MPNS Ch 16

Chapter 16

After his afternoon workout, Nikiel headed toward the royal palace library.

Paul was horrified to see him leave with his hair still damp after bathing, but when Paul left briefly to retrieve the lotus-scented oil, Nikiel fled without so much as a backward glance.

“Why do they keep dousing me in floral oils? Damn it, I’m going to attract bees.”

Splitting his training into morning and afternoon sessions, and with the fiery season about to scorch Ossinis, one could hardly avoid looking like a vagrant outside the palace walls without at least rinsing off after exercise.

Thus, Paul would insist on following Nikiel around after every bath, pestering him to apply scented oils, fix his hair, or otherwise groom himself.

But grooming had its limits — after wasting half a day bathing and applying endless treatments, Nikiel realized such upkeep drained more stamina than the training itself.

Fed up, he bolted from the prince’s wing like a grade-schooler fleeing bath time, muttering about how much he hated scrubbing.

His destination was the main palace.

‘I should read up on monsters… maybe there are even related treatises here. Then again, they don’t even have universities in this world, do they?’

He wondered where Ossinis scholars were trained. He could ask Paul, but returning to him now would only mean being caught and slathered in some special ointment — a concoction of crushed fragrant things — for an impromptu face-and-body massage.

“Look at this skin tone! What unspeakable barbarity are you committing against this jade-like complexion?!”

Paul’s outrage whenever Nikiel excused such things as a natural sign of aging was downright terrifying. In those moments, the only way to escape the nagging was to hang his head and pretend to be pitiful.

‘…You’re faking pitiful right now, aren’t you.’

He’d tried it a few times, and by now Paul saw right through him.

The nagging was like a torrential downpour — impossible to escape. So there was no way Nikiel would risk going back just to ask a question.

Resolving to inquire later, he strode down the polished marble floor.

“Your Grace!”

Someone was calling out to another nearby. Nikiel quickly ducked behind a cylindrical pillar.

He didn’t need to hide, but he found idle palace encounters intolerable — exchanging greetings, answering where he was headed, discussing the weather, and parting with polite phrases like, ‘May peace reign over your household.’

‘There are way too many people in this palace.’

Back in the cramped, chicken-coop-like apartments of modern society, he’d loved how he could go about his life without bumping into anyone. These tedious formal exchanges were unbearable.

As he hid behind the pillar, waiting for them to pass, he soon realized the person being addressed was Duke Yullan Balt.

‘Aren’t they hot in all black?’

Yullan was draped in a black cloak over a uniform of black silk — the attire of a senior officer in the royal army.

The sheen of the silk hugged his sturdy thighs; the sheer muscle mass was obvious at a glance, and Nikiel found himself quietly impressed.

His towering frame radiated intimidation even standing still — befitting the man known as the “Wolf of the North.”

His broad shoulders, draped with the cloak, sloped sharply downward; the shape suggested he had exceptionally long collarbones. Nikiel begrudged him his physical superiority — the royal army uniform suited him perfectly.

Though styled as a “duke,” his position as military governor seemed to require wearing the army uniform when entering the palace. The last time Nikiel had met him, he hadn’t been dressed this way — meaning Yullan must have just come from an audience with the king.

Nikiel, heedless of his own dignity as a royal prince, remained crouched behind the pillar, spying on them.

“Your Highness, have you met with the Forestry Bureau Chief yet? He said he had matters to consult with you regarding the monster-slaying tournament.”

“I’m on my way.”

Even translated automatically into Korean in Nikiel’s ears, Yullan’s speech still sounded strangely alien.

The archaic diction was typical of noblemen in the capital, but his tone was even stiffer — at the time, Nikiel didn’t realize it was simply the dialect of Ossinis’s northern provinces.

The Kingdom of Ossinis was called a kingdom, but it was an empire in all but name.

Divided from the eastern continent by the Serasal Strait, Ossinis ruled half the western continent outright.

There were numerous small kingdoms across the west, but the Ossinis kings had little incentive to launch conquest wars and declare imperial titles.

Already holding half the continent, further expansion risked constant rebellions.

Neighboring kingdoms, eager to avoid provoking Ossinis, styled themselves as its “junior brothers.”

Ossinis, in turn, maintained cordial relations, occasionally rattling sabers to remind everyone who was in charge — wielding imperial dominance without outright war.

In short: thug diplomacy.

Their territory was so vast that it was only natural Yullan Balt’s northern dialect differed from the capital of Rasiris.

“The Forestry Bureau Chief says the number of monsters has surged this year…”

While Nikiel pondered his speech, a straw-haired, gaunt man with a petty look on his face spoke to Yullan.

‘Who is that guy again?’

Feigning amnesia and avoiding social events meant Nikiel knew few nobles by sight. Paul had fetched portraits to help him memorize some faces, but for someone used to full-HD photographs, those paintings all looked the same.

‘Was he the Minister of the Interior?’

He remembered vaguely, because unlike most forgettable faces, this man’s ugliness was uniquely distinctive.

There were blurry-faced ugly men, and then there were ugly men like the Interior Minister — ugly in variety.

‘Hard to forget a face like that…’

Given how handsome most men in Ossinis were, Nikiel had assumed the kingdom was practically a factory for beautiful men.

Yullan and Raymond, of course, and even the king himself must have been considered dashing in his youth. Even Paul wasn’t bad-looking.

Not to mention Nikiel’s own reflection in the bronze mirrors — if he’d been born with this face in modern times, he’d be a celebrity earning billions, living in a luxury villa in Hannam-dong.1

But after seeing the portraits of high officials and great nobles, Nikiel revised his opinion — Ossinis was full of ordinary people too, with all the varied kinds of unattractiveness that entailed.

As Nikiel’s thoughts wandered, Yullan spoke again.

“So the numbers surged — and?”

Nikiel’s eyes widened. Until now, Yullan had spoken stiffly but politely. But suddenly, he responded in the curt tone one might use toward subordinates in the army.

Yullan’s face looked carved from ice with a sharp awl — his soaring nose and brow ridge framed golden eyes that revealed nothing of his thoughts.

The glint in those eyes was not human — it was the predatory gaze of a carnivore, sending chills down anyone who met it.

The Interior Minister’s face flushed red, clearly flustered by that look. His straw-colored mustache bristled as he huffed angrily, barking back at Yullan:

“Your Grace! Such insolence! Even for you, in the sacred halls of the palace, to speak thus to me — I, Digory Chepillin, Minister of the Interior of Ossinis—”

“I just wondered if your sudden pause mid-sentence meant you’d gone off to pay the Lord a brief visit — what with your age and all.”

Still speaking informally. Digory Chepillin clutched the back of his neck with a strangled groan, as though his blood pressure were spiking. Yullan, meanwhile, neither laughed nor apologized — he simply walked on.

“If you keep prying into northern affairs, we’ll think you’ve taken an interest in our problems. And then, well — the king might just send your private troops north at your request. Is that what you want?”

The unspoken words were obvious: So why are you blocking my path?

Chepillin’s face drained white. Already pale as a corpse, he now looked positively cadaverous.

Yullan’s indifferent expression didn’t change as he strode away down the opposite corridor.

Chepillin muttered ventriloquized curses under his breath, stomping his feet and even sticking a thumb skyward — another obscene gesture in Ossinis culture.

‘Right, sticking your thumb up means something like… “I’ll make your father my slave and have him clean chamber pots first,” wasn’t it?’2

Nikiel watched Chepillin mime his silent curses for a while before turning away, heading toward the main palace library.

The hallways were nearly deserted — perhaps few visited this wing of the library. Then again, it was Ossinis’s cherished afternoon snack hour.

At four o’clock sharp, people here loved to gather in small groups, chatting and eating snacks.

They claimed skipping snacks meant their children would fail to respect them later — though Nikiel suspected that was just an excuse to indulge.

Of course, he himself ate two boiled eggs at that time to replenish protein.

‘Not bulking hardcore anyway, so no reason to eat extra carbs.’

He could bulk by eating sweets, sure, but Nikiel’s main goal was health — so spiking his blood sugar with excess carbohydrates was out.

Especially since his overflowing holy power sometimes still made him cough up blood; iron intake was far more important than sugar.

‘Guess they don’t eat beef liver here. Well, this is practically the Middle Ages — parasite risk is high…’

Lost in thought, he reached the library doors. There were no guards posted outside.

‘Are the librarians stationed inside? Why isn’t there a single ant out here?’

Finding it strange, he nonetheless reached for the heavy doors. They were thrice his height, made of oak, and extremely weighty.

Not easily opened — but thanks to his recent strength training, he felt he could manage it. He braced himself to pull again.

Bang! A large palm slammed the doors shut.

Nikiel’s surprise quickly morphed into irritation as he looked for the owner of that hand.

notes

1. Hannam-dong — A wealthy district in Seoul known for housing celebrities and high-end villas.
2. In Ossinis culture, a thumbs-up gesture is an insult roughly equivalent to saying “I’ll enslave your father” — the opposite of its positive meaning in modern cultures.