The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 217: The signs are all there, really, as long as we’re not too blind to see

Chapter 217: The signs are all there, really, as long as we’re not too blind to see

"Who...you really are?" Zia looked at me in confusion, but Izzi seemed to catch on quickly.

"No way," he gasped. "Are you really--"

"Should we go inside?" I looked at them, and then the nicely bright sky. "It’s a good day for a picnic, but I think Izzi needs some warmth,"

Zia didn’t reply, and Izzi just shrugged while shuddering, so I took the succubus’s hand and pulled her back to the Tower with Izzi waddling behind us.

[What Master mean? Master is Master?] Jade chirped with the same confusion as Zia, while Ignis, just like Izzi, understood things to some extent.

"It has something to do with your soul, isn’t it?" Ignis commented nonchalantly, and I could hear Zia gasp. The purple eyes pierced my torso, and I remembered she could also sense the shape of other’s souls, just like Natha.

"You’re...you’re healed?" she gripped my hand. "You’re not broken anymore?"

I smiled at her and kept on walking. "Yes, this has something to do with it."

It was certainly good that I finished the purification before lunchtime, because now I had the time to tell Zia and my companions about me, Valen. Because...well, I didn’t think it was something that could be explained while we were eating something heavy.

Perhaps out of worry, Zia did not let my hand go as we climbed the tower to the guest lounge where we usually were when Natha visited. She must have felt a slight nervousness from my expression, because her hold on my hand got tighter, and she didn’t let me go even after we took a seat.

We sat face to face, crouching on the couch just like when we talked about me moving to the Lord Castle. After all, it was Zia I wanted to talk to. Angwi was there too, bringing us warm drinks, and I didn’t tell her to go.

But then, I found that I was rather confused about how would I go about this. How should I start? How do I land this as softly as possible?

"...Val?" Zia peeked at me when I didn’t immediately speak.

Ah...yeah, I shouldn’t think too hard.

"I’m going to...re-introduce myself," I said, and Zia furrowed her brows, totally confused. But she merely listened to me carefully, and I continued after taking a deep breath. "My name is Valen," I told her. I told them.

Zia blinked, once and twice, and then tilted her head. The one who responded first, however, was my little bird.

[Jade know!]

I smiled and patted the cheerful little bird who was nuzzling my cheek. Well, Jade didn’t care what my name was. It connected to my soul, so as long as the soul was still the same, Master was still Master. Ignis, meanwhile, didn’t know anything about Valmeier, and my name that it heard was ’Valen’ for how much Natha had been saying it.

Of course, Izzi could just assume it was the name I had in my previous life.

"Then..." Zia finally responded. "Who’s...Valmeier?"

"He was...He is my other half," I replied, and Zia was visibly getting even more confused. "You can see my soul, can’t you? You said I was broken before."

"...yeah, but..."

"That’s exactly what happened; my soul was broken into two. One is Valmeier, and the other one is...well, me," I smiled wryly. "Valen."

In my peripheral vision, I could see Angwi approached the door and locked it, even though the only people who might come inside would be Natha’s trusted subordinates and the golem servants. To the wide-eyed, blinking succubus, I spoke further.

"While the fragment that is Valmeier stayed here, Valen lived in another dimension."

I could hear Izzi gasp somewhere on the side. I was sure it wasn’t for the fact I came from another world, but because he finally started to piece together the puzzle of my transmigration. It wasn’t random, it wasn’t a higher order’s whim. It was because I was connected in the first place.

"But you..." Zia parted her lips, and then pressed them again, frowning to mull my confession, before asking in a rather dubious tone. "Since when did Valmeier turn into Valen?"

"Since Valmeier was in a coma," answered me. "I was...dead, in Valen’s body. And when Valmeier was dying, my soul was put into his body--"

"Wait, wait--" Izzi cut me off, and I turned to look at him. "You mean...you were dead, and then you were put into a dying body?"

"Yeah," I shrugged. "That’s not important. Anyway, I looked for Natha to cure this broken body, and, well...you know the rest."

Zia looked at me silently, frozen. The only thing moving was her eyes, blinking repeatedly in fast movement. "So... you were already Valen when we met?"

"Yeah,"

"Oh, thank the Lord," Zia let out a breath of relief while tapping her chest, and it was my turn to be surprised. She looked up and added immediately. "Ah, I mean...I don’t have anything against Valmeier, but if the you that I know were to be different persons, It’s just--I’d have a conflicting feeling about it, okay?"

"...yeah, I guess,"

My lips stretched, and I realized that I felt more nervous than I thought when a relieved sigh escaped my lips. I must have been dreading her reaction to some extent, because who knew what kind of response she would give? What if she felt I was a liar or--

"Are you okay with it?" I asked her. "That I came from another world and... possessed someone else’s body?"

Zia tilted her head in confusion instead. "What do you mean? You said Valmeier is your other half, so it’s not ’someone else’, right?"

Well, if she said it like that...

"Also, I don’t really care how you come here," Zia shrugged. She took my hands and fiddled with my fingers, staring straight into my eyes with a sweet smile on her lips. "The you I met and befriended and the you now is the same, isn’t it? Not someone else? Then it’s fine."

Ahh...so it could be that simple? I guessed it was indeed easier to be accepted since she only knew me and not Valmeier. Perhaps, if it was someone who had a close relationship with Valmeier--like that church boy--then it might be brutal.

[Master is same! Master is Master!] Jade patted my cheek with a colorful wing, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

"Another world is such a faraway place," Ignis commented, as if we were talking about my hometown somewhere.

"I came from there too, by the way," Izzi nonchalantly added, raising his hand slightly before going back to clutch the warm mug.

[Huuh? Elf and Master have same hometown?]

I chuckled and patted the little green head. "You can say that."

"So that’s why you come together this time," Ignis nodded.

"But," Zia let go of my hand and lightly put her palm against my chest. "What happened to your soul? It’s not broken anymore, so..."

"Our split souls finally merged," I told her. "I met him in Mother--I mean the Goddess’s--divine abode and we became one."

"Wow..." Izzi exclaimed quietly. "This is like a movie or something..."

Why did he say it as If he wasn’t a reincarnated soul from another world himself?

"I see...so Valmeier’s soul is already..."

"Well, he’s here," I covered Zia’s hand with my palm. "He’s here too, with me. He is me."

Zia looked at my smiling face silently for a bit, before cracking one of her own. "So...is that why you decided to tell me now? Because you are finally--how should we say it--one?"

"Hmm..." my body swayed as I looked up to contemplate on this matter. "That’s one of the reasons, I think. I..." again, I paused as my stomach felt weird in the face of another confession. "I was confused before. I didn’t know about this...soul thing, too, so...I had been feeling like I take Valmeier’s place and everything he should be having instead of me,"

"Val..." Zia held my hand again, but I shook my head and resumed my smile.

"It’s fine, I don’t think like that anymore," I assured her. "But back then, I was having this identity crisis and I was afraid you would discard me if you knew I wasn’t actually Valmeier..." I paused again to bite my lips before continuing. "Especially Natha."

Zia grasped my cheek and stroked the flesh under my eyes. "Oh, Val..."

"So I couldn’t tell anyone, you see," I smiled wryly. "But now, I’m not confused anymore, and...it turns out Natha knew about it from the start, so..."

I shrugged, and Zia gasped. Izzi gasped. And Angwi...well, she didn’t make any sound, but her eyes widened for a few seconds before she returned to her calm face while covering her mouth in momentary embarrassment.

"He knew?!" Izzi almost yelled as he stood up from his chair--the mug was safe, fortunately.

I nodded and told them further. "He knew, and...umm...we actually met in the other world too," the elf’s golden eyes widened even more. "He got partially transmigrated there for about two months."

Izzi stared at the empty air with a eureka moment on his face. "So that’s why he got interested in my invention! Because he knows what they really are!"

I nodded again, and Izzi slammed his body back to the couch, eyes still wide and lips still parted in a daze.

Zia, meanwhile, had a slightly different reaction. She slammed her palms against her cheeks and exclaimed. "So that’s why!" again, she confused me. "That makes so much sense now!"

"W-what is?"

Zia looked up, the purple eyes blown wide and glittering with excitement. "Lord Uncle always acts like he’s been knowing you for soooo long," she reported. "Like he knows you sooo well--which wouldn’t make sense if your first meeting was the day he brought you here."

Well...technically, he did meet Valmeier once. But Zia was right; it still wouldn’t make sense to know someone well from a few seconds of meeting that ended up in an unhealable wound. And even if he spent the years between stalking Valmeier...it made even less sense, because then, he would be able to instantly notice how different I was acting compared to Valmeier.

Damn...

I should have already picked up this kind of sign and raised suspicion from the moment I knew he had met Valmeier before.

Haa...stupid, stupid me.

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