MPNS Ch 31

Chapter 31

“Your Grace!”

In the distance, Allewynn, the Vice Commander of the Black Thorn Knights, came running toward Yullan, calling out to him.

He faltered slightly upon seeing Yullan standing with Nikiel, but then quickened his pace again to close the distance between them.

When Yullan looked at him in silence, as if asking what the matter was, Allewynn stammered for a moment before throwing a salute toward Nikiel.

Nikiel, wearing a detached expression, merely replied with a curt, “That’s fine,” declining the formality.

Relieved — as though shaved of ten years of life from having to waste time on court etiquette when he was already pressed for time — Allewynn turned back to Yullan and said,

“His Majesty is seeking Your Grace… you must come at once.”

One of Yullan’s brows lifted, his expression wordlessly saying, Of course there’s something else.

Nikiel seized the opportunity to slip away.

“If my father is calling you, then you had best go. As for me… yes, what was your name again? Allerii? You can escort me back to the Prince’s Palace.”

“…Pardon?”

Allewynn’s expression froze — torn between correcting the prince that his name was not some silly “Allerii” and refusing the request to escort him. He couldn’t prioritize either.

But Nikiel was quicker. Laughing awkwardly — “Ha-ha” — he clapped Allewynn on the back.

“We’ll meet again, Your Grace. Let’s go, Ollarii-yo.”

Somehow, in an instant, Allewynn’s name had devolved from Allerii into Ollarii-yo.

Flustered, the knight looked toward Yullan.

Yullan narrowed one eye at Nikiel for a moment, then gave Allewynn a faint nod.

With the commander of the Black Thorn Knights and his superior giving explicit permission, Allewynn could hardly refuse. Still wearing a dissatisfied expression, he bowed politely toward Nikiel and turned toward the Prince’s Palace.

Yullan watched their backs for a moment before he, too, turned toward the main palace. Clearly, the king was rattled by the news of a monster’s appearance.

The western forest of the royal palace had been the site of the incident, and yet he had not gone there himself — being held, by royal command, to guard the palace.

What, exactly, was the Royal Guard doing if the king tasked the visiting Black Thorn Knights — who were only in the capital for the monster-subjugation tournament — with protecting him instead?

The very thought of paying useless men a salary from the citizens’ taxes was enough to irritate him.

Sure enough, the elusive Royal Guards were gathered outside the king’s private chambers.

When Yullan arrived before the doors, Baron Hoffman, the Captain of the Guard, clicked his tongue — a boorish display — and said,

“His Majesty has been most urgently seeking you. Unless it’s something exceptionally pressing, perhaps you could stay to help guard the royal apartments, as his Majesty requested…”

“That’s the Royal Guard’s job. His Majesty doesn’t leave these chambers, which are layered in holy wards — nothing could possibly happen to him. If I took your measure of effort into account, no magical beast alive could breach these apartments.”

Yullan spoke with a casual, disinterested expression, never once glancing at the captain.

The captain felt insulted but could do nothing about it. Between them gaped a gulf of strength like that between an elephant and a roe deer.

Ordinary men could never expect this northern monster to understand their innate fear of magical beasts.

Suppressing the urge to click his tongue, the captain instead stepped aside to let him pass. Without so much as a glance in his direction, the arrogant Grand Duke of the North walked past him into the royal apartments, the door held open by a waiting attendant.

“Your Grace…!”

“……”

As expected — the king’s face was a mask of genuine terror. His pallor was ghostly white, with darkened shadows pooled beneath his eyes, as though he feared that at any moment, a beast’s talon would shatter the window of his chambers and seize him away.

Yullan, looking at that fear-soaked face, felt an odd sense of déjà vu.

…Hadn’t that courtesan worn the same look whenever the subject of magical beasts arose?

No effort of memory was required — Nikiel’s terror of monsters was infamous.

“The birth of an intelligent lifeform…”

And yet, just before, Nikiel had spoken those words with a composed bearing. The careful clarity of his enunciation had struck Yullan’s ears even from the short distance between them — hardly a coincidence, for Yullan had been aware of his presence on the main palace avenue from the moment the prince set foot there.

‘He’s roaming quite boldly.’

It irked Yullan to see him wandering about in such chaos, rather than staying shut inside the Prince’s Palace. If anything happened, it would be Yullan’s problem to protect him — not a welcome thought.

Already, it was galling enough to sit uselessly guarding this pitiful main palace instead of investigating where the monster had appeared. He thought the father and son both pathetic.

Come to think of it, Ossinis royals tended to be like that — oblivious to their station and even more so to their circumstances. Crown Prince Raphael was the same.

Even now, while on a diplomatic mission to a southern coastal kingdom, the crown prince never missed an opportunity to draw his sword in petty jealousy toward Yullan.

If anything, it was as vexing and trivial as the whine of a mosquito.

With all three of them so hopeless, what more irritation could Yullan suffer in fulfilling the oath his family had sworn to defend the realm?

His plan had been to pick one of his knights at random and order them to drop Nikiel off at the Prince’s Palace.

But that was when Nikiel had spoken — with clearer diction than before.

And when Yullan asked what he meant, Nikiel’s answer had been strikingly different, too.

“Hm? I’m not sure what you mean. If I don’t return before dinner, Paul will start nagging. I’d best be on my way.”

The acting had been poor, but there was a newfound confidence in him.

Until then, Nikiel had been like a hothouse gigolo doll, wan and hollow-cheeked. Though beautiful, he had carried the unhealthy allure of overripe fruit — the kind whose sweetest scent comes just before it rots. Such a beauty drew only flies.

For a man who spent a year steeped in drugs, stumbling about, there had been beauty, yes — but it stopped at that.

Yet lately…

‘He didn’t even try to hide his irritation.’

There had been a sleek elegance to the furrow in his brow. Even in displeasure, he had looked startlingly healthy — like the lushness of earth proclaiming life.

Before, Nikiel’s beauty had seemed aimed at the most shadowed corners of the human soul, coaxing forth base desires. Recently, he was more like a natural landscape so radiant that all who saw it would marvel.

It was the kind of beauty that stirred in people the pure awe of beholding nature’s grandeur before their very eyes.

Ivory skin, a faint rose blush like the petals of a flower, eyes fresh and flowing like water, hair the bright platinum of sunlight over honey.

And that slight furrow of the brow — as if to say I am still human, still have my humanity — heightened the contrast in a way that pricked at something deep inside.

When he’d done that in front of Yullan, even passing royal attendants and junior officials of the inner court had flushed and stared at him — men and women alike.

‘…Are you always this discourteous, Your Grace?’

And the pronunciation… Yullan, as a Swordmaster, could wield his sword-ki with enough control to shape wind itself, even raising a light tempest.

Because of that, he was highly sensitive to the sounds carried by air — and he knew Nikiel’s speech patterns, or so he thought.

Until now, Nikiel’s enunciation had always been lazy, his words trailing and fraying at the ends, rendering them untidy to the ear. But now… he spoke like a light rain tapping at a window on a calm day.

Not a downpour, not a sudden squall — just quiet drops, ending so softly one might doubt it had rained at all, the way a brief sunshower might pass in midday.

It clicked in measured beats that made one want to press his lips open and coax more words from him.

Yullan found it strange that he was thinking such things.

These days, Nikiel was suspicious. The rumors said he had lost his memory — and the people of the kingdom believed only those who had faced a demon could fall to amnesia.

But could there be, among the platinum-haired, blue-eyed Ossinis line, any who could meet a demon and lose their memory?

They were born with holy power so vast that not even an army of tens of thousands of demons could hope to make them forget what they’d eaten the night before.

And yet, “memory loss”? Yullan had first suspected a weakening of Nikiel’s divine power — as had Count Pollack once whispered to Raymon.

Indeed, when Nikiel had once stumbled and fallen into Yullan’s grasp, he had felt… nothing. Well — perhaps a certain cozy, settled feeling, but nothing more.

Still, it was hard to conclude there was no holy power present, for there was now a natural, gentle aura surrounding him — something absent before.

If that was a sign of holy power? Then it was nothing like the myrrh-stink of the Pontiff, nor the rotting perfume Nikiel had once reeked of. It was fresh.

Yullan did not realize he had begun to be curious about him.

“Your Grace, what are you thinking?! Tend to your king at once!”

While Yullan had been deep in thought, the old fox barked.

Expressionless, Yullan bowed silently to him, letting those fear-clouded eyes flit back and forth like a swinging pendulum without interference.