The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)-Chapter 26: Who cares about swords and magic, please give me a phone!

Chapter 26: Who cares about swords and magic, please give me a phone!

"Do you think he’s angry?"

I was laying down on my stomach, on the comfortable library couch. The fabric felt soft on my cheek, and it was easy to fall asleep there with the warm sunlight pouring from the huge window.

But I couldn’t.

I had been resolving myself to face Natha and...well, I didn’t actually have a concrete plan on what I wanted to convey to him. But I did want to address the thing about the doctor. Even if I had to twist some truth—just enough so I don’t have to explain about the transmigration thing—I wanted to tell him that I thought about the doctor because they looked similar, and that I had no lingering feelings anymore. Or at least I thought so.

I wanted to come clean too, about reading his journal. It wasn’t because I wanted to ask him about the continuation of his adventu—I mean, journey. Ahem—yes, definitely not because of that. I swear it wasn’t because I couldn’t find the next volume—I mean notebook—within the tower.

And what a damn big tower this was.

I had, finally, explored this place and found out the general layout. I did it like a treasure hunt too, with Jadector flying around informing me of possible mana convergence sites.

I didn’t explore the ground floor where the tower staff’s room and the golem maintenance were, but I did spend a few days investigating every room on the guest resident floor. It was the floor below the library, and only Zia stayed there for now. The floor below that turned out to be used for sitting and dining rooms, and I started to have my meal there with Zia rather than eating alone in the suite. But even after days of exploring both floors, all I found were a few secret passages and no suspicious notebook.

I didn’t think I’d find anything in the grand hall room below, so I just skimmed the place that looked more like a colosseum with it being empty. I did use it to practice my mana circulation, though, since it looked like a training ground, playing around with Jade using our light attribute mana.

But still, no dice on any journals or notes.

It was alright though, since I resolved myself to just ask Natha about it. But—BUT! He didn’t show up even after a week. And then another week passed, and another. And now I was filled with anxiety.

Which brought me all kinds of negative thoughts. Like whether or not he was angry. Or that he might be angry. Or that he was definitely ANGRY.

"Why do you think so?" Zia looked up from her novel.

I poked the white ball curling up on the carpet and sighed. "I mean...it’s almost a month already..."

This time, it was Zia that gave out a sigh. Or rather, it was closer to a scoff. "It’s ’only’ a month. Before you come here, Lord Cousin would only visit once a year at most, or if he gets tired with the realm’s business."

Huh...

"You miss him that much?"

"...no?"

The teenage succubus sneered, her purple eyes narrowed into crescents. "Why did you say it like a question?"

"That’s...not it..." I turned my cheek the other way, staring at the soft green fabric of the sofa.

Yeah, that wasn’t it. I was used to not having visitors, and spending my days alone. People would come to visit when you just spent some night in the hospital. But if it years...the visitor would be dwindling. At the end of it, only the family’s lawyer and financier came to me once every three months, asking for signatures and handling treatment costs. I remembered the last visit, confirming my signature on my will, and then...well, it wasn’t important.

Perhaps that was why I got attached and awakened a feeling I decided not to have, as the young doctor came to visit me every day.

And then, I got easily attached again to someone who bore the resemblance, who treated me with care, even if I had no idea what his intention was. We had only met, what, three times? And yet, every action that I made revolved around him.

"Fine, fine, if you say so, I guess," I could picture Zia shrugging while rolling her eyes even without looking. "But Val, why do you think he’s not here because he’s angry? He could just have been busy, you know."

I rose slowly from the couch, feeling like all manners of energy leaving my body. Guess feeling a bit depressed did suck up vitality like no other. "Our last conversation was rather...awkward..."

—Whose name were you calling?—

—You keep testing and confusing me—

Of course, I would defend myself by saying that I couldn’t help it. But goddamnit why did I have to own a conscience? My life would be so much easier if I had no capacity to feel guilty. As it was, just having this mark on the back of my hand made me feel like a cheating fiancé.

I leaned my cheek to the backrest and exhaled heavily.

Jade flew from his sunbathing place on the carpet and landed on my lap, headbutting my stomach. I just patted his head and gave him an afternoon snack of my mana.

"Why? What are you doing that makes you think he’d get angry?" Zia rubbed her chin curiously before suddenly gasping and snapping. "Y-you didn’t say you want to leave or anything, right?!"

Even her sudden yell couldn’t rouse my tension. "No..."

"Huh? What then? Are you cheating or something?" she tilted her head, and I froze in reflex.

There was a stretch-out silence filling the library before she suddenly appeared in front of me. She grabbed my shoulder tightly and shook me so much Jade was experiencing an earthquake on my lap.

"You can’t! Val, you can’t do thaaaat!!" she yelled at me in panic as if she was the one I was cheated on.

"Ah, no, that wasn’t really—"

"Is Lord Cousin not satisfying you? Why are you doing this??"

"I’m not!" I clapped my hands on the succubus’s face. Satisfying what? This little—"I don’t even know anyone here, so who can I cheat with?"

"Then why are you reacting like that?"

"Like what?"

"You were averting your gaze like you feel guilty!" Zia pointed her fingers at me, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Damn, she really was sharp. Was it because she was a sensitive teenager?

I swatted her fingers and picked up Jade that was toppling over from the shaking earlier. While doing so, my eyes fell on the pile of romance novels around her original seat, and I stared at her.

It kind of playing with my dignity, but between a virgin with a zero experience in dating, and a succubus who was obsessed with finding true love, I felt like probably—just maybe—she had more insight about this kind of thing than I did.

"I...think he found out that I was thinking about someone else sometimes..."

She gasped, clasping her hands over her mouth dramatically. "Cheater!"

"I can’t help it, okay?" I slammed my hands into the couch in frustration. Yes, I was freaking frustrated over this too! "He just looks so similar to someone I used to like!"

If only I didn’t have any memories about my past life. But if I had no memories of it, then I wouldn’t know about the Amrita, and I wouldn’t meet him in the first place.

So it was damn frustrating on my part too.

I had been cursing the author girl so much these days, to the point that I started feeling blasphemous—I mean, wasn’t the author essentially a God then, since she created this world? novelbuddy.cσ๓

"Oh?" Zia frowned. "How similar are they for you to think about that person in the presence of Lord Cousin?"

I let out a long sigh before answering. "Like...if Natha had a human twin, that would be it..."

No, wait, Natha did once take over that look, when he infiltrated the palace. It was winter there too.

Huh. Was that why I took his offer, took his hand so easily that night? Aside from being drunk and desperate, I mean.

"Eyy, no way!" Zia slapped my arms, as if she thought I was joking. "There’s no way a demon and a human could look that similar."

She laughed while slapping my arms a few times. But when she saw my face, Zia stopped and blinked. "You’re serious?"

I didn’t answer and just pressed my lips. Wouldn’t that be nice if they weren’t so similar? I could stand the same face, even the voice, to some extent. But when they acted more and more similar, my thought process just went haywire as my brain dug up memories on its own.

"Oh, so you’re serious," Zia muttered, and then suddenly gasped again. She leaned forward and spoke in a hushed tone, as if she was about to deliver something scandalous. "That’s bad, Val!"

"Yeah, I know, which is why I’m asking you if he’s angry at me or—"

"That’s not it!" Zia waved her hand in front of me, and then back to whispering again. "If he knew, wouldn’t that person be in danger? Lord Cousin might eliminate him!"

I blinked at her revelation, which more or less gave me an insight into the kind of thing a Demon Lord might do. But after a while, a chuckle came out of my mouth. It tasted bitter.

"No, that won’t happen," I pressed my cheek on the backrest again. "That person is not in this world in the first place..."

Or rather, that person’s version in this world should be Natha himself.

But it seemed like the succubus misunderstood something because she suddenly looked at me all sad.

"Val..." she called my name in such a sorrowful tone that had me flabbergasted. "Sorry...I-I don’t know..." she grabbed my hand then, while I was still too dumbfounded to react. "I won’t call you a cheater again, so..."

Uhh...what? What was this girl spouting suddenly? But well...since it seemed like she wouldn’t think I was a horrible lover anymore, I’d take it.

Still, it didn’t solve my anxiety about whether or not Natha was pissed at me.

"Ugh...if only we have a phone..."

Stupid magical world! Stupid magical world with no phone we could use to text each other. If we had that, I could just ask him over a phone call, rather than rolling around waiting without any news. ’Are you mad at me?’ or ’I’m sorry’ or ’Can we talk?’ or whatever.

"What’s a ’fon’?" Zia asked curiously.

Something people your age won’t be able to part off. "Hmm...something we can use to exchange messages?"

"What, like letters?"

"...kind of? But we can do it instantly, without waiting for someone to deliver it."

Zia raised her brow. "So, like a communication device on the top floor?"

I blinked. Top floor? The one above my—I mean, Natha’s—bedroom?

We went there before—me and Jade. There was nothing up there but a crystal ball over a pedestal that looked like an altar. It was surrounded by a sturdy gate too, and guarded with various defensive and detection arrays, with two stationary golems that looked like bouncers.

I had thought that it was something like a security system, but what was this?

"That crystal ball...is a communication device?"