A crow stood by one of the castle's opened windows, and it tilted its head as it peered inside the castle. Suddenly, the soft sound of a piano rang across the castle.
Under the influence of the soothing piano tune, the originally bizarre lights within the castle became much gentler and softer.
The forest around the castle seemed to be affected by the sound of the piano too. The evil spirits lurking within the dark forest ceased all activity as they looked up in confusion, listening to the song that was trying to soothe the resentment in their hearts. The gentle melody was enough to make someone feel sleepy.
The crow leaped a few times on the window sill. It had originally planned to fly away, but it seemed to have been affected by the warm sunshine brought by the melody as it closed its eyes and chose to rest on the window sill for a moment.
"Nice lullaby."
Joshua sat on the floor of the room where he just had his meal as he enjoyed the slowed-down version of "Canon in D", which the Duke of Bones was playing.
The Duke of Bones' devotion to music was no lesser than her devotion to necromantic magic. After giving her the score for "Canon in D", she could produce plenty of different emotions from her performance.
She was playing a slowed-down version to aid with sleep, and it seemed like she remembered that Joshua was a being who still required sleep.
There was a fluffy carpet on the ground that was soft enough to be used as a bed.
As a matter of fact, the little mage, Ciri had already used the rug as a bed, falling asleep by the fireplace on a gold-embroidered pillow.
The encounters Ciri had in the past few days had totally exhausted her. Her experience in the Demonic Realm so far could definitely be classified as exciting and thrilling. Even when Ciri knew that she should never expose her unguarded side before these demons, her fatigue pushed her into sleeping on the pillow in the hall.
Regrettably, Ciri did not let her guard down before Joshua. He glanced at the magic wand that she was clutching tightly in her hand, and as soon as she heard anything, she would immediately wake up.
The young mage's long gray hair was flowed down to her shoulders, and her cheeks looked a little red before the fire.
She was quite a looker when she was quiet.
Joshua always felt that Ciri had a very unique temperament, but he could not put a finger on the specifics. Wild? That was a little inappropriate. A less savory description would be, she was a little fierce.
If Ciri was on Earth, then she would probably be the type of girl who would never put on makeup and never be coquettish even when she had a boyfriend. Joshua, however, thought that such girls were the ones who should be doted on most.
Ciri had already fallen asleep, but Joshua did not feel any sleepiness.
A creature like a programmer did not need any sleep when they were coding, and overtime was almost a daily occurrence.
While Joshua's job was not that difficult, he had often forgotten to sleep while he was busy coding... As to why, Joshua could only say that changing code was not as interesting as writing code!
"Zenarth, don't you need to sleep?"
Joshua's fingers continuously struck the air as he tried to convert all the runic symbols into the programming language he was familiar with.
The fact that Joshua could see the runes did not mean he could use it. At present, he only understood about half of the runes and was still in the midst of studying the remaining half.
Nevertheless, the half that he understood was enough for him to cook up little programs that did not need a system to run.
Joshua picked up a glass of mulled wine on the floor with his other hand. His current working state allowed him to relive the feeling back on Earth. But, of course, he would not have a two-meter-tall humanoid creature with a lion's head standing behind him back on Earth.
"Your Highness..." As Joshua was sitting on the ground, Zenarth knelt and hesitated for a moment, seemingly unsure if he should say what he was about to say.
"Just speak your mind. I won't mind it."
Joshua could see that the Sin Demon had something on his mind, and his heart was far more delicate than his appearance may have suggested.
"I do not object to your friendship with humans, Your Highness. However, if you are looking for a spouse, His Majesty will never agree to you taking a human as one," Zenarth said as he looked at Ciri who was fast asleep by the fireplace.
"Uhuk, uhuk..."
What Zenarth said had Joshua choking on his wine.
The Chaos Demon's bloodline was extremely rare within the Demonic Realm. Coupled with their short lifespan and dismal birth rate, Chaos Demons were prohibited from marrying other races in the Demonic Realm.
Even nobility in the Demonic Realm were out of bounds, much less humans.
"I do have three other siblings, and my father will not be relying on me even if he wants the bloodline to continue. Plus... I already have someone I like."
Joshua put the glass in his hand aside as he swiped at the air. The runes that Joshua had written were all pulled to a corner, and as he made a grasping motion, all of the runes merged into a complete form, turning into a window-like shape.
That made Joshua feel like Tony controlling Jarvis in Ironman.
"Forget it. Zenarth, do you have any beliefs?"
Joshua took out a wooden sculpture. It was the same sculpture Ciri had used when she taught Joshua about the God of Order. Joshua dipped his finger into the wine and used the liquid stains to draw magic runes on the floor, creating a magic circle.
"We Sin Demons believe in the Flames of Sin, which represents the fires of sin and punishment. The more sins committed by our foes, the greater the pain they will suffer."
Faint embers spurted out of Zenarth's lava-rock skin.
Since Joshua intended to end the subject, Zenarth dared not ask the "who's the person you like" question and only focused his attention on the small magic circle Joshua had drawn on the ground.
"In that case, you wouldn't mind learning another type of magic right, Zenarth?"
The magic used by demons was not as regulated as the ones used by humans because demons emphasized bigger firepower and more dakka[1]. If they could kill something with an RPG, they would never pull out a Beretta.
That also led to Demonic Magic not relying on runes to construct spells with different functions consecutively. Instead, they just unleashed all of their magic power. It was simple yet brutal.
"If that is your order..." Zenarth said.
"Then place your hand on this statue."
If a ruling demon such as Joshua could believe in God, Zenarth would, of course, not have any issues. As the pale brilliance poured into Zenarth's body, the menacing demon successfully changed his occupation to a White Mage of Order.
"How many of these runes have appeared in front of you?"
Joshua showed some of the simplest runes to Zenarth for him to see.
"One."
It appeared that the brave Sin Demon had little to no mastery of magic. The strength and power he possessed were enough for him to cast aside such so-called knowledge.
"Then, can you see this thing in my hand now?"
Joshua spread out his fingers, and Zenarth's eyes caught a white cube spinning in his hand.
He proceeded to nod to indicate that he could see.
"Catch."
Joshua threw the cube toward Zenarth with a wave of his hand, and the cube very easily entered Zenarth's body.
The result surprised Joshua. It seemed like even if one barely understood any runes, one could still accept the runic program that he had written.
After all, when clients were using a program, they could not be expected to learn how a program was written, right?
It looked like the runes given by the gods of this world were the same.
A white square suddenly appeared in Zenarth's vision.
"Your Highness... what is this..." Zenarth rubbed his eyes only to see that the object was still floating in his field of view.
"Oh, a chat window. As for its function..."
Joshua tapped his finger on the void.
"Are you ready for the performance tomorrow?"
A row of words suddenly appeared in the chat window before Zenarth's eyes. He fell into a stupor before he looked at Joshua.
"Ugh... it seems like you are not able to reply with that one rune of yours. So I'll need to write an input program, huh?"
Joshua found that he still had a long, long way to go before he achieved Internet interaction, even when he was already using a local area network.
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