The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 272: There are all kinds of child-conceiving method in this world

Chapter 272: There are all kinds of child-conceiving method in this world

"D...die?" I swallowed, unconsciously clutching my tingling abdomen—even though I knew there was no womb there.

Natha stroked my arm because I suddenly turned rigid, and D’Ara continued with a smile on her beautiful face--which, for me, felt very eerie. "A mortal body could not contain the power of the Primordial One, even in a fetus form. Even if you’re a woman, the vessel would still be in this form," she said while tapping the seed’s hard exterior; the vessel.

"Oh..."

Now that I thought about it, the Primordial One had already been symbolized by a black flower in the statuaries that the Demon God showed me. Natha had told me that the building I visited in that illusionary world might be the ruin that Natha visited to obtain the seed--when it hadn’t been a ruin, at the very least.

Awkwardly, I fiddled with the edge of my sleeve, looking down with reddened cheeks. It was presumptuous of me to think that the birth of someone as important as the Primordial One would be anything ordinary. And I felt kind of embarrassed now, thinking that the vessel was made because of me; because of my lack of reproductive organs.

D’Ara chuckled at my flustered reaction, but fortunately, she did not comment on it, and instead continued with our initial topic. "Still, I can’t say for sure I know the correct way to put an embryo inside the vessel."

Oh...that was too bad. We came here because of her invitation, but we also thought she would know something, as the one who led Natha to find the seed in the first place.

Ah, my future child. Why didn’t you come with a set of manuals?

And then I recalled something that came up right before our journey to Gluttony. "What about my dryad bloodline? Could we replicate their method?"

D’Ara tapped on her armrest in contemplation, frowning slightly as if she was also feeling frustrated by the lack of certainty. "I thought about that too, but there’s a significant difference between you and true dryads."

Significant difference...

Well, in the first place, as I thought, our structural physique was already so different. And above all else--

"...that I’m not a spirit," I muttered dejectedly.

Moving ’essence’ to another vessel outside the body was possible because dryads essentially were spirits, which was...well, a clump of essence. It was different from the formation of embryos through the union of the ovum and zygote in other beings, including humans and demons.

In a sense, it was almost like the way vampires created other vampires by fusing their essence with their blood. But even vampires, if they were to have intercourse with the opposite sex of other races and had children from it, the children wouldn’t be a vampire.

This meant, in the end, using different methods would yield different results.

For me who wasn’t a spirit and had a different kind of ’essence’ from dryads, well...

"That too, but more importantly, the method involved separating a part of the dryad and attaching it to the mana vein," she said, and I couldn’t help but grimace. "I don’t think you can do that."

"Uhh..."

Since spirits were a clump of essence, separating their essence would be equivalent to severing one of their organs. So, yeah...there was no way I could do that. Not to mention, there was no way Natha would let me do that. He was already grabbing my hand tight, and gave me a stern warning.

"Nope. Not that."

Ugh--I know! Do you think I want to cut my body too? Do I look like a masochist to you?

"But it’s a start," D’Ara hummed, bringing our attention back to the topic.

"What do you mean?"

"The part of putting an essence into another vessel for it to grow by absorbing mana in the environment," she said, patting the seed again as she looked at me and Natha. "It already starting too."

"Ah, you mean by us feeding it mana?"

Her smile widened slightly as her eyes were filled with twinkling glints. "You said it only started reacting when you gave your combined mana, right?"

"Yes,"

She rubbed her lips and muttered. "Mm, three essences..."

Blinking my eyes as I recalled the conversation with the Demon God again, I gasped and exclaimed. "Oh!"

"Did An’Hyang tell you that?"

"Yes!" I unconsciously yelled that Jade, who was sprawling atop Shwa, flinched in surprise and slid off the seed. "So, you mean...Shwa only reacted to the three essences of human, druid, and demon inside our combined mana?"

"Precisely," she nodded with a satisfied smile. "That’s how you established the first connection; watering the seed, if I may say. So, the body should also be formed by combining those three essences and moving them into the vessel."

"But...how?"

"That’s the question, isn’t it?" she shrugged, and I stared at her dumbfoundedly as my excitement was brutally cut off.

Natha sighed and grumbled in response. "That’s why we’re here, aren’t we?"

"Don’t be sulky, kid," she chuckled and tutted at Natha before shifting her gaze to me. "Now, sweetling, I have a homework for you"

"Me?" I pointed to myself while blinking. Homework? Why do vampires like to give other people homework so much?

"Your great grandmother," she smiled deeply, "find out how she could be born," she said, and then added as she looked at the seed with a forlorn, yearning gaze that I hadn’t seen before. "There might be an answer there."

* * *

"So we need to go to the realm of nature first," I took a deep breath to inhale the scent of the white blossoms flanking the path around the castle. "Do you think Amarein will know it?"

"You can ask in a letter first,"

"You think so? Shouldn’t something like this be asked in person?"

I mean...if not even D’Ara knew about it, then perhaps it was a guarded secret. I didn’t even know if someone other than the main royal family knew about it. And even if they knew, it didn’t seem to be something that they would easily disclose to someone else. No matter how high my status was in the druid hierarchy, I was still more or less an outsider who had never stepped foot inside the realm of nature.

I looked up through the branches and the white blossoms, the shimmering sunlight made me think of the realm of nature. I had never gone there before, nor did Valmeier, but since it was a place with no winter, I imagined it wouldn’t be different from this perpetual spring.

Ah...it was quite ironic, wasn’t it, that the only realm I hadn’t visited was the one that contributed the most to my power, the one which was supposed to be my root.

"Sounds like you want to go over as soon as possible," Natha’s remark snapped me out of my pondering, and I swiftly turned around, heart beating in panic.

"Well...uhh...I mean..." I bit my lips and grabbed Natha’s arm. I didn’t realize I had been walking ahead alone, and it was only after hearing his rather dry remark that I stopped to think about how it might sound.

As if I was eager to leave him.

But it was true that I suddenly felt eager to go to the druid tribe, so I found myself unable to speak further. Pressing my lips and lowering my head in guilt, there was nothing I could do but mutter an apology.

"I’m sorry..."

"It’s okay, I understand, sweetheart--you don’t have to feel bad," Natha lifted my chin so I could look at him again. "I don’t mind if you want to go," he smiled; the sweet and gentle smile that always gave me peace of mind. "Why don’t you write to your aunt to talk about it?"

"Really?"

I grabbed his hand tighter, because I truly didn’t want him to be upset. And I was sure he wasn’t upset about me, only...his expression seemed to be rather hesitant.

"But--hmm..." he opened his mouth for a bit, before closing it again, eyes looking to the side in ponder.

"What is it?"

He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and I could see he was contemplating something. When the silver eyes opened again, he looked at me keenly and spoke in a careful tone. "Do you want to do it as soon as possible?"

"Do it...you mean about Shwa?"

"Yes," he nodded.

Instead of answering, I looked at him in confusion and threw a question of my own. "Why?"

Why did he ask me that? It was almost as if...as if he had a doubt about proceeding. No, but that couldn’t be. I know Natha was as excited as I was about Shwa. Sometimes, he would be the one to remind me about feeding the seed mana, and it was Natha who constantly called it our ’child’ instead of a ’seed’.

So...why?

Natha took my hand then, and led me to the side of the path. There was a low stone fence separating the path from the deathly dive to the bottom of the cliff, and we took a seat there, under the showering petals of white blossoms.

Oh, it almost felt like...a romantic date or something.

But then Natha looked at me with a serious look. "We need to think about whether we’ll do it before or after the wedding."

"Oh..." I blinked in surprise. Of everything, I didn’t think this was what he had been contemplating during our walk. "Would there be any difference?"

"Not much, aside from the surname the child would take--but that’s not really important," he swatted his hand as if the matter of our child’s surname was a trivial matter. "But I’m thinking about what it might do to your body."

"My...body?"

"Although the pregnancy won’t happen inside your body, it will still linked to your body--at least, that’s what happened to dryads," he sighed, stroking the back of my hand with his thumb. "So we have to think about the possibility of you being unable to do strenuous activity while--why are you making that face?"

My face, which had been burning and twitching because I was holding back from smiling wide and making weird noises, got even redder. "It’s just..." even though I spoke quietly, my voice came out like a squeak. I looked up and peered at him bashfully between my eyelashes. "Y-you called it...p-pregnancy."

Natha raised his brow and tilted his head. "Well, it is, isn’t it?"

"I’m not carrying it inside my body though," I fiddled with the front of his coat, feeling both happy and embarrassed about it. I hadn’t thought much about it before, but...wasn’t it strange to talk about conceiving a child between two males?

"You’re still the source, sweetheart," Natha held my fiddling hand and caressed it, his earlier serious expression had changed to a softer one. "Or do you not like it if I call it that?"

I shook my head swiftly. "N-no, that’s not it!" I bit my lips and took a deep breath to stop my face from burning in embarrassment. "I...I didn’t know before, but...I think I like it."

He chuckled and kissed the back of my hand, before turning his gaze toward the castle. "Anyway, what is she planning this time, talking to the brat?"

Mysteriously, she had asked to converse with Jade after breakfast. Since it was rare to meet someone who could hear what the little bird was saying, I let her. But now, I was also madly curious.

Because Jade did not let me peek into their conversation.