at them and took a deep breath. "Alright," I handed Jade to Natha, and this time, Jade didn’t protest, just curling in his cold hands.

I turned around and looked up, trying to feel the air within the barrier. This was what was difficult with air and wind elementals; they were everywhere, but also intangible. Unlike the earth, the wood, the water, and even the fire, I couldn’t center my consciousness in one specific place. It was why Natha didn’t want me to delve deeper without a teacher, because if I blend myself with the mana...I might vanish, become intangible and disperse everywhere.

So I didn’t infuse my consciousness like before, didn’t send them out. Instead, I sucked them in; the elemental mana particle. Natha got rid of the crew’s presence for this, because living beings who had mana in their body might feel like they were getting absorbed too, and it would feel quite disturbing and uncomfortable.

My practice with absorbing mana and purifying it to make that magic bullet proved to be very beneficial for this. Now, I could do mana absorption from my surroundings with ease, processing it inside me, and expelling the condensed form on my palm.

I had to tell you this; within every purification, there would be residue, since it was generally a process of filtering. Just like pollution in the air, mana had contamination within it. In a normal environment, however, this ’pollution’ was so small in content that we could easily ignore it. I usually just let my body disintegrate that level of pollution without a problem, and only expelled the purified mana.

But this time, since I had to make a point, I let both the purified mana and the contamination out, and separated them within each hand.

"Ah..."

"So that’s..."

The other demons--and Jade who became a bit energized--stared at the glowing iridescent mana ball in my right hand and the little blob of filth in my left hand. I quickly set the mana ball up and disperse them, filling the air with refreshing, purified mana.

Instantly, I felt better. I heard Arta gasp and saw the other demons take a deep breath and blinked in surprise. Natha closed his eyes for a few seconds before nodded. "I see what you mean now," he smiled slightly. They must have felt the difference, standing within a space of purified mana compared to the contaminated one before. It was like going to the countryside after spending years in a polluted city.

Their gaze shifted to my left hand then, where a small blob of dark filth was there. It might be small, only the size of a marble, a little bit bigger than Jade’s daily intake. But it was condensed contamination, and way bigger than the one produced from the environment around the Lair. That--the one I just digest in my body--was just the size of sand grains.

Natha reached out his hand toward me, palm up. "I think...I think it’s right," I muttered while moving the dark marble to his hand, finally feeling better after losing contact with it.

"I see," Natha stared at the marble and, with billowing smoke from his hand, ’swallowed’ the marble into nothingness. He looked at the storm cloud and concluded; "This is a storm caused by mana havoc."

Mana havoc--it was a phenomenon where magical power clashed and created a persistent vortex of chaotic energy. Kind of like radioactive, but magic.

"Do you think some are people fighting down there? Or was there an unknown dungeon?" Lesta leaned on the railing to peer down.

Natha, still staring at the storm, called out his vassals. "Opti, Caba, take a carriage and go down there, find out what happened below."

"By your command," both demons hit their chest lightly and bowed, before hurriedly going down the transport area.

Meanwhile, I spread out my consciousness to feel the flow of mana within the wind, and realized something. I grasped Natha’s arm again, and told him my conjecture. "Natha, the wind is going to the northeastern region."

"Yes, that’s why you feel uncomfortable--"

"I mean, wasn’t there a report about a village in which residents had fallen ill? Also, Tielli--umm, the girl who gave me goma--said all of her friends were sick."

"Young Master...you mean the illness is caused by the bad mana?" Arta widened her eyes, and I nodded.

"Ah, it’s possible," Lesta drummed on the railing, eyes trailing to the path where we came from. "It’s an accumulation of bad mana in the environment. It wouldn’t be too bad usually, since nature will disintegrate it,"

Yes, just like the small contamination that I could digest as bodily waste in my body, the normal amount of contamination in a normal environment would get cleansed by itself.

That was, in a normal environment.

"But the mana havoc messed up the balance, and the bad mana got intensified," Natha continued the train of thought. He put the slightly energized Jade on my palm again, and frowned in contemplation. "The forest villagers got sick after a ritual, so it’s the sudden increasing usage of magic that triggered the bad reaction."

It seemed like we came to the same conclusion. I looked back at the storm cloud again, the ’radioactive’ waste of magic. If it was left behind, the surrounding area, especially the place passed by the bad wind, would get more and more contaminated. Just like how the smoke from a forest fire would damage the nearby population.

"I’m going to try purifying it,"

Natha grasped my free hand and stared at me keenly. His voice was calm, but I could see his eyes hardening. "Are you sure? It’s huge."

"I’ll try," I nodded firmly. Natha didn’t say anything more, but he didn’t let go of my hand, so I held his hand back, interlacing our fingers. "I won’t go over my capacity," I said, giving him what I hoped was a reassuring smile. "You can stop me if you think I do."

The line on his lips hardened for a second, before he let out a long sigh. "Haa, you’re getting better at negotiating with me," he tightened the grip between my fingers and nodded. "Alright, do it."

"Mm," I gave him my fiercest gaze, and whispered to the little bird on my palm. "Jade, can you help me? Just support my circuit."

At this stage, Jade couldn’t do much in regard to offensive magic, but the little bird could act like my personal mana power plant to give me more energy. But I was going to absorb mana, so there was no need for more energy. I did, however, need a protective barrier around my circuit--after all, I hadn’t finished my treatment. Jade could do that with its mana, since the bird was my familiar and had a compatible sequence with me.

[Yes! Jade help Master!]

The bird stood up on my palm, and hopped to my shoulder. I could see an iridescent glow emanating from Jade and felt warmth flooding out of my mana core, coating my circuit with a thin protective layer. It was the extent of what Jade could do now, but it would be enough to make sure the large amount of contamination did not poison me.

"Alright," I nodded to myself for a boost of confidence. "Let’s do this."