The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)-Chapter 725: Painting a picture is nice, but we have to do the impending chore first

Chapter 725: Painting a picture is nice, but we have to do the impending chore first

The afternoon after the announcement, the royal family--minus the young princess--the officials, the soldiers, and the civilians who didn’t want to stay, all left the city.

Of course, among the soldiers, there were those with families in the city, but...honestly, I couldn’t trust those soldiers. I knew--I knew they were just following orders, but it was their choice to serve a country that thrived on trampling over another race, so...

No. I couldn’t trust them.

Strangely enough, the knight captain did not give much fight, unlike the Empire’s spy. Well, he did initially, but when he saw the attackers were druids, he seemed to freeze. Even until he was dragged to the ship, he didn’t say anything. Whether he was scared or felt guilty, the one who should be fighting the hardest was easily subdued.

Halurean said it was underwhelming. I was sure they were disappointed, but finding out the Great Tree had been revived made them forget about it. Rather than burdening Heraz again, the druids would take over as guards.

Might as well. Druids had better stamina, and they would protect the Tree even if they had to sacrifice themselves for it. Certainly, no druid--even a half-blood like me--would ever want the Great Tree to fall again.

As promised, the ship sent by Midas arrived on time in the afternoon. The rusty glow of the setting sun turned the lake and the soil red, made the long line of people entering the ship with their belongings look like a journey to hell.

Well, although there was no hell in this world.

The departure was done as the night finally came. Those who chose to stay watched the ship sail away with torches in their hands. It was pretty melancholic, I should say. Between the two groups, there would be friends and colleagues, might even be families and in-laws. The relationship between them would probably be strained for a long time, but once the city was fully established and the border was normalized, there was no law preventing them from visiting one another.

Once the ship disappeared from sight, the staying group returned to their house, while the agents tirelessly proceeded with sealing the property left behind to prevent anyone staying from occupying the house or robbing the goods left behind. I let the princess and her new lady-in-waiting stay at the palace, as well as the servants who decided to stay.

The princess, being quick-witted, moved out of her old room in the royal quarters. She told Heraz that she had no heart taking advantage of my generosity, and would just stay with the servant.

I gave her a room in one of the eastern wing’s bedroom galleries. I thought she deserved that much.

Of course, I didn’t witness all of these. My annoyed son wouldn’t let me out of his sight after all--especially after the busy afternoon of choosing our clothes. Natha had ordered a party to celebrate our son’s first belly crawl, and everyone in the Castle was eating well that night.

[The elves arrived this morning] Heraz reported the next day. [We shall finalize the confiscated property and make a comprehensive map of all the empty buildings]

"How’s the condition this morning? Any conflict?"

[No, Young Master. The people who stay are enough to keep the society going. The market is still open, and we bought food from the stalls for our consumption] Heraz said. [The only thing not functioning at this point is the schools, because more than half of the teachers and the headmaster decided to leave--but there are also not many children, so it’s hard for the system to continue]

"That is fine," Natha nodded. "Let’s focus on stabilizing the community first. Their daily life must go on before we start construction. Prepare a resident for that princess and the servants so we can start the palace’s reconstruction right away."

"Stan is preparing the committee right now, but he is also busy making royal families take accountability and pay compensation, so we might only see it next month," I let out a sigh. Working so early in the morning was not my forte. "I think we need to send someone to take over managing this city, Nat."

Natha chuckled and stroked my head in reassurance. "That’s why I sent Lesta and Eruha over last night," he said.

I immediately perked up at that. "That’s some formidable weapons you sent," I raised my thumb in agreement, and added while giggling. "They can have a date or something while at it."

Natha laughed and said it was impossible for them to do that while working, but...you never knew, right? The lake was pretty romantic, you know.

With the elves arriving, all three of Mother’s children were there. From the demon’s side, however, it was only Natha’s agents. For that, Natha had asked Sada to send some vampires, and Zia called her clan to send some lust demons who wanted to reside over there.

Of course, we would send the invitations to the whole demon realms--especially merchants and magicians--but that took time to be prepared. We had to build the residence first, and prepare the humans.

That was why we sent vampires and lust demons in advance; among all demons, they had the most human-friendly appearance. Vampires looked like humans in their normal form, except for their pointy ears and hypnotizing eyes. Lust demons, while looking less like humans, had a charm effect that made them easily acceptable.

Hopefully, after spending more time mingling with vampires and lust demons, the humans would get used enough to demons that they wouldn’t scream and hide when the other demons came.

If they couldn’t get used to it? Well, that was their problem. They knew demons and children of nature would come anyway. If they did something unsavory, they would be expelled from the city--this time, without any ship to take them away.

Well...not yet, anyway.

We were building a bigger port, as well as an airship port to contain the increase in trade value. Midas would send the youngest daughter--aka Zarfa--to spearhead the branch in that city, and merchants would definitely flock just from Midas’s name. The drows had already prepared to build a merchant guild to represent the children of nature, so the river transportation system would have to be established.

Of course, Natha would build his bank and company there. Thus, we needed bigger ports and one for an airship.

"I wonder if the elves would be interested in building that mana reactor..." Natha stroked his chin.

Pfft--he hadn’t given up, huh?

"I’ll try asking next time," I patted his arm using Shwa’s hand.

Natha chuckled and held the tiny hand of mini-him. "Let’s build an amusement park too," he said. "So we can all have fun there."

"Do we have a place for it?" I tilted my head, trying to remember the city’s layout.

"We don’t have to build it inside the city," Natha shrugged. "We can build it outside the wall, changing the ravine into a resort."

Oh...that sounded...nice? There was no need for us to keep the border’s menacing condition. The city itself would be the border after all. Wouldn’t it be better for the border of peace to be a nice place that reminded people of how fun this world could be if we weren’t occupied by the thought of war?

Still...I also didn’t want them to forget how bad it was. The past, after all, was there to be used as learning materials.

"I want to build a museum," I said. "A memorial for the druids who perished in that war."

"Then, we shall have one," Natha said. "We can make the memorial somewhere the visitor could see the Great Tree and the Palace."

Oh, what a nice idea! I was thinking of making a memorial in the plaza, but after thinking about it, building it in the middle of the city would be more impactful. They would be reminded of the bitter past every time they passed the memorial, but if they turned their head, the Great Tree and the Palace would come into view, signaling a new beginning.

I looked down and pinched my son’s cheek. A new beginning, like Shwa.

"What do you want to do with the palace?" Natha asked. "Aside from reconstructing it."

"Hmm..." I kneed Shwa’s hand while thinking. Letting it empty wouldn’t be very effective, right? But I also wanted to have a place to stay when visiting the place with my family. "Can we let the royal quarters empty while using the rest for the city’s management?"

"We can have the Covenant Committee stay there. You have to also think about the authority system, if you don’t want to rule the city directly."

"Uhh...you mean appointing a mayor or regent?"

"Yes, sweetheart. A territory couldn’t run by itself," Natha flicked my nose. "Let’s see...we can have the committee appoint one for a set period, and have them rotate it between three races, how about that?"

I blinked and tapped on my lips while creating the picture in my head. "You mean...we can have demons as a mayor for five years this time, and after the five years is up, the next mayor will be from humans, and the next one from children of nature?"

"Yes," Natha nodded. "And we can have a representative council with equal numbers of three races. Like the Covenant Committee, but only for the city’s business."

And maybe, in the future, when the three realms used to live side by side, and everyone shared the same sense of belonging to the city, we could shift the system toward an open election.

"That sounds good," I smiled, raising my confused baby high in the air while giggling. "Before that, however, we have to go through one last big fight!"

"Awaah?"

Yep. Before all of the big dreams we had, our biggest dream remained the same: to get full custody of our son.

"Two more days," I took a deep breath and hugged Shwa closely to my chest. "We’ll definitely still have you after those two days."

Natha enveloped us in a comfortable cold, stroking both mine and Shwa’s heads. "Why don’t we visit the city after that?" he smiled in reassurance, as if we didn’t have to be afraid of anything. "You can give the city a new name then, together with Shwa."

"Uh-aaah!"

Seemed like the little guy agreed.