The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 220: When you try to turn a mundane concept into a sophisticated image

Chapter 220: When you try to turn a mundane concept into a sophisticated image

When I rose to sit on the rug, Izzi left the couch and crouched closer to me. Zia also sat up while hugging Jade and with that, the other four demons shifted their attention back to me; Angwi once more locked the door and the twin guards had their serious faces back on.

And I decided to just cut to the case. "There’s a possibility that the Hero and his companion would try to come here."

Izzi dropped his myriad pocket knife and parted his lips. Jade chirped loudly in protest because Zia held the bird too tight. And the adult demons--even Angwi--were visibly flinching.

"Is this what the...umm...girl...said?" Izzi asked carefully. After all, Doun and the twins didn’t know about my previous life.

"The ’prophecy’," Zia, our author, offered a term to ease the talk.

"Y-yeah, that..."

O-ho! That was a good idea. And in some sense, it was truly a prophecy--at least before those who knew about the story changed the event, like me.

"Prophecy?" Doun, who was still sitting on his knees, put away the leather vest and widened his eyes.

I tapped on my cheek to contemplate the storyline I would choose. "Hmm...to put it simply, I heard some prophecies a long time ago. One of them was about the Hero and his new companions who would come to look for Amrita," I started. "This was why I knew Natha had one,"

"And decided to use it for yourself," Izzi remarked.

I glanced at him and shrugged with a grin. "I’m not the type that would worry about a future change,"

If I did, I would just let myself die as Valmeier to follow the course of the story. But I didn’t want to die, and I didn’t care how the story would turn out. I just want to live, desperately so, changing the fate that was being cast so cruelly upon us.

"Anyway, I had been asking Natha’s spy to follow the Hero’s movement," I told them--again, Izzi twitched, probably recalling the time he got abducted and brought inside a crate to the research tower. "And based on this movement, I believe their next destination is to find a magician."

"What’s that got to do with Amrita?" Zia tilted her head. She still stroked the sulking Jade apologetically for squeezing too hard earlier.

"Because this magician has a problem with their mana circuits,"

Zia gasped at my reply, and accidentally squeezed Jade again. "Like you?!"

The poor little bird shrieked and jumped off the succubus’s hands and flew to my lap, whining. I chuckled and stroked the sulking bird carefully while replying to Zia. "Well, I don’t know what exactly afflicting the magician, but they will need the magician’s skill. Unfortunately, those skills couldn’t be used unless the magician’s circuits are fixed,"

"And the magician asked for the Hero to look for the Amrita?" Izzi clasped his hands once.

"Exactly," I gave him an affirmative wink. "Anyway, I don’t know how they knew about the Amrita in Natha’s possession, but they knew--I mean, they will know."

Izzi and the demons finally nodded at my explanation. Doun, however, scrunched his face in confusion. "But, Young Master..." he bit his lips and asked carefully. "Why would the hero come here rather than seeking an audience formally with His Lordship?"

"Hmm..." I swayed in my place, thinking about how I should explain it. "Honestly, I had no idea why. It wasn’t mentioned in the pro...phecy,"

As I said, it was all just a prompt. I recalled why they wanted to seek the Amrita and that it was owned by the Demon Lord of Greed. I remembered how the prompt mentioned a ’tower in the border’ and well...it could only mean this place, right?

So I knew their destination, but I had no idea the train of thought behind that decision.

"Perhaps because it’s in the border?" I tried to provide a reason.

"Ah, that makes sense," Arha nodded. "It would be hard for humans--especially the Hero--to directly make contact with demons so early after the war,"

"Not to mention a Demon Lord," I nodded. "They had to traverse the realm of nature first, but it’s better than going straight to L’Anaak Eed."

"Hearing that from you, when you were the one who went straight to the Demon Lord..." Izzi grimaced. "Kind of weird."

Oh, right. I let out a sheepish grin. "I went to the spy, though, not him," I reasoned with a shrug. And the reason I could spot the spy was because I managed to recognize a demon in disguise through Valmeier’s eyes.

But I wasn’t sure they had that option.

"So...what do you want us to do with them, Young Master?" Urhe finally asked the important question.

I looked at the twin guards--who would be vital in this--and replied with a smile. "Nothing."

"...pardon?"

"Nothing," I chuckled softly, caressing the little bird that was already curling up, sleeping on my lap. "I want you to do nothing, and just let them in."

They blinked confusedly at my decision, and Angwi frowned a little bit. Certainly, she wouldn’t like it if a bunch of intruders were to be left roaming in her territory.

"If you do something, there will be a fight," I tried to explain. "And I don’t want that. I don’t want you--or the humans--to get hurt. Not in my home."

Slowly, Angwi’s displeased expression vanished, replaced by what I infer to be astonishment.

"Just let them in, and I will talk to them," I looked around to meet their eyes, making sure I was speaking firmly. "We will solve this without anyone getting hurt, without anything getting damaged. Okay?"

The one who replied first was Ignis. "Just do whatever you want," the salamander flicked its tail and curled it on my wrist. "Even if something happens, I can just protect you."

On my lap, the little bird chirped softly, as if knowing what happened even in its sleep, and I couldn’t help but laugh. When I looked at the others, they seemed to be relented to my request, and I let out a relieved, grateful smile.

"Natha’s spy will continue to watch them, so we will know if and when they approach the Lair," I told them, and they nodded.

After thanking them, Angwi unlocked the door and they went back to their post and their job. Picking up the sleeping Jade, I stood up and went back to the couch together with Izzi and Zia.

"But, hey..." Izzi pulled on my sleeve and whispered. "If your conjecture is true and that girl is among the Hero’s companions, couldn’t she just tell everything about the future and such?"

"Maybe," I scooped the sleeping bird and caressed it gently. Leaning on the couch, I looked at the ceiling to ponder about it more.

But this wasn’t something that I only thought about now. I had of course contemplated this, but I came to the conclusion that she might not be able to alter the course of history too much. If she could alter the future in a major way, couldn’t she try to prevent the civil war from happening at all? She would have known how devastating the civil war could be.

But the war still happened, even while she--allegedly--was involved in the Hero’s movement. The only change I could pick from Heraz’s report was that the war ended quicker because the force of rebellion had a bigger sponsor, which was Midas.

But it didn’t change the scale of destruction. In fact, with the increase in weaponry involved, the level of destruction had increased. I was so, so glad I decided to scrape off the gun project.

"But, just like how I only heard bits of prompt from her, she might only know that much too, because she had yet to write the draft before she passed," I told the elf. "She could also be the type who doesn’t want to alter the course of history too much, who knows."

"Hmm..."

"And...she could also hide her identity from others--about coming from another world, I mean."

Izzi frowned at my conjecture. "Why? She would know the Hero came from another world too,"

"Yeah, but..." I rubbed the green head on my lap, sighing as I recalled what I was thinking in the past. "Would you like it if someone said you’re just a character in a novel?"

The golden eyes blinked slowly, looking stunned as he mulled over my words. "And if you think you’re the author, would you tell him? Would you tell him you’re the one who pulled him inside this world against his will and made his life miserable?"

"Uhh..." Izzi bit his cheek. "But, this world isn’t actually--"

"No, it’s not," I smiled wryly. "But she wouldn’t know that, unless whoever put the story in her head told her directly."

"Ah..."

"If that was what happened, then she might want to navigate things as naturally as possible to avoid suspicion," I continued.

The last possibility would be that she had no recollection of the novel prompt or story. She could just remember her previous world and the things from there. But if what she wrote was a ’revelation’ from a higher entity, it might get erased or sealed from her mind.

"Anyway, since the condition of the kingdom is already bad, the next course of action would be obvious," I concluded.

"I see..." Izzi nodded, and once again slumped to the couch with a dazed expression.

See, being a protagonist is hard, isn’t it? You have to put yourself on the frontline of major events, doing things for others. Exhausting, really. I’d rather stay in this nice place with my little companions and friends, being pampered by my handsome lover.

"I’m so going to write about interdimensional romance," Zia remarked beside me, sighing into the air, and Izzi let out an exasperated sigh on my other side, prompting the succubus to click her tongue. "Tsk--do you want to be a protagonist that much? Should I model the male lead based on you?"

Izzi widened his eyes and leaned forward to look at Zia in surprise. "...I wouldn’t refuse that," he muttered.

"He’ll probably have a shitty personality, though," Zia replied with a snicker.

"Hey!"

And there we go, they started to bicker again. The noise even woke my poor, sleepy little bird. This time, I was the one who sighed exasperatedly, standing up so they could fight without me as a buffer zone while calming my startled baby.

"Let’s go greet your elders, Jade," I told the little bird as Ignis climbed to my shoulder.

The grumbling bird suddenly perked up and chirped excitedly.

[Let’s go!!]