9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 72 - Glass Greenhouse (2)

The gift boxes were hidden in the most extraordinary places throughout the house.

Beyond ventilation ducts, inside pillow covers on beds, between coffee bean sacks, among tree roots, in baskets held by angel statues in the pond, under piles of towels in the bathroom…

People busily giggled with delight each time they found a box.

“Oh my! What an adorable doll!”

“I got a watch chain, haha!”

“Ugh, what’s this? Just one piece of candy?!”

Guests who thought ‘Maybe there too?’ and crawled into all sorts of corners, maids who rushed around trying to stop those guests.

The gardener and maids worried frantically that the aggressive guests might damage Miss Garnier’s historic mansion, but fortunately there were no such people.

“Hoho, you really hid them well.”

The Queen laughed cheerfully as she picked up a box hanging from a tree branch like fruit. Inside the box was an elegant pearl brooch.

I’d spent almost all the money I’d received from Fael buying these gifts. Including the party expenses, I’d basically blown it all in one go.

“What a pretty brooch. If the regular gifts are this nice, what will the first prize winner receive, Lord Redan?”

“It’s a secret, Your Majesty.”

I lightly deflected the Queen’s question as I followed behind her.

Though the building itself wasn’t large, this mansion had an incredibly expansive garden. That’s why I liked it.

Watching the gardener busily tending to the plants gave me a somewhat peaceful feeling.

The Queen’s steps headed toward the back garden. A more secluded space, a winding path through the trees.

“Not many people came to the backyard.”

“There are plenty of gift boxes in the house and front yard as well.”

Walking along the path, the raucous sounds of people grew distant. Happy laughter and exclamations gradually faded away and disappeared.

“Shall we rest a bit?”

The Queen carefully moved her steps, then settled herself on a bench among the bushes.

“Oof, when you get old, everything aches.”

“Even young me feels the same way. Your Majesty is still beautiful and in perfect health, aren’t you?”

“Hoho, you’re joking. But it’s only sustained by magic…”

The Queen’s face, which looked like that of someone in her twenties, smiled sweetly. As always, she has such a pleasant expression.

“Lord Redan, you are young. Too young and brilliant to waste your heart on an old woman like me.”

“Pardon…?”

Patter, patter.

As I froze from the meaningful words suddenly thrown out, came the sound of water droplets tapping leaves.

“Oh dear, my apologies, Your Majesty.”

I jumped up and unfolded the umbrella I’d kept in my bag.

Whoooosh!

As soon as the umbrella opened over the Queen’s head, rain began pouring down heavily.

Thank goodness.

It was worth putting everything from handkerchiefs to pistols in my small bag to ensure there wasn’t a single mistake while attending to the Queen.

“Your Majesty!”

A guard burst out at inhuman speed, then retreated when he saw I’d opened the umbrella.

“It’s a sudden shower. Lord Redan, you’ll get wet, so let’s share.”

“But…”

“Formalities are enough inside the palace.”

The Queen stood up. So I could naturally enter under the umbrella despite my hesitation.

And for a moment, we stood there in silence.

From far away came the sounds of people flustered by the sudden shower.

‘I feel like I should say something.’

Sweat gathered on the hand holding the umbrella. The Queen was both a comfortable and difficult companion.

The shower continued, growing stronger then weaker.

The Queen said she wanted to see the rainy scenery, so we began walking again.

“Oh my!”

The Queen walking along the winding path suddenly let out an exclamation.

“How beautiful!”

It was spring, with warm energy spreading from sky and earth.

Among trees full of greenery, faint sunlight touched water droplets on glass and scattered.

“Ah, this place is…”

A transparently sparkling greenhouse.

Hidden among the trees where one might pass by without thinking, the greenhouse was a place that Miss Garnier, the original owner of the house, cherished and maintained with great attachment.

Thanks to the architect’s passionate efforts, beautiful flowers and trees grew there without expensive magic runes.

She had strictly instructed that absolutely no one should enter the greenhouse since only she and the gardener could touch those plants.

I momentarily worried about what to do if the Queen wanted to look inside the greenhouse.

However, the Queen moved her steps right up to the greenhouse but didn’t go inside.

“It’s a greenhouse. Did you build it, Lord Redan?”

“No. I’m just renting temporarily. Miss Garnier, the owner of the house, built it, and I heard she treasures it greatly.”

The Queen’s slender fingertips touched the transparent glass. Raindrops flowing down the glass wet her hand.

“Our Rubellia is just like this greenhouse.”

The Queen looked up at me.

“Lord Redan, why did you come to this country?”

“Your Majesty, why did you summon me?”

Amid the sound of raindrops pattering down, my heart’s loud pounding mixed in.

***

My flower-like people.

Marianne looked down at the people gathered in the square.

A young man waving his dirt-stained shirt, children singing hymns, an old farmer bowing and begging them to please hear their voices, a man shouting while holding a blood-soaked spear, a young lady sharing water with thirsty people, a one-armed veteran charging toward the barricade.

All those people, that wave of the masses surging like a tide, were both frightening and beautiful.

Marianne’s breath caught in her throat.

With trembling hands, she pulled down the crown precariously hanging above her head and threw it.

“I shall relinquish this. Rubellia shall be reborn today as a nation of the people.”

She sighed inwardly.

Marianne thought.

No matter how many times she went back, she would make the same choice.

Charlotte had saved her life.

If she hadn’t received the letter Charlotte left behind while dying, if she hadn’t realized she needed to bow before the people.

Marianne’s head would have been stuck on a spear like the last emperor of the ancient empire, her long white hair fluttering.

“Mother, how could you do this! To carelessly throw away the rights of royalty like this! Were you so frightened of those powerless people?”

“Brother is right. Mother will be fine. You’ll go down in history as praised forever as the noble queen who listened to the people’s words and humbly laid down her crown! You’ll probably spend comfortable days being honored at White Palace for life.

But what about us?! What about me, my child, that child’s children? Since Mother has abandoned all power, the future of royalty is obvious.

If things go wrong, we’ll be kicked to the streets to live like commoners, and at best we’ll be reduced to zoo monkeys!”

“Why didn’t you resist at all? We had powerful soldiers and loyal retainers. It was a fight worth having, so why!”

Even while calming her protesting children and grandchildren and sending them down to the territories, she felt no regret at all.

Her role was completely finished with this, and now she would have to hole up in White Palace and spend the rest of her life as a back-room old woman.

That’s what she decided.

But naive Marianne didn’t yet know.

How foolish her beautiful people could become.

Why do revolutions demand blood?

Because revolutions achieved through sacrifice are more valuable.

The more blood they contain, the more people strive to protect them.

Things obtained for free are easily discarded.

The side effects Marianne hadn’t anticipated erupted more frequently as time passed.

The people made the day Marianne threw down her crown a commemorative day, calling it ‘the day the bloodless revolution was completed.’

Actually, it wasn’t completely bloodless.

About a dozen noble landlords who had committed tyranny in ordinary times had their necks cut by enraged peasant uprisings.

However, compared to other countries where all sorts of slaughter and violence had occurred, it was as good as bloodless.

Because the Queen had easily laid down power, all nobles except a very few could be safely protected.

The privileges of nobility were legally abolished. They could no longer exercise rights over territories unless it was their private property.

Of course, there were nobles who resisted. However, since the Queen, beloved by all the people, strongly supported the Prime Minister, the nobles had to surrender. They weren’t unable to read the flow of the times either.

And time passed.

The people of Rubellia lived peaceful lives, seeming different yet not different from before.

Though the legal status of nobility was abolished, titles remained customarily and implicitly like a kind of honorary position.

They were still called such-and-such count, such-and-such marquis, and inherited their titles.

The people’s anger toward nobles quickly subsided.

There was even a movement to reevaluate the wicked landlords sacrificed in the early revolution as innocent victims.

The Prime Minister position was changed to be elected by vote every five years.

The Prime Minister position had existed originally and was supposed to be appointed by the king, but Marianne had compromised even that.

The people of Rubellia had always been tremendously proud. Though no country on the continent was without that trait, Rubellia was particularly severe in this regard.

That pride exploded after the ‘bloodless revolution.’

Which was understandable, since they were almost the only country on the continent to achieve peaceful regime change.

Either royalty and nobles were massacred, or the country was torn apart, or it became a mess from civil war…

Even neighboring Schufaben had accomplished revolution by spilling countless blood but ruined everything and begun terrible dictatorship, hadn’t it?

“In contrast, we have our wise Queen maintaining the center, so we’re living well and eating well—that’s how it is.”

“Long live the Queen!”

“Revolution, why can’t they do it properly?”

“It’s so easy!”

“Everyone except us must be stupid, haha!”

The noses of Rubellia’s people soared sky-high without knowing limits.

Everyone enjoyed freedom and peace.

Without knowing their preciousness.

Forgetting that the ‘bloodless revolution’ had been accomplished through incredible luck, they looked down on surrounding countries as all being uncivilized.

They clamored that they, who understand the value of revolution, should step forward and liberate neighboring Schufaben, which was oppressed under terrifying dictatorship.

It would be difficult and painful, but they should bear the ‘revolutionary’s burden.’

Conversely, there were also a few who wanted to follow Schufaben’s example.

They envied Schufaben, which was strengthening its military and researching new technology under Supreme Leader Kruger’s leadership. Or they’d been swayed by fanatics who came all the way to Rubellia to praise the Supreme Leader.

They wanted not an incompetent Prime Minister but a superhuman on a white horse to appear and restore Rubellia’s glory.

Meanwhile, quite a number of royalists were active.

Mainly nobles who missed the past, they wanted to serve ‘wise and good Queen’ Marianne again.

Public opinion was split in countless ways like this. But Marianne didn’t trust any side.

They might be serious themselves, but they were all just playing childish political games. They had no desperation.

My flower-like people.

Don’t you know you’re trapped in a greenhouse?

About thirty years after the ‘bloodless revolution.’

Holed up in White Palace, Marianne constantly worried about her people, about Rubellia.

They were flowers that had never faced the wind. Marianne was the fragile glass window protecting them.

A greenhouse that could easily collapse.

And outside, predators lurking, eyeing the flowers.

When Marianne died, when even a small crack appeared in the glass window, the predator would throw stones at the greenhouse. Through the shattered glass windows, strong winds would enter, and the flowers would be helplessly swept up in the storms of the world.

Marianne hoped her people would become strong. But for that, they would have to see blood.

Marianne hoped her descendants would live peacefully. But those advocating for restoration of monarchy kept stirring up the family.

Marianne hoped Rubellia would be united. But the people who had easily obtained peace were already crying for war and split into different ideologies.

All of this weighed on her heart, and she withered away.

There was one answer.

If the greenhouse couldn’t be made sturdy, remove the predator outside.

But how?

And… Lucas Redan appeared.

At first, it was curiosity.

At the report that Charlotte’s great-grandson had risen as the darling of high society, Marianne investigated his background.

Shockingly, he was an ardent Kruger supporter and a national hero of Schufaben.

How could he love his family’s enemy?

Sad and puzzled, she summoned him to White Palace. But he was completely different from what Marianne had imagined.

A beast hiding beneath his innocent and spirited exterior, quietly waiting for the right moment, sharpening its claws.

Marianne grew fond of him.

The light that had been dying in her heart began to revive.

Marianne whispered amid the pattering rain tickling her ears.

“Lord Redan, you are my last hope.”