章節 172: Late lunch with Navi (2)
"Can we?"
Cassidy gives me the puppy eyes causing me to chuckle a bit. There's no reason for me to say no.
"Sure, let's go take a look."
"Yay!"
Quinn doesn't react quite as ecstatic as Cassidy. She seems to miss Libra a great deal already.
"Guy, you know where my house is, right? You and the girls can make your way over there slowly. I need to hurry and begin preparations. We are having dumplings! I started preparing some this morning."
Navi runs off into a direction I'm certain there is no exit in. Where she's going now is the opposite way in which she should be going.
<I can't lead you to my house and then explain why there's another me already there! And swapping places would only waste time. I'll do my work here and my other body will take care of you guys over there. No one will notice anyway.>
Since I want to make it believable for the girls I purposely take my time leading them over. This way it will seem like she had some time to get things ready.
We arrive at the overblown ocean of flora. Calling this a garden is honestly an understatement. The sheer variety of flowers growing all over the place makes my head spin. I can recognize some roses and gladioles but that's about it.
There are even some trees with flowers growing only in their shade. Those flowers even seem to be bending their stalks to move along with the tree's shadow. A bit further is a pond with what I presume are some kind of lotuses and water lilies.
The space Navi's garden occupies looks to be as much as ten times the size of the land we now own.
Swaths of butterflies in all colors of the rainbow dance above the garden. Together they form a wild spectacle of interchanging colors that constantly change. Despite the chaos of their actions, there is a certain beauty to it. It's as if those chaotic and uncoordinated movements aren't quite as random as they seem...
Surely it's just my imagination.
<...>
We walk towards the house nearly hidden in the enormous expanse of the garden. We are on a narrow gravel path that appears to be the only traversable path leading through the lush vegetation. Curiously, no plants or butterflies can be seen on or above this path. Probably Navi's doing.
As we reach the house, we are met with an elegantly carved redwood door. The carvings depict small humanoid beings with large butterfly wings on their backs. They sit on flowers holding jars nearly half their own size filled with an unrecognizable liquid.
While I am still absorbed in looking over the details of the intricate carvings, the door is opened from the inside and Navi steps out already wearing an apron.
"Do you like the carvings? These are flower fairies. A very rare and sought-after subspecies of the fairies. It is said that the honey they produce is to die for."
"They produce honey like bees?"
"No, they live together with bees and harvest the honey they produce. However, at some point during the time they spend together, the flower fairies cause an inexplicable change in the bees causing the resulting honey to be vastly superior."
"They make the bees evolve?"
"It's more of an enhancement effect. Some adventurers captured the bees living with some flower fairies and switched them out for new ones. The resulting honey was ordinary at best and they discovered that the bees they had left behind were now the ones producing that great honey."
Quinn frowns deeply and suddenly interjects into the conversation Navi and I were having.
"I assume that the next action of those adventurers was to kidnap the flower fairies along with the bees they lived in harmony with. If they can't take the bees away from the flower fairies they'll just take the flower fairies too."
Navi answers in a somewhat solemn manner.
"You are right. As soon as their last plan failed, the adventurers began to capture the flower fairies along with the bees."
"Did it work?"
I am a bit scared to ask since Navi doesn't seem quite as unaffected by the topic as she pretends to be. I don't want to open any old wounds back up.
"Naturally they failed. Flower fairies can only prosper in nature where they are free to do whatever they want. The ones that were captured quickly became listless and the effect they had on the bees once again disappeared. Soon after they mysteriously died alongside the entire colony of bees. The adventurers received next to nothing. The small amount of honey wasn't enough for them to turn a profit."
"Serves them right!"
Cassidy snorts but from the way she looks at the carved jars she's probably more incensed about the honey being lost rather than the humans kidnapping monsters.
"Let's not dwell on this unfortunate topic. It's a beautifully carved door and it perfectly fulfills its job of pleasing the eye of all the guests I have. Come inside."
We enter the house and I have to admit I am a bit disappointed. I was expecting a full-blown fairy-themed mansion with every detail one could think of. Instead, I see a rather ordinary interior with only a few flowers in pots here and there to break the conventional decoration trend.
<I believe I did tell you that Valeria is the only one among us who regularly uses her house and made the effort to fully decorate it to her liking. I myself spend the most time in the garden. I had the house furnished and made sure that it was kept in pristine condition at all times but that is about it.>
Navi leads us to a dining room and we sit down while she trots over to the adjacent open kitchen.
The dumplings are already prepared and from the looks of it, she has way more than we could ever eat. Navi then begins to place a few dumplings into her bamboo steamer.
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