Rou thought about how he had been hit directly by the cold wind earlier, and went out carefully with his mouth firmly closed. At the sight of someone glittering and white elegantly emerging from the greenhouse, the guards’ gazes naturally turned to Rou.
Rou, who had been slowly exiting the door because he disliked the cold wind touching his skin, discovered the humans looking at him with round eyes. Rou thought such pure curiosity from the humans was quite cute and endearing.
Rou smiled brightly and waved his hand at them. The guards who had been staring blankly at the sight soon bowed their heads as if honored.
Yan walked behind Rou and sent them a look that said, didn’t I tell you until my mouth wore out? Regardless, the guards only stared blankly at Rou’s back as if they couldn’t believe what they saw.
Het guided Rou to the reception room. Rou quite liked the red velvet laid in the room. It felt exactly like being beside the goddess. Rou half-reclined on the long chair. The cushioned chair was simply soft.
In the reception room, it was proper etiquette to wait without sitting until the emperor arrived. But Het couldn’t bring himself to force such rules of the human world on the goddess’s representative. Wouldn’t it be fine to sit and rest appropriately, then stand up when the emperor appeared? Het was already thinking of Rou’s convenience.
However, when he turned around to tell Rou he could be comfortable, the words slipped away at the already comfortable-looking appearance. He wondered if that was allowed, but looking at Rou lying down like a marble sculpture collected by some tycoon, it seemed that could be the case.
“That…… You’ll stay, right?”
“Hm? Yes.”
Rou waved his hand at Het and Yan, who he was half-forcibly dragging along. Yan seemed to keep worrying about leaving the goddess’s representative in such a cold and barren space. He looked at Rou with concern through the closing door gap.
Rou folded his hands and lay still. Though he had survived very comfortably for a week thanks to the goddess’s help, it seemed Brukisel wouldn’t acknowledge him as the goddess’s representative to this extent. He wanted visible proof.
‘Rather, if I could make him make a wish and fulfill it, there would be no easier way to be acknowledged as the goddess’s representative than that.’
A visible miracle was too much for Rou’s power alone.
Rou recalled the words the goddess had said at the last moment before he came to earth. Was being able to go back and forth between human and bumblebee the gift the goddess mentioned? But if he showed that, humans would be curious and amazed for the moment, but it didn’t seem like they would regard him as sacred.
‘Especially Brukisel……’
If he transformed into a bumblebee, Brukisel would somehow never believe in the goddess. Rather, he seemed like he would think of him as a magician performing tricks and never meet him again.
‘What exactly is the ability the goddess gifted me?’
Rou lay still and pondered it endlessly. Rou, who had been spending time quietly, only raised his body when dawn came and the sun had set. Should he go out and ask when Brukisel was coming? While briefly pondering while looking at the firmly closed door, Rou’s eyes caught a small porcelain placed on the tea table like a decoration.
‘A sweet smell.’
When he opened the lid, sugar cubes that didn’t betray him greeted him. Rou held the porcelain in his arms and savored the sugar.
The pattern drawn on the porcelain was very familiar. It was exactly that cup he had seen in the greenhouse that had been desolate like ruins. The regular geometric pattern seemed to be a design that only the imperial family could use. Rou smiled faintly, reminded of Brukisel from his childhood.
Unlike his current self, childhood Brukisel seemed a bit softer and much more honest. Each time the sweet sugar cube melted on his tongue, the warmth he had felt from Brukisel’s fingers seemed to gradually become clearer.
After opening that porcelain, he didn’t even know how much time had passed for a while.
Meanwhile, Het circled around Brukisel restlessly. The goddess’s representative was waiting, yet the emperor was deliberately dragging out time even though he knew it.
And Het’s prediction wasn’t completely wrong. Brukisel clearly thought that fraud couldn’t endure the wait. Looking at that pretty appearance, he clearly seemed to have grown up comfortably in some prestigious family in the south, so there was no way he could endure this kind of rudeness.
Though he didn’t know what help he received and how he survived for a week, if he made him wait long enough to get sick of it, he wouldn’t be able to flash such a stupid-looking smile while looking at him. Even a robust person would find it hard to just stand still for half a day, and with that body, he wouldn’t be able to endure even two hours.
Brukisel was just annoyed by this situation. Because of some fraud from who knows where, even work that had been progressing smoothly wasn’t getting resolved. If he’d been locked in the greenhouse for over a week, he should have either died of thirst or spit out the truth unable to endure the hunger—why was he so perfectly fine?
Brukisel hoped this situation would pass as quietly as possible. To him who had no faith, the appearance of a high priest was nothing but a headache. Regardless of authenticity, if rumors about this spread, what ripples it would cause—just thinking about it made fatigue wash over him.
“Het. There were no suspicious movements while guarding the greenhouse, right?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Didn’t I tell you?”
“Didn’t you find anything like suspicious passages inside the greenhouse?”
“……What? Was there such a thing?”
His face said, if such a thing existed, wouldn’t you know better?
“Never mind.”
The greenhouse left by the emperor’s predecessor was nothing but ruins. The one who made the current glass greenhouse there was Brukisel himself. He was also the one who ordered them to build solid bedrock along with drainage facilities so wicked ones couldn’t infiltrate.
“Just so you know, I didn’t see anything like a cave either. It doesn’t seem like he could do such things anyway.”
Brukisel thought of the fraud’s face and soft-looking hands. Indeed, it was as Het said.
“What is he doing now?”
“Ah…… Well……”
“Did he leave, unable to endure it?”
Brukisel thought it turned out well instead. It was fortunate that he didn’t have to face those nerve-grating golden eyes anymore.
“That…… Well.”
He furrowed his brow at an answer different from what he wanted. Het wanted to tell a lie for the goddess’s representative, but when facing those fierce red eyes, he would unknowingly pour out the truth. Het ended up telling the situation the attendant had last conveyed.
“Well…… He’s sleeping in the reception room.”
“What?”
Brukisel’s eyes became even more fierce. The blood flowing in the bodies of royalty was special. Thanks to that special bloodline, there was a rumor that one could kill a person with presence alone.
Het firmly believed that rumor was true. Every time the emperor looked at him like that, his liver shrank to the size of a bean and he’d rather hang himself and bid farewell to the world.
“Well…… He’s been waiting for a long time……”
Brukisel kicked his seat and stood up. At the sound of his footsteps, the soldiers guarding outside the door opened it, and nothing in the palace stood in his way.
Rou, who had been lying down yawning after eating his fill of sugar, rubbed his eyes that kept flickering closed. With a full stomach and warm body, sleep kept pouring in. The red flames burning on one wall weren’t as much as Brukisel’s eyes, but watching them continuously flicker made his body lose all its strength.
Rou, who had been precariously staying between the boundary of sleep and consciousness like that, opened his eyes wide at the sound of footsteps faintly heard from far away. Someone was walking with very fierce steps, as if angry.
‘Brukisel!’
In this palace, there was only one person who could harbor such feelings toward him. Rou sprang up with a happy heart. He gently returned the porcelain to its original place and approached the door to prepare to greet him.
And at the same time, the door opened as if it would break, and Brukisel with menacing eyes fiercely burst in.
“Ah! You came!”
“……”
Brukisel discovered Rou standing there perfectly fine. It was absurd that he was sleeping in this situation, so he had headed to the reception room. But this fraud hadn’t left the doorway and was standing and waiting for him according to proper etiquette.
Brukisel glared at Het who was running over restlessly from far away. He came running as if to stop the emperor, but upon discovering Rou standing up, his face showed relief. It wasn’t that Het had told him a lie.
– Bang!
The door closed violently. The hinges that couldn’t withstand the fierce force dangled from the door. The windows rattled as if they would break, trembling.
“Brukisel.”
“Who.”
“Hm?”
“Who dared to tell you to call me that?”
Brukisel strode over and stood right in front of Rou. He looked down at Rou with an overbearing attitude, but Rou only looked at Brukisel with wide eyes. Brukisel felt an anger surging that was unlike him. If he saw him and got scared, he could at least threaten or intimidate him. But this fraud was just rolling his big eyes and looking at him with pure eyes.
“To dare call the emperor of the continent by that name. Is something wrong with your head?”
‘I thought he told me to call him that.’
Rou, who had taken his words about cursing him at face value, thought that humans’ way of speaking was really difficult.
‘Then what should I call him?’
Rou forgot he was in front of Brukisel and pondered right in front of him what to call him. But no matter how much he thought about it, it seemed strange for him, who had lived longer than this empire, to call him Your Majesty and bow. If he had come to the human world and borne fruit, he might have even become Brukisel’s ancestor.
Brukisel only became more indignant at Rou’s appearance of having other thoughts in front of him. From the day he discovered Rou, Brukisel had thoroughly searched for a week whether there were any suspicious movements in the small kingdoms in the south. He had sent scouts to see if the kingdoms were forming alliances to do wicked things, but had only received reports about lazy royalty.
They had no ambition for continental invasion. And no stories about suddenly disappeared royalty or nobility could be found either.
Was that why? Every time Brukisel saw those innocent eyes, he was almost deluded into thinking he might really be telling the truth.
‘I’m having futile thoughts……’
Brukisel grabbed Rou by the collar. Rou shook lightly like a piece of paper. He actually felt like he was flying since his feet lifted a little into the air.
“Show me proof.”
“Hm?”
“That you’re the goddess’s representative. Show me proof. If not, you’ll pay the price for daring to insult royalty. I don’t know what you were supposed to receive in return for pulling such a stunt, but you wouldn’t want to be dragged away and beheaded right now.”
