The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)-Chapter 692: Everything requires desperate measures these days

"We’ve arrived! Finally!"

The Zarfa-shaped mini-flame person raised her arms joyfully, which was followed by Aina-shaped flames and Ian-shaped flames. Jade and Shiny watched the flame projection with eyes opened wide and sparkling brightly.

"Whoaa!" Jade clapped his hands enthusiastically. "Ignis genius!"

"Ahem," a clearer voice than the projection could be heard.

Ah, it was so good to finally receive an update. The last time I heard from them was when they entered the Holy Empire. It was where the shapeshifter agents had to stop and stepped back because their asses would get caught the moment they stepped through the wall border.

The only eye I had there was Ignis, but even the mighty Salamander couldn’t watch the rest of the church’s agents following the group. I had been worrying about them being ambushed on the way all the time.

I mean...everything could happen in the enemy’s territory, right?

"Okay, I’m glad you’re all safe. Nothing bad happened, right?"

Ignis scoffed and scolded me with a whipping flame from Fatia’s figure. "I would already tell you if there was."

"That’s right, Val!" Zarfa teasingly joined in to scold me, before laughing merrily as if she refused to get tense during this stressful moment. "Anyway, no one had reached out to us so far; no invitation or anything. But then again, we’ve only arrived, so..."

"Okay, good..." I nodded. "Just in case, I’ll give you the blueprint of the Grand Church’s structure--maybe it’ll come in handy, so please copy it."

I showed the blueprint I copied from Sangen’s diary to Ignis, who projected it with his flame to Zarfa and the others. It took a while, and I could see Aina and Fatia huddled over a paper to draw the blueprint. It was a huge structure with many parts and floors to it, so the copying process took a while. Fortunately, Ignis kept the flame steady so the drawing could be seen clearly.

Truly a mighty Salamander.

"It’s dooone!" Aina threw her pencil into the air, scattering into sparks in the flame projection.

"Well done," I laughed when Jade clapped again at the sparks. "You better rest now, since we don’t know what will happen."

"Alright; we’ll call you if something comes up!"

Like before, the flame scattered. This time, however, it disappeared without joining into a flame lizard. It was probably exhausting to maintain this high-level projection at such a long distance for almost an hour.

Truly--I had to take Ignis to a volcano after this.

Anyway, it was almost lunch when the call ended, so I returned to my bedroom to change. Or so I told Jade and the others.

Closing my bedroom door, I made sure no one was around before entering my dressing room and crouching inside one of the wardrobes. I took out the trans-realm orb and activated it.

The call went through after around one and a half minutes. [Val?]

"Are you in your bedroom, Ceci?"

[...yeah] I heard a rustling sound and a door being closed. [I’m alone. What’s wrong?]

Oh, I knew I could rely on her sharp wit. Her voice seemed to echo a little bit--seemed like she entered the bathroom for even better privacy.

"Nothing’s wrong, just..." I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I’m thinking of something."

[Sounds dangerous]

"I haven’t said anything..."

[The fact that you do this secretly already told me it’s something dangerous] she scoffed. [But I’ll listen, at least]

I explained my ’request’ to her, and she was silent for a minute. It wasn’t very long, but the silence while I was hiding felt so...suffocating.

"I mean...it’s just like what we planned, just--"

[No, what we were planning is that we’re doing it together]

"It’s just for emergency," I insisted. "Of course, I still think it’ll be better if we don’t have to use it."

[Promise me] she said sharply. [Promise me you’ll really only do it in an emergency--and that--] she paused, and I could feel her glare through the orb. [--will be decided by us, together. Only if I agree that it is really an emergency can you use this method]

"Alright, alright," I agreed immediately. "It’s not like we know we’ll be able to set it up in the first place."

[Well, you’re right about that] she sighed. [Fine--I’ll do it, but remember your promise]

"I know," I almost rolled my eyes. "It’s not like I’m eager to get hurt or anything]

[No; you’re just prone to danger]

"Most of it was not my fault!"

[Some of it were]

"Ugh..." I couldn’t help but sigh. I mean...it was true. "It’s fine--I’ve matured."

[We’ll see about that]

"Hey!"

She laughed and ended the call just like that, saying she’d catch up on some sleep. I exhaled slowly and stood up so I could change for real this time.

With this, the preparation was almost complete. All that was left was whatever the church and the auction house were cooking up behind the secret door, and when my husband would come home.

Haa...oh, Nat--was this how you had been feeling while I was in the human realm?

* * *

"What’s wrong, Young Master?" Mara asked carefully when she saw me eating less than usual during dinner.

A long sigh escaped my lips. "I miss my husband."

Mara smiled teasingly while sliding a small plate of fruit pudding in front of me. "Both of you act the same when you’re away from each other."

"Yeah?" I propped my cheeks against the table and sighed again. "I can’t even talk to him through the orb. Why can’t the call get through?"

"Because the Sloth’s Keep was designed to keep any wave of communication away," Aunt Nezja replied with a little smile.

I straightened my back and looked at her keenly, asking her to elaborate with my sparkling eyes. She chuckled softly and did just that.

"The Lord of Sloth doesn’t like to be disturbed when she is resting or sleeping, so she set her abode to be impenetrable by any means of communication," Aunt Nezja explained. "The only way to communicate with her is through the retainers, but it will take a month to reach her."

"A month?"

Aunt Nezja smiled deeply. "At least."

"At least?!" my eyes bulged at that estimate. "Why?"

Was it because they needed a long time to wake her up? Did they need to knock on her door until she answered? Were there any rituals the retainers had to take before taking the inquiries to her?

But Aunt Nezja’s reply was simpler than I thought. "Bureaucracy."

"Ah..." I nodded. "Understandable."

"That’s why Natha had to come in person," Aunt Nezja continued. "If he needed it urgently, he had to personally go and enter the Keep, doing whatever he could to wake her up and drag her from her bedroom."

"Is it hard?" I asked curiously.

"Depends on her mood," she shrugged. "You just have to wish for the best or prepare a strong weapon."

Again, a sigh escaped my lips. "He said he’d definitely get it done before the auction."

"One could plan," Aunt Nezja replied cooly. "But he should be able to do something--although it might get ugly."

"What do you mean?"

The stormy eyes curled. "What are we, Valen?"

"You?" I tilted my head, and gasped three seconds later. "Nightmares!"

Did she mean that Natha might induce a nightmare to the Lord of Sloth’s dream to wake her up? Ugh...that certainly might cause things to get ugly. Might even burn their bridges after this.

But I guessed...desperate situation called for desperate measures.

Didn’t change the fact that I still couldn’t do anything but wait.

If he stayed true to his words, he had to return by the next afternoon.

But at least, in the morning, I heard some news from Zarfa--or rather, Ignis. The flaming miniatures were huddling around a tea table, surrounding the map of the Grand Church.

"A priest comes before breakfast to give us a verbal invitation," Zarfa said.

"Verbal, huh?"

"People said it’s more polite to invite someone in person, but that’s bullshit," she scoffed. "It works if that person brought a written invitation too. With only verbal invitation, however, doesn’t it seem like they are avoiding any trail?"

Yeah. If something were to happen to the group, a written invitation could be used as circumstantial evidence to start an investigation against the church. Midas was certainly big enough to do it with enough justification.

Without any trail, however, the church could pretend they never saw the group.

"Is the invitation for all of you?"

"Yes," Jin nodded. "The person said the pope wants to meet me and chat."

Zarfa sneered. "Chat. They wanted to only invite Jin at first, but I chimed in and made all kinds of fuss about seeing the Grand Church."

"Me too, me too!" Aina raised her arm.

"All of us, actually," even Fatia chuckled while Ian nodded. "We made it so that they had no choice but to invite all of us."

As expected of Ceci--she could incite chaos everywhere.

"Anyway, that person had to step out a bit to make a call, but in the end invited all of us, acting as if he was going to invite everyone in the first place--pfft."

"Suspicious indeed," I nodded. "When and where?"

"The church’s reception area for afternoon tea."

Hmm...with the Hero, Fatia, and Zarfa there, it would be weird if they were treated like a commoner. No matter how much the church liked to pretend that there was no class among the devotees, they still made things like the ’holy order’ based on the amount of donations. But...

"Afternoon tea, huh? It’s like they don’t want to give you any time to think before the auction."

"I know, right?" Zarfa clicked her tongue. "At any rate, it’s just as we talked about. That’s good, right?"

"Depends on their real intention," I shrugged. "Just remember our plans."

"Yes, Sir!" Zarfa made a salute, and even through the flame, I could feel her sharp gaze.

I know, girl. I know. Just stick to the plan. freewebnoveℓ.com