The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 77: The Lord is a demon wolf of the financial street

Chapter 77: The Lord is a demon wolf of the financial street

"About this..." I paused as I suddenly felt perplexed, and looked at the chest again.

Now, how should I ask about this? I couldn’t straightly ask ’why is there an imitation of Earth’s modern tools here’ without revealing about my origin in the process. Would it fly if I just framed it like I was curious about this stuff?

I put my hand on the opened chest and spoke while rummaging through the content to avoid looking at his eyes—in case I sucked at pretending. "Umm...why is this hidden in the pillar? I...kind of want this, but...is it there because it shouldn’t be seen?"

"Not really," I heard him reply. "But why do you want them?"

Yeah, why? What kind of reason should I give? Valmeier—or any original dweller of this world, for that matter—shouldn’t know what they were. They would look at this stuff and think they were just garbage. What might be a good enough reason so he didn’t end up suspecting me?

"Because they were hidden?" my absolutely not brilliant mind forced my mouth to spout whatever, as I sat down again while shrugging. "My treasure-hunting senses are tingling."

Carefully, I looked up at him while putting on an innocent face—at least what I tried to. But when I saw his face, I was getting dumbfounded.

He wasn’t staring at me, but at the floor instead, with a hand partially shielding his face. But I could still see how he bit his lips in an attempt to restrain a laugh, and how his shoulder shook slightly because of it.

It shifted my caution into confusion, which was also accompanied by flusters. "W-what? Why? Why are you laughing?"

He wiped his face with his shielding hand, before walking to the couch and kissing me. To my bewildered face, he spoke with a small chuckle. "Nothing, just that you’re absolutely adorable, my sweetheart."

He kissed my cheek this time, pressing his lips hard on my skin while circling my neck and holding the back of my head, to the point that I felt like the shape of his lips would get printed on my cheek.

"Ughh—" I shoved his face away with a grunt, too annoyed from being laughed at to indulge him. "Stop that and answer me!"

He still chuckled then, and instead of giving me a proper answer, pulled me to my feet instead. He swiped his fingers over the chest, and as it disappeared into his dimensional storage ring, he looked at me.

"I’ll tell you, but not here," he said. When I thought that it might be due to us being in the Lord Castle instead of the Lair, he pinched my cheek and took my hand. "You need your lunch first."

...oh.

* * *

"I found them during my travels, back when I still going around building my business," Natha said, finally, when I finished the main course.

He refused to tell me anything before I properly stuffed myself, even as I threw him my bestest pleading look. He also said he wouldn’t tell me anything if I ate too fast or too careless, so I had to chew on my meat and salad carefully under his watch.

It was only when we moved to desserts that he started to give me the pending answer. "Well, some of them anyway. The rest was sent by the maker, asking me if I was willing to buy them after I purchased their previous...inventions, as they called it."

"Oh..." I glanced at the chest laying on the table in front of the fireplace while shoving a cool fruit jelly inside my mouth. "Like...a charity purchase?"

"Something like that," Natha chuckled, before sipping on his after-meal coffee. "They are all failures after all, and no one would want to buy something that is neither looking gorgeous nor functional."

"Why are you buying them, then?" I scarved the jelly that reminded me of Jade, and Natha put his neglected portion in front of me, which I took gladly.

Tapping on the handrest, Natha looked like he was filled with reminiscence and nostalgia as he answered. "It’s interesting, these things. They were new inventions with clear objectives of how they should function, but the makers all ended up unable to complete them," he stopped the tapping, and moved his hand to rub his lips in contemplation. "It’s almost like they already have the finished product before, but were unable to replicate them."

And I almost choked on my jelly because of that. Natha’s words really heightened my theory that I wasn’t the only one who transmigrated to this world. It didn’t even need to be transmigration—something like reincarnation, perhaps?

I mean...there was even a Hero that got summoned from another world here.

It got me wondering though; was this world created through the novel, or was the author girl only recited a record of a real world that already existed in another dimension? Although, it could also be that they were part of the novel plot in the first place, and—who knew—probably meant to meet the Hero on his journey.

"I bought them because they were new and intriguing inventions, despite the failures," Natha continued, snapping me out of my wayward thought. "What I bought wasn’t the goods, but their ideas—well, I’m an investor anyway, so it’s my role to provide them a little support so they could continue their invention efforts."

Oh...

After months, I finally knew what his profession was—or rather, how he accumulated his wealth. I had been wondering about it all this time, since Zia had told me that the branch family where Natha came from wasn’t that wealthy.

They were quite prominent back in the day, like some kind of municipal lord or something. But ever since Natha’s father was branded traitor—for something I didn’t know what exactly—the family faced declined. And after the massacre...

I heard from Zia—who heard it from her mother—that Natha was left with nothing but his grandfather’s trust fund. Afterward, he received funding from his grandaunt—the one mentioned in his notebook, I guessed—and used it to build his own kingdom of wealth.

I had been wondering how he did it, but felt like it wasn’t polite to ask for such a thing. It seemed like he used his money for investment? I had to read that book talking about him later—I couldn’t read it now since it was full of difficult academic phrases and my poor elementary level demonese did not provide me enough comprehension.

"Those people used the money to look for more materials and a way to make their invention work, and every time they went broke, they’d ask if I wanted to buy the failed prototype so they can have additional funding,"

"And you still bought them? That’s generous of you..." I put my spoon down, looking at the Demon Lord with slightly widened eyes. I mean...I knew he treated me generously, but I was also a firm believer that all successful businessmen were shrewd and stingy—like my grandpa.

Natha stood up after seeing my empty plate and offered his hand, which I took, and replied as we walked toward the couch. "Not for free," he smiled. "I had them sign an agreement; should they manage to complete their invention, the right over the production and distribution, as well as part of the patent, would belong to me."

Oh, wow. It wasn’t even an investment agreement, where he injected funds until the completion of the goods. He just bought failed prototypes so they could have some money for capital.

"Buying those failed products is nothing for me, but my fund is everything to them," his charming smile at that time was like those wolves of the financial street.

"What if they ended up never being able to make it works?" I asked curiously, tapping on the frame of the chest.

Natha just shrugged as he took a seat on the couch, smiling light-heartedly. "Doesn’t matter. Just by having these failed products, I could make my own line of research. The right over these products is mine after the inventors died."

My Lord, you were a demon.

But—hmm...it got me thinking. What if I tried to look into these things? From what I observed, the things they lacked the most were the cohesive spell formation to make these things worked as intended to their modern counterpart. After all, replacing things like electromagnetic waves wasn’t as easy as saying abracadabra.

Perhaps—perhaps...if I could meet the inventors...

I was only thinking that I wanted to meet whoever made those stuff inside the chest, just to see if they were indeed a transmigrator or reincarnation or whatever it was called. But what if we could pitch our brains and make these things work?

Could I have a gun, then? A phone? Could I take a picture and video of Natha so I could look at them when he wasn’t...ahem—that wasn’t my point!

I erased the thought from my head and looked at the failed products with renewed passion, while Natha continued to speak while lounging on the couch.

"However, there’s no doubt that they are indeed unique and aesthetically different than other tools—I especially liked the simplicity and plainness of their appearance—so I still considered them as a collection," Natha raised his hand and flicked his finger toward the chest.

The revolver came flying out of the chest then, hovering toward him. "That being said, they were a failure, so I couldn’t showcase them. And for some things, like this..." the revolver landed on his open palm, "...was so controversial that the inventor was getting expelled from their territory and living as a runaway."

...what??

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