I managed to escape from Mera. Yes I know I’m still gonna face her later. But at least she would be calmer than just now. I don’t know what happened to her, I definitely had nooothiing to do with it. Yes, I’m innocent here.

Not like I mentally tore her in the past or anything…

Moving on, I was currently with Mizia on our way to their garden at the back of their house. Behind me followed my personal knight. Mizia was not hiding her little displeasure at it, she must want us to have some personal time. But that was just not possible.

I imagine such a thing was already explained by her father. But she could never understand the whole picture of the situation without being told of it. But at least she was not so adamant about removing my guard.

“Woah.” I expressed my awe upon seeing the place, this garden of theirs.

“Pretty amazing, right Estelia?”

“Yes.”

This place should not even be called a garden, but rather it should be called a forest. Seriously, this was way too much for a garden, it was a whole ecosystem, made me wonder how much resources were given to make and maintain this place.

Trees sprouted all around the garden, tall and full grown — with some growing anew. Different kinds of delicious looking fruits hang on their branches. I almost wanted to try picking one. The ground was filled with maintained grass, so they weren’t too tall, we could definitely sit around like in a picnic.

Flowers colored every corner, vines crawled and wrapped around the trunks of trees — some even had vegetables growing out of them. The whole garden was almost filled with shades from the leaves, everything was healthy, not a trace of rot to see.

The smell was so fresh and clean that it relieves the lungs and nose of any burden. I felt so light and amazing just by inhaling the pure fragrance of nature. The cool air was so relaxing. Such a place would be called a small paradise in my old world, a tourist attraction. This was simply incomparable to the garden at the palace.

I wonder if Mother had seen this place, she would be thrilled. She might even try to replicate this.

Just how much stuff was in this place? There might be all kinds of plants here, more than I ever knew existed — well not like I knew a lot of plants in this world to begin with. But I knew a few… very few, but not the point.

“How long did it take to make this beautiful place?” I asked.

“A few years, actually. Mother was quite determined to see this through.”

“Amazing.”

Mizia grinned widely and grabbed my hand. “Let me show you around. There’s a lot to see.”

I felt a good amount of delight in my heart seeing my cousin so proud and excited like this. She was a wonderful person to be around. The person who had been taking a very good care of me ever since I was a very small girl.

I nodded, and she pulled me forward.

She dragged me first to a group of small tree plants, with what appeared to be dark green berries growing from their branches. The dozens of trees were lined up together, tiny flowers growing along with their fruits.

“Eriaple Berries.” Mizia said its name. “Typically grows in the northern mountains. It took a long time before we got our hands on its seeds.”

She plucked a few eriaple berries and offered me some. I took them, of course.

“They’re clean, so we can eat them straight.” She threw one and immediately began chewing.

Seeing that she ate it with no hesitation, I immediately put one into my mouth.

It was not a bad sensation.

I began chewing. “Geh!” My face contorted. The fruit was not sweet as I expected it would be. It was terribly sour. “What, What is this?”

“A sour fruit,” she chuckled adorably. And then she finally showed a soured expression.

She had been holding it back before I got to eat one! Sly girl!

“But the more you eat, you’ll get used to it. It’s quite delicious once you appreciate the sourness.”

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Yeah no shit. I should at least put some salt before eating it, I think it would be a nice combo.

“I’ll give you some the day it’s time for you to go back home.”

“Um, thank you.”

“It’s one of my favorites, actually. Come on, eat.” She ate one and her face formed a sour expression.

I smiled seeing how adorable she was, and I immediately ate another one. “Mmm.” Yeah, sour as heck.

I turned around to face my knight from behind me. “Rogan, here have some.”

He stared at my hand offering the fruit, surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, it’s quite nice, aside from the sourness. Try it.”

Although the sourness might have been the main appeal.

“Alright.” He received the fruit with a smile, and with no hesitation, put it into his mouth. His face contorted immediately the moment he chewed. “Wow, this is the first time I ate something so sour. But there’s something pleasant about it. Can’t exactly tell what.”

I nodded. “Right? Some fruits truly are a wonder.”

“Hmmmp,” Mizia groaned for some reason and immediately pulled me close to her.

I looked at her, she was frowning towards my knight. The latter, however, slightly tilted his head and smiled towards her.

But that seemed to only annoy Mizia. “I still have other things to show you, Estelia.”

She pulled me away, making me remove my eyes towards Rogan. Wow, there’s really some beef between them, and Rogan didn’t even do anything. Poor guy.

We stepped into a path with stone slabs going deep into the forest — uh, I mean garden. Seriously, they should consider calling this place a forest. I could hear the faint sounds of insects all around the place, on the trees, to the grasses. Still, I really liked the atmosphere I was feeling here. The nice path, the thick forest, the bundle of flowers on the sides, rays of light coming through the gaps of shades, all gave off a mystical vibe.

With this much, I expected there would be people around here taking care of things all the time.

“Are there other people here?”

“Normally there are several, but we have them removed for today.”

“Oh.”

I guess because I was visiting.

On the way, I noticed a small pond. Mizia pulled me towards it and stopped by its side. There were fishes of different colors swimming all around it, leaving small splashes on the water’s surface as they jumped. They were small and quite adorable.

“This is only one of the three ponds we have. The biggest one is at the edge of the garden.”

“Bigger fishes then?”

“Yes. But those that are only easy to take care of. If their number becomes too great, we catch a few and cook them.”

Just how much do you need to spend to maintain this place?! I mean, there’s got to be a reason that the palace hasn't made something similar to this. Well, maybe the cost alone made Mother lose interest.

I glanced at Mizia, my rich ass cousin. I’m the princess, but it almost felt like she was richer than me.

I dipped my finger into the clean but mossy water, it was cool. I just wanted to play around with the fishes for a moment, you know, scare them or something. However, as I swirled slowly, the small fishes began to gather around my finger.

I was puzzled.

I swirled my finger away, but they followed. And then, a few more began to approach my finger, touching it. They seemed awfully friendly. Fishes normally swim away from anything weird and out of place, basically humans like me.

“Huh, the fishes like you. How come?” asked Mizia.

“I don’t know…”

Fishies, I’m someone you should be scared of ~.

I could cast a little fireball and cook all of you if I wanted.

Of course they couldn’t hear my thoughts, and thus they only basically kissed my finger even more.

Mizia, curious, dipped her finger in as well. But that only served to rattle the fishes, and they all swam away, even away from my finger.

Huh.

“Aaaaw, they ran away. I thought I was being gentle.”

“... Let’s move on, Mizia.”

“Huh? Alright…”

We walked away from the pond.

What a very strange thing. Never happened with my previous interaction with fishes. I may be changing in ways I could never notice. Let’s hope that’s the limit. Don’t want to end up like Cinderella and get swarmed by animals of all kinds. Let’s keep it low-key.

We returned walking up the stone path.

“Oh yeah, we’ll be coming across the place where we’ll be having our tea party. I’ll show you.”

“Alright.”

A while later, we arrived at a clearing filled with groups of colorful brightly blooming flowers. Their sweet fragrance filled the air. Wisteria flowers crawling on the trees. I was almost blown away by the sheer beauty of the place.

At the center stood a grand and wide building of white pillars and mostly composed of transparent glass. Small trees were growing from within, along with flowers, fruits and vegetables. All of them could be seen through the wide panels of glass.

It was almost like a big greenhouse.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Mizia grinned proudly, extending her hands towards the house of glass.

I nodded, truly in awe.

She chuckled. “I designed it!”

“Woah.” My eyes widened in surprise, I did not expect she would design something of this scale. I expected that her mother hired someone to design it. “You’re incredible, Mizia.”

“Right~?” she adorably chuckled.

I was truly amazed.

“Let me show you the inside.”

She enthusiastically pulled me into the glasshouse. It was almost two stories tall, with a dome-like roof at the center. All made of glass, so I could see the blue sky and white clouds very clearly.

The pathway was flanked by flowers, vines, and small trees. The pavement was as white as ivory, thus we had to pat our shoes on the floor before stepping inside. At the center of the building was a wide open space, with a wide round table at the center, chairs placed all around it.

“We’ll be using this for our tea party tomorrow.”

I approached the table, it was made of marble.

“The ladies are quite very excited to meet you.”

“This is a calming place to have a little tea party. Thank you, Mizia.”

She softly smiled. “I was sure you would find a place like this calming. I hope it will help you tomorrow.”

My dear cousin has pondered a lot for my sake, even deciding for the tea party to take place in this quiet and relaxing place. It was heartwarming to have someone that cared for you this much. I was lucky to have a cousin this sweet and kind.

My childhood would have been so different without her.

“The ladies that I will be meeting, can you tell me about them?” I gently sat down on a fancy chair. “I want to at least know about them before meeting.”

“Of course.” Mizia sat down next to me, and she told me about the ladies that I would meet tomorrow.