The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)-Chapter 615: It’s not a grave robbing if meant for me...right?

The first thing I did after exclaiming mindlessly was shut up and put my finger on my lips, telling Jade not to say anything. As the little boy clasped his mouth even though he hadn’t said anything, I fell into deep contemplation.

Why was it hidden here? Why was it hidden at all? And the most important part of it all...

Should I tell the Templars?

I mean...if Vashakin--I mean, father--hid the relic in the grave literally located behind the Templars’ church, wouldn’t it mean he did not trust them? Hmm...

"Lord Valen?" the Bishop called out from the path, and I could hear his footsteps. "I heard a loud noise; are you alright?"

Jade blinked at me, and my brain did so much thinking I felt like I was doing one of Eruha’s examinations. In the end, however, I chose to...not do anything.

Why? Because I wasn’t Natha, and I didn’t know what the Bishop already knew. What if the one who hid it wasn’t Vashakin? What if he already knew something was there? I didn’t know how hard the vibration earlier was, and whether or not people around the church could feel it. He was a Bishop anyway, so there was a possibility that he felt something.

If he knew, or feel the vibration and mana activation, but I said nothing happened, it might shatter our trust. It would be devastating if he decided that the Templar wouldn’t lend the relic from pettiness.

And yeah, that was another reason; we needed their bead anyway, so I didn’t think it would do us any good hiding it from someone who held onto one of the needed beads.

When I could see his figure, I called out to him. "Bishop, come and look at this."

He tilted his head slightly before coming closer, and halted his step when he saw the bead on top of my palm. "Sir Valen, this...?"

I pointed at the crook where the pouch was hidden earlier. "I found this there, using the map pendant. It seemed to be fashioned as a key too," I explained while looking at him carefully, perusing the sincerity in his surprised expression. "You didn’t know about this?"

"No, unfortunately so," he shook his head. His eyes moved from the bead, to the rectangle crook, and then to Vashakin’s grave. A lot of things seemed to be flashing through his deep eyes, and he fell into silence contemplation.

As he did, I put the bead back inside the pouch and told Jade to hold on tight to it while I poured my mana inside the crook again. The rectangle plate slid back to its place, and I took the pendant back. When I turned around after standing up and picking up Jade in my arms, the Bishop was looking at me with a deeply thoughtful look.

I guessed he was having the same questions I did in the start because he answered them before I even voiced them. "I think...he had the same distrust as Father Damien back then," he said. "He must be worried about the Templars crumbling from discord and decided to hide the relic."

"And left the key in my hand without a lick of cue?" I tilted my head curiously. "What if I never come here? What if I never discover that crook?"

The Bishop smiled. "He must have put his faith in fate," he reminded me of our fateful conversation back then. "The Goddess wanted them to have you; naturally, he would think there was a reason for that. Perhaps, he thought fate would bring you here in some way."

"Huh..."

"And he was right," the Bishop’s smile grew wider. "Of course, everything is nothing more than my conjecture, but..."

"Who cares, right?" I finished the thought while flicking the pouch. "Right! We have to meet Jin and put the other beads together."

"Yes, I agree."

Yeah, not hiding it was a good thing. We hurriedly left the graves, but Jade reached out his hand behind me and used his magic to create a raining flower above the graves, giggling. I glanced at the Bishop, who did not see it since we walked behind him. But if he could feel an unfamiliar magic, he did not show it.

Well...I guessed I could trust him about seventy percent now. frёewebnoѵēl.com

There was no time to enjoy the beautiful view of the waterfall beneath the moonlight, and we passed through the secret tunnel as if it was an emergency exit and we were chased by something. The Bishop told the first priest he saw to gather the Hero and his companions, and he brought me through a shorter, more concise path through the hill instead of the long-winded one I came from.

It still took us about twenty minutes from the graves to the settlement, however, huff. It did not tire me or anything, but visiting the church or the grave from the settlement felt like a chore. But then, I wouldn’t be able to go without the Bishop or other priests who knew the pattern code anyway.

[Papa, Papa...can’t we just fly there? Jade think Jade can fly there] my little boy whispered in my head once he sensed my thought.

Uhh...I couldn’t fly--yet--but knowing there was another path was always good. [That’s great, baby. Let’s do it later--we shouldn’t let them know about your transformation]

[Okay!]

Jade clutched me and the pouch as we entered what looked like a village hall--kind of like the building in the druid settlement, the one where I met the Grandma and Grandpa Chiefs. Jin and Renna were already there, but the other girls arrived at the same time with us.

"Ian is in training with the guard templar--he’ll be here shortly," the Hero explained.

Ah. I forgot that technically, a paladin was a tanky battle priest.

"What is it, what is it?" Zarfa asked excitedly. "Did you find something? Was there really something in the graves? There is, right? There is?"

I had to push her face away from mine, by Jade giggled because of it, and naturally, Zarfa’s eyes landed on the pouch in Jade’s hands.

"I knew it!" she pointed at it and patted the table. "Come, come!"

She did not change at all even in the middle of these senior prests, huh? I felt like she was letting a steam off after being silenced for a few hours. I chuckled and told Jade to place the pouch in the middle of the table, and the Hero widened his eyes.

"This is--!"

"You can feel it, huh?" I took out the bead from the pouch, and the rest of them gasped.

"Another relic?!" Zarfa held her cheeks. "Your father hid a relic in his grave?"

"In her grave," I corrected. "How can he put this in his own grave?"

"Same thing!" Zarfa waved her hands. "Hurry, hurry! Out with the other beads!"

Jin rolled his eyes in exasperation, but still obediently took out the bead from his own pouch. Renna pulled out a decorative plate out of nowhere for the bead, and the Bishop followed with the Templar’s bead.

"This is good. Now we have three of--"

He paused when I took out the small auction box from my storage ring and opened it. "Four," I smiled and dropped the bead gently on the plate as Jade rolled the one from the grave over there too.

The Bishop blinking in surprise, but if he wondered why I never mentioned it before, he didn’t show it. He immediately put a blank face and shifted his gaze toward the plate, where four beads were rolling toward each other.

"Oh! They are gathering! They are gathering!"

We watched curiously as the beads rolled; the one from Jin and the auction stuck to each other like that night, but not with the others. Still, they rolled close and stopped near the conjoined beads, creating a small gap the size of another bed.

"Ah!" I snapped my fingers in eureka moment. "So these gaps need to be filled with another bead, right?"

"Yes," the Bishop stared at the beads with the widest smile ever. "And it seemed my conjecture is right; there are seven of them in total."

Yep. There were two gaps, each with one bead and two bead slots. "Seems like you’re right about it being a seal too," I tapped on my lips.

Each of the beads must represent a rune or a formation, and had to be placed in the correct order. Perhaps because only two of them were interconnected, there was no spike in the Goddess’s power there.

"Hmm...so, three left, hug?" Zarfa nodded and stroked her chin as if she had a beard there. "Do you happen to know where we might find them?"

The Bishop only looked at us with a wry smile. "If we know, we’d already trying to get them."

"I guess so..."

We sighed in disappointment, but still! Four beads before we even started. Didn’t it feel like a good sign?

"Let’s go to the nearest city where I can find a Midas branch," Zarfa said. "I’ll ask our network to watch the auction and get the list of items sold for the past...uhh, we’ll try to get as far as we can."

"The Templars had been trying to look for the beads in the ruin. There’s no result, but I think that means we can crossed those ruins and focus on the ones we haven’t explored," the Bishop chimed in.

"Yeah. Let’s check with the mercenary guild to check for identified ruins too," Jin nodded.

"Hmm...is there a historian somewhere who knows the old civilization? Maybe we can look for new ruins like that."

"Let’s just try everything we can, and hopefully--"

I paused and turned to the window. The others looked at me curiously, since I stopped mid-sentence. Me, on the other hand, was even more curious about the one perching on the window.

How do I convey this to the Bishop without incurring misunderstanding?

But my little boy already opened his mouth because I forgot to remind him of secrecy. "Eraz!"

Ah...

The Bishop widened his eyes in confusion, and I smiled apologetically. "I’m sorry, Bishop--my staff is here to report something."

Zarfa and the other gasped, while the Bishop frowned in more confusion. "What--?"

"Pardon me, Young Master," Heraz didn’t bother to hide himself anymore, and climbed down the village hall’s window.

The priests were immediately in allert, and the Bishop looked at me with a sense of betrayal. Ugh--I hoped I could explain this better later, but I was more curious about why this usually careful shapeshifter came almost carelessly like this.

In a cloak that seemed to blur his surroundings, Heraz walked over and kneeled in front of me. "Forgive me, when I saw what you were doing, I feel like I should show you my harvest right away."

"Harvest?"

And then, like a giving tree, Heraz took out a small box from his cloak and opened it in front of me. There, a familiar bead lay and vibrated from resonance.

"I pick it up from the place you told me to investigate."

Ah...what a good day.