🐎 🐎 🐎
THE following day, Louis barged in.
He brought along a gift of my favorite sweets, pechenne, so I couldn’t very well turn him away. Not that I’d wanted to in the first place.
“Just now, the guild master of the carpenters’ guild ran out of the palace in a huge rush. What did you do this time, Neema?”
“Why do you automatically assume I’m the cause of this?!”
I’ve never even met the guild master of this country’s carpenters’ guild! It’s unreasonable to jump to the conclusion that it’s somehow my fault!
“Who else could it be? There was a meeting about Project Roslan today. The guild master of the carpenters’ guild, who is in charge of the focal point, that tower, suddenly went white as a ghost and left in a hurry, as if running away!”
This is clearly a false accusation!
Certain that there must be some kind of misunderstanding, I asked Louis to walk me through what had been discussed during the meeting to see if we could figure it out.
“Anyone who knows you would just shrug their shoulders and accept it as another of your eccentric ideas, but the guild master’s eyes got so wide I thought they might pop out of his head!”
When he said that, I finally realized…
It’s not a false accusation, after all. I should’ve realized. If a bunch of kids created something, even in miniature, which you, as the guild master of the carpenters’ guild, have proclaimed impossible, of course, that will cause you to lose face.
I accidentally dealt a terrible blow to the guild master’s pride in front of so many important people…
“That wasn’t my intention…” I muttered.
“He’s a very forgiving person, so don’t beat yourself up over it. I bet he’s already gotten over his initial embarrassment and is now more determined than ever to outdo you so he can salvage his reputation.”
That’s not much better. I don’t want the carpenters to view me as a rival! I’m not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination!
“Oh, I almost forgot the reason I came. His Majesty said that the date of your visit to the elemental palace has been set for three days from now.”
“Really?!”
“Yup. I’m certain everything will be explained fully the day before the trip, but since only holy beasts and their bonded partners are allowed to visit the elemental palace, no one will be able to accompany you other than His Majesty.”
Does that mean that named monsters like Haku and Gratia are also prohibited? I’m pretty sure Shinki will be allowed, but I’d better leave everyone else behind this time just to be safe. But I’m going to be super nervous being alone with the emperor!
“Don’t worry; I’m sure His Majesty won’t insist on being formal if it’s just the two of you,” Louis assured me, having picked up on my nervousness.
I wish Louis or Theo could come along; their presence would help break the tension.
“I’ve heard some species of animals only live in the area immediately surrounding the elemental palace. If you have the time before you leave, maybe you should research them a bit now,” he suggested.
“Oh! That’s right!”
There was a book in the Kingdom of Gaché’s royal palace library titled Animals of the Elemental Palace. I remember seeing all kinds of strange and interesting animals when I flipped through it.
“I wonder if there are any books about them here that would be okay for me to read…”
“Of course there are.”
Depending on the book, some were prohibited from being removed from the library or viewable only with special permission. A foreigner normally wouldn’t be granted access to restricted books like those.
“Let’s go to the library right now, and I’ll introduce you to the person in charge. If I do that, you’ll be able to read any book you want, as much as you like.”
“Yes, please!”
I’d visited the imperial palace library several times already, but there were so many books! An extensive collection of non-fiction books covered a wide variety of topics and spanned a vast period of history. I could spend my entire life reading and never get through them all.
In short, the library was an excellent place to pass the time and stave off boredom.
Louis and I made our way to the library, where he introduced me to the head librarian, officially had access granted to me for the entire library, and then led me to a small adjoining room.
“This room is for the imperial family’s exclusive use, but Eliza is the only one who ever comes here, so you can use this room as you like.”
“Is it really okay? I wouldn’t want to inconvenience Princess Eliza…”
“It’s fine. Even Eliza only comes here occasionally.”
I suppose if the imperial family aren’t going to use this room, somebody should!
Because the room was intended to be used by the imperial family, it was decorated with only the finest furnishings and featured a relaxing yet elegant color palette. In short, it was a very comfortable space.
After that, I spent a good while relaxing in the private room, chatting with Louis, and flipping through an illustrated encyclopedia titled Animals of the Linus Empire.
Over the next two days, I closed myself up in the library, reading book after book about the elemental palace.
The section of forest surrounding the elemental palace seemed to be influenced by the thick concentration of elemental power because the biology of the plants and animals there differed from elsewhere in Wildwood.
First of all, there weren’t any large carnivorous animals.
Some smaller animals fed on insects, but even then, I’d only found two species named in the books I’d read that fit that criteria.
All of the other animals were herbivorous, and boy, were there a lot of them! The books I read listed a huge variety of plant-eating animals of all shapes and sizes that called the elemental forest their home.
I suspected there were so many more books about the elemental palace here than in the Kingdom of Gaché’s royal palace library because the emperor was always bonded with a holy beast generation after generation. One piece of evidence supporting that suspicion was that the authors of many of the books had the last name “Linus.”
The more I read, the more excited I became for my upcoming visit to the elemental palace.
If possible, I want to shut myself up in the elemental palace just like this and play with all these interesting animals to my heart’s content!