Chapter 773: The Gardener (3)
As the door opened, an unusual yet familiar scene unfolded.
A void without a floor, walls, or ceiling.
In the middle of that space, a lone table and two sofas sat.
On one of those sofas was a man, his face obscured in shadow.
The man, without looking at Oliver, asked if he had arrived. Oliver also greeted him, saying it had been a long time.
Without hesitation, Oliver walked over and sat on the empty sofa across from him.
Plop.
“Ah, it’s so soft. Really nice.”
Oliver sprawled out on the sofa, letting out a weary sigh.
He had walked and walked for an exhausting length of time.
Creak, creak. Snap...
Oliver stretched out on the sofa, loosening his stiffened body, and in the hollow space, the sounds of his joints cracking and his tired muscles tightening and releasing echoed back and forth.
As he was stretching, Oliver glanced at the man across from him from time to time, noting that the man was subtly avoiding looking at his face.
Well, with his face shrouded in shadow, it wasn’t easy to tell for sure.
"Not that it really matters."
While releasing the fatigue from his body and observing the man, the man finally spoke.
“So, in the end, you—”
“Hey, that’s rather cold, don’t you think?”
Just as the man’s voice was about to resonate, Oliver interrupted him, sinking back into the sofa with a voice that sounded relaxed and almost childlike, almost as if he were whining.
The man, surprised at Oliver’s uncharacteristic behavior, tilted his head in confusion.
Seeing this, Oliver pointed to the empty table.
“Back then, before I even asked, you’d prepare warm milk and a mountain of chocolate cookies for me, but now there’s nothing? I feel a bit let down.”
“Didn’t you say you’d lost your appetite?”
“Now, when was that? Back then was back then, and now is now. I’m at an age where I’m constantly hungry.”
Oliver grumbled with an awkward attempt at humor, and the man, with a snap of his fingers, summoned a mug of warm milk and a towering stack of chocolate cookies onto the table.
“Thank you.”
Oliver picked up a cookie and immediately bit into it.
A rich, smooth chocolate flavor spread through his mouth, the sweetness striking his brain directly.
Even after all this time, it was a taste he couldn’t get enough of.
Eager to savor it again, Oliver picked up another cookie and placed it in his mouth. Occasionally, he dipped it in milk, sometimes eating multiple cookies at once before washing it down with a gulp of milk.
“Mmm, ahh.”
When Oliver shook his now-empty mug, it refilled with milk immediately.
Oliver continued drinking the milk and munching on chocolate cookies. Before he realized it, the pile of cookies had nearly disappeared.
“Delicious, as expected. May I have some more?”
Snap!
The man promptly snapped his fingers again, summoning a fresh stack of chocolate cookies.
Still apparently hungry, Oliver happily took another bite of a cookie.
“You must have been really hungry?”
“Walking around does that to you.”
“It must have been a long journey.”
The man nodded, his voice carrying emotions of sympathy, compassion, and perhaps even guilt.
Hearing that tone, Oliver looked at him again.
Though his face remained obscured by shadows, his form had a faint outline that hadn’t been there before.
In the past, he had been almost an enigma—emaciated yet somehow portly, his attire both shabby and fine, a confusing blend that only made his identity all the more puzzling. But now, a clearer shape was emerging, however gradually.
The man asked once more.
“Was it difficult for you?”
“Boring.”
“What?”
“I said it was boring. On my way here, that’s all anyone ever said to me—‘It’ll be a long journey,’ ‘It’ll be difficult,’ ‘It’s far away’... Always ‘long,’ ‘difficult,’ ‘far.’ Hearing it again here is hardly interesting. I find it a bit disappointing.”
Oliver pouted, pretending to be upset.
“Coming all this way to meet you from afar, and you don’t even greet me warmly or tell me an interesting story? Considering my efforts, couldn’t you at least share a good tale?”
“I don’t know any amusing stories.”
“Well, it does seem that way. Asking someone who sits alone in such a dreary place is probably asking too much.”
“…”
“Oh? You were just about to get angry, weren’t you? Don’t be, though. It’ll hurt my feelings.”
The man sighed.
“What would it take to make sure you’re not disappointed?”
Oliver shrugged.
“Well, how about telling me some stories from your past?”
“My past?”
“Yes. Come to think of it, you know so much about me, but I don’t know much about you.”
“Don’t you already know enough about me? That I’m a Gardener who, in exhaustion, does nothing... All I do now is keep the position and await the next—”
“No, no. I’m not asking about you as the Gardener, but you as a person. Those are two different things.”
“...Why would you want to know about that?”
“Is it wrong for me to be curious?”
“…”
The man fell silent in response to Oliver’s question.
He had been silent before, but this silence felt different somehow.
It wasn’t the kind of silence that came from withholding an answer; it was more as though he was caught off guard, unable to find the words.
Oliver sensed this intuitively and shrugged again.
“Of course, if you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to. I won’t force you—”
“—I was once called the Brightest Son, long, long ago.”
The man interrupted Oliver, speaking as if starting a tale from another age.
“It was when I stood at the right hand of the Exalted One. He asked me if I would manage his garden below on his behalf.”
“It sounds like you could have refused.”
“You heard correctly. I had the right to say no. The Exalted One gave me that freedom. He offers choices, never forcing.”
“Then why didn’t you refuse?”
“…”
“Why did you choose the thorny path of becoming the Gardener when you had an easier option?”
“…”
The man fell silent again, and a deep silence settled in.
When the silence felt as if it might never end, the man finally spoke.
“It just felt that way.”
A vague, ambiguous answer, yet it broke the silence.
Oliver asked what exactly felt that way.
“In the past... The Exalted One once swept the humans away with water. They had grown depraved, sullied the world with their countless sins, so he washed them clean. I saw it all from his side.”
The man lifted a finger.
“Don’t misunderstand. I didn’t feel pity for them. Humans had fallen, defiling the gifts given by the Exalted One, so they deserved punishment… Does that seem harsh?”
“Well, I don’t think that’s something I’m in a position to judge.”
For the first time, the man looked directly at Oliver, as if weighing whether his words were genuine.
“After sweeping them away with water, the Exalted One rebuilt the human world from the few who survived. Time passed.”
“Then, they must have fallen again. Humans do that.”
“...Yes.”
The man’s reply was barely audible, but it carried more weight than any lengthy discourse could have.
“That’s when he asked me if I’d manage his garden… Initially, I intended to decline. I didn’t particularly like humans.”
“Yet, you took on the task anyway.”
“It felt… a bit much. Watching that scene, I mean.”
“…”
“Compared to then, it seemed there might still be some room for improvement. So I...”
“Took on the burden of the Gardener.”
Oliver hit the mark, and the man nodded slowly.
“Are you disappointed? That I took on such a role for such a reason?”
Oliver shook his head.
“No, I actually think it’s quite admirable.”
“…”
“You bore that enormous burden, even without some grand reason like loving humanity, didn’t you?”
“...Not anymore.”
“Oh, let’s save such grim thoughts for later. Instead, what did you do after you decided to manage the garden? I’m excited to hear more.”
Seeing Oliver’s childlike excitement, the man started to speak again, taking a sip from the mug of warm milk—the first time he’d done so while speaking with Oliver.
“I left the Exalted One’s side, where I had stood all my life, and came down here. The seventy-two lords ruling this place tested me in their own ways.”
“The Exalted One’s messenger was tested?”
“It was his suggestion, not an order, and the seventy-two lords were given the right to resist as well.”
“Ah... Did you subdue them?”
“Yes.”
“Impressive.”
“Nothing impressive. You did something similar.”
“Then let’s say I’m impressive too.”
The man paused, silenced once again, as Oliver looked at him with a playful grin.
“Believe it or not, I enjoy being praised. Go on, praise me.”
“...Yes, well done.”
“Thank you. So, after gaining the acknowledgment of the seventy-two lords, what did you do?”
“I established new rules between the human world and this place, ensuring they couldn’t interfere with each other. Sometimes, I would ascend to the human world to share his teachings and warnings. I even granted powers like holy magic and dark magic. I thought if they had strength, they might respect each other... It didn’t work out, though.”
“We can’t know that. It’s not over yet.”
Oliver disagreed.
The world hadn’t ended yet, so it was too soon to say his efforts had failed or succeeded.
“Then, let’s go with your view.”
“Yes, I’m sure of it. Could you keep telling me your story?”
“There isn’t much more to tell. Everything after that has been a repetition of the same story.”
The man’s shadowed face seemed to darken with fatigue.
“I managed the garden as best I could, then returned here to watch over it. When problems arose, I went back up to tend to it, endlessly repeating this.”
It might have sounded trivial, but that last part felt heavy.
Endlessly repeating.
One day, two days, three days...
One year, two years, three years...
One hundred years, two hundred years, three hundred years…
An endless timeline, enough to make the journey Oliver had taken feel like nothing.
Thousands, tens of thousands of years... To be endless was to have no end.
Anything without an end might very well be a kind of hell.
And the one who had lived in that hell spoke.
“I watched as aphids infested flowers, green leaves dried up and turned brown, branches extended wildly, greedily casting shadows, insects devoured fruit, and pests and vermin overran the garden.”
“I’m listening.”
“Initially, I tolerated it and tidied up. I couldn’t make it perfect, but I did what I could. Yet it didn’t take long for the garden to return to chaos.”
“I’m listening.”
“I repeated my work, only for the garden to fall back into disorder—sometimes worse than before. Over an endless span, I kept doing it, until finally, I thought... ‘Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to sweep it all away, with water or fire.’”
“But you didn’t do it, did you?”
Oliver pointed out the flaw in that line of thinking.
Had he done so, their conversation wouldn’t be happening now.
The man admitted it.
“It felt a bit wrong to destroy something I’d touched myself.”
The man avoided Oliver’s face again, clutching the armrest of the sofa.
“...So I asked the Exalted One to release me from my duty.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I couldn’t leave just like that. That the moment I accepted, it became my burden... But even then, I said I couldn’t continue. I was too weary. Then he told me how I could free myself from this duty.”
“What was that?”
The man looked at Oliver once more. Though his face was still hidden in shadow, he somehow seemed sad.
“To create a new Gardener to take my place, entrusting him with every choice.”