The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 354: One thing is for sure; war is bad!

Chapter 354: One thing is for sure; war is bad!

Rather than going back to the Lair, I ended up having a study tour with Eruha--since I was there anyway. It was hard for him to take a day off when he could bring me on a full-day tour, so we had to do it when we could.

To smoothen our journey, we used the flying carriage, with my four guards whom I hadn’t seen for long controlling it. And this was when I found out that the building in L’Anaak Eed had a place to land a flying carriage...on the roof. Like a helipad. Carriagepad?

This flying carriage was a freaking helicopter.

"Not every commercial building has it, but the ones owned by His Lordship do," Eruha explained.

I stared at the flying carriage and the small field beneath it. The formation carved on the landing pad functioned as both an anchor and a lock, so no one would be able to take the carriage away even if it was left unattended. "Is it him that established this...landing pad?"

"Of course."

Eruha answered it as if it were an inevitability that everything new in the demon realm was created by Natha. This fiance of mine...you feel more like a reincarnator than those reincarnators. Than me, even.

Just with two months of experiencing another world.

What a frightening entity you are, my Lord.

Anyway, thanks to this, it was easy for us to just blitz through the city. Just so you know, L’Anaak Eed was a busy city, especially now that winter was ending, so the road had become easier to access, and the flow of goods surged up to welcome the spring. So, while not to the point that would get us stuck in traffic, using normal carriage would slow us down considerably.

This time of the year was also one of the best times for me to look at Natha’s business, because everyone was busy. Meaning that I could see how they usually worked, and that they didn’t have the time to get all courteous and mind my presence too much.

Since there were a lot of places we would visit today, Eruha only took me to see how the company worked as well as introduce the executives to me before we moved to another location; merchant guilds, financial holding, magic tech company, mana stones hub, distribution company, factories, and also his bank. All of that was only in one city.

"Teacher, how much are the assets Natha has in L’Anaak Eed in comparison to his whole wealth?" I asked Eruha after we left the back and headed back home.

"I’d say about one-third," Eruha replied nonchalantly.

Oh...

"The others are spread throughout the Demon Realm and the other two realms," he continued.

I shifted my gaze from the scenery outside, eyes widened in surprise. "Even in the Human Realm?"

I knew he put his spies there, and some of them infiltrated as merchants. But there was a difference between using a disguise and having a legitimate business.

"The easiest way to gain information is through trade," Eruha smiled. "All we have to do is disguise ourselves as a human and stay away from the church."

Understandable. Some churches, especially the big ones, had detection spells for demons. Higher-ranking priests also had a demon detection skill, like Valmeier--that was how he could recognize Natha was a demon in the past.

But still...to have a proper business in the human realm meant there should be a lot of demons there running it, right?

"Are all--"

"No, no--of course not all," Eruha answered before I even finished my question as if he could see it from my face. "We can’t risk having a merchant guild in the human realm operated fully by demons. Besides, we need proper local identification to establish a legitimate business."

I shifted in my seat to listen more keenly to his explanation. "So?"

"What His Lordship always do," he said.

He didn’t say anything more, making it seem like a quiz. I pursed my lips in annoyance, but I had grown used to his method so I just commanded my brain to work for a little bit. It wasn’t very difficult, though, if it was about what Natha usually did.

"Investment?"

"Yes," Eruha’s smile stretched slightly wider. "All we need to do is send a shapeshifter over, make an investment contract with aspiring merchants, and we have our business," he explained. "We’ll send some demons who are adept in disguise to work there as well as gather information on the side."

"I see," I nodded, and then slammed my fist against my palm in exclamation. "And you can spread news and rumors easily through merchants!"

Eruha smiled and nodded, looking satisfied at my response. "Excellent."

"Hehe..." It felt good to be praised by your teacher no matter how old you were. "Do other Lords use this method too?"

"Some," Eruha leaned back, looking out the window too. Unlike me, however, his gaze went further; perhaps to his home realm, or the place he worked at before. "Not as merchants, but as mercenaries and such," he added. "My kins are especially easy to blend in with humans."

I glanced at him; fair skin, white sclera, non-pointy ears, gorgeous...

Yeah, that’d be easy, I bet. It wasn’t like they needed to hide from the sun, too.

"Let me guess!" I stroked my chin and wiggled my brow. "You guys go over to procure ingredients, aren’t you?"

"Naturally," he shrugged; but there was a little smirk in his lips. Look at this vampire breaking his cold face easily now that he got his eternal. "Others...are probably lust demons," he tapped his fingers on the windowsill in ponder. "But they are doing it to play, rather than to infiltrate."

"Pfft--I can imagine."

I remembered that Zia used to tell me that lust demons had the most mixed blood because they used to have extensive sexual adventures in the past. The descendants of those mixed blood had looked more like demons than humans, though, and nowadays, they mixed with children of nature more than with humans--for obvious reasons.

It came to my mind suddenly; I had met some mixed blood, like Doun. But...I didn’t think I had ever seen mixed blood between humans and demons while I was here--especially those who looked like humans.

"Eruha..."

"Yes?"

"There are children born between humans and demons, right?"

"There are."

I leaned my head against the window, looking into the distant sky. "How do they live? I mean...do they live well?"

"Are you worried?" Eruha asked calmly.

"I guess?"

"Young Master, before the humans waged war about a century ago, we could be said to live in peace," Eruha said, and I shifted my head so I could look at him. "Well, we did think badly of each other, but we won’t just throw stones at humans who crossed over."

"Hmm..."

"Just see it as neighbors that didn’t get along well," he shrugged. "They might never speak to each other, but they won’t suddenly march over with swords in hand unprovoked."

I pulled away from the window and straightened my back. "I see..."

"Humans are less tolerable to the halflings, so most of them live in mountains or forests," Eruha crossed his arms and tapped his arms with his fingers in ponder. "But after wars started to erupt, the sentiment toward half-demons became even more negative, so they crossed over to the demon realms."

I perked up slightly. "And?"

"If they came to a realm that was in a warring state, they would get chased out," he said dryly.

My excitement deflated just as fast as they surfaced. "Because the demons saw them as half-human?"

"Yes," Eruha smiled subtly at my expression, before continuing his explanation. "Perhaps not everyone will shun them, but in the middle of a war, people’s minds easily become unstable. In that situation, who knows what they would do? Perhaps they will vent their anger to those half-humans."

Ah...

"Hmm...and you can’t blame them too," I let out a long sigh. It was more understandable now. In a war, people get angry at their enemy, so someone who had close relations with that enemy would instantly become a target. "So it’s to avoid further instability and to prevent the morale from plummeting."

"That is so."

And to protect those halflings too. Now that I thought about it better, a warring realm wouldn’t have enough resources to take care of refugees anyway.

Haa...

So the answer was there shouldn’t be any war!

"But then...how do they live?" I looked at Eriha frustratingly.

"They had to go to a non-warring realm," Eruha looked out of the window again. "If they plead honestly, and are willing to work hard, most of the Castellans at the border are willing to take them on, because they always need workers at the border."

"Oh! So most of them are on the borders?" I perked up again. Knowing they at least had a place to stay and work made me feel better already.

"Mostly, yes," Eruha tilted his head to contemplate. "Some also made a settlement in a rural area--the biggest one is in Sloth."

"Oh!"

Hmm...I had a feeling that the Lord over there just couldn’t be bothered and let them do whatever they wanted--as long as they stayed peaceful and didn’t have to make the Lord work to solve dissent and whatnot.

Well...I knew that they probably still faced discrimination, but it was a hard issue to tackle when the humans were still acting like assholes. Haa...truly, humans were also my kin, but they were just...whatever.

At least they could live. I should ask Natha more about this later.

As I pondered and lamented about the halfling’s conditions, the carriage flew past a residential area filled with beautiful, luxurious houses. It was located near the Lord Castle, on a hill opposite the Temple.

"Oh, this place?" I looked out the window again, observing the beautiful parks and carefully maintained roads. The area was surrounded by fences and some houses were fully guarded. I could see luxurious carriages coming and going through the residential gate, driving along a peaceful-looking lane. "Is this what they called the estate for the elites?"

"Whatever you’re thinking of is probably right."

I grinned and glanced at him. "This is where the most expensive housing is, right?"

"Yes," Eruha nodded; his eyes also observing the rows of houses beneath us.

"Let me guess," I looked at him again. "Natha owned most of the real estate here?"

Eruha did not answer, just smiling lightly.

"Some?" my brow arched skeptically, and again, Eruha only smiled deeply, prompting me to widen my eyes and exclaim. "All?!"