MPNS Ch 63

Chapter 63

If he starved any longer, muscle loss would be unavoidable.

The ingredients that had floated so casually into the cauldron now produced, when spooned to the lips, a flavor far from careless. The seasoning was a touch too strong, perhaps from the long simmer while they had danced—but aside from that, the broth carried rich savor and velvet textures. Even the occasional bite of sausage gave Nikiel small pleasures.

He ate leisurely, gaze roving slowly about the chamber. To leave him alone here surely meant permission to explore.

Abandoning his usual habit of slow meals for digestion, his eyes darted greedily around, rolling from spot to spot. After finishing, pushing aside his plate, he began a tour of Lucien’s laboratory.

“Let’s see… anything fun hidden here?”

He refrained from rummaging among experiment notes, settling for the bookshelves. What exactly was Lucien studying? What authors did he reference?

“Oh, this could be interesting.”

Foundations of alchemy coincided with the chemistry lectures Nikiel once attended at university. Primitive by modern eyes, yes, but structure enough to count as “chemistry.”

Delighted, he got lost in scanning volumes, until a stretch snapped him back. Then—thunk—something fell from Lucien’s desk. He must have brushed it with his arm.

“…What’s this?”

Notes perhaps. He thought to leave it—someone else’s work—but his mind instinctively absorbed the information. His memory was not prodigious, but a blank slate was easy to write upon. Once he grasped an idea, he could retain it.

Thus, from a few words, he instantly identified:

“This is… the blast furnace method.”

Lucien’s notes—scribbled but precise—showed he was attempting to develop the blast furnace in this world. Still unfinished.

On Earth, iron smelted with ore, coke, limestone in a furnace transformed civilization. Here in Ossinis, such an advance was yet unseen. Their weapons were still bronze.

“Their civilization advanced in other areas, yet still Bronze Age metallurgy? They simply don’t know the method…?”

Murmuring, Nikiel flipped through the research. Experiments nudged close, attempts to surpass copper. Signs of transition to iron.

“In ancient forges, they used charcoal. The carbon mixed in crude smelt, inferior to steel but above bronze.”

He whispered equations, remembering chemistry class—reduction reactions of hematite and magnetite. He even borrowed Lucien’s quill, scrawling notes amid the papers: crude formulas to suggest how purer iron might be drawn.

“There. At least I earned my meal.”

He glanced to a wall clock driven by magic stones. Already time for upper‑body training.

“By now even Raymon must have gone home.”

He shrugged and exited the lab, unaware he had just given Ossinis the formula to leap millennia ahead in metallurgy.

The piercing cry earlier—indeed it had been a messenger bird.

Yullan had somehow trained the hatchling, now circling the skies as a carrier pigeon of sorts. Even Lucien found it unnerving.

So, the griffon chick runs messages swiftly to Nikiel’s “miracle,” does it?

Lucien shaded his eyes, staring at the winged dot overhead. Snake and bird, enemies in nature—but no loyalty stood here.

Jikari, he realized, had sought to monopolize Nikiel. That bird shrank its great bulk to perch as small as a sparrow—forever stuffed in the prince’s arms.

Lucien recalled how Jikari had once confided in him: Nikiel had changed. And indeed that was true—but in truth Jikari had schemed to claim him alone.

Lucien could hardly blame him. He felt the same.

When delicate fingers like carved quartz had rested heavy on his shoulder, cheeks flushed, breath nervous before the waltz—Lucien had wanted to steal Nikiel away entirely. It was the first time he’d known such an impulse.

Unaware of his mind’s black currents, Nikiel had apologized shyly for stepping on his foot. Lucien had only smiled as if gentle, seizing the excuse for closeness. The vast impulse demanded taming; he would control it, master it.

Approach any closer, though…

“You looked nervous, didn’t you.”

Pink cheeked, blue eyes blinking, Nikiel had stumbled into step behind his lead. That sight aroused base male instinct in Lucien he had never known existed.

And as he sank into thoughts of him, Raymon’s dull baritone broke in sourly:

“What are you thinking, to look so ill‑tempered today?”

The intrusion repelled him. Lucien, normally courteous even to birds, fell entirely silent, narrow eyes giving only scorn.

Raymon fumed. He had only spoken because Lucien had been oddly lighthearted, and now he looked dismissive. Snake bastard.

They were walking to the training halls beside the ministries—Yullan’s summons, issued not at his own yard but at the Guard Captain’s office as if it belonged to him.

Raymon, after silence, asked idly:

“Why is the bird in such good health lately? In this season it always protests, longing to migrate south.”

Every year, before winter, Jikari moaned about flying south, clashing endlessly with Yullan, shirking the autumn Monster Hunts. Yullan dismissed it as nonsense—2000 elite troops gone for one bird? Unthinkable.

Usually in high summer, it collapsed into depression, avoiding even him. Yet today it soared loudly, summoning the Lords to council.

“Could it have eaten bad grain? Poison?”

“Falcons don’t eat seed.” Lucien’s answer dripped disdain.

Raymon’s words were idle, but his intent firm. He recalled seeing Nikiel once, reeking of serpent pheromones. Rage had boiled inexplicably in him. He had barked harsh words, seen Nikiel’s ice‑blue gaze turn cold.

That look… that was my taste. His hardened stare had lit a fire in Raymon’s gut, as if drinking strong liquor. He had apologized smoothly afterward—but inside, plotting darker things.

Has the snake already had him?

The thought squeezed his insides till they hurt. He wanted to flay the serpent, cage Nikiel in Boltwick’s manor. But cage him for what? He didn’t know.

Such contradictions he shoved aside, asking casually again:

“You’ve been meeting often with the Lily faction?”

“……”

Lucien gave only silence. But the sudden air of his pheromones betrayed irritation, tinged with aggression.

Raymon frowned. What question provokes him so?

His curiosity grew. Why had Lucien begun to smear his scent on Nikiel like an animal marking territory?

“You’re returning just now from seeing him, aren’t you? I can faintly catch his fragrance on you.”

“Watch your tongue.”

Raymon narrowed his eyes. Normally Lucien ignored others—but his sharp response proved truth.

So there was something. The slut again…

Raymon did not finish the thought, but in his gut he still mouthed the insult.

Note

• Blast furnace (고로법): Basic steel‑making with iron ore, coke, limestone. Nikiel accidentally advances Ossinis’s metallurgy by leaving modern equations.