CH 51

The gardeners all blinked at each other when they heard the unexpected words.

No one seemed to understand what Anastasia said.

“Your Majesty, Your Majesty. What do you mean…….”

“But we must hurry. It’s in such bad condition.”

Anastasia looked at the gardeners and asked after slightly narrowing her brow.

“Can you do what I tell you to do?”

The gardeners’ eyes showed that they didn’t quite understand the situation.

But Anastasia’s question was quickly answered with nods.

“Whatever it is. actually… … We were in despair because there was no way for us to do it anymore.”

“Because the rate of reproduction is faster than the rate of catching insects… … If there is any possibility, I will do it.”

“There is no need to be so gloomy. It’s simpler than you think.”

Anastasia beckoned the gardeners to come closer.

Soon, the expressions of the gardeners, who heard what Anastasia said, were colored with embarrassment and surprise.

“Hwa, Your Majesty, but that…”

“Don’t you think the garden will die faster?”

“Oh, trust me.”

As Anastasia smiled confidently, gardeners were suspicious but nodded. There was no other way to try anyway.

~~~~

“Your Majesty, Your Majesty!”

At noon, Colton’s cry broke the silence of the quiet office.

Wilhelm, who was focusing on the document, criticized Colton, who rushed in with his brows narrowed.

“The servant of the central palace is so undignified.”

“Sorry, I’m sorry, Your Majesty. But……but it really happened.”

“Is it a big deal?”

“The garden of the Goddess…”

The moment he heard that, Wilhelm’s heart sank.

“…is it dead?”

However, the answer was the opposite of what he was worried about.

“No, Your Majesty. It’s completely revived.”

“What?”

The moment he heard that, Wilhelm jumped up from his seat.

“What does that mean? You just reported that it didn’t get any better yesterday.”

“That’s…well, that’s true…”

Colton, who was panting for breath as he rushed over, replied with difficulty.

“It’s true. I personally… I’m on my way to check with my own eyes.”

“No way.”

But Wilhelm couldn’t believe it.

‘He made sure they were all dying a few days ago.’

If it died in a day or two, it would be dead, not revived.

So he was also struggling to come up with countermeasures…

“I need to see for myself.”

Wilhelm took the road to the Goddess’ Garden. Throughout the trip, he felt dizzy as if a thread had been twisted.

‘Did someone use magic?’

In fact, the Goddess’ Garden had not been moribund since the report came in.

This was because, upon receiving Colton’s request for assistance, he secretly dispatched his priest from the shrine to unleash their divine powers into the garden.

It worked at first. The roses that had withered were revived as if they had never been dead.

However, the bugs around the resurrected roses were still there, and after a few days, the roses were attacked by insect swarms and withered again.

As this happened over and over again, the temple was also exhausted, and he was troubled that divine power could not be a permanent solution.

“You have to kill all the bugs. But it’s impossible with divine power alone.”

In the first place, the essence of divine power was the power of life, not the power of death.

No matter how bad a life was, the goddess did not want her own power to be used to destroy living things.

Therefore, in order to make the garden of the goddess healthy again, it was necessary to exterminate the bugs and invoke the divine power.

“At this point, we don’t have a proper way to exterminate bugs.… The only way to save a rose is to relocate the garden.”

But it was ridiculous.

In the first place, the symbolism of the goddess’s garden came from the site, not from the rose itself. It was an incidental problem.

‘But I couldn’t find a way to do it, so I was going to try that.’

It was when Wilhelm reached the Goddess’s Garden with a confused face.

But someone was already there, a woman in a rich rose-colored dress stood in the middle of the garden, surrounded by numerous red roses.

Wilhelm gradually slowed down his pace.

The fact that someone before him arrived at the goddess’s garden and checked the condition of the garden reminded him of his vigilance.

But as they got closer to the garden, Wilhelm identified the color of the familiar hair and his heart began to beat fast with emotions other than vigilance.

If he was right, the woman was someone he knew well, leaning her back against him and smelling the roses.

Wilhelm, who was about to enter the middle of the garden and check the condition, forgot all his thoughts for a moment and stopped as if frozen.

Colton looked at his countenance, thinking it was strange, but when he felt an inexplicable serious atmosphere, he could not intervene and waited calmly.

Wilhelm stared back at the woman who smelled the roses for a long time.

Then the woman slowly stretched her upper body and turned around.

“Ah…!”

Anastasia’s red eyes grew round as she realized she was not alone there.

But when she confirmed that it was Wilhelm, a bright smile quickly spread over her face.

And that smile spread in an instant, just like paint dissolved in water, and colored his heart with the same color.

“Your Majesty.”

The innocent smiling face calling him was familiar as if it were unfamiliar.

It was a strange thing. She’s never smiled at him like that before.

No, that spotless smile wasn’t what Anastasia Rosenberg was like in the first place.

A gentle, spreading smile shook his mind as heavy and violent as a mace.

While Wilhelm was immobilized by the shock and fixed his gaze on Anastasia, she slowly approached Wilhelm with a smile on her face as if Anastasia had laughed.

“Sun of the Empire, Greetings to His Majesty the Emperor.”

“…you.”

He came to his senses belatedly at that greeting and opened his mouth with difficulty.

“Why is the Empress here?”

“I came out to look at the Goddess’s garden.”

Anastasia added after a short answer.

“Your Majesty must have heard the news, too. The garden has been fully restored. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

“…did you do it?” asked Wilhelm in an incredible voice.

“I heard you made a bet with Miss Lutent.”

“I’ve heard that you haven’t released Miss Lutent.”

Anastasia responded with an elegant voice.

“Thank you for not undermining my authority. I would have been a laughingstock if His Majesty had released her.”

“…how did you do it?”

Wilhelm asked with a perplexed look when he saw the garden that had survived without a single bug.

“It was a garden with a time limit even with  divine power. But how…”

“I used alcohol.”

“Alcohol?”

“Yes, we’ve spread vodka throughout the garden.”

“Vodka? You mean that poison?”

Wilhelm, surprised to hear Anastasia’s answer, asked.

Anastasia nodded and added.

“Of course I didn’t use the undiluted solution. It’s diluted.”

“No matter how diluted it was, you sprayed the strong liquor on the rose? Are you out of your mind?

“Of course.”

Anastasia smiled and shrugged.

“Isn’t the evidence here?”

Then she pointed to the garden in the back.

Wilhelm had nothing to say when he saw the garden that had been restored as normal as the first time.

However, he still looked unconvinced.

That’s because Rosenberg didn’t have the concept of pesticides yet.

‘There was a similar incident before my regression, and everyone was shocked because it was full of nutritional supplements to solve the problem.’

There was a perception that killing insects with a strong liquid like alcohol would kill the plants together.

So when there was a bug, they were caught one by one by hand.

The gardeners were initially reluctant to react in the same way as Wilhelm.

However, Anastasia’s confident appearance forced them to carry out her instructions.

The result was a great success.

“After the bugs died, I gave them the same nutritional supplements and they came back to life. If the problem continues, we can solve it in the same way.”

“…”

“Your Majesty?”

Wilhelm, who was listening to the explanation, looked at himself silently, and Anastasia called him in wonder.

It was that moment.

“Ah…!”

Wilhelm suddenly approached Anastasia and hugged her.