The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)-Chapter 680: With great power, comes great pain

The best sleeping time for parents is when their baby is asleep.

After not sleeping for more than twenty-four hours, all I wanted to do was to close my eyes and drift to dreamland. So, leaving Shwa in the nursery, I took a long nap with Jade--who had already slept in the ruin, but had been busy shopping and preparing his bribe. After the stimulating reality filled with unexpected revelations, my brain said it was enough and sent me to dreamless sleep.

Perhaps that was why, I woke up feeling refreshed. It was even nicer because I woke up to the sound of two giggling children. Shwa was shrieking in delight as Jade’s face buried in his stomach, blowing blueberries. The little legs were kicking in the air, while little fingers clutched the green hair.

"Did you walk all the way from the nursery, Shwa?" I turned to my side and stroked the laughing cheek.

Jade raised his head and gasped. "Oh, no! We wake up Papa, Shwa!"

"Uaah!"

"Pfft--no, you’re not," I patted the green hair. "I woke up because I got hungry."

Jade giggled, and I kissed my giggling baby’s forehead. "Good morning, Shwa."

"But Papa...it’s afternoon?" Jade tilted his head adorably, and of course, I had to kiss his head too--there was no way I couldn’t!

Shwa smacked my chin as a greeting, and we giggled out of nothing for a while until the bedroom door opened and Natha came inside with a bottle of Shwa’s milk.

"No wonder the noise level is increasing," he chuckled and gave the milk bottle to Jade. "Here--try feeding him this time. Slowly."

"Okay!"

"And you," Natha sat on the bed, and it was my turn to have my good morning kisses--even though it was afternoon. "What should I feed you?"

"I want to eat dinner later, so let’s just have an afternoon tea on the balcony," I smiled and kissed him back. "You can give me some updates while at it."

While my son fed my other son carefully, I used the change to change my clothes. Funny, wasn’t it? What about your cry earlier about not being able to play with me and Shwa, Jade? Shouldn’t let D’Ara find out about it.

When I came out with fresh clothes, Shwa had emptied his milk bottle and was in the middle of his burping session on his daddy’s shoulder. A spread of cakes and herbal tea was already prepared on the balcony for me to feast. How fast.

"Anything happened while I was away?" I asked after devouring my first cake slice.

"Nothing on your friend’s side, but we had started to--ugh--delay that magician’s advance," Natha replied while trying to hold back the squirming Shwa.

I laughed and reached out my hands. "Give him to me--what did they do?"

Natha grunted while handing over our fussy son, who immediately calmed down in my arms. My husband looked both annoyed and jealous--not sure at me or Shwa--but what could I do? Shwa was the boss of this family.

Sighing, Natha finally took a seat and explained the exciting stuff that happened outside while I was waiting for Neel to modify Stan’s rune code.

Apparently, the shapeshifters were using the ’natural’ route. They baited the beasts and wild predators they could find around the area and led them toward where Qu’en and his captors passed by. It was right in the middle between the two farthest residential areas, strategically so.

While the horde was attacking the group, the shapeshifters turned into animals and blended with the others, deliberately attacking the carriage--breaking the wheels and snatching the provisions’ chest--and chasing away the horses. Without carriage and provisions, they were essentially stranded.

Their only choice was to walk to their next destination. But oh, no! The bridge connecting the way to the next town was broken! Could they just cross the river somehow? Too bad, a secret magician made the rover flood.

But, but...didn’t they have a magician themselves? Of course they were! But what could they do if the magician was useless? Instead of halting the river’s force, freezing the water, or moving the humans across, his spell got the river even rougher.

Truly a useless magician.

Of course, true to his nature, he blamed the others for failing to protect their belongings--even though half of them were hurt. I wondered if the agents had used to this and just rolled with it, or if they actually wanted to stab the man and push him into the river, which would be interesting.

Unfortunately, the agents were the epitome of patience. Just like Valmeier in the past. Damn--maybe the priests were groomed to be like that.

Their next choice of action was to send a message through a bird carrier so someone could come and help them. But, oh my...a big predator bird snatched the carrier bird! What to do?

The magician, who refused to sleep outside, but also refused to walk any further, ordered some of the agents to go back to the previous town and bring a new carriage to where he was waiting not far from the river. Wow. I started to think that the ducal house held these priests’ families hostage because how could they be this patient?!

Anyway, some of the agents returned through the harmful path and gasp! The path was blocked by a landslide! Curses!

In fact, they started to think they were being cursed. How nice--except for the fact that the magician vented his frustration by hitting Qu’en. Ugh. What did our poor actor even do? The shapeshifter was just following them with tied hands!

"I know he was a jerk, but...he’s truly an asshole, huh?" I clicked my tongue and shook my head. "So, they were still stranded now?"

"Naturally."

"What are their options now?"

Natha lifted one cheese stick. "They could wait for someone to call for a more competent magician who could do something about the bridge, or for the other town to build a temporary bridge."

"Is it feasible?"

Natha smiled. "What do you think, sweetheart?"

"Hmm..." I swayed to think about the situation, and Shwa giggled in response. No, baby--I wasn’t trying to play with you. "Ugh...building a bridge takes time, right? Even the temporary one. As for another magician..." my eyes narrowed in doubt. "I’m not sure, but...isn’t he infamous among the magicians?"

"He is," Natha smirked. "Other magicians didn’t like him, for many reasons. And they didn’t really like the church either. Even if the agents used the communication orb to call for their help, the magic tower would probably respond as slowly as possible--just to piss him off."

I chuckled at the imagery, but it was also very realistic. Magicians, as we could see in Tsalinade, were proud beings. They were elitists who took pride in the fact that they could work with mana--which they called the true power of this world.

Naturally, they would despise someone who only knew basic mana and flaunt it without studying it seriously, even taking important roles through family power and close relation to the church.

Well, I had my hope in this resentment that they would take their hands off the incoming war.

"What else can they do?"

"They could turn back and dig through the landslide," Natha shrugged. "Of course, only the agents would have to do that. It was risky and a waste of time since there was nothing they could use in the previous town."

"I see..."

My apologies to the innocent people who couldn’t travel because of the broken bridge and the landslide, but trust me; you’d rather stay in your town than meet this annoying jerk of a magician.

"There’s a possible, relatively quick solution," Natha said.

"What is it?"

"Sending a teleportation scroll through a carrier," Natha shrugged.

My eyes narrowed at his calm expression. "I bet our agents were busy preventing any communication."

Natha brought the teacup to his lips. "Naturally."

Phew~

That meant we managed to delay their movement. Looking at the situation, it seemed like we would be able to get them stranded for days. Even if they decided to take a long detour out of the official path, they would still take days with no carriage.

Actually, the beaten-off path wouldn’t be feasible with a carriage anyway.

"Poor Qu’en would have to hold on being abused for a long time, then..." I sighed, thinking about my body double.

Despite my concern, Natha was laughing instead. "Didn’t Opti tell you that you don’t have to worry about that one?" he chuckled. "That one loved this kind of thing."

"What? Violence?" I narrowed my eyes and leaned to whisper. "Is it a kink or something?"

Natha laughed even louder. "It probably is," he smirked. "But not the one you think of."

"No? What then?"

"The other way around," Natha curled his eyes.

Uhh...the other way around would mean that he loved inflicting pain on others...right? But that seemed contradictory.

"That one had the ability to absorb and accumulate the pain they receive," Natha smiled. "Conversely, the accumulated pain can be unleashed to a target."

I gasped. "Oh, Mother..."

"Very fair, wouldn’t you think?" Natha winked. "Besides, the shapeshifters are trained to receive pain from a young age, because the transformation process itself could be painful. Imagine: they are shifting and reshaping your bones and organs--even compressing them if they turned into something small."

"Ouch!"

I couldn’t help but wince as I thought back to the growing pain I had during my puberty. The shapeshifter must have felt it a million times more, right? Oh, but then again...it didn’t hurt that much compared to the pain I felt later on, so...

Okay, I could understand it. Being kicked and hit by a flimsy magician would probably feel tickling for someone used to bone snapping and organ compressing like shapeshifters.

"Alright, so we don’t have to worry about that side too," I nodded in relief. "Still...not knowing what the church is doing in the Holy Empire is uncomfortable."

This time, Natha looked annoyed too. His subordinates had been showing such magnificent skill all this time, but getting past the Holy Empire’s anti-human alarm was out of their league. Even Natha wouldn’t be able to do so without inviting the whole Empire to point its eyes at him.

"Tsk--what are those Templars doing, anyway?" he grumbled.

Yeah...what were they doing? We hadn’t heard anything about the one with the real mission to find the Goddess.