“……Looks like a tea party without a host is being held?”
The man’s monotone voice echoed throughout the greenhouse. There was no warmth to be found in the unfamiliar voice. His eyes were fierce and his brow was furrowed. Though there was no sign of welcome, Rou felt a deep longing from him.
His black hair was well-groomed, and his face was far from soot or dust. His well-maintained, stiff clothing and shining shoes clearly showed that he was currently enjoying material abundance.
‘That’s the child. I’m certain!’
He could be sure the moment he saw him. The child who had grown so much taller than himself was even bigger than the man who had just removed his clothes, but the fatigue and deprivation lingering in his eyes were exactly the same as in his childhood. Two eyes resembling red roses were gazing at Rou.
Rou heard the sound of his heart pounding. His eyes were hot and moist, and he felt breathless. Rou cleared his voice and carefully called out.
“Child!”
His heart swelled. To meet the child again. And to be able to meet him as soon as he fell to the earth. It was Goddess Kaine’s blessing.
Rou ran to the child in one stride and firmly grasped his hand. However, before Rou could feel the joy of reunion, the large, firm hand sharply struck away Rou’s. Rou stood there in a daze for a moment, clutching his hand in pain as if he’d been hit. His pure white hand quickly swelled up bright red.
“What is this?”
The red eyes held a look close to contempt. Perhaps that’s why. Rou couldn’t bring himself to run to him and tell him that he was the bumblebee he had saved.
“That…… Your Majesty. He is the representative of Goddess Kaine. Please speak more respectfully……”
Het said haltingly on Rou’s behalf.
“Did he say that with his own mouth?”
“Well, he did, but……”
Het couldn’t easily continue his words. Thinking about it, if the goddess’s representative had descended to earth, the temple would have already noisily announced the oracle. But that beauty had simply introduced himself as the goddess’s representative right off the bat, with no evidence to prove it.
“What makes you believe him?”
“That’s…… I apologize.”
At the pathetic tone, Het trailed off. Though he was embarrassed that he had completely believed without any evidence to verify, honestly, excluding that cold-hearted emperor, there would clearly be no one who wouldn’t be swayed by such a beauty.
“I truly came here on behalf of Goddess Kaine. Child, the goddess sent me to you.”
Rou spoke in a voice that was small but clear. The red eyes merely looked Rou up and down. Rou met that searching gaze directly. However, what came back was a scoffing sound.
“Ha…… I don’t know which kingdom sent you, but this is a new method.”
“What?”
A large, firm hand suddenly approached Rou’s face. He carelessly grabbed Rou by the collar.
– Tug!
“Ugh!”
As his body was half-lifted, he had to stand on tiptoe. Rou squinted at the sudden rough contact, then opened his eyes wide when he met the red eyes that had approached right before him. After mentioning Goddess Kaine, the wariness in the child’s eyes had become close to hatred.
Rou realized that the goddess’s worry that it wouldn’t be easy since he had no faith wasn’t simply a matter of lacking faith.
“You’re the goddess’s representative?”
“Yes. The goddess has a task for me. For you…… Ugh!”
– Thud!
Rou ended up falling backward from the merciless touch. Since there were soft flowers and grass everywhere here and there, it didn’t hurt, but Rou was shocked that the child was unwilling to accept him.
“It seems the kingdom sent a great actor this time. Het, it seems there’s a traitor inside. You interrogate how this person got in here.”
“Th-that’s……”
Interrogation. The interrogation methods in the basement to obtain the desired answers were cruel. Though Het’s heart wasn’t as soft as silk, he couldn’t immediately answer the emperor’s words. Even if he somehow dragged this person to the underground interrogation room, if he looked up at him with those large honey-colored eyes, he would end up releasing him as a free man.
“B-but…… shouldn’t you at least ask about the circumstances first?”
Het barely continued speaking with a trembling voice. Yan, who was looking up at the emperor with a pale face, also nodded his head vigorously at those words.
Rou, who had been rolling in the flower bed, raised himself and stood before the child. The cold red eyes gazed at him indifferently.
“You say you’re Goddess Kaine’s representative.”
“That’s right.”
“……Het. For the next week, post guards so that no one comes near this greenhouse.”
“What? B-but. Then for a week…… for……”
“If I keep you locked up for about a week, you won’t be able to say such insane things as being the goddess’s representative. No, you already seem half out of your mind. Or did you eat some poisonous plants?”
Even at the voice mixed with ridicule, Rou’s face was peaceful.
Seeing the child refer to him as the emperor, this place was undoubtedly Omanea, the continent’s only great empire. Even when the continent’s largest empire was just beginning to take shape, Rou was already receiving sugar on the velvet cushion the goddess had prepared.
In other words, no matter how much other humans feared the emperor, to Rou, they were all merely lovely like young children. Even if he threatened or poured out thorny words, Rou wouldn’t have hated him. For example, just as if a child grabbed and swung wild raspberry thorn vines, the only worry would be the child’s palm.
His purpose was one thing only. For that wounded child to truly make a wish to him.
“Do that.”
The red-eyed child glanced at Rou as if dumbfounded. Rou smiled slightly.
“But promise me. If I’m still alive after a week, you’ll have a proper conversation with me.”
“Ha…… You seem to have quite a lot of confidence. Fine then.”
It was a voice full of mockery as if it were funny.
Yan and Het just listened quietly to their conversation without even swallowing their saliva. If they had been ordinary people, they would have already run away at the emperor’s ferocious rumors, his cold appearance, and those thorny words. But the goddess’s representative was standing up to the emperor so excellently.
“Het. Select the guards to watch the greenhouse and report to me.”
“Ah, yes.”
The emperor turned around as if there was no value in exchanging more words. Rou threw a question he had been curious about for a very long time at his back.
“Red-eyed child, will you tell me your name?”
A cold gaze turned back, but Rou didn’t yield.
“According to you, I’ll soon be found dead. Can’t you at least tell me that much?”
“Do you want to take the name of the enemy who killed you? Or a curse?”
“Actually, rather than that, I just want to know your name……”
“Brukisel. If you want to leave a curse, try to make it so I don’t open my eyes tomorrow morning. If the curse works, I might believe your words. In hell, that is.”
Brukisel. Rou murmured that name in his mouth.
“Ah, my name is Rou!”
Rou called out to the back of Brukisel as he turned and walked away, but he showed no sign of acknowledgment. Brukisel soon left the greenhouse, and Het summoned the imperial guards around the greenhouse. Yan belatedly clung to Het, saying they shouldn’t test the goddess’s representative.
“You mustn’t do this! How can you doubt the goddess’s representative? What will you do if the goddess is enraged at the empire!”
“Hey, are you crazy? Do you want to be branded a traitor?”
“B-but.”
“I’ll let it slide just this once, so get out!”
Het grabbed Yan by the scruff of his neck and kicked him out of the greenhouse. Rou waved his hand at Yan, who kept looking at the greenhouse while crying, as if to reassure him.
As if the guards were going to build a wall so no one could enter, they brought thick, sturdy wooden boards, gravel, and sand. While they built up the wall surrounding the greenhouse, Rou quietly watched them under the warm sunlight.
The moment the last wall was erected, Rou spotted Het’s worried gaze through the narrowing gap. He found it quite endearing that humans who didn’t even live a full 100 years were worried about him.
Soon, the only scenery Rou could see became the plants in the greenhouse and the blue sky. They thought Rou couldn’t see anything, but humans on the other side of the wall couldn’t see Rou either, just the same. Thanks to that, Rou didn’t have to worry about anyone’s gaze.
“Brukisel, you’re right.”
He had confidence. Brukisel suspected him, thinking he was a suspicious person planted by a kingdom, but the one he believed in was far stronger than a mere king. Rou took off the coat the man had given him and sat on it. Then, as if meditating, he slowly breathed in and out.
Rou squeezed his eyes shut. If he were human, he couldn’t survive in this greenhouse for a week, but if he were a bumblebee, it was a different story. Rou, with his eyes still closed, earnestly prayed that he could briefly return to being a bumblebee.
And when he opened his eyes again, he was a small, plump bumblebee.
“Wow…!”
When he returned to being a bumblebee, his heart was at ease as if wearing familiar clothes. Rou tried to calm his excited heart and closed his eyes again, this time praying to transform into a human. Then he could soon see long thread-like hair scattered on the floor.
Rou gave thanks to the goddess. It seemed that whenever he wished, he could go back and forth between human and bumblebee. With his heart at ease, Rou immediately transformed into a bumblebee. Happy and glad at his familiar body, Rou examined the stripes on his body for a long while.
Soon, the sound of the bumblebee busily flying around echoed in the quiet greenhouse.
Just as Rou expected, this greenhouse was full of plants bearing poison.
‘So he’s the emperor. Are there many who threaten him?’
Thinking of Brukisel, who had left telling him to curse him, left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Here were fruits that caused extreme pain and made anyone who saw them beg to be killed, stems that made blood flow from every hole in the body, and plants whose leaves, when chewed, caused auditory hallucinations—there were many plants too dangerous for humans to handle.
But for Rou the bumblebee, they were simply a feast. Not all poisonous plants had poison in their flowers and pollen. Moreover, thanks to the goddess’s blessing, Rou had resistance to all poisons created by plants. Rou settled on the purple petals with a blue tinge. After eating his fill of belladonna pollen and honey, Rou curled his body up and lay down on a passionflower leaf.
The small breathing sounds were so quiet and comfortable that they would make anyone listening drowsy.
