Unaware of Rou’s gloomy mood, the cheerful music continued. Feeling like he would turn into a bumblebee if he stayed still like this, Rou received a thick honey beverage from a servant. Inside the glass cup ringed with a golden band was a golden-hued drink.
The high-viscosity beverage, as if pure gold had been ground into it, glittered under the pouring light. So much gold must have been added that the drink appeared opaque. Even when shaken, it didn’t slosh but flowed down sluggishly, looking as though he were drinking melted gold itself.
Rou turned the cup this way and that with dubious eyes, wondering if this was truly a beverage meant for living creatures to drink. Since Jes was controlling his sugar intake, he subtly poked Yan’s side, and Yan personally demonstrated that it was food one could drink a little of without issue.
“Mmm! It’s so delicious!”
“Really?”
Yan’s eyes sparkled at first from the sweetness spreading throughout his mouth, but he couldn’t manage more than two sips. For him, with the palate of an ordinary servant, the thick honey was far too sweet.
Seeing others eating it without any problem, Rou stealthily brought the glass to his lips. Somehow, Jes watched the High Priest with a worried heart.
Every food served in the Imperial Palace, especially at a banquet, carried its own symbolism. For instance, this honey wasn’t the top-grade acacia honey, but it was reasonably good honey, sweet and fragrant.
He worried whether that honey would suit the High Priest’s palate, having always eaten precious and fine things, or whether it was merely good to look at. At a banquet to which the Emperor had invited them, Jes felt strangely tense even though it wasn’t a table he’d prepared, wondering if the High Priest would put something that didn’t suit his taste to his lips.
‘It’s delicious!’
But Rou wasn’t picky about such things. This sweet golden beverage seemed to be the most delicious thing he’d eaten in the human world, except for sugar cubes.
‘They must have gathered it from a vast field. Thistle and wild rose… Are those dandelion and chickweed?’
The fragrance of dozens of flowers lingered in his mouth. From the intense fragrance of wild roses that arrived first, to the subtle fragrance of chickweed hiding shyly behind. It was perfect. It tasted as if the hot, intense summer fields had been brought here whole.
From that fragrance, Rou heard what kind of lives the flowers had lived. The blossoms that plants had bloomed in the place closest to the sun each told their own story. The flowers that grew from the same soil and reached their hands toward their own light hid desperation behind their beauty.
Rou thought that beauty, which didn’t deliberately reveal its own efforts, was extremely elegant.
Perhaps because they fell from the same cloud of rain and grew in the same soil, even though the fragrances of different flowers were mixed together, they were remarkably harmonious.
‘It’s been so long since I’ve had honey like this.’
Wildflowers were different from the acacias planted for beekeeping. The flowers with their tenacious vitality sang to Rou in different voices. Rou found those earnest stories pleasant to hear. When he closed his eyes and savored the fragrance, he felt as if he were in the Goddess’s paradise.
Paradise was always filled with gentle peace. The peace with its warm temperature was deeply contagious, so whenever anyone in paradise broke into a bright smile, everyone would follow suit and smile warmly.
And Rou wanted to convey that abundant peace to Brukisel. How wonderful it would be if the child with impoverished eyes from lack of warmth grew accustomed to peace falling like drizzle and became warm without even realizing he was soaked.
If that day came, Rou wanted to make a large flower crown, place it on Brukisel’s head, and lie down with him on the soft flower beds of paradise to take a sweet nap.
‘If such a day comes, I’d truly be happy.’
Before he knew it, Rou wore a gentle smile on his lips. His pale pink lips curved into a delicate arc. His golden eyes sparkled from the surging sugar, and his cheeks glowed. With a face that would make anyone, if they were human, want to turn back and look, Rou said:
“Magnificent.”
At that moment, everyone in the banquet hall who had been stealing glances at Rou fervently wished that those words from Rou’s lips were directed at them.
The new High Priest has such a magnificent voice too, the ladies whispered amongst themselves. Young men blushed and glanced furtively, and even the elderly, though they couldn’t show it directly due to propriety, stole glimpses of the golden reflection in their wine glasses.
Jes blocked the High Priest’s path. From the moment he’d decided to come to this banquet, he’d expected it would turn out like this, but the nobles’ gazes were not ordinary.
From the nobles’ perspective, it was natural for them to speak to the High Priest, to watch for opportunities with gleaming eyes to somehow establish acquaintance. Particularly the high-ranking nobles who opposed the Emperor needed a High Priest who would stand against their faction.
But the reason Jes blocked the High Priest’s path was because the gazes of the nobles looking at him were too fervent. He was extremely worried there might be some scoundrel who couldn’t control his sinister desires. Jes looked for Het to serve as a shield, but somehow his figure was nowhere to be seen in the banquet hall.
‘Of course the High Priest is the finest of the creations the Goddess has crafted, but they’re approaching too quickly!’
Rou quickly emptied his glass. Before Jes could even tell a servant to bring a new glass, there was a swift hand that immediately offered a glass to Rou—had they been prepared and watching?
“Thank you.”
“It’s, it’s an honor.”
Jes checked the face of the one who’d offered the glass and felt relieved. It was Count Karl, a representative member of the Emperor’s faction. He was famous for being devout and old-fashioned. No matter how lavish a party he was invited to, he always stuck to the wall and rarely moved, earning him the nickname ‘the Frame of the Party’ behind his back.
This perpetually timid and taciturn man would become unusually talkative when one topic came up—none other than his main interest, ancient history. Those who approached him with light hearts, interested in his wealth and family, would smile awkwardly and back away when incomprehensible conversation flowed from his mouth.
‘The Frame Count approached first.’
Jes thought it quite remarkable. His faith must have overcome his timidity.
In any case, there was no reason to block him. No, rather, if he became a new shield, that would be welcome. He was a hundred times better than those who approached with smiling faces to creepily touch the High Priest’s body.
Rou accepted the glass the count offered. The count blushed seeing Rou’s lower lip glitter golden, then watched as his pink tongue licked away the clinging beverage. He was so embarrassed that he brought up whatever topic came to mind.
“Y-you look just like a figure from a legend, drinking honey like that.”
The count regretted it the moment he spoke. Coming to the banquet today, he’d made one resolution. Even if he happened to have a conversation with the High Priest, he wouldn’t bring up boring topics.
He wanted to spend as much time as possible by the High Priest’s side. He didn’t want to disastrously ruin the atmosphere by suddenly starting to talk about deep, narrow subjects only he knew about. He hurriedly tried to bring up a different topic, but the High Priest was already responding to the subject he’d opened.
Those who knew the count sent him pitying looks for having lost this rare opportunity.
“Are you speaking of Dilte from the now-destroyed ancient Southern Kingdom?”
“Ah… Yes! That’s correct.”
“How nice to meet someone who knows about him. It’s been a while.”
Rou didn’t have good memories of Dilte. In his boyhood before becoming the founding king, he was a wanderer who roamed hills with no fixed destination.
According to legend, after eating honey hidden under a tree on a certain hill, he gained wisdom and courage and founded a kingdom at the southern tip. Humans all chattered about how wise Dilte was, how useful his inventions that were still being used were. Without a thought for the beehive he’d ransacked.
‘Why do humans defend that honey thief so much!’
The honey Dilte stole was precious property that Rou had gathered over several years with his sisters (and their descendants) to offer to the Goddess. Considering that even diligently collecting honey every day, what Rou could gather amounted to only a few drops of honey, it was an enormous amount.
With the desire to serve the Goddess sweet tea, Rou traveled around to various hives persuading his sisters. And wanting to present the Goddess with a sweet honeycomb as a gift, the worker bees abandoned their own hives and flew to help Rou. They were so excited to have joined forces.
When he finally returned after completing the collection under the scorching sun, the hive was all destroyed.
One rude person, unable to overcome his hunger, had stolen the gift meant for the Goddess!
Rou was so heartbroken that he lost motivation and just sat still in front of the hive. Though the Goddess comforted Rou and the other sisters, telling them over and over that it was all right, his wounded heart didn’t recover easily.
Eventually the other sisters left to prepare for winter, and Rou weakly flew to curl up for a while on the velvet cushion placed on the Goddess’s bed.
‘What kind of honey was that!’
Because Rou, a spirit, had collected the honey while offering prayers every day, divine power was imbued in the honey. To have eaten that precious thing and only managed to found a mere Southern Kingdom.
Rou thought Dilte was pathetic and incompetent. If Brukisel had eaten it, he would have founded an empire in those old days and more. Because Brukisel was the strongest, wisest, and most beautiful of all the humans Rou had met. It was natural that he had infinitely more potential than a petty honey thief.
When even giving it to the precious Brukisel would be slightly wasteful, a complete stranger coming and gobbling it all up was an incident that made Rou, who was under the Goddess’s protection, feel the emotion of loss for the first time.
Though it was an event from several hundred years ago, meeting someone who defended him now made that wounded heart seem to revive.
