The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 609: Your children are your emotional detectors

Chapter 609: Your children are your emotional detectors

Once again, we were crossing meadows and canyons.

And once again, I witnessed Aina’s greatness.

She took out some contraption for the carriage’s wheels that allowed them to go off-road with more ease. Apparently, she was so fed up with the stagecoach they used during my absence that she started rage-built this device. Spectacular.

Thanks to this, we didn’t have to abandon the nice carriage. Like an off-road SUV with real horsepower, the carriage went through another meadow before taking an obscure road that only people who knew, knew. It was an entrance to a mountain range, which looked more like a crack between two tall walls. It wasn’t eerie or anything though, since the walls were filled with ivies and clinging flowers, which also hid the entrance like a green waterfall.

How do I say this...it felt like walking into a secret botanical garden.

The path was made of gravel, so it didn’t exactly look like a road. They said there was only one such path along the mountain range, so anyone who tried to look for it would have to face a considerable challenge. Not to mention, a lone road was easier to watch.

I glanced at the wall; hidden behind the ivies, like the entrance, were chambers from where I could feel several presences. I reckoned it was the people on the watch duty. Since Jin was riding a horse and led the way, they must have been alerted already. But no one came to greet us or guide us inside, and I wondered why, but it was because Renna was already there to guide us.

Ah; while she wasn’t exactly a part of the Templar, she was picked up and trained by them.

"This is an interesting place," I looked out the window to enjoy the greenery. "This place almost looks like the Realm of Nature."

"Because of the plants?"

"No, the mana," I took a deep breath and felt the rich power nestled beneath the mountain. "This place is barely touched, so nature’s life force is accumulating nicely.

Something occurred to me then.

"Ah...Valmeier’s mother must have loved this place," it was the answer as to why she was buried here. "So that’s why she could give birth to Valmeier...to me, safely."

Zarfa gasped and Fatia exclaimed softly. No matter what, our mother was a druid. Living somewhere outside the realm of nature as a full-born druid--who was more dependent on pure mana than elves and drows--would be hard, especially in a place with a lot of impurities.

Sure, she could purify it herself, but like me before meeting Amarein, she would only know the basics, what her instinct told her, since there was no teacher to guide her. Her purifying ability would be meager and slow, just like how it took me ten hours just to purify a small clearance. If it wasn’t for the scrolls and techniques Amarein taught me, I wouldn’t be able to purify mana as fast as I did in Fatia’s kingdom.

Moreover, as a druid, she would be far more sensitive to magic than me, who was only half-blood. This place would be what our family’s mountain was for Grandma. Enough to prolong life, but nothing more.

And maybe--no, most likely--she got so much weaker after giving birth.

I wonder...

Was Valmeier’s father really love her, or was it a Goddess’s order so Valmeier could be born?

"Papa?" Jade held my face and patted my cheeks, waking me up from my own drifting thoughts. The round green eyes looked at me worriedly for some reason. "Why Papa sad?"

"What?! Valen is sad?"

"What happened? Are you sick?"

The little boy’s innocent remark called for voices of concern. I immediately laughed and said it was nothing, but they still looked worried.

"Just tell me if you don’t feel good later, okay?" Zarfa shot me a warning look. "Don’t just keep it to yourself. I don’t want your husband to wage war with us because something happened to you."

"Pfft--he won’t go that far," I laughed at that ridiculous notion, but it died down when I saw even Jade looked at me with an unimpressed expression. "...right?"

"I think he will," Aina raised his hand, and the others raised them too in agreement--including Jade.

Damn.

"Alright, alright--I’ll tell you," I promised them because they kept looking at me intensely. "But why are you so worried? I couldn’t be looking that sad, could I? I was just thinking about something sad, not actually feeling sad."

It was just Jade being sensitive about my state of mind because of our connection.

"Mm...right! Papa is not sad anymore!"

See?

"Well...it’s just--" Zarfa pursed her lips slightly. "We’re going to your parents’ graves, you know..."

"Ah..."

So there was a reason.

"I mean...I know you don’t think they are your parents exactly, but...you don’t know..." Zarfa smiled wryly.

Well, I understood. Just like how I could synchronize well with Jin during a fight, there might be unknown feelings in my subconsciousness that got triggered when I saw their graves.

Even I had no idea what my mind would churn out in most situations.

"Well...let’s do it like this," I looked at Jade and ruffled the green head. "If my emotions turn messy, Jade will tell you guys."

The little boy perked up. "Jade can do it!" he nodded rigorously. "Jade can feel Papa well!"

"Okay, promise!" Zarfa suddenly put her hand in front of Jade, and I put the confused Jade’s hand on top of hers. Aina followed with a giggle, and Fatia joined in shyly. "One, two--promise!"

"Promise!" Jade followed and giggled in glee even though he didn’t know why we were making a promise like a cheer--just for the vibe.

While we were giggling inside, the carriage was slowing down and stopped not long after. I could hear the sound of several footsteps and Jin alighted from the horse. Fatia looked at me first, and only after I nodded did she open the carriage door.

Because of our conversation, I hadn’t looked out the window for the last leg of our journey, so I had no idea what the outside looked like. Without me knowing, the path had widened considerably before it ended in a big, empty yard. Zarfa said there was another path to the other side of the mountain range--the side leading to that accursed maiden-sacrificing kingdom.

"Papa, mountain everywhere!" Jade pointed around in my arms, looking up with sparkling eyes and a wide smile.

Yeah--this place was like a little valley in the middle of the mountain, a little paradise surrounded by natural fortress. It was also easy to be sieged, and that was probably why they guarded the entrance so tightly.

"Good place," a rather excited voice came rarely from my shoulder. Pfft--of course, Ignis would like mountainous places. "Too bad it’s not a volcano."

"No sand person will live surrounded by an active volcano, Ignis," I shook my head. "We’re not made to withstand fire like you."

"Hhmp."

Ignis slithered away from my shoulder to explore the place. Between this huge mountain range, Ignis would have a lot of places to explore, and if there were any tunnels or secret places, it would find them too.

Don’t get me wrong--I just wanted to make sure there were no spies around this place, okay? Extra security.

On the north side, nestled at the foot of a mountain, was...not the church. There was a stairway with a stone gate both at the bottom and top, and several people stood there--who I guessed were the members of the Templars. On top of the stone stair was what seemed to be a village or a settlement--which I guessed was where the Templars lived.

But where was the church?

"It’s inside the mountain," Zarfa whispered to me before I could ask the question. "You can’t go there unless the members show you the way."

"I see..." I nodded, surprisingly impressed. Well, I would be disappointed if they didn’t put an extra layer of security to this ’hidden’ place where the last hint about the Goddess was supposed to be. "Did they know about me?"

"Not about the transmigration," she shook her head. "But they know you lived in the Demon Realm."

Oh, that was neat. I didn’t have to pretend about where I had been all this time. I was rather curious, however, about what they thought about me after that information. Were they became suspicious of me? Was that why they put that condition that I had to come in person if I wanted to know more about Valmeier’s parents?

Well, let’s see.

"Here they come," Zarfa whispered as the people talking to the Hero finally shifted their attention to us. I had already felt their gazes at me earlier, but I guessed they gave me time to look around and absorb my surroundings.

A consideration? Or was it to make me know that I was trapped in this tall prison?

Actually, I was more curious than anything.