The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 601: When I said I dreamt of an adventure, I didn’t think about hygiene

Chapter 601: When I said I dreamt of an adventure, I didn’t think about hygiene

"Papa! Papa, wake up!"

It had been a while, but I finally experienced Jade’s aggressive morning call again. I let my head be shaken and my cheeks be squeezed for a bit, before realizing that Jade was no longer in a bird form.

"Oh, you’ve turned, Jade?"

I finally opened my eyes and saw Jade sitting on my stomach. He laughed and kissed my cheek right away. "Because Papa don’t wake up when Jade chirp anymore!"

"Pfft--is that so, Ignis?"

"Yeah," a red tail flicked slowly over my cheek as if wiping something on it. "You’ve become lazy, Val."

Oh...it seemed like I was crying again. Welp--that was a wake-up call, alright. I caught Jade and rolled around on our bed while laughing until Zarfa came because of the noise and joined us. Not a bad way to get my mind rid of my dear husband and son.

"Are we going right away?" I asked her after wiping the leftover tears from my eyes.

"Breakfast first, me think," Zarfa stretched her back. "And thorough wash--we don’t know when we’ll have it again."

Ugh--how ghastly. This adventuring wasn’t as much fun from the hygiene point of view, huh? I couldn’t imagine how the girls survived doing all of this, especially if they had periods and such. Phew...

Following her advice, I cleaned myself thoroughly and savored the blessing of hot water over my whole body. When I finished dressing myself in one of the hunting clothes I bought yesterday, I heard a knock on my balcony.

That too, had been a while.

"How is it?" I asked Heraz, who refused to get out of the floor as usual.

"The money is the right amount," he reported. It seemed like he visited the bank as soon as the staff unlocked the door. "Some people made an inquiry about the owner of the account."

"Oh?"

"It is locked with many layers of security, so you don’t need to worry, Young Master. At most, people will find that it is connected to the sponsor of the guild merchant His Lordship just established in this kingdom," he continued. "We are tracing and investigating those who made the inquiry for now."

Well, that was to be expected. "What about the items’ owners?"

"The relic’s owner is an adventurer, as you expected. They are not very high-ranking, so it was likely luck rather than skill. We are trying to find out which ruin they found the relic from. As for the druid item..." he paused a little bit. "It is from the noble family who fought hard for the relic."

"Hah!"

I wanted to laugh because it was so funny and made everything easier. "You can take your time with it, but make sure you investigate thoroughly. If you can, find out what they want to do with the relic and see if they have more stuff that belongs to me."

"Should we take your money back?"

"Hmm...do as you see fit."

"By your command."

Well, well...I guessed that concluded what I had to do in this place.

* * *

"We’ll have to go through unpaved roads later, so using our own carriage won’t be efficient," Zarfa explained as Jin pulled a rather large carriage in front of us. "We’ll return this carriage when we reach the next city and continue on foot."

"Oh, are we going to spend the night in the open?"

"Not yet," she laughed. "We’ll reach the next city in the evening, so we’ll sleep in the inn there. It’s a small city on the outskirts, however, so you can’t expect nice lodging."

Ah...well, at least we’d do it step by step. I followed Zarfa and Aina to the carriage, where Fatia and Aina were already inside. It was a rather spacious carriage, so the four of us could fit there. We even had a space for little boy Jade to sit between me and Zarfa. Jin and Renna were in charge of coaching the carriage, while Ian stayed in the back of the carriage as a rearguard would.

"Off we go!" Zarfa started cheerfully, and Jade followed with high enthusiasm. At least, while we were in a carriage, he could stay in the boy form.

"Would it be hard to continue using the carriage all the way?" I asked curiously.

"Not hard," Fatia chuckled. "But very long. It might take months just to reach the hidden church."

"Ah..."

Zarfa and Aina pulled a table attached to one side of the carriage and set it between us, before spreading a map of the human realm over the surface. Suddenly, I was thrown into a geographic lecture as they told me which route we would take.

The main point was to reach the church as soon as possible since we had no idea how long we would need to find the Goddess after. Logically, the shortest route would always be achieved by pulling a straight line from where we start to our goal. Naturally, that straight line never followed human-made routes.

After reaching the city where we would need to part ways with the lovely carriage, we would go through a mountain and a forest for approximately three days and nights. Wowzee. Our goal was to rent or buy some horses so we could cross the vast meadow toward a gorge where we would use Aina’s upgraded boat to cross the river until we reached another town. Afterward, we would hopefully find a carriage or horses that would bring us to the small town at the foot of the mountain where the hidden church was.

All in all, approximately nine to ten days.

"Hmm..." I leaned back and closed my eyes.

"What is it?"

"I miss my wyvern..."

They laughed loudly for a few seconds before sighing in agreement. Ahh...it would take at most three days with Vrida. But, well...what could we do? The moment someone spotted Vrida, they would immediately shoot her down. Besides, she wouldn’t be able to carry all of us.

Alright, let’s think positively. This was my chance to be a bit independent and stop spoiling myself in luxury. Let’s remember the time we wanted to go on an adventure. Let’s remember that we did it for Shwa. Yes, for Shwa.

Suddenly, a fighting spirit burned inside my heart as I thought about my son. Oh, that worked.

Anyway, nothing eventful happened that day--not that we expected any. While some people tried tracing us because of the relic, their only lead was the account connected to the medallion, which wouldn’t bring them anywhere. They could make a move after realizing that Jin and Fatia weren’t around, but it would take at least one or two days.

To save time, we only made one stop for lunch and made sure we did not torture the horses’ legs. Renna finally saw Jade and almost fell from shock, which was rather entertaining for the boy who liked to surprise people. It earned her a plus point in Jade’s book.

During this journey, I also found more things about my teammates, like how Fatia’s mother was a devotee--you know, like Natha--which surprised me at first. But she explained that her mother was the believer of the Goddess, not the church. That was why she let Fatia help the Hero and went on this mission with us, despite the kingdom being busy.

Believed the Goddess and not the church, huh...

It gave me a new perspective that there were people who realized the church had been distorting the Goddess’ teaching. Perhaps these people and the templars were supposed to straighten things up, but...I don’t know. Maybe they felt like they were too overpowered by the church? It was rather hard to feel sympathetic when I was one of the victims.

If I was the Hero, perhaps I would think about it deeply. But my goal was only to find this Goddess and drag her to the Demon Sanctuary as my backup along with Mother, so...

Eh--perhaps that was why I wasn’t the Hero.

Anyway, we reached the city on time for dinner and had some mediocre food that would upset Natha. The same went for the inn, which thankfully had enough room for me to sleep alone--or, again, it might upset Natha. The mattress, fortunately, wasn’t bad. Of course, it was way worse than what we used to--Jade was whining and opted to turn into a bird so it could sleep on the pillow instead--but not so bad that I needed the fluffy blanket Arta stuffed into my storage ring.

Still, my body needed some adjustment in the morning, and we decided to eat the pre-made food Zarfa brought from the mansion for breakfast instead.

Yeah--if we were going to walk through forest and mountain for three days, we’d better start with a nice and nutritious breakfast. I also didn’t forget to have my daily herbal drink and filled myself with mana before our trek.

"Oh, not bad..."

I took a deep breath once we were inside the forest. Unlike the border island, this forest still had a good amount of mana. Perhaps because it was located on the border, it was left alone to grow wild, surrounding a mountain that became a landmark dividing three kingdoms. Even without breathing in the mana, I already felt rejuvenated as we walked through the greenery.

I shared some rejuvenation with Zarfa and Aina, who were physically the weakest among us, and because of that, we managed to reach the foot of the mountain right before the sky darkened, where we finally stopped our journey for the day.

And thus, I experienced my first real camping in the human realm.