Yan ran until his heart felt like it would burst. His cheeks were flushed red with excitement, and his eyes sparkled. Monday morning was a difficult time for everyone. A time when everyone had pale faces and barely moved their heavy feet. That’s why the light, sprinting steps stood out without a doubt.
Unlike usual, his flushed face and lively smile made Yan look like a different person. In fact, his colleagues couldn’t recognize him as the same person and glanced at him as if looking at an outsider.
Yan ran wildly into the secluded alley used by servants. In the middle, he passed other servants whose faces he knew, and even the head steward who had been in the palace for a long time came into view, but Yan passed them all as if he didn’t see them. The head steward called out to stop Yan, who was running like a racehorse, but Yan didn’t stop.
He couldn’t just bring a mere head steward.
“To Pase-nim…… I must bring someone higher for Pase-nim!”
Yan muttered and looked around the imperial palace. Just then, he saw the Emperor’s aide hurrying somewhere in the distance. Yan blocked his path.
“……Aide-nim! Aide-nim! Pase…… Pase-nim!”
“What?”
“Pase-nim has descended to this land!”
“Pase, you say. Are you from the south?”
Yan struck his chest in frustration. He couldn’t get through to these cold-blooded northerners at all. If he told southern people that Pase, who conveys the whispers of the Goddess of the Earth, had descended to this land, they would have been in an uproar. But these northern blocks of ice just asked about his origin instead, with no particular reaction.
“This isn’t the time for this! Pase-nim is in His Majesty the Emperor’s greenhouse!”
“Who is where?”
The aide, Het, who had been looking indifferently as if viewing a crazy person, suddenly changed his attitude. Yan thought Het was finally listening to him and explained earnestly, but Het only heard what he wanted to hear.
“……So he’s in His Majesty’s greenhouse!”
Het’s face slowly hardened. Rumors about the Emperor’s greenhouse had been endless since he ascended the throne. The rumor that he grew such a vast amount of poisonous plants that all the nobles could eat them and still have leftovers became fact after one fearless servant ate a ripe red fruit and never opened his eyes again.
This was also why servants avoided the simple greenhouse task of turning on the water in the morning and turning it off at noon. Servants would take turns watering in rotation, but occasionally servants who heard the rumors and became too nervous would mistake the Emperor’s bleak shadow and spout such nonsense.
‘Still, it’s usually ghosts or spirits. Pase is a first.’
Het, who like the Emperor had grown up in the barren north, was far from being a devout believer. He lamented his own fate of having to walk to the greenhouse to verify the truth even after hearing the servant’s crazy talk.
“When you see Pase too, Aide-nim, you’ll be really shocked. When I first saw him, I thought I’d go blind!”
“Uh huh, sure.”
However, this servant was somehow strange. If he had seen the Emperor’s shadow, he should normally be trembling or collapsed, but the servant kept trying to share his experience with sparkling eyes. Moreover, he couldn’t understand why the servant was following him all the way to the greenhouse instead of minding his own business.
“Now we’ve arrived at the greenhouse, so I’ll check it myself. You can now……”
Just as he was about to tell him to stop now and go back, something sparkled inside the greenhouse. Yan sighed while looking at Het, who suddenly had a blank expression. He had thought that for a northerner, Het was readily accepting Pase’s existence, but it seemed he hadn’t trusted his words at all.
Whether it was okay to touch the Emperor’s aide’s body carelessly. As a lowly servant, Yan of course knew the answer, but he couldn’t make the Goddess’s Pase wait. He grabbed the aide’s collar and pushed him into the greenhouse.
Het’s heavy body was led like a scarecrow by Yan’s firm hands. Het was in a state where he couldn’t put strength in his body because he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It would have been less shocking to see the Emperor’s shadow.
Het, who had been a genius in a rural village, gradually came to know the world as he went to war. He realized that compared to countless other geniuses, he was merely mediocre, and he also learned that the girl who had been the most beautiful in his village wasn’t the most beautiful woman on the continent.
Especially since following the Emperor to the imperial palace, Het prided himself on being accustomed to any beauty now. He had also gotten used to the extravagance and ostentation of nobles, thinking that he wouldn’t lose his mind as much as before even when seeing splendid things. He was sure of that, but…….
“Wh-what is this……”
Het couldn’t take his eyes off the stunning beauty. It was so honorable just to look that he wanted to ask if someone like himself was even allowed to gaze.
The lemon-colored platinum hair shone dazzlingly under the midday sun. Round eyes that seemed to hold honey itself hid behind abundant eyelashes, then revealed themselves again. The clear face was composed only of soft curves and looked so pure it seemed he wouldn’t understand dirty human worries and concerns.
It was such an innocent appearance that his worries seemed to be nothing more than what to have with black tea today. Moreover, his long hair was wrapped around his entire body like silk, and white skin glimpsed between the strands of hair. This beauty with a harmless face who covered his body with his hair seemed just like he had jumped out of a famous painting.
Het’s tongue froze as if it had met the northeast wind that brings frost.
Rou looked at the human who was just staring at him endlessly, then turned his gaze to the brown-haired child. He had hoped he would bring a human he could communicate with, but this human was worse than the hiccuping child.
Perhaps that red-eyed child would come. He had held expectations. Perhaps because his expectations were high, he felt a bit disappointed. Though the red-eyed child had been starving at that time, if he had consumed enough nutrition, he would have become a great beauty. It was hard to see that the red-eyed child had grown up to become this knight before his eyes.
Yan, perhaps reading the meaning in Rou’s gaze, tapped Het’s shoulder, urging him to speak.
“What are you doing right now? Pase-nim is waiting!”
“Uh uh……”
Het felt like he had become an idiot. His face was hot and his throat seemed to tighten, so he couldn’t continue speaking. When there was no sign of Het’s condition improving, Yan pushed him aside and knelt down in front of Rou.
“Pase-nim!”
“……Pase?”
Humans used to call the angels who ran errands around the Goddess that way. When Rou didn’t immediately give an affirmative answer, Yan’s gaze became a bit puzzled.
“It’s a bit different from Pase. The Goddess didn’t send me on errands.”
“Th-then……”
“I am someone the Goddess Kaine especially cherishes……”
Rou hesitated for a moment. Thanks to the Goddess caring for him with overflowing love, he had lived without lacking as a bumblebee. It wasn’t that he wanted to deny his appearance from his bumblebee days, but whenever he looked at his weak wings and round body, he felt regretful for not being strong. Rou thought these humans didn’t need to know that he had been a bumblebee.
“……An existence she especially cherishes.”
“Ah, I see!”
Yan looked back at Het as if to say wasn’t he right. Het, who had regained some reason, knelt down beside Yan. Rou couldn’t understand why they were kneeling before him, but it was a scene he couldn’t have witnessed when living as a bumblebee, so it wasn’t so bad.
“Then why has an existence so cherished by the Goddess of the Earth descended to this land?”
“That’s a very good question, child.”
Rou said so while stroking the crown of the head visible before his eyes. Since becoming as big as a mountain, no one had stroked his head, so Het wore a dazed expression for a moment. Yan beside him had a face that said he was dying of envy at Het receiving such a stroke.
“There is a human I must meet on this land in order to carry out the task the Goddess entrusted to me.”
“Then you’ve come in the god’s stead.”
Since he had pestered the Goddess and descended to earth in her place, Yan’s words weren’t wrong. When Rou nodded, Yan’s face became even more honored.
“The Emperor’s aide might know that person!”
“What?”
Yan, who wanted to be helpful to Rou somehow, raised his voice while pointing at Het. Het was about to retort that he’s not a god so how would he know every human in the world, but when he saw the sweet-colored eyes looking at him with an expectant gaze, he closed his mouth.
“Th-that is.”
“Is it true?”
“Well…… If you tell me their features or hair color, I can try to make inquiries……”
At those words, Rou smiled broadly, like thousands of yellow dahlias blooming all at once.
“Thank you, child.”
Something sacred could be felt from Rou’s extraordinary appearance and natural speaking down. Het told himself not to lose his mind, but every time Rou blinked, he forgot that resolution. Yan had already lost his senses and was picking up Rou’s hair scattered on the wet ground.
“F-first, please wear this at least.”
Het took off his outer garment and offered it to Rou. But instead of receiving it, Rou just looked at it. There were two holes in the piece of cloth, yet he was told to wear it. He was confused whether to put it on his arms or legs.
Yan jumped up and approached Rou. To help the existence cherished by the Goddess of the Earth dress. It was like a dream. Yan carefully helped him into the outer garment so Rou’s long hair wouldn’t get in the way. As he fastened the buttons, he suddenly asked.
“By the way, what does the human you’re looking for look like?”
“Ah. He had red eyes and black hair.”
At that moment, the hands of Yan who was fastening the buttons and the footsteps of Het who had been wandering around with an awkward face stopped. They simultaneously shouted in shock that it couldn’t be. Rou’s face brightened.
“So you know the human!”
With such an intense reaction, they must surely know that child with red eyes. Well, there couldn’t be many who had such beautiful eyes and such a kind heart.
When Rou was waiting for the humans’ answer, the sound of the greenhouse door opening was heard. The presence approached quickly as if walking with large strides. When Rou turned his head toward where the leaves rustled, Yan and Het followed it with anxious gazes.
With each step the human figure took closer, the warm air of the greenhouse was cooling down coldly. Rou heard Het murmur in a voice like a whisper.
“Em-Emperor…… Your Majesty.”
As soon as the two humans realized who the being approaching them was, they immediately prostrated themselves flat on the ground.
