The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)

The grass parted like a carpet beneath my sole, but aside from the blue color, it didn't look much different than the green variant that I used to know. However, when I bent down to touch it, there were soft bristles all over the underside.

Ah, it seemed to be a nice place for rolling around and having a picnic.

But as it happened, I didn't get the picnic on the grass event. Between Zia's "It's unbecoming of a lady to sit on the grass" and Angwi's hard stare that looked at me like I was some fragile glass that would break just because I touch the ground, we had our lunch inside a rotunda of the inner courtyard instead.

Which was still nice, so I had no complaints. The place was overlooking a garden full of colorful flowers that I couldn't name, including the ones adorning my—I mean Natha's—bedroom. The row of flowers continued their way to flank the stairs and corridor leading to another garden below, which was mostly filled with flowerless plants and topiaries. The end of the lower garden was a labyrinth-like structure made of—surprisingly—green-colored hedge. From up here, I could see the center of the structure, which opened up to another rotunda holding a comfortable-looking swing that seemed to be a nice place to read or just relaxing.

It would probably be nice to spend time there if I missed seeing the normalcy of green plants.

But in the meantime, I basked in the fascinating blue grass and pink shrubs and multi-colored flowers while listening to Zia, who started her seminar while munching on a sandwich.

I had mentioned before that, unlike humans who were divided into several sovereignties, demon people only had one king. But unlike the traditional sovereign, the Demon King acted more as the proxy of the Demon God, so the Demon King was their oracle, high priest, prophet, and everything in between. The governing role was tasked to the seven Demon Lords.

Zia told me that the Demon King used to govern them, but channeling the Demon God expand the King's energy too much. So the first Demon King divided the land into seven parts, created seven keys, and locked himself inside a dimensional sanctuary. These seven keys were given to the seven people he entrusted to govern the Demon Realm.

"So the keys are like their crown?"

"Yes, it's the symbol of Demon Lords." Zia nodded while taking another sandwich, glancing carefully at Angwi, and swiftly got rid of the vegetable while the 'nanny' was busy preparing my meal. "We don't pick the Lords based on their blood, background, status, or genealogy. As long as they have the keys, they will become the Lords."

So it seemed different from the humans, the demons emphasize the meritocratic system. "But what if the keys fall into someone other than demons?"