The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 444: Is pre-wedding depression a thing?

Chapter 444: Is pre-wedding depression a thing?

Gifts are...interesting. I learned that they all had meanings on their own.

It was especially easy to tell how close we were through gifts. Those who knew me personally sent items that were catered to my liking or my needs--like the chest full of rare ingredients rich in mana from Gluttony. All of them were the ingredients for the food that I liked during my stay there, so it could only come from people who dined with me there.

No, it wasn’t for Sada, surprisingly, but one of her children who drank my diluted blood--so...Eruha’s nephew?

I also got a treasure chest full of rare books that had been carefully preserved. Imagined my surprise when I read that it came from the Di family patriarch--you know...the Elder who used to hate me? The grandpa of one of Natha’s vessels?

I mean...we weren’t exactly close, but I reckoned it was some kind of a peace offering without being too obvious. Although thinking that he might know I liked this kind of thing from his spies was kind of icky.

Honestly, I was already surprised that I got wedding gifts at all, so knowing some of them were given on such a personal level got me even more surprised. I got a crate full of fabrics with colorful motifs from the Oasis merchant associations, and Uncle Sol sent me a single journal, in which every page was actually a magic scroll of high-level spells--about a quarter of it was long-distance teleportation scrolls, with a note saying ’punch him and ran away if he annoys you’ tucked between the pages.

Amusing.

Even the vassals went out of their way to give me some gifts despite their busy schedules managing my wedding; from a box full of extremely rare, extremely delicious candy that looked like sparkling jewel from Lesta and Eruha--which finally made Jade happy, to a soft fluffy gloves that could conjure instant barrier from Caba and Haikal.

It was amusing thinking that they chose the gift as if it was my birthday instead of my wedding. But that showed that they actually knew me; that they sent their gift to Valen, not the Lord of Greed’s bride.

That didn’t mean the other gifts weren’t nice, though. But they did feel very generic and more of a courtesy; things like jewelry, beautiful pieces of tableware, vases, or...umm...some stuff that should never catch a minor’s eyes--especially a curious child like Jade. I stuffed those questionable things inside a locked cabinet in Natha’s locked office.

I did not think badly of them or anything, though. I reckoned they had tried to look for information about what I might like but...I really wasn’t around much--if at all. The only times I was out in public were during the banquet, the tour, and the trial. I had never attended any soiree or mingled with the nobles, so...how would they know?

Zia told me that nobles usually bribed the servants to tell them about what the masters currently liked or wanted, but...bribing Natha’s hand-picked servants? Not even the most foolish of high society would ever think of doing that. Even if they did, any information regarding me was treated as national security, so...

Not even the most foolish of servants would want to breach that.

So, yeah...I knew these people did their best to choose neutral things. I didn’t know if I would ever use most of these gifts, but that wasn’t the point.

Oh, talking about those questionable things...a box also came from our lovely fox lady in the port town and Natha’s ’harem’ as I liked to call them. Those were...even more questionable than the rest, but also...interesting. Instantly reminded me of the ’adult talk’ when I was still a semi-clueless virgin.

I wondered if I could use them during the honeymoon...

Ahem. Anyway, the gifts weren’t just interesting because of that. Looking at them also gave me a glimpse of where they came from. After I was done wrapping my head around how many gifts would keep coming, I had fun finding out more about the gifts themselves--like what kind of material that tea set was made of and where they were produced, or how that vase was one of the numbered series by that artist and such.

It was fun. It was fun at first. After a while, it was just exhausting because new things were being sent every day. And it wasn’t fun anymore, and I didn’t want to look at the gifts anymore because the only gift I wanted was the fiance I hadn’t seen for a week now.

"I thought I would have used to it..." I hugged Shwa close to my body after a morning when I broke down crying. "I had spent days without him just last months, but..."

But I had never spent days without him completely, without even hearing his voice. I had the most amazing invention called communication orb beside me but I couldn’t use it. The only instance this happened before was when Natha had to go take care of the Lord of Wrath’s succession, when I still didn’t have the communication orb.

When I still hadn’t fallen in love with him.

And even then...even then, I was sad. I was confused and sad and wondered when he would come to visit me, wondering if he had gotten bored of me and preferred to spend time with his other harem members instead.

Yeah--I had once insisted in my mind that he had a whole harem tucked somewhere. That wasn’t the case, of course, but also wasn’t wrong.

But now--now! Now I knew who he was, now I was a thousand times more in love with him than I was back then. How could I even survive this?!

"Who?! Who makes this shitty custom?!"

I hit the mattress with my pillows and only stopped when Jade was chirping worriedly.

[Papa?]

"Oh...I’m sorry..."

I bit my lips and pulled both Jade and Shwa into my embrace as I curled on the mattress and sobbed again. Shwa did not make any reactions--perhaps because we hadn’t fed the seed for a week--but Jade nuzzled my cheeks while making a sad chirp.

[Cheer up, Papa...] the little bird wiped my wet cheek with its colorful wings. [Zia told Jade Papa will spend many days together with Nightmare after the wedding. Jade promise Jade will be a good boy and not disturb Papa and Nightmare, so don’t cry?]

Oh...oh, my baby--I cried again for a different reason, and laughed while at it. I hugged Jade again and buried my nose between the colorful wings, until Angwi came with my morning drink and then I moved to cry in her arms.

"Is this...pre-wedding depression?" Neel stroked her chin as we had breakfast in my suite. I didn’t have any energy or motivation to move out of my safe space that day, so it was. my friends who spent their time in the suite to cheer me up.

"That is a thing," Zia nodded and narrowed her eyes at me. "You’re not thinking of canceling the wedding, right? Lord Uncle said he would never disappointed at your usual appearance."

"No," I pursed my lips. "If anything, I want the wedding to be held today...or tomorrow--after my eyes are no longer red and swollen."

The girls chuckled and patted my head. "That’s good, that’s the most important thing."

That I didn’t want to cancel it? Of course, I wouldn’t! But then I remembered that this isolation custom was made so the bride could think once again about the wedding and the life they would have after the wedding, before deciding whether they would go through with the wedding or not--so their concern was in the right place.

If it was about that, however, there was no doubt in my mind about the decision. And there was no doubt in my mind about Natha’s. Our relationship wasn’t something that could be broken just by a momentary doubt or wedding panic.

Perhaps this was why I became so irritable; because the custom I had thought as reasonable before became so annoying and necessary. Sure, I could take living separately before marriage, but...not seeing each other at all?!

"Don’t sulk," Zia caressed my hair. "Why don’t we play board games or something? Let’s do something that has nothing to do with the wedding, mm?"

"But I have to do some food testing for the wedding meal..."

"I’m sure Angwi will be alright with doing it tomorrow...right?"

Angwi patted my head gently, nodding in agreement. "Really? But you must have been working hard on it..."

As an answer, she just scoffed and gave me an expression that simply said ’Who do you think I am?’ and I couldn’t help but cry again because I had such good people around me. And then I cried some more because I became such a crybaby.

I was a mess, huh?

"Haa...this Boss," Neel shook her head and took out a familiar box. "Would you like to do this instead?"

And that was how I ended up spending the whole day trying to control the drones--I mean, the mechanical birds. We played chase with Jade, although of course, the mechanical birds couldn’t fly as well as the real bird. But I found out that Neel could change the birds’ mechanics so that they were in sync with each other. It would make them automatically adjust their position following one specific bird, taking the recording from correct angles that wouldn’t overlap with each other.

The result? If we used a projection device instead of a screen, the recorded scene could be seen three-dimensionally, like a hologram.

This discovery filled my mind with a thought of how we could utilize the system--like, you know, creating a fake scene in a room or something. Creating my projection of sleeping in a bed while I was sneaking off to see Natha...

Well, I didn’t do it, obviously. But it was kind of fun thinking about it.