The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 353: Being greedy is not always just about wealth

Chapter 353: Being greedy is not always just about wealth

"Tadaa!"

Copying Jade, I showed off my new earrings to the one who gifted them, turning my head left and right.

"How is it?"

Natha approached me with a slight frown. "You wear them right away?"

"Of course! You provided me with these excellent healers after all," I shrugged and tilted my head. "So? How is it?"

"Mm," he carefully caressed my ear, intentionally avoiding the earring itself. "You look good with anything."

"How boring..."

He chuckled and moved his fingers to my cheek. "But it’s true. They look good; I don’t think they’ll obstruct your look during the wedding too."

I giggled and then his expression turned serious again. "Did it hurt?"

"No!" I told him again. "They’re professional, don’t worry," I patted the worrywart Demon Lord. Even the one who pierced my ears used to be a professional.

"That’s good," he stroked my cheek and kissed my forehead. "But be sure to speak immediately if it feels uncomfortable in any way in the future."

"I got it~" I hissed through my teeth while squeezing his cheeks, before pecking his lips briefly.

"My," he grasped my waist and whispered against my lips. "You’ve become brazen now, Lord Consort?"

The title made me flinch, and I belatedly realized that the healers and Malta were still there. Oh, Mother--how shameless had your son become!

Thankfully, the door blasted open before I completely turned into a boiled crustacean, showing us Arta’s energetic figure. "Dinner’s ready!"

"What? We’ll have dinner together?" Natha looked at me in surprise.

"Well...it’s been a while?" I grinned sheepishly, and he finally let me go with a chuckle.

Arta took my hand then, and we walked together to the dining hall where we usually had breakfast. I had thought that it would only be people who lived in the Castle--the siblings, Eruha, Caba, and Haikal--but we actually had a full house, complete with our dear fake child.

"Opti!" I raised my brow in surprise. I saw him even less than the others--even lesser than the three vassals who used to antagonize me. "I didn’t know you’d be here."

"I need a vacation from time to time, no?" he grinned and made a curtsie. "I at least should be here until your big day."

"Don’t make me blush."

Opti’s remark, however, wasn’t the last of the teasing I received from them, especially from the twins. I forgot that dining with the vassals meant enduring their words, because, unlike the servants, they would just say whatever.

And then, when they started to talk about the wedding banquet in the Lord Castle, I tuned myself out by talking to Eruha about my lesson--that was how much I terrified thinking about those social events.

"I heard you started to get lessons from the High Shaman, so I thought you would pause our lesson," Eruha said.

"Oh, but she could only come here once every ten days, so I don’t really have anything to do until then," I shrugged. "I’m...umm...not allowed to train by myself, you see..."

And I truly meant to follow that this time. The only purification I did was in the forest, just enough to feed Jade for a few days. Aside from that, I also did the new breathing exercise--an advanced form of the previous one--which was contained in the scroll that Amarein gave me the other day.

But otherwise...

"Very well," Eruha nodded. "This is a good time. We had been postponing taking you to His Lordship’s assets all this time. It’s better for you to see everything on your own before your wedding, Young Master."

"Oh! Does that mean we will go around L’Anaak Eed?"

"Yes," Eruha glanced at me, and added immediately--probably after seeing my sparkling gaze. "Strictly for learning and business, Young Master."

Tsk. I know, geez--such a spoilsport. This is why you took so long to court your boyfriend, Teach.

Thanks to my effort in listening to Eruha listing the route we could take in a day of touring my soon-to-be husband’s assets, the dinner passed without me constantly being teased to embarrassment. However, I had to face a sulking Demon Lord because I spent the whole dinner talking with everyone else but him.

It was cute, and he expressed it by being a bit rougher in bed--which was wonderful!

"Why don’t you ever bring me around to visit your companies and merchant guilds?" I asked him the next morning.

"Hmm...isn’t it kind of embarrassing?" he narrowed his eyes while giving me my morning drink. "Feels like bragging or something."

"Look at you acting cool!"

He chuckled and lay down on the bed again, using my lap as a pillow. "Anyway, I don’t really know all of my companies these days," he said. "I left them in the hand of my trusted people, and I only checked the ledger twice a year."

I pinched his cheek and whispered. "That’s called bragging, my Lord."

"Is it?" he raised his brow, looking younger with that cheeky-cocky expression. "Do you hate it?"

"Not really," I confessed with a laugh, only because he really sounded nonchalant while talking about it. Like he said, he didn’t really care about chasing wealth; he just did it to give me a comfortable life. "But you know I still love you even without all that, right?"

Natha rolled to his stomach and propped his head on his hand. "From someone who did nothing to indulge himself even with the huge inheritance he got from his grandfather?" he smirked. "Of course, I know that."

Ugh--what kind of reasoning was that? I didn’t indulge myself because I couldn’t...well, enjoy the indulgence even if I wanted to. I would have used the money to go to amusement parks and aquariums and visit all kinds of beautiful places in the world if I could!

But well...I couldn’t, so what could I use that money for except for my own treatment? It was better to use the remaining trust fund and inheritance to pay for other sick children.

Natha chuckled at my pursing lips and sour expression, before adding. "If you really put that much importance on my wealth, you’d just accept me right away, wouldn’t you?" he smiled and stroked the tip of my nose. "Instead, I had to wait and wait until you stopped doubting my feelings before I could even hear you telling me you love me."

"Hmm...well, it’s good that you know," I hid my blushing face behind the mug and drank the rest of my morning drink. "Get away, I need to meditate!"

I shooed him off--or rather, I ran away to the balcony while his laughter filled the bedroom. Phew--I was hoping that I could stop getting flustered after months, especially when we were just a few weeks away from the wedding. But alas!

I wondered if I would actually used to it after getting married. Is sure hope so.

Ugh--alright, stop thinking about it!

I took a deep breath and started my exercise, inhaling not just air but also the mana contained inside. I didn’t let the inhaled mana come into my mana core, however, just let them circulate around my main circuit.

After a few rounds, the mana had stabilized, and, following the instruction on the scroll, I pushed the circulating mana into the rest of the circuits around my body, to the edge of my fingers and the end of my hair--all the while never stopped the circulation in the main circuit, putting me in a battle-ready stance.

Holding this condition without letting the mana come into the core and leak to the outside was the exercise. Because my body was always naturally circulating mana through the core and dispersing it to the air, holding this condition was actually harder, and prompting me to concentrate hard. For a druid, it was basically like holding a breath, and I had to do it as long as I could manage.

Which was as long as I could maintain my concentration.

This morning, I managed to do it for half an hour. An improvement! Although...I couldn’t say whether it was because I was improving or because I was already under the same roof as the person who kept distracting me.

Oh, well. Still an improvement!

"From how prettier you look right now, I gathered you’ve done well?"

Natha was already looking smart and dashing in the half an hour I left him. Well, he looked dashing even in a nightrobe, anyway. "I hope so. Let’s see if I can keep it tomorrow when you’re no longer within shouting distance."

"I want you to keep thinking about me, but I also want you to succeed," he frowned slightly. "What a dilemma."

"Think about your future child," I flicked his nose. "And while we’re at it, we should feed Shwa now."

"Has the child sulked again?" Natha smiled as I took the seed out of the black pendant.

"Naturally," I sighed and put Shwa on the table, caressing the textured surface. "We used to feed Shwa once every other day, and now it reduced to once every five days. Of course, Shwa will get upset."

As if agreeing with me, Shwa started to vibrate harshly, basically demanding us to feed it. "Alright, alright, baby."

I channeled my mana immediately, and Natha put his hands above mine, intertwining our mana. "In that case, we should give our child more allowance, shouldn’t we?"

He kissed my cheek, and we poured more and more mana into the seed, so much that it only let out a satisfied purr after half of our mana got absorbed.

What a greedy child.

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