Chapter 104: Rast, Read Me a Story (Two-in-One)
The heavy rain poured down, shrouding the Royal City outside the palace in a hazy mist, making it difficult to see.
The world was silent and desolate, only the roar of the storm remained.
Rast stood between the thrones, gazing at the tumultuous rain outside the palace.
This palace, located in the center of the Royal City, did not have any floor-to-ceiling windows.
Yet the rain from the outside flew in, condensing in the dim yellow light of the palace, and could not intrude any further.
No matter how hard the rain fell, the space between the thrones remained spotlessly clean.
It had been a week since he disguised himself to blend into the Paradise and entered the palace.
Since that near-death experience during their first meeting, the Queen of the Netherworld seemed to have given up on bestowing Rast with blessings to turn him into an immortal being, forever by her side.
Instead, she had settled for a compromise, allowing him to become her personal attendant.
It was as if only by keeping Rast within her line of sight could she feel at ease.
This feeling was hard to articulate… much like a child catching a beautiful butterfly in the wild, initially wanting to make it into a delicate specimen, to freeze that beauty in time.
After being stopped by a parent, they put the butterfly in a plastic box, carrying it everywhere, even secretly taking it out during class to glance at it, afraid the butterfly would die.
Rast was that butterfly, and Helen was that boy catching insects.
“Fruit.”
The ice blue trajectory suddenly appeared in the air.
Then it gathered into two characters, slowly dancing in front of Rast.
As soon as he saw the words, Rast quickly stood up.
He moved his wrist slightly.
The silver knife flashed in the air, drawing a pale curve before slicing into the fruits that were already cleaned and sent from the royal palace.
Swish, swish, swish—
The fresh fruits were cut into suitable sizes, falling onto the ceramic plate like pearls dropped on a jade platter.
There was no need for extra plating; as they settled, they formed an exquisite fruit dish.
Rast picked up the two ceramic plates filled with fruit, added skewers, and skillfully brought them to the side of the throne.
It was as if he had been waiting for a long time.
A delicate white hand then picked up a skewer, pierced a piece of orange, and brought it to her mouth.
Though the form of the Queen of the Underworld was slender and elegant, her movements as she ate the fruit were remarkably swift, carrying a sense of resolute urgency.
Helen leaned against the azure throne, flipping through a fairy tale book in her lap, while her other hand fluttered over the fruit plate with the skewer.
In just a few minutes, more than half of the fruit had vanished.
As the skewer aimed for the last piece of fruit, Helen’s delicate hand suddenly paused.
Her gaze shifted from the fairy tale book to the now-empty fruit plate and the final piece of fruit… a hint of reluctance flashed in her violet eyes as she returned the skewer to the ceramic plate.
Then, she gently nudged the fruit plate, which only had one lonely piece left, toward Rast.
So, this is for me?
Rast thought to himself, looking at the solitary piece of fruit in the plate.
I really am becoming more and more like a pampered pet.
But in a way, that wasn’t entirely wrong.
After all, for most residents in Paradise… their existence was sustained solely by Helen before him.
The entire Paradise existed because of her.
And those granted blessings, in a sense, were merely “specimens” collected by the Queen of the Underworld.
Of course, as her personal attendant, Rast naturally had the right to accept the royal gift.
He picked up the small piece of sliced apple and put it in his mouth, savoring the sweet juice that spread throughout.
This era didn’t have refrigerators, at least not in this Royal City of Paradise.
But the twilight that enveloped the palace seemed to have a stasis effect, making the decay of fresh fruit extremely slow, even preserving it better than refrigeration.
After finishing the fruit, Helen became lazy again, leaning back on the throne, continuing to flip through the fairy tale book sprawled across her lap.
Rast tidied up the ceramic plates and took them back for washing.
……
During this week, the relationship between Rast and Her Majesty the Queen had developed into a relatively stable state.
Rast gradually adapted to his role as a personal attendant in the palace; he had previously cosplayed a butler in a noble family’s mansion during his three hundred years in Deep Blue Harbor, so this profession was not unfamiliar to him.
Even the head maid, who had served the Queen for a long time, found it difficult to pinpoint any flaws in his performance; her initial resentment upon learning Rast’s male identity had also weakened considerably.
Helen had also grown accustomed to Rast’s presence.
This new butler could do many things that other attendants could not, such as bringing a skewer along with the fruit plate, so she wouldn’t have to dirty her hands while eating. Moreover, every night before she went to sleep, Rast would deliver a cup of warm milk.
These were trivial details for the Queen of the Underworld; as the master of the Netherworld and a wielder of the rules of death, she had a thousand ways to keep her hands clean.
Yet it was these small details that helped their relationship grow closer…
In just a week, Helen had already become familiar with Rast’s existence, even more so than the head maid who had accompanied her for many years.
This relationship was subtle; although it had only been a week since their first meeting, it felt as if they had known each other for many years—
The mutual understanding between them no longer required words; with just a simple word, Rast could understand that Her Majesty the Queen wanted fruit, and she would intentionally leave a piece for him when she ate.
The sound of water flowing down, Rast placed the cleaned dishes aside.
Through their time together, he gradually realized that Helen, the Queen of the Netherworld, possessed a temperament that was quite different from what he and the Shadow Servant had guessed based on intel.
He had initially thought that as a ruler and an immortal from the Catastrophic Era, she would be similar in character to Cecil, the leader of the Guardians, someone deep and inscrutable.
But in fact, this Queen’s mental age was at most that of a seventeen or eighteen-year-old, perhaps even younger.
As a being born to contain the relics of the God of Death, Helen was indeed powerful, having spent a long time in the Netherworld.
However, her life experience could only be described as painfully barren.
This era didn’t have convenient networks or electronic devices.
Thus, the palace, cloaked in twilight, and those maidens serving her… was Helen’s entire world.
Due to the necessity of maintaining the existence of the Netherworld, she had never ventured outside of Paradise—
Not even leaving the palace within her own country to look around.
In most cases, Helen could only take advantage of the moments when she bestowed blessings upon her people to glance at the scenery of the Royal City from a high platform, under the watchful eyes of the populace.
As the queen of the Netherworld, both the maidens serving her in the palace and the other subjects would treat her with utmost respect.
But because of this, Helen’s worldview was fractured.
She didn’t know what the real world was like, nor did she understand what ordinary life was, what a regular person’s existence entailed.
Every night and day, she remained in this closed little world, looking through the well-thumbed pages of fairy tale books.
Through the dry words in the fairy tale books, she fantasized about the splendid scenery of the real world.
Imagining the ebb and flow of tides, the blooming and withering of flowers.
Imagining the transitioning of day and night, the cycles of the seasons.
This is why Helen believed that the power that could keep Rast by her side forever… was not a curse that stripped away life, but a blessing and grant.
Because this was her genuinely held belief based on her fragmented experiences and her sickly, twisted values.
She truly believed that she was doing what was best for Rast—only since Rast himself was unwilling, she could only cease her efforts.
Strictly speaking, in today’s world with access to the internet, even a thirteen or fourteen-year-old’s intellect may be more mature than Helen’s.
Because the information they encountered through the internet and smart devices… was a world of dreams that Helen had never accessed.
“How truly… a type of guest I’ve never served before,” Rast muttered silently as he put the cleaned dishes away in the cabinet.
This counted as a rare knowledge blind spot for Rast.
After all, although he had plenty of experience as a male escort, clients seeking escort services in such establishments were at least relatively mature in mental age.
Thus, even if he was the perfect escort with a 100% customer satisfaction rate, he had never encountered a client with such a young mental age, with a worldview and values as remarkably lacking as Helen’s.
A week ago, during their initial conversation, everything Rast had said should have planted a seed in Helen’s heart.
Given time, that seed should flourish into a towering tree.
But—
Compared to Rast’s goals, that process was still too slow.
This Queen had lived within this palace, faced with the unchanging scenery, for over a hundred years.
Her perception of time was not the same as that of regular people; if allowed to develop naturally, it might take years for the seed Rast had planted in her heart to sprout.
However, it was clear that Rast could not wait several years for Helen; as a Night Traveler, whether he could remain in the Night World for more than a few years was still uncertain… even the Guardians couldn’t afford to wait for him that long.
According to Cecil—
The turning point of that change should not be far off.
Thus, what Rast needed to do now was to catalyze the growth of the seed in Helen’s heart.
To achieve his purpose for this journey.
Fortunately, he still had the other members of the Guardian team to assist him.
As his thoughts raced, Rast saw an ice blue character quietly appear in the air before him.
“Come.”
If it were an ordinary person, they might be puzzled by this abrupt “come”.
However, after spending this time with her, Rast had already grasped the temperament of the Queen he served.
She was the type who would take shortcuts when she could, resolving tasks with a single character rather than two words.
This “come” was her calling for him to come over.
With that thought in mind, Rast quickly returned to the throne.
On the throne was the girl with ice blue hair, who seemed a bit weary.
One hand rested on the armrest, propping up her cheek, while her violet eyes were half-closed.
She pointed to the fairy tale book spread across her lap, and a character appeared in the air.
“Read.”
Is Her Majesty the Queen asking me to read her a story?
Rast stepped forward, picking up the fairy tale book that had only been flipped through a few pages from Helen’s lap.
The book looked somewhat worn, with clear signs of frequent handling.
Yet it seemed well-preserved by its owner; despite its age, it was clean and free of any dust or stains.
In the areas where the pages were slightly damaged, they were repaired with ice blue threads, which seemed to be a tangible power that Helen had mastered.
Rast opened the fairy tale book, and the cover seemed to depict the male and female protagonists of the story—
A knight boy wielding a silver sword, and a female protagonist shrouded in shadows and dark mist, resembling a witch.
On the illustration was the title of the fairy tale book—
“Chronicles of Silver Wings.”
What a retro title.
In the real world, among the students of Starry University, novels had evolved into stories about forced marriages and return of war gods.
Rast internally scoffed.
He had once inquired about the origins of these fairy tale books with the head maid, but even she, who had been granted immortality by Helen’s blessing and was quite experienced, did not know.
She only had a vague guess—
It seemed these were gifts left to Helen by her mother, the former Queen of the Netherworld, who had passed away over a century ago.
Relics from the golden age of the Sixth Epoch, before the Catastrophe.
Rast ran his fingers over the book cover, feeling its somewhat coarse texture.
Then, he began to read in a calm tone.
“The story begins in the town of Yato, in the western continent, with a boy who dreams of becoming a knight…”
(End of Chapter)
