The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)-Chapter 616: Good things by nature will be coveted by many

I thought I was pretty lucky when I found the bead inside the grave earlier, but this...

Ah, is this how it feels to be slathered in a protagonist’s halo--was what I thought at that time. Hmm...maybe because I was doing it with the Hero? Logically, he was the protagonist of this world, right?

The Bishop’s angry glare and betrayed look melted like ice on a volcano as he pointed at the bead. "That...that is..."

"Huh? Huuh? What is this?" Zarfa jumped to my side. "Where did you pick this up from?"

I received the box from Heraz and brought it to the table. "Do you remember how that noble house fought so much to get the relic back in the auction?"

"Yeah, but--" Zarfa gasped. "Oh! Did you ask your people to investigate them?"

I smiled and dropped the bead onto the plate, watching it roll toward the other four. "Well, there’s a lot of things needed to be investigated from them."

Zarfa snapped her fingers and nodded; she must already know what I meant. Naturally, we wouldn’t talk about the druid stuff here.

"So, you find this inside that noble’s residence?" I asked the courier.

"Yes, Young Master. I reckoned it is something important to you."

"It is," I turned and smiled at the dumbfounded Bishop. "Thank you, Heraz."

As usual, he merely lowered her head even more, and stayed kneeling on the ground. I turned toward the Bishop again. "My apologies for being rude; I know this place is a highly guarded secret, but he is my agent, and you can trust him as much as you trust me."

"Yes! Eraz is good!" the little boy supported me immediately. Good boy.

The Bishop’s face was tensing again. I could see the doubt flashing across his gaze, and he was probably questioning how Heraz could go past the security of this place.

"Ah, don’t worry about your security," I added. "Heraz can go inside a palace if he wants to. Jin probably came across him at least once when he was still in Lenaar."

"Huh? Really?" the composed Hero widened his eyes in surprise and looked up--probably trying to recall his five years in that palace. I was sure he wouldn’t be able to recognize Heraz though. "Wow."

"Still, it means something could still go past our security layer," the Bishop shook his head and sighed. "I guessed we better perfect it more, but for now..." he glanced at the shapeshifter’s flickering figure.

As a shapeshifter and a master spy, Heraz could perfectly mask his demonic mana, so there was a chance the Bishop didn’t know that he was a shapeshifter. But then again, the Bishop knew I was living in a castle in the Demon Realm, so...

No matter how open-minded the Templars were, there was bound to be a prejudice still.

I waited nervously for a few seconds, but the Bishop sighed in the end. "Very well," he said.

"Sir!"

"Lord Bishop!"

The other priests were against it, but the Bishop shook his head. "I will trust your word, Sir Valen, as long as you give me your words that your man would not venture anywhere else in this place."

I sighed in relief inwardly. "Don’t worry. I will send him out right away tonight, and he’ll only stay in this room and mine until then," I turned toward Heraz then. "Stay visible so the priests could watch you."

"By your command," he bowed deeply once before shifting to the corner as usual, blending with the shadow slightly. If we didn’t pay special attention to him, we wouldn’t even realize his presence and forget about him soon enough--except for Renna, who was very fascinated by the spy.

Anyway, there was something more important in front of us, so even the Bishop and the other priests went back to the beads. The new one immediately stuck to the one from the grave and the auction, making four of them conjoined.

Immediately, the divinity inside the beads amplified four-fold.

"Ah-ha!"

For a few minutes, we let ourselves drown in the euphoria of having five beads in our possession. Five! More than half! So much more than half! I felt like fate really wanted to spoil me this time. Perhaps it felt guilty about the ordeal I had to face from An’Hyang? Who knows.

That euphoria, however, did not last long as we remembered again where the last bead came from.

"The fact that they came from a church devotee’s residence couldn’t be good, right?" Zarfa grimaced as we calmed down.

"Yeah," I touched the one we got from the auction and rolled it under my pad, separating it from the chain. "And the fact that they tried so hard to get this bead meant they somewhat knew what these are."

Fatia exclaimed softly. "Ah--they were probably the ones who sent the mercenaries after us...right?"

I turned to Heraz then, because I knew he wouldn’t just end his investigation with a simple robbery. Dutifully, he bowed slightly while relaying his report. "I did retrieve some documents, but I have yet to peruse them. My apologies, Young Master."

"May we see them?"

The priests’ eyes followed Heraz strictly as he shuffled toward the table again; I wondered if they already figured out that he was a demon instead of your regular spy. Still, they couldn’t say anything because of the Bishop. Besides, Heraz brought the Goddess’ relic to us. Wouldn’t it be good if this helped them become more open-minded?

Anyway, we received a chestful of papers, scrolls, and bonded books, and after storing the beads back--naturally, both the one I found in the grave and the one Heraz harvested from the noble house entered my storage ring--we perused the documents among ourselves, circling the table.

"Hmm..." Zarfa narrowed her eyes as she brought the papers closed to her eyes--even putting on a monocle. "Oh! Is this it?"

She spread a parchment in front of her. While papers had been created and used widely, parchment was usually used for a more important document--which meant whatever was written there was important. "Look here--it’s a list of big auction houses in the Human Realm. They had crossed several, and here--the one in Dailamy--there are three exclamation marks beside it."

"It was where we got the bead, huh?"

"Ugh...it seems like they do know."

We fell into deep contemplation and once again drowned ourselves in the document, trying to peruse them more thoroughly. "The question is where their stand is," Zarfa muttered. "It’s not like the whole world is against us, right? I mean...Fatia’s mother is devoted to the Goddess, not the church."

Well, that’s true--but it felt too much like wishful thinking. "If they are on our side, there’s no need to send mercenaries to pursue us," I shrugged. "They must have known the Hero is in our group, so what’s the sense in robbing a Goddess relic from someone who supposedly carried a Goddess mission?"

"Ugh--damn it!"

"Hmm...now that I think about it, my mother did say there’s a faction that opposed us supporting Jin," Fatia narrowed her eyes and frowned slightly. "They did have a reasonable argument, however, saying that we should focus our capital on building the kingdom--which wasn’t wrong. Also, they support us when we do something to help our own territory, so other noble houses easily accept that concern."

"And that’s why we have to use my and Valen’s money," Zarfa winked.

"Hmm...nothing’s good from being tied with a political authority, anyway--no offense," I glanced at Fatia.

She smiled and bowed her head slightly. "None taken."

Anyway...

"This is bad," I let out a sigh after we were done perusing the documents. There were several proofs of corruption and extortion--which we handed over to Fatia--but there was no clear mention of why they were aiming for the beads. "Nothing’s mentioned here, but if they knew about the bead, there’s a high probability that they are also looking for the beads, right?" freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

"Looking for?" Zarfa scoffed. "What makes you think they haven’t already got them?"

We all gasped, but that did make sense. The church’s devotees had bigger force and resources than us, so the fact that we even had five of them was miraculous enough. Perhaps the Bishop was right: the Goddess--or fate--wanted us to have an advantage.

"Hmm...at least we can find out who this noble family had in contact with and try investigating from there," Zarfa stroked her chin. "That family actually isn’t that strong, so they must have only acted as a lackey for the real authority."

"Heraz, it seems like your next assignment has already been decided," I glanced at our diligent spy. "Let’s investigate those noble houses that are involved with this one."

"By your command."

"But do stay for a bit and rest before you go," I added, because it seemed like he would go right away without stopping.

"By your command."

Was he really Opti’s relative? They couldn’t be more different from each other, but oh, well--as long as he did his job, which he did.

"But you know...noble houses are one thing," Zarfa looked up from the papers in her hands; the way she grimaced made my stomach churn in a bad way. "But what if the beads are in the church?"

...oh.