The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 369: All things have purposes; all paths have goals

Chapter 369: All things have purposes; all paths have goals

"Where are they now?"

I put on my night cloak and crouched on my favorite armchair in front of the fireplace, with a cup of warm cocoa in my hands and a little bird dunking its head on it. This kind of exciting news had to be heard in a cozy environment.

"They had reached the border," Heraz reported. And by the border, it meant the empty field between the demon realm and the realm of nature, the one spreading wide behind the Lair. "We spot their scout stopped to look into the cliff, but they came back immediately."

"Probably because they couldn’t see anything but the fog, right?" I patted Jade’s head so the little bird wouldn’t drown from drinking sweet cocoa in its bird form.

Just like how I couldn’t see the realm of nature from the cliff, they wouldn’t be able to observe the cliff with the barrier cast by the elemental birds.

"Do you think they’ll try the cliff first, or instantly look for the river?"

"Weirdly, they moved further from the cliff and toward the river, as if...they already knew the landscape," Heraz told me with a slight frown born from confusion. It must have been frustrating for a soy to not know everything about their target.

"Well, there might be someone who does know about the landscape in that group," I shrugged, feeling more convinced now that one of the Hero’s companions was the author girl.

But Heraz, who didn’t know this, looked infuriated; his pale eyes glint sinisterly, as if he was about to confront the humans and fight them himself. He probably thought there was a traitor within the demonkind who sold the information about his Lord’s Lair to outsiders.

"Calm down, Heraz," I raised my palm. "I merely predicted that someone was given the Goddess’s clairvoyant ability."

The burning pale eyes dimmed like there was a switch turned off. He didn’t look as surprised as I thought, perhaps because having someone with the Goddess’s blessing in a group with a summoned Hero at the center sounded as normal as it got.

The girl, who had dreamt of this event, would be able to see the Lair. However, they wouldn’t be able to see the changes I had made, including the existence of Ignis and Vrida making their nest here.

But even if they did, it didn’t matter.

"I meant to let them in, anyway," I shrugged. "I have no intention to hinder their journey."

Heraz paused for a while, before asking me. "Then...should we clear the way?"

"No," I shook my head. The empty field of the border was not called ’empty’ because there was nothing, but because no side was ruling the place. Vagrants and runaways hid themselves there, and corrupted beasts sometimes ran rampant. "Wouldn’t they get suspicious if they didn’t encounter anything on the way?"

Not to mention...the river and the forest around the Lair itself would already be a challenge for them.

"Understood."

"How many people does he bring?"

Heraz took out a tube containing a scroll of reports and submitted it to me. While Jade moved the tube with its newly learned air magic, Heraz conveyed the content of the report.

"Of course, the human ’Hero’ himself come," Heraz started--with a quite funny way of mentioning the word ’hero’ as if he thought it was ridiculous. Like Lord like subordinate, I guessed. "He’s bringing the young paladin from Young Master’s church, an Elementalist from the East, the inventor that His Lordship contracted, the daughter of Midas, and a spearman he recently recruited before going to the Island--the son of the local Lord whose land received the most damage."

As Heraz spelled it, I read their names and descriptions in the scroll, including their affiliation and history. Such a comprehensive report that brought a smile to my face.

So, not only the girl I suspected as the author, but there was also the last inventor I had yet to meet? How many did that make...six?

Six transferred souls from Earth.

"Hmm..." I leaned back and flicked the scroll as my smile grew wider. "This will be a grand reunion, don’t you think so, Jade?"

The little bird, of course, only looked at me with confusion and a chocolate stain around its beak.

* * *

"There will be what?!"

The one with the biggest reaction was the one who rarely made any reaction at all. Neel looked at me with widened eyes and parted lips, plates of metal fell off her hands.

Izzi swiftly caught them before the metal plates hit the floor, grumbling about how he had been sacrificing his sleep to make those.

But Neel did not care. "A Hero? There’s a Hero? Like...in fairytales and such?"

This girl had been hiding in her bunker so much he received no gossip from her own homeland, much less from another realm.

"Well, that’s what they called him, anyway," I shrugged. "You can read about him in some newspapers--Angwi or Zia probably stored them somewhere."

"Huh..."

"The point is, that Hero is summoned from another world," I told her. "And two of his companions are probably the same as us; transmigrators."

Neel blinked and lowered herself to the floor--didn’t even bother with the chair, this one. "Huh..."

"So...there will be six of you?" Zia concluded. "Wow..."

"Indeed," Izzi, now realizing what got me rather excited, nodded in agreement. "So this is why you want me to stay here for a few days?"

"Huh?" this one, it was Zia who made this sound.

"Yup! Don’t you think it’ll be fun?" I laughed and patted the elf and the half-naga. "And all three of you will gather in the same place--the people under the Demon Lord of Greed’s contracts."

Izzi looked at me with deadpan eyes. "Your grin is rather annoying, Demon Lord’s bride."

For that alone, I kept my ’annoying’ grin longer.

"Not gonna lie; this is rather exciting," Zia giggled while hugging the cushion and Jade, who was rolling around on it. "Makes me want to turn it into a novel even more."

"Maybe you can chat with my old friend--if it’s really her," I winked. "She did, technically, turn what she saw in her dream into a novel."

Zia brightened up even more. "Oh-ho! She’s an author and your friend?" she grinned and poked me. "Isn’t this like fate? Almost like you’re repeating your past relationship."

Huh...she was right; I hadn’t thought of it.

"Life is interesting, isn’t it?" I couldn’t help but laugh at this realization. "That’s why I can’t give up on it."

"Of course, you shouldn’t!" Zia pinched my cheek. "There’s a lot of people who will be sad if you do!"

Izzi nodded on the side. "Besides, it defeats the purpose of giving us a second life here."

"That’s true!"

Oh-ho...you were even in agreement, now? Saving the laugh in my mind only, I looked at Neel who hadn’t been saying anything since the last ’huh’. "What about you, Neel? You don’t have to meet them if you don’t want to, of course. I’m just telling you as a warning; that a group of humans are on their way here."

"Hmm..." she looked down, frowning. "So...they reborn as humans, huh..."

Oh...

I scooted closer to her then, asking quietly. "Why? Do you prefer to be born human instead of a demon?"

Her expression turned even more complicated. "I mean...I used to be a human..." she glanced at Izzi. "At least he still looks a bit like a human. And you too..."

Ah...I guessed, in her eyes, all of us looked ’human’ enough, without foreign addition that wasn’t there in our previous lives. For her, the scales, the horns, and the tails were probably weird the moment she recalled her past life.

Perhaps, that was also why she shut herself in a bunker--among other reasons.

"Hmm...I have no right to say anything since I’m not the one experiencing being reborn as a demon like you," I said--and while it was a blessing now, being a half-druid was also what almost killed me at the start. "I think, even if I told you that you look fine and pretty--which I think you do--it wouldn’t mean anything."

She didn’t say anything, just pressing her lips and averting her eyes.

"But you know...if I have to be honest, I envy you," I said, which made her head swiftly turn to look at me. "There’s a time I really want to be born a demon--not even a full druid, just a demon."

I felt Zia’s fingers clutching my sleeve. "Because of Lord Uncle?"

"Uh-huh," I nodded. "I want to live as long as a demon would, while as a half-druid, I would only live slightly longer than the average humans."

"Oh..."

"Also..." I propped my chin with the back of my hand as I reminisced all the events that had happened. "Haa...it would be a lot better if I was a demon in the first place. People won’t be so keen to kill me off for getting engaged with a Demon Lord--hell, I wouldn’t have to participate in the war!"

"Val..."

I chuckled and patted Zia’s shoulder, who was scooting closer to my side while Jade was caressing my cheek. "But then, I was thinking..." I looked at Neel again with a grin. "Without being born as half human and druid, I might never be able to meet Natha."

After all, the whole reason we could meet was because I and Natha had the best ’recipe’ to create the vessel of Primordial God--to put it simply. If I was a demon, Natha would have to create the vessel with someone else. Ugh--just thinking about it made me want to throw up.

"Anyway, what I’m saying is...I think there’s a reason why we were being sent to where we were being sent," I glanced at the elf who at one point blew his school building. "Perhaps Izzi’s little act of destruction will change the elf’s conservative way, who knows."

Izzi rolled his eyes, but I could see his little smirk too. Shifting my gaze back at the half-naga, I continued. "So...I don’t know what it is, and it might sound like nothing more but a sweet talk, but perhaps...there’s a reason why you were reincarnated as a demon and not other races."

Neel bit her lips, but her frown was lessening. "Hmm..."

"Maybe...you’re here to develop your respective realms?" Zia, the source of the neutral voice, remarked. "I mean...all of you are good at inventing things, and..." she pointed at Izzi, "the Realm of Nature," and then at Neel, "the Demon Realm," and ending it with a shrug. "And the other one is from the Human Realm."

We blinked and looked at the succubus silently for a while. "Zia, you’re a genius!"

She scoffed. "No, you people are just stupid."

Hey!