The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)-Chapter 649: To kill or not to kill...that is the question

The best way to perfectly appear to be asleep was by...well, sleeping.

You see, night watch was not my thing, okay? Valmeier might do it often, but I had lived being pampered by my Demon Lord for two years, so good sleeping hours had become my normal. Staying the whole night to guard was never in my schedule.

And damn it--if it wasn’t the most boring thing, even more than studying. At least, with studying, there would be some interesting stuff popping up now and then from the text, and some satisfaction when I understood something and earned new knowledge. More often than not, night watch duty only made someone sleepy for the next day.

It also wasn’t my ideal way to spend the night during an expedition. Rather than making one--or several--of us being all lethargic from lack of sleep the next day, I preffered making a barrier all around the camp. That had been what we were doing in this ruin hopping; an effective way for someone with abundant mana and love sleeping like me.

But camping in the wild without any guard wouldn’t look natural, right? To make sure we looked like your average mercenaries, we had to have a night watch. But since it was part of our ploy to see their intention, it should never be Ian.

And so I did it, and everything turned boring fast after Jade got drowsy and stopped talking to me. In the end, I leaned back and sunk into my folded chair, pretending to be asleep.

And fall asleep for real.

In my defense, we had our own real night watcher scurrying around in the ground. Shiny the Nightwatvh gave me an account of what happened after I fell asleep later.

The last time I saw them before closing my eyes, the people who were following us pretended to have a rest. Unlike us, however, they did not bother with a tent and only ate ready-made provisions--bread and jerky, I think? Of course, I knew that not every group cherished quality night rest like us, but even my inexperienced ass could see that they never planned to spend the night there.

I mean...they didn’t even bother to put down their weapons.

I closed my eyes because I was bored, but I also didn’t want them to come over and strike up more conversation with me. The ponytail guy kept looking over and waved at me, and after returning the gesture twice, I became sick of it and decided to ’pretend’ to be asleep.

Of course, when they came over about an hour later, I was already sleeping. Comfortably so.

Shiny reported to me later that the four people who pretended to be the passing mercenary with the ponytail guy came while smirking like beasts. Take it with a grain of salt because Shiny considered every stranger bigger than it as a beast.

Anyway, the ponytail guy was calling out for me a few times, probably to make sure I was really asleep. See, as someone who wasn’t an actor, I might have out a twitch or two in response to them walking closer--but since I was really asleep...

"Heh--this guy fell asleep during his night watch?" the bald guy cackled.

"Well, they are coming from the ruin, so it’s a given that they’ll be exhausted," the ponytail guy said.

"But you’re sure that they have some treasures, right?"

"Didn’t you hear them talking about what weapon they are going to turn ’it’ to earlier? It’s definitely one of those shifting weapons," the ponytail guy replied. "We can sell that for a couple of million depending on its grade, you know."

Naturally, this made the beasts howl--or so Shiny said. Probably meant they became excited, huh?

"Even if it’s not that shifting weapon, there’s no way they didn’t find anything after looking that chipper coming out of a ruin."

"That’s true, but what do you think about their skill? They must be good if they can get something out of the ruin."

"Nah--that ruin does not need ability, but luck," the ponytail guy smirked. "And I can’t feel much mana from this guy or the others. Well, just rookie level."

Yeah--it was good that I learned how to hide my mana projection from Amarein before heading to the Human Realm. I mean...I couldn’t let some sensitive mages and priests find out about the amount of mana I had. I wouldn’t be able to disguise myself that way.

At any rate, it truly came in handy. Coincidentally, Aina and Zarfa didn’t have much mana because they never relied on it, and Ian was still a fledging paladin--his prowess came in strength first because he had just started developing his mana.

"Heh--I guess it was a beginner’s luck?"

"They all look young anyway. The only one you need to pay attention to is the one with armor."

"Pfft--someone like him won’t be able to do anything once we take the girls hostage," the bald guy snarled...sneer...whatever. Shiny was rather hyperbolic sometimes. "Anyway...we can do whatever we want to the girls, right?"

Ugh--what is this cliche shit.

"I don’t care--just don’t touch the pretty boy. He’s mine."

Umm...

"Yeah, whatever. No matter how pretty, I can’t do someone without boo--"

BEEEEP! Beep Beep! Nope. Nuh-uh. Children shouldn’t hear and retell something like this! I was so glad Jade was sleeping at that time, because I didn’t want my child to hear anything nasty--especially because I was also included in those nasty talks.

Anyway, long story short, they walked toward us while having all that conversation, and Shiny climbed onto my lap in case my plan didn’t work.

Oh, I haven’t told you about my plan?

Well...did you remember that I gave Shiny a secret mission earlier? That secret mission was to get underground and place some magic stones as...let’s say it was an alarm system with extra steps. The ponytail guy whistled, and Shiny could hear tall ’beasts’ rushing from the forest--I reckoned it was the people staying hidden.

About three seconds later, a loud vibration spread through the ground. Someone had stepped on the invisible magic line formed by the magic stones Shiny had buried, and my mana responded through the connection.

Immediately, surprised yelps and shouts came from the forest, as vines and tree roots sprouted from the ground, entrapping the intruders in their hold.

The order I gave the surrounding plants had been activated.

"What? What happened?"

The four people walking toward me rushed in after they heard the loud noises, but they didn’t have to go far to find out--they experienced the same thing a few meters in front of me.

The mana vibration jolted me awake, and my eyes opened to Shiny clapping and dancing mockingly in front of the trapped people.

"Huh? Did I fall asleep?" I muttered while looking around the clearing that had turned into a jail made of roots and vines.

[Papa?] Jade also woke up from the mana activity, before flapping its wings excitedly at the chaotic sight. [We catch them! We catch them!]

You didn’t do anything, though? But you were cute, so that was fine.

[Papa, Papa! Jade want to kick them too. Jade want to burn them!]

"Don’t talk like an arsonist, Jade. You can kick them if you want, but don’t hurt the trees, okay?"

[Okay!]

"What...what the hell is--"

I could feel their bewildered expression, but Jade had no intention to let them speak. Mean water balls were thrown at their faces, preventing them from speaking and breathing. My left arm trembled and I freed Alveitya, letting it have fun with Jade. I told the plants to gather these people in one spot and warned my two menacing weapons not to kill them.

While Shiny continued the mole dance back and forth, I returned to the tents to wake up the others. They had woken up, however--it would be weirder if they hadn’t, with the many loud noises those people made. Their heads were poking out of the flaps, looking out curiously.

"Interesting stuff always happens while I’m sleeping," Zarfa muttered drowsily, and Aina giggled in response.

Ian stumbled out of the tent, blinking at the way the plants, the sentient spear, and the little bird tormenting the mercenaries. Satisfied with its dance, Shiny ran toward me and started giving me a long report about what those people planned and what they said about us.

"I think they’re just bandits...more or less," I explained what Shiny told me. No need to get into details...right? "They saw us exiting the ruin looking all happy, so they thought we must have gained something from it."

"Well, they’re not wrong," Zarfa chuckled. "It’s not anything rare either. I guess it’s fortunate that the other side still hasn’t figured us out."

"So, what are we going to do to them?" Aina asked. "Kill them? Let them go?"

Hmm...it was a hard question. Technically, like the other mercenaries group, they just wanted to steal our belongings. I had no idea if they would go as far as killing us, but I knew they wanted to do nasty stuff.

But...would it be right to kill them just from assumption? Ugh...

I glanced at Ian, and he seemed to be struggling with the same dilemma. He was a church boy at the end of the day, and he would need a strong justification to kill someone.

Glancing at Zarfa and Aina, they shrugged their shoulders and shook their head.

Oh, well...I didn’t want our member to be haunted by guilt for the rest of the journey, so...

"Let’s do what we did the last time," I decided. "We’ll leave them tied here and let the face decide for us."

Seeing how relieved Ian looked, I felt like we made a good decision.

Only later would I regret this decision.