The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 382: Should I feel happy that my child and fiance finally bonded over something?

Chapter 382: Should I feel happy that my child and fiance finally bonded over something?

Natha still didn’t tell me who it was later.

But still, I tried to soothe his jealousy by adhering to his demand of having breakfast in our suite rather than downstairs with the others. Let’s just consider it as compensation because I let him wait for too long last night.

Thanks to that, we got down pretty late. Everyone had already finished with their breakfast and was lounging around in the drawing room--just like before Natha came last night. I had thought the humans would sleep in longer, but it seemed like they were too tense from being in a demon territory that they couldn’t sleep that well.

Except for my dear old friend, who was still rubbing her eyes while greeting me good morning. She skipped breakfast altogether, and just stuffed herself with the biscuits in the drawing room.

The most interesting scenery, however, was of the three inventors huddling together around the tea table like they were at a genius conference or something. Before I even introduced them, Aina already integrated herself into the group. As I thought, she was truly fascinating.

And now Izzi looked like he had a harem or something, because Zia was also there despite not being an inventor.

Immediately, the humans stood up when we entered the room. The elementalist even bowed again, although Natha steered me away from their group when I was going to greet them. But of course, the first real greeting always came from my little bird.

[Master!] with a loud chirp, the little bird headbutted me in the chest as usual. The bird must have been sad to find itself waking up in its room rather than in my bed, but I had asked Ignis to accompany Jade for this reason. [Good morning!]

"Good morning, Jade," I patted the little bird who didn’t seem to be too annoyed at Natha’s presence this morning. "Did you sleep well?"

[Mm! Ignis is warm!]

On the windowsill, the Salamander just threw his gaze away. "Hmph."

A peaceful morning as usual.

What was surprising was, however, when Jade hopped onto Natha’s shoulder. [Jade do well! Jade throws water balls at that annoying human. Splash splash!]

"You should throw something harder next time," Natha replied while patting the little green head. "But good job."

What? Were you the one who told my baby to attack them?! No wonder Jade moved without I asking it to...

Haa...look at these two only bonded at a time like this.

While Jade was busy reporting last night’s event to Natha, the inventor girl, Aina, suddenly approached us. She was small and cute, almost looking like a schoolgirl--especially because she liked wearing clothes that drowned her. Her walk even consisted of little steps as if she was hopping around. She looked timid and quiet at first glance, but she surprisingly took the initiative by herself quite well.

"Umm...good morning, Sir Valen, Lord Natha."

She was no longer squeaking, but her voice was still small and thin and high-pitched. It was cute.

"Good morning, Aina."

I nudged Natha, who was finally shifting his attention from my chirping bird’s report. "This is your first time seeing me in my original form, isn’t it?" he asked the girl.

Aina nodded, and after that, I found out that they made their contract not long before Natha got stabbed by Valmaeier. Of course, he did it in his human disguise--the one he used on the night he ’kidnapped’ me. Natha only met her one time after that, when he got the smartphone-like things that Aina was trying to make.

"I’m sorry that I couldn’t produce any development, Sir..." Aina fiddled in her place, moving left and right while glancing nervously. "But...but I have made something else."

"You can talk about it with Valen," Natha stroked my shoulder. "Your contract will belong to him from now on."

Aina nodded readily. "Yes, I thought so already," she said with a big smile. It seemed like she was only timid to people he met for the first time, but was pretty chill once she knew them. "I’ve talked with the other two."

I glanced at Neel and Izzi, who was shrugging in response.

"It seems like it would be fun to stay here and make things together, but..." Aina let out a long sigh. "There are still a lot of things I need to do back home..."

"It’s fine, I’m sure we can find a way to communicate," I patted her shoulder, and she perked up.

"Actually, actually, I’ve made something for that, but--umm...I’ll tell you later, Boss!"

Again, I glanced at Neel and Izzi who, once again, just shrugged. Well...I guess, it didn’t sound so weird since they were Earthlings at heart. Aina scurried back to the table, looking like she belonged there more than the human group. Zarfa also joined the table while holding the biscuit jar in her hand, so Izzi was getting surrounded by more and more girls.

Enjoy your protagonist time, Izzi.

"It’s time for me to get back," Natha put Jade on the table of inventors before facing me. "Tell me how it goes later," he whispered and pressed his lips on my forehead.

"Okay."

He pulled back and looked at me for a few seconds, before grasping my head and kissing me deeply to the point that I wobbled a bit and had to hold onto him for balance--a bit more aggressive than his usual goodbye kisses. I knew why though--I saw him glancing toward the human group before kissing me.

It kind of felt good, but also annoying. Just kiss me if you want to kiss me; why do you have to do it to show off?

I smacked him in response, and he chuckled at the end of our kiss. While embracing me, he looked at Zia and Jade, pointing at them. "Keep on a watch."

"Yessir!"

[Jade will watch!]

What--since when did they become his spies?!

* * *

Natha left like a hurricane--with a flurry of black feathers and leftover questions. I looked out the window for quite some time, in the direction of the Lord Castle which I hadn’t been visiting in a while. Only after Jade perched on my shoulder and patted my cheek inquisitively that I shift my gaze to the group of humans who had been looking at me as if waiting for something.

I glanced at the Hero and the young paladin, who were no longer wearing their armor. Good; at least they could abide by my rules. Illian still averted his gaze every time our eyes met, but at least he wasn’t openly hostile like before. I locked eyes with the Hero for a second, but he too, turned away after blinking a few times.

Hmm...seemed like it would be hard talking to those two. As expected, the point of negotiation needed to be made with the stakeholders. So I turned toward Fatia, who had been standing politely with a smile on her face.

"The weather is nice today," I pointed out, although the weather was mostly nice in this place, thanks to Jade’s seniors. "Let’s have a walk in the garden; I need to feed my fish."

[Feed fishes!]

"Yes, Sir."

Fatia nodded, still with a nice smile on her lips. But her eyes were getting more vigilant, and I could sense a slight nervousness. She knew this was finally the time for me to spell my ’conditions’ to help her. She must have wondered about it all night, judging from the slight dark circle under her eyes.

"Oh, I’ll come too!" Zarfa stood up, still with a biscuit jar in her hand.

Aina, however, said that she would stay to talk more with Neel and Izzi. It seemed like they didn’t just talk about inventions, but also about their previous life. I had thought Zia would be annoyed, but she listened to them keenly instead, probably making notes for her future novels.

So, it was me and the four humans. Ignis came with us instead of getting back to its cave because ’I’m bodyguarding’--or so it said.

We followed Jade who flew enthusiastically, chirping loudly and telling me to hurry up. Doun was there in the pond though, so by the time we reached the pond, Jade was in the middle of flying around the pond scattering the pearl-like pellets.

"Oh, as I thought--it’s beautiful," Zarfa swooned beside me, staring at the garden with sparkling eyes.

Indeed. This morning, more flowers had bloomed, and the garden had regained its beautiful colors. Whether it was the sky or the ground, the Lair had once again become the dreamy place I arrived in the first place; so pretty that I thought it was made with CGI.

The humans were all made the same reaction of astonishment. It wouldn’t have been clear during the night, but beneath the soft sunlight of the early spring? The view was simply magnificent. I knew what they were all thinking, because I too, had the same thought when I first came here.

Who would have thought that a place like this was owned by a demon?

Well, I did hope they could educate other humans that demons weren’t the vicious creatures the church told them about, and that the demon realm wasn’t a place of agony and misery. That there was almost no difference between the realms--good and bad people existed, good and bad places also existed.

But well, that wasn’t my condition.

"Originally, you’ll go back to the magician once you obtain the Amrita, yes?"

Fatia, who was in the middle of looking at the garden in a daze, turned toward me with a start and nodded swiftly. "Yes, yes--that’s the plan," she said, and then added without me asking. "We have a teleportation scroll that she made to move us directly to the Island."

Yep--just as I thought.

"But since we have your help now, we don’t--"

"No," I cut her. "We’ll use that scroll and go to that Island."

She blinked in surprise. "...we?"

I turned to face them better, smiling. "Yes. I’ll be coming with you to meet that magician."

That was my condition.