The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)-Chapter 625: Maybe I am a protagonist too?

"Shiny say okay!" Jade nodded with a wide grin across his lips, excited for a new adventure. Apparently, he was disappointed because we didn’t involve him during the mercenaries’ attack.

"Is that place far from here?"

"Hmm...the mole said yes," Ignis interpreted. "But it’s far by a mole’s standard, so who knows the real distance."

I looked ahead in contemplation, but then remembered that I wasn’t on this journey alone. "Oh, right--we need to discuss it with the others first," I clasped my hands and stood up. "Let’s bring the mole along--"

"Shiny!" Jade shook the mole and stared at me like a child in a pet shop for their first puppy.

It was rather weird to call a creature with dark gray fur ’shiny’, but...whatever the kid wished, I guess. "Alright, let’s bring Shiny along. You hold on to it, okay?"

"Okay!"

Choco, who had been pacing back and forth in confusion, neighed in relief when we finally returned. Ignis grunted once more as we galloped through the land and looked for the carriage.

It didn’t take long to find a carriage in a vast plain, especially with Jade’s eyes. We found them soon and Choco galloped faster, positioning himself parallel to the carriage’s horses.

"Jin!" I opened my mouth before they could greet me. "Let’s find a place to graze! There’s something I need to talk about!"

The Hero raised his brow, and then raised it even higher when his sharp eyes caught the shaking grey fur on Jade’s chest. Seemed like Shiny also disliked going fast.

But he nodded and pointed at a small group of trees further down the road. "Let’s stop there!"

We had only gone for half a day, but well...the horses still needed to eat and drink. It was nearly lunchtime anyway, and the girls always welcomed a chance to stretch their limbs after hours inside the box. Choco ran first toward the shade of the trees and nibbled on the grass after I got down with Jade. Shiny was curling inside Jade’s arms, and Ignis seemed to sympathize with the mole, patting it lightly with its tail.

"Oh, we’re resting?" the carriage window opened when they arrived and Zarfa looked out curiously.

"Valen said he has something to talk about," Jin said while pulling the horses’ reins. He jumped off and detached the horses from the carriage, sending them to the shade with Choco.

"Oh, what is it, Val? Did you find something?" Zarfa skipped toward me. "Don’t say you stumble upon another bead or something."

Wow...how did she know? I blinked and clapped my hands softly, prompting Zarfa to stop and look at me dumbfoundedly. "For real?!"

"Not yet--just a hint."

Jade laughed and clapped using Shiny’s metallic claws. The clanking sound shifted everyone’s attention to the mole, and they tilted their heads in confusion.

"You found...a pet?"

"This is Shiny!" Jade told them, raising the metallic claws high. "Shiny meet shining ball and become stronger!"

Oh, so he listened earlier. Naturally, it was a confusing piece of introduction, but we had a quick-witted rich girl and a smart elementalist, who gasped after a few seconds.

"The Goddess’s relic?!"

I put my finger on my lips and glared at them as the words were echoing around. They clasped their mouth and the others immediately formed a school circle with me, looking at the mole. The timid Shiny, who had a trauma about tall creatures, ducked inside Jade’s cloak to hide, and Aina let out a cooing sound.

"Aww~"

"Is it true?" Jin asked with widened eyes. "This mole knows where the bead is?"

"Yes," I nodded. "I showed it the bead earlier, and it said it was similar. The mo--Shiny said it fell into a hole and there was a small ball there, glowing, and made it stronger."

"S-Shiny?" Zarfa pressed her lips.

"Sush," I chuckled and pointed at Jade. "Anyway, Shiny said humans started to come to the ruin, so it decided to run away."

"What?!" they gasped. "Does that mean we are too late?"

I looked down and patted the curling mole until the small head peeked out between the metallic claws. "Did the tall creatures find the small ball?"

Shiny tilted its head to the left and right, twitching its nose while thinking, before letting out a series of soft screeching again. This time, Ignis was the one interpreting it.

"Lots of tall creatures--that’s humans to you--come inside the big rooms--it means the ruin--but they haven’t reached the small ball," Ignis said. "They went around and killed the beasts living there, so Shiny became afraid."

"Oh, poor you~" the girls patted the grey back and Shiny wiggled happily before continuing more energetically.

"The ruin is big, and the small ball is so small and hidden in the corner. Shiny doesn’t think they’ll find the small ball soon, but it’s still scary for it to stay there, and--huh?" Ignis stopped for a bit. The light blue eyes glanced at me before continuing. "Shiny said the small ball pointed in a direction and it had been running in that way until it ended up in this plain..."

"And Ignis throw a fireball!" Jade giggled and made Ignis grunt about how it just being cautious.

"Wow, so..." Zarfa stroked her chin and shifted her gaze from the mole to me. "Do you think that ’direction’ was meant to meet Valen?"

It did sound like that, but I just shrugged. "Or it could be anyone in the carriage, like Jin--or even the Templars," I said. "It’s the direction of the plains, but Shiny also said it wanted to live in that mountain."

"I see..." Fatia nodded. "Whichever it is, Mister Mole would meet people who recognized the relic."

"Yep."

Zarfa arched her brow skeptically, but I merely shrugged. She must have realized that no one but me would figure out the relic’s existence since the Templars and the Hero wouldn’t be able to understand what the mole said.

But it didn’t matter anyway.

"Phew...you really just find them one by one, huh?" Zarfa laughed amusedly. "It’s as if you’re the one summoned by the Goddess."

"Technically..." I tilted my head. Technically, I was summoned by the three deities. But it was indeed funny that I found them more than the Hero. "Maybe because I’m more desperate?"

Zarfa smiled gently and stroked my head. "I guess the universe listened to your plea," she said. "But then again, they had been putting you through so much, so isn’t it only fair for them to help you?"

Helping me find a Goddess to face another God...would the universe really help me endorsing a fight between deities? Oh, well...just as the Bishop said.

"The fate works in mysterious ways," I said solemnly, to which the other responded with a laugh. "Aight--let’s talk about what we should do with this new information while having lunch."

Aina excitedly started to cook with Renna’s help while we spread a blanket to have a nice picnic as if we weren’t on an urgent mission.

"Can Shiny lead us to that ruin if we start from another place?" Zarfa asked. "I don’t think we can go with the carriage or even horses if we start from the place you met."

Chii! Chii!

"Shiny can! Shiny will never lose the small ball’s scent!" Jade explained.

"Oh! As expected of a magical mole!" Zarfa clapped her hands. "That means we can just go with our initial plan to reach Ramit."

That was the city where one of Midas’s branches was located--our original destination.

"But what if we were too late?" Fatia asked cautiously.

"Then we ask Shiny to trace it!" Zarfa lightly flicked the mole’s nose, before tickling the belly we had just done cleaning. "Shiny will never lose the bead’s scent, remember?"

Fatia gasped and nodded. "So it doesn’t matter even if someone else takes it--we can just ask for it from them."

I didn’t think we could just ’ask’, Miss--but it was fine. Let’s indulge our kind princess with her utopian look. Who knows--perhaps those people would be willing to trade it with some money. I was sure I could outpay the church if it came down to it.

Of course, it would be more ideal if we could explore the ruin by ourselves.

"Anyway, it still better to reach a proper city first and go to the ruin after preparing well," Zarfa said. "Whether we really go to the ruin or chase people who got the bead, it’ll be better doing it with more information."

"Yes, I agree," Jin nodded. "There’s no guarantee that those humans were looking for the bead anyway."

"Right; they could be just your regular adventurer finding a new ruin and exploring it," Zarfa snapped her fingers.

We reached the decision right when Aina was done preparing our lunch. Shiny was being introduced to the world of cooked food for the first time and its eyes sparkled like Jade did when eating candy. Funnily enough, the mole did not fancy Jade’s jelly, so we didn’t have to fight for provision.

Anyway, Zarfa showed me the map and drew a path that Ignis was thankfully able to remember. Jade still hadn’t had his fill of riding the horse, so it seemed like we had to do it all the way to Ramit.

Ignis and Shiny weren’t very keen, but what could they do? Ignis hid inside my cloak again, but the mole could only sigh because it had the front view inside Jade’s embrace. We galloped to the edge of the plain and turned to the left before we could see the gate of the nearest city. As planned, we would go around it and head straight to Remit through a valley.

When evening came and we caught the sight of the city from on top of the cliff, Shiny had adapted to the speed and vibration, and shrieked as happily as Jade when Choco galloped back to the carriage.