My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Special Chapter 1: Bed Spirit King

Special Chapter 1: Bed Spirit King

A sliver of mid-morning sun cut through the tall, arched window of the master suite, illuminating dust motes dancing in the still air. The room was a study in opulent emptiness. Rich mahogany furniture stood silent and severe against walls of cool, grey stone. It was a space designed for two people who shared a name and a roof, but nothing else. Rosa was gone, likely at the family’s private training grounds, honing the prodigious talents that made her a living legend,  and him… well, him.

Lloyd Ferrum stretched, his joints popping in the quiet. He had just finished his own, far more discreet, training session with his Steel Blood and Spirit fang. He felt a satisfying thrum of power under his skin, a secret strength that was growing day by day. It was time to head to the Guild, find a simple mission, and continue his steady, methodical climb. He cast a final, indifferent glance around the room. His gaze slid over the massive, four-poster bed that dominated the space. It was a fine piece of craftsmanship, certainly, with intricately carved posts and a plush, ridiculously expensive mattress. He’d slept on it alone since the day they were married.

He turned towards the door, his hand reaching for the ornate brass handle.

"Oi!"

The voice was raspy, aged, yet oddly smug. It echoed slightly in the large room, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Lloyd froze, his hand hovering inches from the door. He slowly retracted it, his senses flaring to life. An intruder? No, he would have felt a presence. A spirit? Possible. His eyes scanned every shadow, every corner of the room. The wardrobe? Under the chaise lounge? Nothing.

"Who's there?" he called out, his voice low and cautious. He subtly shifted his stance, ready to summon a current of electricity at a moment's notice.

A deep, groaning chuckle answered him. "Took you long enough. It's me. Right here, you dolt."

Lloyd followed the direction of the sound, his gaze finally landing, with profound disbelief, on the bed. It couldn't be.

The voice replied, confirming his absurd suspicion. "It's me, I am Bed-kun."

Lloyd stared. He stared so hard he thought his eyes might fall out. He blinked once, then twice. The bed remained a bed. Imposing, inanimate, and most definitely not possessing vocal cords. This had to be a hallucination, a side effect of pushing his system too hard.

"What?" he finally managed, his voice a strangled whisper. "How can a bed talk like that? Are you possessed by a spirit?" It was the only logical explanation in a world of illogical things.

"Possessed?" The bed seemed to scoff, a sound like straining springs and rustling linen. "Insolence! I am no mere vessel. I am a spirit unto myself! You may refer to me as the Bed Spirit King, you loser."

The word hung in the air, sharp and insulting. All of Lloyd’s caution and confusion evaporated, replaced by a hot spike of irritation. He had been called many things in two lifetimes—genius, failure, hero, pawn—but being insulted by a piece of furniture was a new, and deeply unwelcome, experience.

"Who are you calling a loser?" he shot back, pointing an accusatory finger at the headboard. "You're a glorified plank with stuffing! One spark from me and I'll burn you to charcoal."

The bed sneered, the sound a derisive creak. "Heh! Big words from the guy who can't even sleep in the same bed with his own wife. I cannot help but call you a super loser. A mega loser, even. The undisputed emperor of losers!"

A vein began to pulse on Lloyd’s temple. This was hitting a bit too close to home. The arrangement with Rosa was a complex, unspoken truce, a matter of practicality and his own private loyalties. It was not something he ever expected to have to defend to his sleeping arrangements.

"I don't want to sleep with that woman," he growled, the words tasting like a lie even to himself. "That's all."

He turned away, trying to regain his composure, his thoughts drifting inward. It's not a lie. The only women I will ever truly consider my wives are back on Earth. The ones I lived and grew old with. Not this girl. Not this cold, emotionless machine who looks at me like I'm a particularly uninteresting math problem.

The bed, however, was not privy to his internal monologue and had its own interpretation. "Riiiight. I guess you just don't have the balls, do you? Is that it? Let me get this straight. You are a grown man, married to one of the most powerful and beautiful women on the continent, and you can't even touch your wife? What kind of man lets a woman dominate him so completely? You are a stain upon the very concept of husbandry!"

"I don't need to touch her!" Lloyd snapped, whirling back around. "It's a marriage of convenience!"

"Convenient for whom?" the bed retorted gleefully. "Certainly for me! But for you? Heh, let's be honest. You're scared. You know that if you even so much as laid a finger on her without permission, you'd be turned into a Lloyd-sicle before you could even yelp. Your hand would be a frozen stump."

"You have a sharp tongue for a mattress," Lloyd said through gritted teeth. His hand crackled with faint, blue sparks of static electricity. "I'm serious. One more word and I'm turning you into a bonfire."

"Heh, and what do you think Lady Rosa would do?" the bed taunted, its voice oozing condescension. "She would come back from her training, find her favorite resting place reduced to a pile of ash, and then your little icicle fantasy would become a reality. She’d flash-freeze you and use you as a coat rack. I, on the other hand, am irreplaceable."

"Irreplaceable?" Lloyd laughed, a harsh, humorless sound.

"Of course! You have no idea what it's like," the bed said, its tone shifting to one of profound, princely satisfaction. "When you sleep on me, it's a nightmare. You toss, you turn, you probably drool. You leave an aura of… mediocrity. I feel ignored, like a piece of wastage in the corner of the room. But then… then Lady Rosa graces me with her presence."

The bed seemed to puff itself up, the mattress rising a fraction of an inch. "Ah! The moment she lies down, everything changes. The air grows crisp and clean. Her power, her grace… it seeps into my very fibers. I am treated like a prince. My sheets are changed daily with the finest silks, scented with lavender from the southern highlands. My pillows are fluffed by maids who approach me with reverence. I am not merely a bed; I am the throne of the Frost Queen! And you, you are but the court jester who sleeps on the floor!"

Lloyd was speechless. The sheer, unadulterated arrogance of the talking bed was staggering. It wasn’t just sentient; it was a snob. An egomaniacal, social-climbing snob of a bed. A flicker of an idea, malicious and beautiful, sparked in his mind.

"A prince, you say?" Lloyd said, a slow, predatory grin spreading across his face. "You know, there's a thriving market for 'enchanted' furniture. I could put you up for auction. I'm sure someone would love to have a talking bed. I'll sell you to a very, very old, and very, very large noblewoman from the countryside. Someone with twenty cats who will all want to sleep on you. She'll 'care' for you every day, Lloyd said, making air quotes with his fingers. "Just think of it. The constant pressure, the smell of mothballs and cat hair, the endless stream of gossip about her bunions… You’ll be treated like a king, alright. The king of a flea-infested swamp."

The bed went silent for a moment. Then, it let out a shriek that was a horrifying combination of a rusty spring, tearing fabric, and pure, unadulterated terror.

"YOU DARE! YOU WOULDN'T! YOU DAMN LOSER! YOU PATHETIC WHELP WHO GETS MENTALLY TORTURED BY HIS WIFE AND TAKES IT OUT ON SUPERIOR FURNISHINGS! YOU AREN'T EVEN THE MASTER OF YOUR OWN BEDROOM!"

That was it. The final straw. The insult to his pride as a man, a warrior, and a homeowner was too much to bear. All reason fled Lloyd's mind, replaced by a singular, primal urge.

"You Motherf—"

He didn't finish the word. He lunged forward, his frustration and rage coalescing into a single, decisive action. His fist, wrapped in a barely-contained aura of crackling energy, shot out and connected squarely with the center of the mattress.

THUMP.

The impact was immensely satisfying, sending a deep, shuddering vibration through the bedframe. A few feathers puffed out from a seam.

It was at that exact moment that the bedroom door clicked open.

Lloyd was frozen mid-punch, his knuckles still buried in the plush mattress. He slowly, mechanically, turned his head.

Standing in the doorway was Rosa.

She wasn't holding her training sword. She wasn't radiating an aura of cold fury. She was just… standing there, holding a small towel and a water flask. Her hair was slightly damp, clinging to her temples, and her piercing black eyes were wide.

But it wasn't the coldness in her eyes that made Lloyd's blood run cold. He had seen that look a thousand times. This was different. This was the coldest, most bizarrely detached look he had ever witnessed. It was the kind of look one might give to a rabid dog that had somehow learned to juggle. A look of profound, clinical confusion mixed with a deep, unsettling pity.

From her perspective, she had opened the door to see her husband, his face a mask of purple-tinged rage, screaming an obscenity at the empty air in the middle of their room. And then, for no discernible reason, he had delivered a full-force punch to their bed.

She didn’t hear what the bed said. She didn’t know about the Bed Spirit King, or his princely treatments, or his insults. All she saw was her strange, underachieving husband finally, unequivocally, losing his mind.

Her gaze flickered from Lloyd's fist, to his contorted face, then back to the now-dented spot on the mattress. She didn't speak. She didn't have to. The silence was an indictment.

With a calmness that was somehow more terrifying than any outburst, she simply blinked, turned, and walked silently towards the adjacent washroom. Her eyes never left him until the last possible second, that weirdly cold gaze boring into him, cataloging this new, baffling piece of data. Subject: Lloyd Ferrum. Status: Apparently insane.

The washroom door clicked shut behind her, leaving Lloyd alone in the sudden, deafening silence. His fist was still in the mattress. His heart was hammering against his ribs. He slowly looked from the door, to the bed, then to the faint wisp of smoke rising from his knuckles.

He couldn't hear the bed anymore. It was either knocked out or, more likely, wisely feigning unconsciousness.

Lloyd stood there, utterly defeated. He had faced down assassins, monsters, and the crushing weight of his own past. But in that moment, standing in a sunlit room, having lost an argument with a bed and revealed himself as a lunatic to his wife, he had never felt more thoroughly and completely beaten.