Eighteen months have passed since Marcel came back from Boltz and boy, has he unfortunately already gotten used to everything! His new life, his appearance that keeps getting better by the day even though he does nothing to take care of it, the food, even his bed, and the worse of them all, Shalia. She started jumping into his bed after few months after finding out which of the rooms was his. Everything is so normal that Marcel couldn’t help but feel like he’d completely betrayed the human way of living that he was taught. It’s almost spring again on Nephavion, with winter ending in a month’s time and he’s been in the demon realms for almost two years now.
During the past eighteen months, he’s done a lot of things. He’s visited five Nephavion cities with his new friends and gotten used to the diverse array of creatures that live in and out of what he now calls his homeworld, be it mythical fairies, even more elves, dragons, spirits, and demons. Now seeing any species of the demon realms, he hardly flinches like he used to anymore, as to be expected of a human’s adaptability. He just looks in wonder for a short while and goes on with his day.
Currently, he also knows a lot about the world or rather, worlds around him now. To begin with, the world consists of three primary realms: the material, spiritual and imaginary or dream realms existing as part of the dreamscape. The worlds including the human worlds and those classified as the demon realms exist as a part of the material realm while the spirits and demons primarily exist in the spiritual realm from where they’re mostly born and lastly, the dream realm, the place where magic and wonders exist.
He learned about the different worlds consisting of the demon realms now, like how the world his new homeworld, Nephavion, known as the great world of the dragons. Its sheer size is so enormous that various species can live on it alongside the widely diverse dragon species who have sadly mostly been kicked off the ground. The main population of this world, as said, are dragons, but since the arrival of the Demon Lord in ancient times, various races have come to live there to stay close to the great ruler of all their realms: The Demon Lord, as Marcel’s to-be hubby is normally called by others although his title far outranks that of any emperor.
The great ancestor of dragons, Dragon Primogenitor Nephagar, Alverona, and her brother’s father, is supposed to be the main ruler of the dragons and their home planet but according to Claude, long ago, after establishing the foundations of the dragon race via giving birth to the twin dragon emperors and remodeling Nephavion to accommodate his species, he got bored of ruling and left his position as supreme ruler of dragons to the Demon Lord, his best friend, to go on a forever vacation. It didn’t take long for the other primogenitors to follow in Nephagar’s footsteps and leave their ruler positions to their children to join Nephagar on his forever vacation and trusting Nephavion’s best friend, they left the caretaker position of the rulers to him. Yes, they left the Demon Lord as the supreme ruler of all the rulers.
The Demon Lord, after all the primogenitors had left, had to make sure that the worlds he was supposed to be taking off were always accessible to him and connected to the other worlds, so he invented the magic engineering masterpiece that is the telecircle’s formation currently used for interdimensional travel after multiple alterations of his work. This meant that the many worlds currently called the demon realms could connect to each other, despite their varying time ratios.
In Nephavion, there are fifteen months and in each, almost 41 days. Strangely, they’re barely noticeable from Marcel’s former 31 days in the human world. From what he’s studied, no one around here really cares about time because of how different it is depending on where they find themselves. It could be an hour in one place, a year in another, and almost a millennium somewhere else. Trying to make sense of it is hard, so he didn’t bother to. Good boy!
In this chain of interconnected worlds, there is Tharrelan, the world most elves live on and there’s Bladethawl, the world where Wolfgang and Vladimir are from. Apart from learning about the worlds classified as the demon realms, Marcel also learned that there are 15 other known human worlds apart from his own that are known of. There are four worlds where the humans there have adapted monstrous abilities, three worlds where the humans practice cultivation for immortality, and three human worlds where women have already gone extinct and the men have evolved into three different genders: alpha, beta, and omega like the werewolf species.
There are also four worlds including Marcel’s original homeworld that have magic and two that are magicless. It’s said that there are more human worlds but apart from the 16 mentioned, almost nothing is known about the rest except for the very little that the heroes of those human worlds know. Interactions between the human realms and the demon realms are almost impossible, but there are some races that can do so, like the spatial demons, ravencasters, and a species of dragon, silver dragons.
New worlds occasionally get discovered by accidents and new demons normally inhabit these worlds. Some are the doings of the forever vacation guardians who got busy with each other or just arose by natural circumstances, like Boltz or the Thunder Domain, the world with thunderstorms all year long, and Marcel’s least favored world.
According to the books, the creatures who live there are thunderbeasts, creatures born of thunder and lightning essence and the mysterious essence that gives life to the lightning above. They start out as thunder seeds born from the battered trees, he saw in Boltz, but after getting repeatedly struck by thunder and lightning, they grow into fruits which then turn into beast eggs. The beasts hatch and the creature within develops on Boltz for many years before evolving again, gaining human forms, the qualification enabling them to leave their homeworld. Until then, most species like the thunderbeasts are sort of stuck in their worlds like how dungeon beasts can’t leave the dungeons until they possess fully conscious minds.
Marcel over the past months didn’t just learn about the worlds but also magic and far more so over the past few months. He’d been on a few dungeon quests with his friends and now, even Claude’s sure that he can take care of himself. Marcel and his friends have begun visiting mid-C-rank dungeons. He also knows a lot about the dungeons too. He’d learned how to create fire the size of a giant cauldron and increasing the temperature to the extreme that even the tiniest flame can do a lot of damage. He’s also tried to get used to his [Crushing Fear] and [Poisonous Three-Colored Inferno Serpent] skills to the extent that he can already mix in the essence of the Three-Colored Inferno Serpent into other types of flames that aren’t the snakes, something that he shouldn’t be able to for a few more years, thus making it more and more effective. This is what happens when the world loves you, I guess.
Marcel also learned that the [Poisonous Three-Colored Inferno Serpent] skill that he got wasn’t only one skill, but rather, all the snake’s skills. It’s just that he’s still too weak to use any of the other ones. Crushing Fear’s influence is also growing as Marcel thus too. He can scare all low-level C-class monsters, even the feisty ones resistant to soul attacks, enough to finish them off quickly.
He’s also managed to improve his use of ‘Thunder Rising’, although, it currently is in its weakest stage as Blitz is still growing. Eventually, Blitz will be strong enough to rival Saine, Claude’s lightning wyrm.
Now, let’s stop talking about things that are very relevant although we’re choosing to ignore them and move on to something life-threatening than ‘Thunder Rising’ or the [Poisonous Three-Colored Inferno Serpent] skill: Shalia’s cooking. Yikes!!
Yes, Shalia’s begun learning how to cook since she wants to earn some affection points from Marcel although she’s not going anywhere because as it’s been stated before, Marcel’s gay. She feels like if she can impress him with her cooking skills, he might, who knows, maybe, just maybe fall in love with her or even tolerate her to the extent of allowing her to rub her naked body around him and cover him with every fiber of her being as he sleeps. To this end, she asked a few of the Demon Lord’s maids to teach her, which brings us to Marcel’s current situation.
It’s afternoon and after Marcel’s practice, Shalia said she had a surprise for him. He’d hoped that it wouldn’t be another life-sized body pillow of herself that his damn best friend Allan helps her make because he already has a whole collection of those. He didn’t really like seeing Shalia’s face as he slept but who knew that he’d loved the life-sized pillows so much that he couldn’t sleep without them after a few months. Damn it!
A few moments ago, Shalia invited him to the kitchen and took him to a chair and table where she told Marcel to sit. He did as instructed and she brought him something to eat.
Marcel upon taking a glance at the food, knew one thing. If he didn’t perish from food poisoning that day, then he’d become invincible. He’d already tried Shalia’s cooking once after he returned from Boltz and he almost died, but at least he got some extra on poison resistance, so something good came out of that near-death experience. Yes, Shalia was so bad, no horrible at cooking that even the Elven Poison King’s gift of high poison resistance couldn’t save him entirely. Just a bit more and he’s sure he’ll reach poison immunity.
Marcel sat there, nervous, as he stared at the roasted chicken that Shalia brought.
“Huh? Why meat this time?” He asked his friend. From what he knew, elves stuck to a vegetarian diet of fruits, nuts, and mostly vegetables while taking the bare minimum of animal products because of their pesky nature that makes them want to protect nature. Last time, she made a vegetable stew, so this time, she wondered why she’d cook an animal for him to eat. He felt like he’d done something really wrong.
“Um, it seems that you don’t know this, but different elves refrain from animal products on various levels, with the Forest elves being those who absolutely refrain from things like meat and milk and the Frost Elves being those who don’t have any qualms about eating meat at all because of how scarce food is in their region albeit King Thorngalt’s many efforts to make those territories flourish with vegetation.” Shalia’s answer put Marcel at ease, but he still felt like the princess had tainted her hands for him.
“Then what about you guys?” Marcel asked.
“We mostly stick to a vegetarian diet as well and eat things like meat occasionally, when we feel like it. I’m also the same but I can’t resist fried chicken if I can get my hands on any.”
“That's good to know! Looks like I’ll have to put more consideration into your meals when we travel outside next time.” Marcel smiled, having relaxed from hearing her answer. He thought that the Sunfire elves were one of the races who don’t eat meat at all. He didn’t know that his words would bring shock to the princess who held so much hope in her heart.
“You can cook?! Then what was the point of all this if you can already cook?” Shalia looked on the verge of tears. She seemed so shocked to hear that her beloved could cook. It’s her fault though for being so focused on this one strategy that even though the maids tried to tell her, she didn’t listen at all as they rambled on about how the young highness could cook and very well at that according to Claude.
Marcel felt like he should give the poor princess some hope, so he did,
“No matter! If your cooking skills turn out better than any of the others, then you can be my helper in the kitchen when we travel outside. Unfortunately, even Nigel sucks at cooking. Now let’s see what we got here!” He stared at the roast chicken and couldn’t help but gulp in fear of what it might taste like. Shalia is a princess and not a cook for a reason and honestly, she probably sucks less at it than the others do. ‘Inedible’, ‘Poison’, ‘Disgusting glob’ and ‘Death Incarnate’ are some of the words he’d use to describe the others’ cooking after trying it. If Shalia fared any better, then he’d at least have an assistant to stir the food when he couldn’t. At least, that much didn’t require a ‘Cook’ title.
As he stared at it, he thought, ‘It’s roast chicken, and how could you go wrong with that?’ and still nervously stared at the food. He prayed that the chicken Shalia prepared would at least turn out edible. A foodie like himself didn’t care about extravagant or luxurious meals in the slightest. All he cared about is if it was enough to fill his belly and judging from the chicken on the tray in front of him, it was satisfactory although barely enough. Chickens in the demon realms are strangely bigger than the ones he knew. He hadn’t seen a live one either, but he didn’t care about that. Nowadays, even that much didn’t feel him up. As he grows, he demands more and more food to be satisfied. How lucky he was that his body wasn’t like this a year and a half ago or he would have starved even more while he was in a certain world.
He looked at the roast chicken for a full minute, hesitating until he saw Shalia’s somewhat hurt expression. It said, ‘I can’t believe you think I’m that bad at cooking’. He didn’t wait anymore after seeing Shalia’s face and took a bite and surprisingly... it was good. No, good isn’t enough to describe the chicken. It was delicious; however, he would regret taking that bite moments later. The reason behind the deliciousness had nothing to do with her cooking abilities. Hehe!
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i enjoy the story......
Ah, thank you! Someone finally answered. I am so happy
@Blue_Spider_Lily srry im a silence reader type
@wickedlady5910 It's fine! You said something. I know people read so it makes me happy.