Although Floyd knew Arsen wasn’t the type to joke around, he thought he was joking. But there wasn’t a trace of a smile on Arsen’s handsome face.

“The wolf was about this big when I brought it.”

Arsen made a gesture with his hands showing about the length of a forearm.

“But even after a month, it’s still about this size.”

“…So?”

“It’s not growing, the wolf.”

“And?”

“What do you mean ‘and’? My lord, this is a big problem. That wolf must be sick. I need to bring it back immediately.”

“If the wolf is sick, why do you need to take it?”

“Because I’m an expert.”

Arsen’s reddish-brown eyes staring straight at Floyd were still serious.

“You, you just want to raise it yourself, don’t you?”

“My lord, I don’t act on such selfish motives.”

“Right now, it seems like you’re acting quite selfishly.”

“Animals grow visibly fast when they’re young. You can feel how much they’ve grown in just a week. But that wolf…”

“Enough.”

“My lord.”

“That wolf is under the princess’s care. If you want to take it and examine it, go ask the princess.”

Arsen closed his mouth. Seeing how tightly his lips were drawn, it seemed he absolutely hated the idea of going to ask Roxiana.

Floyd knew that Arsen had not a shred of flexibility, so he didn’t reproach him for his attitude towards Roxiana, who was branded a slave.

“Don’t think about asking me. I’m too busy to clean up after someone who can’t even lower their head to others like a child.”

“My lord, you’re going too far.”

“I know.”

Floyd patted Arsen’s shoulder and left the place. Arsen stood there blankly for a while after that, staring at the arch leading to the Lily Palace before turning away.

+++

It was two days after their first conversation that Eledrun invited Roxiana to her mansion.

The Earl Hills’ mansion was close to the Grand Duke’s Palace, and being upstream of the river, Roxiana thought that perhaps the Earl Hills’ garden might have been damaged before the Grand Duke’s Palace.

Eledrun, who had taken a day off today, welcomed Roxiana’s visit with open arms.

The Earl Hills’ mansion wasn’t extremely luxurious, but it had a modest and elegant charm. It looked like a house built in the countryside where the fields are more beautiful than the city.

“I’d like to see the garden first.”

Roxiana said to Eledrun, who was about to guide her to the reception room. Eledrun, who was already troubled about the garden, didn’t even pretend to refuse out of courtesy and took Roxiana to the garden.

Even before reaching the garden spread out behind the building, they could smell the pungent odor. The moment they arrived at the garden, Roxiana let out a mournful groan.

“Ah…”

Eledrun said with a bitter smile.

“It’s much worse than you thought, isn’t it?”

It really was.

The Lily Palace only had polluted water, so there was no visible damage, but Eledrun’s garden was so devastating that anyone would say it had been ravaged by demons.

Trees blackened and withered, grass wilted, black and muddy soil, and a stench like rotting corpses.

“I was foolish enough to draw water from the well and water them diligently. Not knowing the well water was contaminated, I kept watering and spraying nutrients as these children were wilting.”

Eledrun said in a voice mixed with a sigh.

“Usually, I don’t just water them when they look weak, but at that time, I was sprinkling water as if possessed by something. If only I hadn’t watered them so much, it wouldn’t have come to this… It’s all my fault.”

Roxiana lost some confidence seeing the scene that was much worse than she had imagined.

‘Can I fix this?’

There was no sense of life in this garden. A land of death that didn’t seem like it would recover even after several years, let alone 3 or 4 years.

‘No, I have to. I must do it.’

Roxiana had nothing. She had lost her country and family, and with the slave brand, she had fallen to the lowest class in this continent.

But what about those who had driven her to this state?

They sat in a place so high that Roxiana could never reach no matter how far she stretched her hand. Making them pay the proper price would be much more difficult than reviving this garden.

So if she couldn’t even do this.

‘I won’t be able to do anything. So I must do it.’

Roxiana asked Eledrun to leave the place.

“Something a bit strange might happen. But don’t come out to the garden until I call you.”

Eledrun, though anxious, couldn’t let go of the last straw and followed Roxiana’s instructions.

Left alone in the garden, Roxiana closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

‘Everyone, it’s time to help me.’

A murmuring sound could be heard from very far away. The wind gently brushed Roxiana’s hair.

−It’s hard for us to stay here. It’s a very painful place.

‘I know. But you have to help me.’

−Roti.

‘Everyone is dead. I’ve lost everything. If even you, the only ones I have left, won’t be my strength, what reason do I have to live? If I can’t revive this land, I’ll swallow the soil here and die.’

The threat was close to a gamble.

She was curious to see how far the spirits would tolerate her rudeness. The spirits stirred but didn’t get angry at Roxiana.

−The gnomes who lived in this land have gone far away. Even the naiads don’t want to pass through here.

Roxiana vaguely guessed that gnomes were earth spirits and naiads were water spirits.

‘They left out of fear? Are spirits weaker than demons?’

−Weaker, that’s not it.

−We just don’t want to encounter demons.

−We’re not afraid.

The sylphs, who seemed to be wind spirits, cried out in quick voices as if their pride was hurt. Roxiana felt almost instinctively how to handle them.

Wind settled on her outstretched hand. The sylphs were irresistibly drawn to the sweet life force flowing from Roxiana’s body.

‘Sylph, bring the gnomes and naiads.’

Roxiana threw the wind gathered in her hand beyond the garden fence as if throwing a ball. Among the south-blowing winds, only the wind Roxiana had stirred moved northward.

‘Because I need to restore this land!’

+++

The gnomes and naiads brought by the sylph were drawn to Roxiana’s power.

Originally, there were various ways for spirit mages to handle spirits.

Gaining the favor of high-ranking spirits to make contracts, forcibly trapping them in magical tools to subdue and use when needed, or paying with what they had to borrow the spirits’ power.

But the power Roxiana used was different from any of these.

The spirits felt sorry for the few remaining spirit mages, and Roxiana’s mother, Angelia, was born with a strong affinity among them. Roxiana was the child saved by Angelia’s desperate prayers and pleas.

Roxiana, who strongly inherited her mother’s power. Roxiana, who was saved from death by the spirits’ affection.

The spirits were enchanted by her without any price, as they regarded her as their own child, their sibling.

The spirits don’t know, but they were beings born to love the life of this land in the first place. Although humans first betrayed and oppressed the spirits, making them hate humans, they couldn’t erase the affection that arose towards humans who could communicate with them.

That affection settled on Roxiana, purifying the land contaminated by demonic energy. The blessings of gnomes and naiads descended on the dead, muddy soil, gradually driving out the demonic energy.

The dark soil slowly regained its color, and a few seeds that were still alive in it exerted their vitality. In the soil that had been full of nothing but death, a small existence of light green life revealed itself.

And Roxiana collapsed.

“Huff. Huff.”

No matter how much the spirits didn’t want anything in return, using their power consumed physical strength. It took considerable concentration and strength to attune to their power while leading it to move as she wanted.

She was out of breath as if she had run several hundred meters without rest. Her heart was pounding as if it would burst.

Roxiana looked around the garden, taking rough breaths.

The already dead trees and flowers didn’t grow back, but the soil had visibly become fertile. A few seeds that had somehow not been contaminated by demonic energy had grown and revealed sprouts above the soil.

−That’s as far as it goes. It’s dangerous if you do more.

As Roxiana reached out to do it one more time, a low, thick voice rang in her ear. She thought it was probably the voice of a gnome.

−”The earth spirits are very taciturn. I hear even their king is extremely reticent.”

She recalled something her mother had once told her. At that time, her mother was combing Roxiana’s hair in front of the fireplace, whispering in a small voice what she knew about spirits.

‘If I do it just one more time…’

−That’s enough now. Stop trying to forcibly pull. Your soul will be in tatters.

The gnome left those words and disappeared. Though invisible, she could feel that it had disappeared. The naiads and sylphs also quieted down as if they had finished their job.

Left alone in the silent garden, Roxiana, still sitting on the ground, pondered the gnome’s words.

‘My soul will be in tatters?’

She remembered that when she was treating patients affected by contamination in the treatment room, she had forcibly accepted Undine into her body. At that time, Undine had also said that this method wouldn’t work.

‘So what?’

Roxiana looked down at her own hands, trembling from the lack of energy due to using her power.

She didn’t care about her soul.

If she could only reach them using this power, and if she could only inflict the appropriate punishment on them, she didn’t care if this soul was chipped away and broken.