"Are… you really you anymore?"
The mansion had calmed down and everyone had cleaned up after our previous union. I had ended up in the hot spring with most of the other girls present. Even Faeyna and Bernice had found their way there, although Bernice was keeping her distance from me. The hot spring was large enough that every girl could enjoy her space. If any other man walked into this spring, they would find a garden of beautiful naked women frolicking in the water. Thankfully, there was some pretty strong magic that prevented peepers like Prince Edward.
I had been lying in the heat, allowing myself to recover. We decided that tomorrow we'd be heading out to the Ost Republic for this wedding. Today had just been a day of relaxation and recovery. Octius and his sister had already left back to the capital after the battle was cleaned up. I guess Siti had opened a portal for them. I'd have to talk to her shortly, but I let others handle those problems for now. That's when Shao swam up to me and asked this question.
Although the question hadn't been spoken loudly, all of the girls quieted down. This was something they had all wanted to ask but didn't have the confidence to do so.
"You want to know if I'm more Deek, Deedee, am I back to my old self, or am something else entirely, right?"
Shao looked down, almost ashamed to think such a thing. For someone like Elaya, Salicia, or Celeste, it was pretty simple. I was me. However, Shao wasn't so free-thinking and loose with her affection.
"I can't say I'm exactly the same person I was before the split, but I could also say I'm not the same person I was before coming to this world. The me four months ago would have been indistinguishable from the me of now, and the me of two weeks ago and the me of now have only changed further." I explained.
"I-is that true?"
"I'm the same man I've always been. I've just grown a bit. I will continue to change, but then, so will all of you. It's impossible for us not to change over time. The world isn't so static. The important thing is that we change together and that the bonds that tie us together never die."
"I understand." She nodded, but she looked like she wanted to ask more.
"What is it?"
"I want to know… you mentioned you… well, one of you, went to Earth. Can we… can we return?"
"Yes," I responded simply. "I can go back to Earth whenever I want to."
All of the girls were now leaning forward with interest, and there wasn't a single breath or whisper. This had probably been everyone's greatest concern. Only Carmine, Bernice, and Garnet knew a bit more about the whole story.
"What happened on Earth? Will you be going back? W-will you take me?" Shao asked.
"Shao…" I looked at her uncertainly. "Are you certain you belong there?"
She lowered her head. She must have already figured out what I meant. She had heard the demon lord's words too and had figured out what I meant.
"What does Master mean?" Celeste was a bit slower on the draw and whispered to her mother.
"Shao… may not even be from Earth," Astria explained. "No, it's very likely she was born here."
Chapter 996
A human didn't just magically turn into a demon. The logic was that simple. If Shao had come from Earth, then she would have had a human body like me. Instead, she had a demon body. More than that, she had the demon lord's bloodline, allowing her to transform into a demon lord. Her body had just suddenly appeared one day in a random town on the border of the Imperial Cloud Meadow. This was far too random to be a coincidence.
"Can you say for certain that you remembered Earth before encountering me?" I asked a question I had been wanting to ask for a while.
She didn't answer for a bit, but then she started to shake her head. "I… bits and pieces, but… what happened to me?"
"I can only guess." I shrugged. "Perhaps, you were the daughter of the demon king that Aberis suggested. Something happened, and you lost your memory, appearing in that town. I had always wondered, given what you knew about Earth, you should have had some kind of info to leverage. Knowledge is power, and even a greedy person wouldn't waste such knowledge just to throw you against monsters and men."
"…"
"My guess is that with your mind an empty slate, you started from scratch. You had some flashes of that life, enough that you were caught off guard by me, but it wasn't until I began to absorb your lifeforce and give you mine that we finally opened the floodgates. My memories unlocked all of your memories. That was the moment the true Shao was born. Before that, you were just a demon with amnesia who had no past fighting to survive."
"So… even I am not me." She said scornfully.
"No, weren't you listening?" Lydia spoke up, causing the teary-eyed Shao to look over at her friend. "People change. You are Shao. You are my friend. You are Master's woman, his lover, and his assassin. You're beautiful, and you're wonderful, and no matter what, you're you."
"Lydia…" She said, biting her lip.
"I love you, Shao," I whispered in her ear. "All of you. We all do. So, don't think that you've lost anything. You found us, and we're your family. I'm happy to bring you to Earth. I just want you to be prepared for the possibility that we can't find your family. Those memories could have been from an Earth only similar to mine. The details you remembered were always blurry. Even things like what decade you lived in are hard for me to say. We don't even know you're original name, so finding your family, I'm not confident I can do it."
"I understand, Master." She wiped her cheeks and then smiled. "Thank you for being honest. I don't know who I was, or where I came from, but I know I'm Master's property. That is something constant. We may change, but I will always be Master's. That's good enough for me."
"That may be good enough for her, but I noticed that you sidestepped the question here." Elaya cut in, crossing her arms. "Shao's identity is one thing, but I want to know why you seem to have no interest in returning home. Wasn't that your original goal?"
I chuckled softly. It looked like I couldn't pull the wool over their eyes. Well, it was fine if they knew the truth.