The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 117: The advantage of a high profile partner is you can find out about them through the media

Chapter 117: The advantage of a high profile partner is you can find out about them through the media

Although I could pretty much read the book with ease, I still needed a dictionary by my side, because some words were still obscured for me. I also jotted down some notes so I wouldn’t forget about them and could revise it anytime.

For what it was worth, the book was surprisingly pretty neutral in giving out the history of the realm, unlike the content of the materials read by Valmeier in the human realm.

Although, to be fair, he was a clergy, so...I guessed fanaticism was in the package.

The school book was milder, written from an observer’s point of view with as much neutrality as one could exercise as a demon talking about other realms. Perhaps that was why the demons--at least the demons here, in the realm of greed who grow up with this book--had a more open mind than humans about other races.

It started with what I already knew from the prequel and listening to Zia; about how there used to be One Primordial God who created this world, and later on, vanished without a reason--or at least, without a reason that the mortals knew. And then the world, which was supposed to be in harmony under the rule of the three Gods, became segregated instead.

The book didn’t go into detail about what happened during those times; the struggle of wars until the three main races settled on their own territories--perhaps because it was a student book that would be read by adolescents. The book dove straight into focusing on the demon realms, explaining about the Demon King as the apostle, and the seven Demon Lords as the ruler of the seven realms under demon territory.

What I was searching for, of course, was the elaboration on the Demon Lords throughout history. Eruha told me, that writing or talking about the Demon King was not allowed, but that wasn’t the case with Demon Lords. Of course, to write and talk about all Demon Lords would be boring for adolescents’ minds, so the book only highlighted the most notable Lords in history.

It wasn’t necessarily for their accomplishments, but also for their foolishness, or even eccentricity. There was this one Demon Lord who challenged an ice dragon just because they wanted to use the ice dragon’s nest as food storage--you know, like a natural refrigerator. There was also a Demon Lord who could reign for hundreds of years just by...sleeping, somehow.

Just from the short mentioned in this book, I already wanted to read about each Demon Lord in detail. I bet there was at least one book dedicated to each Demon Lord, looking at their shenanigans. Perhaps because these Lords had full authority over their own realm, they could do whatever they pleased. Essentially, as long as they kept the realm intact, His Majesty wouldn’t bother with how they ran their place.

Every time I encountered an interesting tale, I asked Eruha to prepare the books talking about them so I could read them later on once I increased my proficiency.

And of course, what I wanted to read the most, was the section talking about Natha. For this, I made sure to check the words I didn’t know with the dictionary, instead of trying to understand it from the context alone. My notebook was on the ready, and Eruha was there to help me unravel some long sentences with difficult structures.

As the reigning Lord, Natha had an entire Chapter dedicated to him, since the book was the latest edition. It didn’t really talk about his youth days in detail, however, to my disappointment.

"It was a sensitive topic," Eruha told me. "Not for His Lordship, but for other demons."

I mulled about this for a while before asking carefully. "Because of the...massacre?"

Eruha looked stunned for a moment, probably didn’t think I would know about that. "It’s one of the reasons," he replied after pausing for a few seconds. "It’s an incident that involved one of the realms’ dark history, so it’s not really suitable for the kids. It is, however, still become one of the most debatable topics in advanced academies among scholars."

Advanced academy...must be equivalent to colleges. This was probably the academy mentioned in Natha’s journal.

Still with a careful tone, I asked again. "Is that including why they branded Natha’s father as...a traitor?"

Again, Eruha paused for a while. But this time, he was smiling in response. "I can also be called a newcomer in this realm, so I don’t think I have the capacity to talk about that, Young Master."

"Hmm..."

"You should ask His Lordship yourself about it, since it was his personal history."

"Yeah, sorry," I nodded in agreement. I shouldn’t ask about this from anyone else, since I also knew about it from reading Natha’s journal, not from the book or hearsay. "So anyway, since you mentioned it...when exactly were you coming here?"

Eruha chuckled, and, instead of answering, pointed to the book, telling me to continue reading. "I’ll tell you when you reach that point of the story."

Hmph--so mysterious. But very well, I went back to the book as the teacher told me.

While the book didn’t delve deeper into Natha’s early life, the included information basically could be summarized like this: that my Demon Lord used to be known as a genius, crazy war hero. And by genius, it was because he attended the advanced academy during his twenties.

Huh? What was so special about that, you ask? It was because demons usually attended any advanced education after their coming of age, which happened in their mid-thirties--which was why, Zia, who was twenty-nine, was still considered a teenage...I mean, juvenile demon.

But Natha not only attended the academy at such a young age, but also managed to always stay at the top of the academy leaderboard. And it wasn’t just any academy, but the one located in the realm of pride, which was considered the best and...well...full of proud students, I guessed? No wonder he garnered so much resentment. I was pretty sure now; Natha was one of the protagonists in the novel, because he almost filled the protagonist checklist; handsome, talented, tragic past, etc.

"Were you a teacher in Natha’s academy too?"

"I was," Eruha nodded with a nostalgic smile. "But I only began my vocation when His Lordship was already crowned. Technically, I was His Lordship’s academy junior."

"Huh...but aren’t you older?" I tilted my head in confusion. To my knowledge, Eruha was already two hundred years something, although he looked like a human in their mid-thirties, just like Natha.

"Vampires spend the first century of their life in the lair, to control their impulses and stabilize their mana, since we grow slower than any race," Eruha gently explained. "And after that, we have to assimilate slowly with the outside environment, so it takes even longer to put myself in society."

No wonder he still looked so young, even though his eyes felt like he was already bored with the world. I was tempted to ask about the reason he wasn’t with the Lord of Gluttony, who was a vampire too, but decided to save that for another occasion.

"I see..." I mumbled briefly before diving into the pages again. It proceeded to talk about the corrupted beast subjugation, which, according to the book, drove Natha ’crazy’.

At this point, Eruha kindly explained again. "The corrupted beast’s appearance was more or less a direct causality from the war between the human and the druid kingdom."

I couldn’t help but widen my eyes at that. My mind immediately stirred to find out the connection. "Was it because there was no one to purify the land after the druid kingdom fell?" I gasped at the realization, and Eruha nodded in satisfaction at how I could arrive at the right conclusion.

Ah, those human scums--I exhaled harshly before reading further. It stated that Natha disappeared from the public for many years after that, which the book stated as his recuperation time. "I see he had no intention to correct them," I mumbled after finding the ’recuperation’ word in the dictionary. I knew that Natha was training to control his power in his teacher’s place, as well as being called to the Sanctuary. But seeing that the officially issued book did not mention this, I concluded that Natha had no interest to let others know what he was up to during that time of absence.

Anyway, the book mentioned that Natha was only sighted about a decade after the war; not as the heir of a clan, but as a...merchant, which caused massive confusion among the public. It was more because Natha came from the [Nightwalker] Ra clan, which was one of the top five clans in the demon realm, and he was the direct descendant of the subsidiary [Nightmare] family.

Putting it in human terms, Natha was a noble. And nobles did not partake in commerce. They were the lords of their estates and lived from taxes and tributes. Not to mention, Natha was one of the King’s candidates. But then, Natha established his company in the realm of greed and the demons understood then; he wasn’t trying to contend as the Lord of Lust where the Ra clan had been reigning, but the Lord of Greed instead.

Which, in its own way, was still mind-boggling enough for those demons.

Again, the book didn’t mention in detail regarding Natha’s venture other than calling it a novelty; a weird and new way of doing business that had never been done before (Eruha said there was a book specifically talking about that from an economic point of view). Instead, it went straight to say that Natha’s way of business propel him into the demon realm’s equivalent of a Forbes list.

The book mentioned that Natha owned several companies, some of which were the investment companies he set up throughout the whole demon territory. He also invented several products, technologies, and innovations in commercial practice, including the concept of intellectual rights, even going so far as making the former Lord of Greed set up a law to guarantee them.

Yep--my Demon Lord was the father of patent in this world, y’all.

Thanks to this patent and the concept of royalties, even after he became the Lord and stopped being active in commerce, his wealth never ran dry. Not even when he stopped being the Lord, from the look of it.

I had to pause for a bit to breathe, and this was just the short version of it. Matsa Ra Natha was, in every sense of the word, a menace to the demon realm. He threw away every concept about his root as a noble, turning from a crazy war machine into a scrupulous merchant, and flipping the demon’s commercial world upside down. And now, he even took a human coined as a demon slaughtered as a bride. The one in charge of the next edition of this book would probably have a field day talking about this part.

But even after he became the Demon Lord, Natha was never lacking in adventure. One of the most notable events was the one involving the Lord of Pride. When I reached that part, Eruha smiled deeply, so I knew this was it.

The story that brought Eruha here.