The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 208: I too, want to pretend that I am mighty and omniscient

Chapter 208: I too, want to pretend that I am mighty and omniscient

I had wondered once; why people always pushed doing their homework for the last day. Why didn’t they do it before, little by little so they didn’t have to face agonizing piles of homework? Was it so hard to do?

Hah! The joke was on me!

Because that was exactly what I was doing on the last day of our journey home; working through Eruha’s homework. I had to beg Lesta and Natha to help me with it, filling me in on the things I forgot during the visit.

Making several essays analyzing the economic and cultural situation of the region wasn’t something easy to do when we were in a hurry, turned out. I also totally forgot that I had to record the three topmost commodities in each town and city we visited. Mapping was easier because I liked to see the landscape from the deck every time we flew.

But damn--I would never think bad about those students delaying their work anymore.

At first, Jade was sulking because I couldn’t play, but seeing that I was busy doing my homework instead of spending time with Natha put the bird in a better mood. Jade even helped me bring some papers and candies to refill my sugar intake, while Ignis kept me warm even while I was rolling on the floor while doing my essays.

And with everyone’s help, I could finish my homework in time! Yaay!

Although...why was it that I felt Lesta was rather disappointed in my narrow escape?

Was it had something to do with how he stayed as far as possible from Eruha when we finally landed safely on the Castle? Eruha and Malta were there to welcome us, and I saw Lesta inch further and further away to the back of the group. But I also saw the vampire’s sharp gaze always managed to find the demon.

How suspicious...

Eruha didn’t say anything though, just kept conversing with me and Natha. His eyes though--his eyes never left the nervous Lesta.

Hmm...lovers’ business?

"Teacher Eru, I finished the homework!" I saluted the vampire and Panne brought forth my frantic day’s work.

"How excellent, Young Master. Seems like I don’t have to put you in an extra lesson anymore," Eruha smiled approvingly, and I hoped he didn’t realize that I did everything in a day and night. "You can enjoy your winter vacation with ease now, for I won’t hold the lesson for a while until I finish grading your homework."

"Yay, Jade! Playtime!"

[Playtime!]

I high-fived the little bird with a cheerful laugh that was the opposite of Lesta’s grumble. I bet my free playtime meant he got a playtime too--with a vampire!

After a short welcome back and so on, Natha and I went back to our quarters with my little companions, and I saw Lesta slip out of the group to his own quarter. But then, I also saw Eruha smile so deeply that I felt a shiver down my spine.

Err...good luck, Lesta, for whatever it should be.

I was planning to introduce our place to Ignis first, but Panne, who already headed back to manage my stuff while we were chatting with the others, came to tell us some news.

It seemed like Heraz was here.

* * *

Actually, Heraz had been here since a few days ago, but well, in his own words;

"I can go anywhere, Young Master, but the air is a bit..."

Well, yeah, I understood. Even if he could fly, getting past that barrier would be tricky. So Heraz went away again to wait until the airship

arrived. I laughed and lamented at the fact that we didn’t have a phone at a time like this, and Natha whispered that we were going to make it someday, before kissing my cheek and disappearing to the dressing room.

Heraz was looking at us unblinking, his expressionless face morphed into surprised for a second before going back to stare at the floor again. Just about everyone had expressed their astonishment at Natha’s slight change--in their eyes, apparently, it wasn’t slight--so I had gotten used to it.

"What news do you bring for me?" I asked him then, after Panne retreated from the room, and I told Jade to show Ignis their ’room’.

"I had compiled the information about Midas that you asked, Young Master," he fetched a roll of parchment from his storage ring and delivered it to me with extra politeness--just the way he always acted when Natha was around.

"Oh, thank you," I took the thin parchment and cast it aside for now because there was something else I needed to know.

"What about the Hero?"

I could see from the corner of my eyes that Natha was peeking from the dressing room with narrowed eyes. What--was he jealous again?

"With the help of Midas, they succeeded in the rebellion effort, but much was destroyed in the process, so they were trying to see a way to fix it," Heraz reported, before adding. "Not everything can be solved with money, after all."

"I can attest to that," Natha said while emerging from the dressing room, wearing something more casual and joining me on the couch.

Well, we did just go through something that couldn’t be fixed with money. Even after gaining Amrita, my soul couldn’t be healed. No amount of money could buy a deity’s favor, or else Natha would already conquering the whole world.

War, external or internal, always left destruction in its wake. Even after everything was over, the damage could not be undone. Buildings could be built, crops could be replanted. But lost lives couldn’t be brought back with money, and time couldn’t be bought. Crops couldn’t be planted on top of destroyed land which life force had been sucked out and dried.

And this was why druids shouldn’t be erased from the world. So stupid.

Wait...

"Are they...looking for a magician right now?"

Heraz raised his face and blinked his widened eyes. "H-how...do you know, Young Master?"

Hmm...I wanted to pretend that I was very smart and awesome, but my mind was occupied by this matter for now. I was suddenly reminded of why the hero group was looking for a magician in the prompt I heard.

The land. The land that was getting corrupted by the civil war, the leyline that was getting dried up because people sucked out the mana for their fight. This world wasn’t as simple as the Earth in which magic was very prevalent in people’s livelihood and environment. A land without mana could not support anything to live above it, just like the desertification that happened around the northern volcano.

"Sweetheart?" Natha caressed my hair, and I snapped out of my deep thought.

"Ah, sorry," I looked at the surprised Heraz again, who had just broken one of his codes and looked at me rather than the floor. "The civil war must have damaged the land, and now they tried to look for a solution to get it to function again...right?"

"Y-yes," the pale demon finally lowered his face again.

"They don’t have access to the realm of nature, thanks to the Empire destroying the Druid Kingdom," I huffed in annoyance, sprinkling a little sneer there. "So rather than looking for a druid, they’d be looking for a magician specialized in elemental magic."

Heraz flinched slightly on the floor, before replying in a dazed voice. "Precisely, Young Master."

"Alright," I tapped on my lips, trying to remember the timeline of the novel. But it was rather hard to discern it from verbal prompts. "Is there anything else?"

"They are still looking for the magician, and we’ll keep on following them,"

"Mm..." I moved my head left and right to get my brain to work. Where was it...where was this magician in seclusion lived..."The Empire," I opened the eyes I didn’t realize were closing, and looked at Heraz. "The magician will be in the Empire, in one of the uninhabited islands in the middle of the biggest lake there--ah, well, I guess it’s no longer uninhabited in that case..."

Again, Heraz looked up and blinked. "You mean...Lake Velnas?"

"I don’t know geography well, Heraz..." I pursed my lips, and Natha laughed while patting my head.

"Yes, the biggest lake with many islands in the middle of it would be Lake Velnas," Natha said. "The lake used to be the borderline between the Empire and the Druid Kingdom."

"Ugh--"

My lips twisted even more. How weird, now everything about the fall of the kingdom felt truly personal to me. It was weird because, without the fall of the kingdom, I wouldn’t even be born--theoretically. But it still pissed me off nonetheless.

Was getting my soul whole and meeting Mother made me feel closer to the druid as my kin? I even naturally called the Goddess by ’Mother’ now.

Somehow I had the urge to check on my ears in the mirror--in case it got longer just like the druid.

"A-anyway, just follow them when they start to go in that direction," I told Heraz. "And..." I hesitated a little bit, before turning to look at Natha. "I think...they might come looking for you too,"

Natha raised his brow. "They? As in the Hero and his companions?"

I nodded silently. I forgot that I hadn’t mentioned this to him at all despite telling him about the novel; about the prompt that the author girl had mentioned to me before her death.

"Why?"

"Because they will need the Amrita," I told him carefully.

"Your Amrita?" he tilted his head, and I could see the gear in his mind turning. "Is the magician in need of your Amrita?"

I had no idea how he could keep making me blush in the middle of a serious conversation like this, but he easily did, simply by saying the Amrita was mine. He essentially said that he procured this one-of-a-kind miracle drug solely for my sake, and my stomach felt as if Jade was jumping inside.

"Most likely, yeah..." I replied quietly, to hide how flustered I was. So I shifted my gaze to Heraz again, to avoid looking at Natha’s face. "Well, so that’s it, just keep watching them a while longer."

Heraz, however, didn’t move or say ’by your command’ as usual. The pale, iridescent eyes still looked at me, wide and unblinking that I started to worry.

"Umm...Heraz?"

"Young Master..." he said in a dazed tone. "Are you perhaps...a seer?"

I had to press my lips hard as Natha stifled his laugh by burying his face on my shoulder.