Survival Guide After Accidentally Kissing a Demon - Chapter 245

Chapter 245

When Beili opened her eyes again, slightly dazzling sunlight had already filtered through several layers of gauze curtains, spilling across the entire room.

It was morning. The bright, warm light made it hard for her to keep her eyes open.

“Darling, not going to sleep a little longer?”

Madam Constance had gotten up early, as usual.

She walked to the bedside, gently kissed Beili on the forehead, and asked with exceptional tenderness, “Or is there anything you’d like for breakfast?”

Her crimson eyes vacant, Beili stared blankly at the ceiling for quite a while.

She was just about to get up when-

“I… What’s wrong with me?”

Beili rubbed her side, wincing as her brows drew together.

What happened last night?

She even wondered if she had rolled down the stairs or something.

In any case…

It hurt.

Her whole body hurt.

Beili still remembered drinking half a barrel of wine of unknown age with Lance in the Tomb of the Former King of Tilisha.

After that, Lance had taken her back to the Inn.

Once the two of them waved goodbye, she returned to her room and saw Madam Constance, who had waited up until late into the night for her to come back.

After that, Beili remembered nothing.

It was as if her consciousness had been cut off, plunging her instantly into a chaotic darkness where she could no longer sense anything at all.

Could this be the legendary blackout?

“Darling, you don’t remember anything?”

Madam Constance chuckled and sighed helplessly.

“You came back last night and climbed straight into bed before you even had time to bathe. No matter how I called you, you wouldn’t wake up.”

Was that what happened?

Truthfully, she was still a little dazed, and her head was dizzy and throbbing.

But when she remembered the woman’s angry back from last night, Beili couldn’t help asking, “Mother, you’re not angry anymore, right?”

“Why would I be angry? I’m not angry at all.”

Madam Constance acted as though nothing had happened. She reached out and hugged her, saying, “You, on the other hand, darling-since you’re awake, hurry and get up for breakfast.”

“…”

Beili only felt that something was a little strange, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

However, the dizziness and splitting headache after getting drunk left her unable to gather her thoughts, so she could only set the matter aside for now.

…

By noon,

Beili, who had mostly sobered up, and Madam Constance were having lunch in the Inn’s dining room.

Just then, a letter was delivered into her hands.

The letter was from Lance.

Beili unfolded it and quickly scanned the contents, then promptly closed it again and said to Madam Constance, “Mother, I need to go out for a while later. I probably won’t be back until very late, so you don’t have to wait for me.”

Sitting across from Beili,

Madam Constance had been smiling as she watched the young girl eat her lunch. The smile at the corners of her lips instantly deepened.

“I’m going too.”

The woman spoke softly.

It was the first time Beili had ever heard Madam Constance make such a request. She froze for a moment, then asked in confusion, “Is there no salon today?”

“No.”

The woman answered without hesitation.

“Really none?”

Beili turned her head and looked at the whole stack of exquisite invitations on the cabinet, asking with some uncertainty.

“None.”

The woman repeated herself, then revealed a somewhat wounded expression and said plaintively, “Do you not want Mama to go with you, darling?”

“…”

Beili blinked.

And so-

When Beili arrived at the appointed place and saw the red-haired, black-eyed youth, she appeared arm in arm with Madam Constance.

Lance’s shoulders paused for an instant, but he quickly reacted and greeted the elder like a gentleman.

“Good afternoon, Madam Constance.”

Since the young girl had brought her mother along, Lance could no longer drape an arm over her shoulders without a care, the way he did when it was just the two of them.

Oh, even if he stood just a little too close,

Madam Constance would let out a dissatisfied little cough.

That sound was clearly warning him to keep his distance. Lance very much felt that way.

So after they got out of the carriage,

Lance could only stand staggered in front of and behind her, with a full person’s width between them.

Putting away his usual grinning expression, the youth turned back and said seriously, “Luoluo, the person we’re going to meet is the oldest old lady in Tilisha Imperial City.”

…

Yesterday.

Inside the Tomb of the Former King of Tilisha.

“There’s nothing worth hiding, because Tilisha no longer needs those eyes.”

Wrapped in the splashing sound of the water curtain, the youth’s voice rang out in the damp tomb chamber, his tone light.

“The Former King from each of the three kingdoms once made a deal with the Demon. That truly happened.”
The orb of light drifted up to a mural.

Lance, who had used Beast Transformation to take the form of a fox, lifted his red tail and pointed at the eye on the megalithic circle.

“I don’t know if Cyril’s father ever told him about this. My father didn’t know much either, but after Renee lost her eyes again, he told me everything he did know…”

The Former King from each of the three kingdoms had made a deal with the Demon. Each brought back one item and promised to nourish it with vast amounts of blood and sin.

Lance did not know what the other two kingdoms had received in exchange, but Tilisha had brought back a pair of eyes from the Demon.

It was with those eyes that the Former King of Tilisha brought back enormous amounts of gold, silver, and jewels from all over.

And he honored the agreement.

Every so often, he would hold a large-scale gladiatorial event to awaken the brutality and sin buried deep in people’s blood.

“But the price he paid was that all of the Former King’s children died.”

The fox spoke slowly, his gaze resting on the mural.

“Father said the Former King was a man who valued family deeply. Every child’s death left him devastated.”

“The Former King blamed the deaths of his Children on the Demon’s eyes. Clearly, they were something inauspicious.”

The eyes were sealed inside a burial chamber. The Former King of Tilisha decided never to use them again, nor would he use the gladiatorial arena to nourish them anymore.

After that, another child was born.

The Former King had a feeling this would be his last child.

That child was cared for with the utmost caution and raised inside a secret chamber.

To keep the child from coming to harm, the walls of the secret chamber were lined with soft feathers, and not a single hard object was allowed inside.

The child remained there until he turned eighteen, only then being allowed out to experience the outside world.

“The child depicted in the mural is my father-the current King of Tilisha.”

A flicker of complicated emotion seemed to pass through the fox’s narrow, pitch-black eyes.

“Who is that?”

A Morpho Butterflies appeared with the young girl’s voice and flew to the next section of the mural.

There, besides the Former King of Tilisha and the now-grown King of Tilisha, was the figure of a woman.

“That is…”

The orb of light was also guided over until it hovered in front of the woman on the mural.

Lance swayed his fluffy red tail for a while before he remembered.

“If I’m not mistaken, she was a Wandering Prophet.”

After the Former King stopped using the Demon’s Eye and believed that his decision had allowed his child to survive, the prophet, who had wandered to Tilisha, appeared in Tilisha Palace.

She warned the Former King of Tilisha that if he did not follow the Contract and nourish the item exchanged from the Demon with blood and sin, he would suffer a backlash even more terrible than losing his children.

Beili’s gaze lingered on the mural.

Speaking of prophets, she thought of someone else-Bertie Swan.

“Luoluo, are you interested in this Wandering Prophet?”

Lance, still in fox form, thought back for a moment, then shook his head.

“Unfortunately, Father didn’t know much about this prophet who suddenly appeared. So by the time the story reached me, all I knew was that she appeared in the palace out of nowhere, spoke those terrifying prophecies, and then vanished without a trace.”

“No one believed what the Wandering Prophet said at the time. But later, her prophecies began to come true one by one.”

“Which prophecies have already come true?” Beili pressed.

…

Under Lance’s lead, Beili arrived in front of a residential house with Madam Constance on her arm.

The longest-lived person in Tilisha Imperial City had, of course, lived through the disasters in the prophecies that had already come true.

Beili was thinking about how to explain the current situation to Madam Constance, should the latter ask.

But as it turned out, she had been overthinking it.

All along the way, Madam Constance remained very quiet, walking at an unhurried pace as though she were strolling through her own back garden.

The three of them stopped.

The front door was open, and a smiling man stood at the entrance.

“Your Highness, Prince Lance.”

The man came forward respectfully and bowed to the red-haired, black-eyed youth according to Tilisha etiquette.

“I heard you’re a member of the Knight Order.”

Lance gave a slight nod, his voice light. “Your commander should have already explained why we’re here.”

“Yes. Grandmother is inside.”

The man led the three of them into the house.

In the living room, which was filled with furniture, Beili saw an elderly woman with graying hair lying on a recliner.

“Your Highness, Prince Lance.”

The man pointed to the white ceramic jar the old woman held in her hands and explained, “The memories you were looking for regarding the Tilisha Disaster Year-Grandmother has already extracted them and placed them in the Memory Storage Device.”
Then the man scratched his head in embarrassment.

“Please forgive me, Your Highness.”

Looking bashful and troubled, he explained, “The Memory Storage Device should have been delivered to the palace and brought before you, but my grandmother said she hoped to meet the Prince of Tilisha in person, and she can no longer walk…”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s a small matter. There’s no need to ask for forgiveness.”

Without the slightest aloofness of the Royal Family, Lance stepped toward the old woman and gave her a slight, gentlemanly bow.

He explained softly, a warm, approachable smile on his face.

The old woman could not speak, but the wrinkles on her face seemed to ease with joy.

After listening to the young man, the old woman nodded and handed him the earthenware jar in her hands.

Beili looked at the memory storage vessel in the old woman’s hands.

This was exactly what she wanted.

…

In the tomb chamber, she had heard about the Tilisha Kingdom’s Year of Calamity.

If Tilisha had once suffered an entire year of disaster, then an enormous amount of sinful Mana must have been produced.

Beili’s original plan had been to open the dreams of those who had lived through the Year of Calamity and delve into their memories to take a look.

Now it was even more convenient.

Someone who possessed those memories had already extracted them and stored them in an earthenware jar-

Beili understood completely. If they often recalled that disaster, perhaps it would have been very difficult to live so long in this world with a peaceful heart.

With that thought in mind,

the three of them left the house, walked out from the narrow alleys packed with residences, and headed toward the carriage.

“Luoluo!”

The red-haired, black-eyed boy turned around. The corners of his mouth lifted into a beautifully curved smile as he asked her, “Since we’ve already gotten the memories, what do you plan to do next?”

Beili looked at the white jar in her hands, the one storing the memories, and said, “Find somewhere quiet and comfortable.”

Then she would use these memories to see Tilisha’s Year of Calamity for herself.

Through the fusion of memories and the Dream Domain, she needed to see whether there was any Mana she could absorb.

Even if that Mana could not be taken out of the memory’s Dream Domain, perhaps it could still be stored in her own Dream Domain.

Even if the chances of success were tiny, she had to try.

Because the Dream Domain that imprisoned the Demon had to be made incomparably sturdy.

Seeing her staring at the white earthenware jar, Lance seemed to guess what she was thinking. His black eyes brightened slightly, and he clapped his hands together, suggesting with some excitement, “I know a good place, Luoluo. It’s especially suitable for lying down and resting!”

He climbed into the carriage first, then turned back and extended a hand to her with perfect naturalness.

“Come on. I’ll take you there!”

“Mm…”

Lance had helped her find something important in less than a day. Beili had no reason to refuse, so she nodded in agreement.

However, just as she was about to step forward and reach out, the person beside her hooked an arm around hers and held her in place.

“Mother?”

Beili turned her head and saw that Madam Constance, who had looked completely normal just a moment ago, was now raising a hand to support her forehead.

She seemed somewhat unwell.

Beili immediately lifted a hand and gently pressed her palm to the woman’s forehead.

It was burning hot.

Although the woman’s body temperature would occasionally become very hot at night, now even the daytime was affected by these symptoms.

“Mother, your forehead is much warmer than my palm… Is the sun too strong? Do you have heatstroke?”

Beili asked with concern, “Are you dizzy? Or does it hurt?”

Lance also noticed what was happening with the two of them. After a quick moment of thought, he said, “Madam Constance, there’s a clinic nearby. It’s the most famous clinic in Tilisha. Would you like to go take a look?”

His vivid red hair fell slightly as the boy leaned halfway out of the carriage and pointed roughly in a direction.

“It’s not far from here. Just one more street over.”

As his words fell, both of their gazes focused on Madam Constance.

Under their watchful eyes, the woman still did not speak.

Beneath her heavy eye makeup, her eyes and lashes lowered together. She seemed to be looking at the ground, though no one knew what she was thinking.

Seeing that Madam Constance would not speak, Beili blinked her red eyes several times, unable to keep anxiety from rising inside her.

She first put the white earthenware jar containing the memories into her Spatial Bracelet, then quickly turned and stood in front of Madam Constance.

The woman was taller than her, so Beili tilted her face up slightly and cupped the woman’s cheeks in both hands, her red eyes sharpening as she examined her carefully.

She saw the woman lift her eyes slightly and meet her gaze. A strange emotion surfaced deep within those eyes.

“Mother, say something?”

Pressing that faint oddness down into her heart for the moment, Beili spoke softly, a hint of pleading in her voice.