Chapter 3: The Noble Hellcat
EVEN before her holy powers awakened, Marialite had always been fond of gardening.
Although a gardener didn’t necessarily have to raise their plants with love, it certainly required care—such as calculating how much water and compost to give them. Then, when the plants finally came into full bloom, the sense of achievement she experienced was a difficult emotion to put into words. At times, there were flowers she failed to take care of properly and wilted before their time, but she always learned from her mistakes to make sure she did everything properly the next time.
Sometimes, she would buy bulbs of truly bizarre-looking plants. In the past, her parents and ex-fiancé would give some of the plants a look of slight disgust, but their strange appearance never bothered Marialite.
So, when she found out that there were plenty of plants in Celaeno that were as yet unknown to the human realm, her eyes sparkled with an excited gleam. She felt like a child again.
I need to try growing some of those!
She could barely contain herself.
“Lord Sirius,” she beamed. “Would it be possible for me to grow some new plants here at the palace?”
However, he simply blinked at her blankly.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she backtracked. “If it’ll be an issue, I don’t want to trouble you.”
“No, no—it’s not an issue,” he assured her. “But you do realize there’s no need for you to do that, don’t you?”
His tone was laced with surprise. For a moment, she wondered if he was offended that she wanted to spend her time on something else when he was right there. True enough, her gardening habits weren’t “necessary,” and she could live a happy enough life without dedicating time to her hobby.
However, she also knew that Sirius wasn’t the sort of person who would say such things. While she remained silent, trying to figure out the intention behind his words, his eyes shot wide open as though he had just realized something.
“Oh, I understand. That sort of thing is normal in the human world, isn’t it?”
No sooner than that hushed murmur left his mouth, he turned to Marialite to give her a sincere bow of apology. However, she gently put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
“Does that mean…gardening isn’t a very common activity in this country?” she wondered.
“Precisely. I suppose it’s just one of those cultural differences. I regret to say that fact escaped my mind. I didn’t mean to sound rude.”
“I thought that might be the case,” she smiled.
In Celaeno, cultivating seeds and crops was seen exclusively as manual labor.
Although cultivation had been practiced since before the country was founded, it was mostly considered a way of acquiring food, and people had no concept of growing plants for their aesthetic value. Plants weren’t there to be admired but rather as a necessity.
In the early years after the country’s founding, every family had a vegetable garden. However, the kingdom then grew wealthier, and many people considered growing such things unnecessary once a stable supply of food was established. There were quite a lot of families who still had vegetable gardens, but that was purely to make their daily lives more economically viable; none of them had any intention of making a hobby out of their gardens. Even when some plants were grown for visual enjoyment in public spaces around the country, practically no one took it up as a personal hobby.
“I thought you were growing so many fruits and flowers in our garden simply to feed me,” Sirius admitted.
“Well, naturally, that was my top priority, but…”
“So, I couldn’t figure out why you would want to do such a thing when we already have plenty to eat at the palace. I also assumed flowers were only grown when people wished to purchase them for decorative purposes,” he explained.
That reminds me of something that happened a few days ago…
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A group of bodyguards had volunteered to accompany Marialite on a tour around the capital.
This time, Raven was leading the party. Sirius had been buzzing with energy to go with her, but unfortunately, there was some issue or other with the paperwork he drew up with the palace officials, and he entered into a long battle for some freedom. Not to mention, he had duties with the military to attend to, and he didn’t feel justified in putting them on hold for his own personal pleasure.
Hence, Sirius chose Raven to accompany her. Raven didn’t look all too pleased about it, but he was soon lured in with the promise of unlimited steak.
Apart from the fact that night never ended and people looked a little different, the demon kingdom was extremely similar to the human world—especially the peaceful, calm atmosphere on the streets.
Just wandering around the capital while listening to Raven’s comments about each location was extremely enjoyable. The feel of the town reminded Marialite of a never-ending festival.
However, when she looked at the people’s gardens, she couldn’t see a single flower bed.
✦ ✦ ✦
“IF that’s how things are in this country, perhaps I should just give up on gardening,” she wondered.
“No, no,” Sirius stopped her. “I was only saying that it wasn’t necessary—not that you shouldn’t do it. I can have a garden prepared for you at once.”
“You mean, right now…?” she asked.
“Of course! Just leave it to me!” he grinned.
He took her by the hand, and she followed with a dazed look on her face.
When they came to a stop, she found herself in front of a small building that overlooked the western side of the royal court. Just the same as the rest of the palace, it was made of a pitch-black material.
The space around it was absolutely thick with weeds, and there were no people in sight. It exuded a sad, lonely aura that made it clear that it was an abandoned building.
“This storehouse was once used by one of my brothers—the fifth prince. He collected various treasures from different countries and used this building to store them,” Sirius explained. “Well, it was more like he persuaded people into giving them up with promises of large sums of money, but…after he was poisoned, the storehouse was emptied and is now completely vacant.”
“The architecture is wonderful, though,” Marialite commented.
“Indeed,” Sirius hummed. “If we just left it unused, it would be a waste of precious building materials. It’ll be of more use if it’s repurposed. My father only recently ordered me to have it taken care of, so this actually works out perfectly.”
He took out a small, milky-white glass bottle from his breast pocket and popped the cork out. As he did so, the entire storehouse began to wobble and sway like jelly. Eventually, it melted into a black liquid and flew right into the glass bottle without making a single sound.
Now the land the building had been standing upon a mere ten seconds ago was a flat, empty plain. There was nothing to suggest anything had ever been built there at all.
“There. It’s all yours, Lady Marialite,” Sirius grinned.
“Wow! Thank you very much!”
She had a feeling she’d just witnessed something incredible, but she decided not to draw too much attention to it; she simply smiled in delight, not bothering to think too hard about it.