The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)-Chapter 668: An unexpected neighboring fish

Sareah, a city on the Northeastern side of a principality with a strong tie to the Holy Empire, was big and yet calm.

Compared to its size, there weren’t as many citizens as in other cities. It was known as a pension town, where people went over to enjoy their retirement while looking over the nice scenery of a snowy mountain range beyond the large, glistening lake.

A perfect place to do things in secrecy.

In this place, where people minded their own business, a lavish carriage with the crest of a kingdom far in the South was seen parked in front of a guest mansion’s house. The man who alighted from the carriage was a tall, bored-looking man with sand-colored hair. If the Hero saw the man, he would know who that was immediately. Perhaps Valen, too.

After all, it was the magician who caused the massive explosion in the previous war. The one causing Valmeier’s body to be in a wreck.

"You’re sure, aren’t you?" the man asked with narrowed eyes at the agent updating him on the situation. Leaning back on his chair while crossing his legs, the man did not bother to hide how annoyed he was to be there.

"Yes, Sir," the agent nodded. "This time, there are people who witnessed the ’sentient spear’ too."

"And they’re legit?"

"Yes, they are known around here," the agent produced a thin stack of papers with said party’s information written on it. "They said they tried to ask the man to join the party, but he rejected it dryly--no smile or expression, but his speech and demeanor are very polite for a mercenary."

"Hah!" the man scoffed. "I guess that person’s never changed."

Among his old ’colleagues,’ he was the one who had seen this fugitive the most--not because he wanted to, but because he was stationed near that person’s battalion. It was annoying.

It was so annoying having that stony-faced guy looking all glorious and pulling more kills than him. It was annoying that how much he tried to rile up that priest, the guy just went deadpan on him and walked away.

What an irritable prick who hogged all the spotlight! He thought he had got rid of that prick once and for all, but...tsk.

"Ugh--alright," the magician rolled his eyes. "Let’s see if this one is truly him. When will he arrive?"

"If the retrieval team manages to bring him into the party, they should be arriving by tomorrow evening."

The magician widened his eyes and glared at the agents. "Then why are you asking me to be here now?!"

The agent lowered his head as a crystal ashtray flew past him. Thankfully, this magician did not have a good aim. "I’m sorry...Sir."

Still, he apologized, swallowing his grumble. It wasn’t like he was the one telling this man to come here and identify the person. It was the South Bishop, so why did this bastard get angry at him?

"Tsk--why can’t you just bring him right away?"

It was already annoying that he had to get involved with that infuriating guy again, but he also had to come all the way to the North for this shit. And now he had to wait again?!

"The order is to avoid any unnecessary commotion," the agent said patiently. "If he refuses, however, we’ll bring him by force. It should be the last resort, however."

"Haa...so annoying," the magician clicked his tongue. "Just do it well this time!"

"Yes, Sir."

The agent turned around and rolled his eyes. What a prick. No wonder the church sent him as far away as possible from the center. If it wasn’t for his family’s huge donations...

Tsk.

The agent turned toward his assistant, who was holding a communication orb. "Tell them to bring that person no matter what. Use as many people as they can."

* * *

Inside the ruin, Heraz had started to think this one was a dud. Well, if it didn’t work, they had planned for someone to disguise as an adventurer and whined while getting drunk in a mercenary pub about how someone seemed to find a nice-looking jewel inside.

But eventually, it was not needed.

[The church agents are here]

When Sore’s report came in, Heraz gave the bored Qu’en a signal. They had been waiting in front of a hidden passage to an uncharted area since there was no use to go so far without a worthy eyewitness. As they had predicted, the agent sent one person first to scout and made sure it was truly a ’sentient spear.’

Like a director of a movie, Heraz conducted the show flawlessly. Just before the scout reached the area, he pushed the beasts he had held back toward the disguised shapeshifter. When the scout arrived to spectate, what he saw was a man fighting the pack of beasts with a spear that could move by itself.

Naturally, Tsalinade had to work hard and kill those beasts from afar using the replica. Thankfully, while it was a replica of Alveitya, the spear itself was made of high-quality materials and would be valued highly by itself. Calling it a ’fake’ was honestly an insult to any other spear, but when facing Alveitya, any other spear did look like peasants.

The scout watched until Qu’en and the replica got rid of all the beasts and entered a ’crack’ that ’accidentally’ appeared when a beast got flung against the wall. It was a gate to the unrestricted area. Qu’en whistled and Tsalinade made the spear shrink into a bracelet--for the scout’s eyes, however, it seemed like the spear went inside Qu’en’s arm.

Immediately after, the scout returned to where the other agents were waiting, while Qu’en entered the unexplored area. Naturally, Heraz and Tslainade followed behind to look for a good hiding spot. Qu’en proceeded to clear the area of any beasts with Heraz’s help, letting the corpse scattered along the way.

And right after Qu’en grabbed a relic at the end of the path, the church’s agents decided to come out.

"Hey, aren’t you great!" one of them acted like a leader and approached Qu’en.

True to their character, Qu’en stared at the man silently for a few seconds before replying flatly. "Thank you," he said politely with a brief bow. "Then..."

As Qu’en moved away toward a huge gate that appeared after they took the treasure, the man called out urgently. "Wait-wait!"

Qu’e stopped and turned with just a slightly suspecting stare. "Do you have business with me?"

"Hmm...ah, well--I won’t beat around the bush," the man raised his hands as if to show that he had no intention of fighting or doing anything suspicious. The three people showing up with him also raised their hands as a show of trust. "I want us to work together."

"I don’t join parties," Qu’en replied dryly.

"Nah, not like that," the man shook his head and stepped closer. "You’re a mercenary, aren’t you? Then, you won’t be a stranger to commissions."

"Ah," Qu’en tilted their head. "So you want to hire me?"

"Yes, that!" the man clapped his hand and nodded eagerly. "I see you’re good enough to uncover a hidden place, so..."

Huh...they weren’t going to ambush and catch him? So they wanted to go the roundabout way and took him out of there without too much fuss, huh?

Hmm...that wasn’t too bad.

Qu’en was told that they could make a decision by themselves according to the situation, so he narrowed his eyes and relieved a bit of tension from his shoulder. "Go on."

The man smiled and stepped closer again, lowering his voice. "There’s this new place."

"New?" Qu’en narrowed his eyes. "A ruin?"

"Yeah; our group found it not long ago," he pointed at the other three people. Of course, he didn’t say anything about a dozen more waiting outside the path, and about twenty more waiting outside the ruin. "You know how the founder had a week’s grace period to have priority over exploration, right? I’m sure you won’t be at a disadvantage."

Qu’en wondered what their plan was, but they didn’t need to know. Qu’en’s role had always been to be ’taken’ by them, no matter in what fashion. Be it by force or manipulation, he would have come willingly.

But of course, he couldn’t just answer positively right away. "Wouldn’t people usually keep it among themselves?" he asked, still with palpable doubt.

"Yeah, yeah--I know," the man shrugged, smirking inwardly when he saw the target’s grip on the dagger loosened up a little bit. "But we need more power--and you’re powerful. I don’t want to cooperate with another group and get them gulping half of the stuff."

The green eyes narrowed in contemplation, and the man let the target mull quietly for half a minute before he asked again.

"How is it?"

"...can I get a priority right for a loot? In return, I’ll only take one thing."

"Uhh...wait a minute."

The man returned to his group, pretending to have a discussion about this new condition. But they were all just whispering in gibberish, smirking at how easy this was after losing sight of the target constantly before.

They heard that the target was a pushover and easy to manipulate, and it seemed to be true. Perhaps that was why he had been going around alone.

After an appropriate time for discussion had passed, he returned to the target. "Fine--but only one, and only what we got during our cooperation."

"Sure."

"Great! Let’s go--we only have six days left, and two of them will be used on the road!" the man waved his hand eagerly, even looking like he would grab the target’s hand right away.

Qu’en followed the group obediently, staying at the back and keeping quiet to embody the reserved Valmeier.

Watching the group leave, Heraz whispered to the communication orb. [They’re on the move]