The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)-Chapter 672: This is why fish boat spends a long time at the sea

"Ignis! Jade miss Ignis!"

"Mm."

A little boy was rolling around on the sofa while holding a lizard-shaped flame with a swaying tail. If people saw this, they might think I was burning my child.

Honestly though, I missed my salamander too. We hadn’t seen each other since we split into two teams--which was what? A month ago? While Ignis spent most time in the cave here, it was still easy to visit. But now...we had to be satisfied with this long-distance calling.

And although Ignis would never admit it outright, I knew the Salamander also missed us.

I told Jade to stop rolling around since he could fall, and sat down with Shwa in my arms. "How are you?"

The shadow flame crawled to my shoulder and peeked at the giggling baby who tried to reach out for the bright flame. "Bored," Ignis muttered.

I laughed and stroked the flame. Ignis was still hesitant about touching Shwa--in case the flame would hurt the baby--but it had started to move closer the more Shwa grew up. Which was cute, since Shwa should be immune to the salamander’s fire by extension through my gene.

"Are you on your way?" I asked the nuzzling flame head.

"Yeah," Ignis snapped out of it and stopped rubbing the shadow flame head to my palm. "We can’t do anything too much since we’re being followed."

My back straightened. "Oh?"

"Lots of people, some familiar and some not," Ignis continued.

I glanced at Natha, who was reading his papers on the side. "The familiar ones must be from our side, right?"

"Mm," the flame’s head bobbing. "The other said the unfamiliar ones are from that church or something."

Well, since the church was clearly baiting them, it made sense to send some people to follow the group. In fact, it would mean that our fishing was a success since we were doing it to get noticed anyway.

The thing was...we still didn’t know if they gathered Jin and ’Valmeier’ to take the relic they owned, or for something else. Doing that did not give any confirmation about the church’s possession of the relic.

That was, unless they did put the real Goddess Tears on that Grand Auction.

"Wait--if they are following you guys at the same time, won’t they clash?"

"No," the flame’s head shook. "The familiar ones are very clever. They follow us as birds and other flying creatures."

"Ah, the beauty of shapeshifters," I sighed in relief.

Truly--I felt like it was so fortunate that Natha had a whole clan of shapeshifters working under him. There was no spy more perfect than them, who could imitate anything from living beings to natural phenomena. They didn’t even need mana to do so, because it was just like breathing or moving limbs for us. Their imitation also extended to voice, and they didn’t have to lose their mind while in disguise.

"I think they are harder to confine than the Spectri," I muttered. I mean...who knew if that butterfly that just flew in through the window was not a shapeshifter?

Sure, there was stuff like detectors and alarms, but the experts of the shapeshifter clan dedicated their lives to finding a method to get past those mechanisms.

Thinking about it like that, they could be a very scary fraudster if they wanted to--even stealing identities would be easy. That was why they had a bad stigma among demons. The only way for them to live peacefully among others without being suspected was through a contract with a Lord or a Clan Head.

In short, they were bound to live as someone’s subordinate forever. Natha said this practice was what created the loyalty trait in shapeshifters. As long as you treated them right instead of exploiting them like a slave, they would give you undying loyalty.

"Well, they are kind of relatives," Natha responded to my absentminded remark.

"...huh?"

"Shapeshifter and Spectre--like...distant cousins?" Natha replied. "They lived in Envy rather than Lust, however."

"Really?!"

"The Spectri drove them out of Lust, so they settled in Envy--most of them anyway," Natha explained. "I brought them to Greed after making a contract with Opti. He said if they had to live under someone, it would be better to work for the best."

Look at him bragging about himself. "You get the better cousin, huh?" I smirked.

"I’ll tell them that," Natha winked before picking up his papers again.

I giggled, and Shwa giggled, and Jade giggled too. Ignis managed to convey an eye roll even in the shadow flame form and disappeared with a poof. Oops. I cleared my throat and turned to Natha again. "Uhh, anyway...it doesn’t seem like anything will happen until the auction."

"Seems so. There’s no way they will do anything openly before the Hero enters their turf."

"So...the exciting part will be on Heraz’s side?" my head swayed as I tried to list what things we should be keeping watch for in my head. "What about that safe house search party?"

"We’re looking for possible places," Natha put down the papers he had been perusing and took out another document from the pile on the couch. "I have been sending more people to that side, so they can do some work while waiting for us."

"Happy time..." I grimaced at the thought of the poor workers, but Natha was actually smiling despite getting drowned in work.

Of course--preparing for ’war’ was not something you could do just by saying, ’Let’s go to war’. There were tons of things to do, including preparing for plausible justification for the Elder Councils. Naturally, he still had to do his job managing the realm.

So, even without taking any absences from work, Natha still brought a lot of it home. Jade even got curious and looked at those papers and documents, before giving up because it was all letters and no pictures. Boring.

"Qu-en will be fine, right?" I sighed, thinking about my stand-in.

Knowing that magician, he would probably relieve his boredom by harassing Valmeier--either verbally or physically. I was worried because Qu’en had to pretend to accept everything. After all, it was a mission, and knowing that I was supposed to be the one in that position made me feel rather guilty.

Of course, the guilt was never greater than the annoyance and anger I had toward that third-rate magician.

"Don’t worry," Natha smirked. "Opti said the kid is probably enjoying it."

Really? Did Qu’en have a kink or something? Ahem.

"Well, I’m glad if that’s the case."

With nothing much happening, the frequency of the report lessened. It was back to waiting for the journey and finding the safe house. Since they would not report until they found a lead, we probably wouldn’t hear anything for a while. The report mainly came at night as a recap of what happened the whole day.

As I thought, the magician was becoming very annoying toward Qu’en. Fortunately, it was nothing more than verbal harassment, which did not affect Qu’en--who wasn’t really Valmeier. The one who was affected was Natha, but rather than blasting cold like before, he made a list in his journal instead.

For my mental health, I decided to never peek inside that journal.

"What will you do while waiting, sweetheart?" he asked on the second lull day.

"Oh, I think I’ll start on that puzzle box again since Shwa is not so fussy anymore."

Shwa was no longer throwing a tantrum if he didn’t see me for more than an hour, and furthermore! He was no longer crying when I went to the lair the other day. Granted, he was sulky when I did not come back after a few hours, but...it was progress!

I felt like he would be able to accept my absence for longer in a few days.

That being said, if I did stay in the Lord’s Quarters, Shwa must stay with me, or he would make a fuss and kick the nannies mercilessly. Thus, I wasn’t able to work on the puzzle box before. I had to get away from the castle so I would be able to concentrate on it.

Natha arched his brow. "Oh, you’re still at it?" freewebnoveℓ.com

"Hey!"

Why did you say it as if I was a student shirking out on my summer break homework?

Natha grinned unapologetically. "Well, sorry that I can’t help you."

"I’m almost there, okay?" I pursed my lips. "All I have to do is--"

Before I finished my words, the communication orb on the table was buzzing. It was mine, but not the inter-realm one. Was it Zia? It had been a while since I talked to her.

I activated the orb and asked curiously. "Yes?"

A low, tired-sounding voice could be heard. [I’m done]

I blinked in surprise. "Neel?"

The last time I was in the Lair, she had a big DON’T DISTURB sign on her room--or should I say lab with a bed? She only allowed a golem to bring her food and take out the dirty dishes, but otherwise, no one was allowed to get close.

But...the fact that she contacted me first only meant one thing, right?

[When will we meet the big stone guy?]