Chapter 4
The Pearl Palace
Once Sungjin’s body started healing, it healed quickly. He graduated from soups to solid foods, and his range of motion grew larger and larger.
In the meantime, Sungjin took every opportunity he could to perform various body weight exercises. What he really wanted to do was go outside immediately and have high-intensity cardio sessions, but he had decided that as he hadn’t yet recovered from the illness, his strength was too meager for such a task. Moreover, he felt that if he were to overexert himself, his joints would give out. He had only done one round of the Korean national gymnastics routine, but his knees were shaking like leaves in the wind.
It was taxing just to stand up. If he forced this obese body to run, it would’ve resulted in more than just some cartilage damage. He wondered if there was a pool he could swim in. He wanted to train as if he was in physical therapy.
Leaning some weight on the bed so that he wouldn’t overburden his body, Sungjin struggled to move his arms and legs. It was unsightly. The demon king made a poor attempt at consolation.
In the mirror, a portly blond boy looked back at him with a sullen stare. His hair was a grayish blond, and his rather sharp eyes were exact copies of Empress Consort Lizabeth’s. Although he was overweight, his height seemed to be fairly average for a fifteen-year-old. It was only a guess though, since Sungjin had no idea what the average height was in this world.
I’m not seeing any difference. Are you sure I didn’t just lose some water weight?
That piece of sh*t, I wish he would just cease to exist. Sungjin shook his head and resumed his body weight exercises.
* * *
The building that Sungjin was currently staying at was a pretty, ivory one called the Pearl Palace. At first glance, it had a subdued, simple appearance, but a closer look revealed the luxurious, elaborate, and dense ornamentation of the beautiful palace. Apparently, the first empress consort had it built specially for Morres, so Sungjin could only guess the amount of care that went into its construction.
It was a small palace, but it had everything the prince would ever need for education as well as socialization: splendid bedrooms, a private library, a private training ground, a private greenhouse, and a private banquet hall. Sungjin intended to pay a visit to the library and the training ground soon. But as he had observed over the few days that he spent working on basic fitness exercises, the Pearl Palace operated quite strangely.
First of all, no one who lived in or visited the Pearl Palace had holy power. It was the oddest thing. The entire area of the palace was brimming with holy energy, but he could not find its source. The demon king had told Sungjin that the area was so dense with holy power that he didn’t dare leave his body. But in reality, Sungjin had not met one person with holy power ever since he had entered this body.
Morres’ body was no exception. The current holy emperor Nathaniel himself possessed immense holy power like never seen before in history, but unfortunately, Morres, the son of the most ambitious first empress consort, had not been blessed with even an ounce of holy power. Well, it was a big relief to Sungjin and the demon king. If Morres’ body had had the slightest bit of holy power, the demon king would have been completely obliterated the moment he had entered it.
What a shame. I could’ve gotten rid of you for good.
That might be a bit of a problem.
The holy empire of Delcross was a staunch theocracy and its influence reached all corners of the continent. In other words, people with holy power from all across the continent gathered at Delcross. So why was the Pearl Palace only staffed with regular people with no holy power? Could it really have been a coincidence? He hadn’t even seen a priest healer, who were usually a dime a dozen. Considering how the precious prince had almost died from a fever, it was a strange situation indeed.
The demon king made a guess.
What does that have to do with anything?
That’s pretty convincing, but you really think that’s all there is to it?
Oh, wait. Morres’ father is the holy emperor, right? So, okay, say Morres avoids priests by holing up in this palace. But how can he avoid his own father for his entire life? In shared imperial palace grounds?
Feeling the demon king tremble, Sungjin sighed.
Oh, I don’t know. Whatever. I’ll just take it as it comes.
Secondly, something was off about the staff at the Pearl Palace. The Pearl Palace was managed by only a handful of staff members. There were a bare minimum number of guards, but other than that, the residents of the Pearl Palace were just too few for a palace of its size. Sungjin had one personal maid, two regular maids, one resident doctor, and one low-ranking administrative manager. As a comparison, Empress Consort Lizabeth, who visited Sungjin from time to time, always brought at least twenty servants in tow, from maids to guards. Even for a scumbag prince that the crown had abandoned, this treatment was abnormal.
And the few staff members that resided here were peculiar as well. A prime example would be Morres’ one and only personal maid, Edith. She had a short bob and a pretty face, but she walked around with an expression too dry for a maid of an imperial palace. At first, Sungjin took pity on her for her poor working conditions because she was so young, and yet she seemed to be responsible for tending to Sungjin all alone. Even if there were no labor laws in this world, Sungjin felt that there should have been at least one more maid to split the shift.
But this woman turned out to be utterly extraordinary. At Sungjin’s slightest movement, she flew into the room, and she was capable of carrying an impressive amount of food without showing any sign of struggle. But that was the least of it. While Sungjin had still been bedridden and she had had to change his sweaty sheets, she’d single-handedly lifted Morres’ giant body. The strength in her slender arms had stunned Sungjin, so much so that at first, he had been suspicious that she was an assassin undercover as a maid. Sungjin’s instinct as a hunter who had battled monsters for decades was telling him that this woman could, in all probability, fight head-to-head with most knights.
He had wondered if this was just how people were in this world, but it wasn’t. The first empress consort, for one, was just a regular, delicate noblewoman who’d had a sheltered upbringing. The maids that she brought along every time she visited were similar. They were skilled house servants, but they were all regular women with regular physiques. So why was Morres’ personal maid the only one that was special?
Well, if he was curious, he could just ask her himself.
“Edith, how are you so strong?”
Edith, who had been drawing the curtain to let the fresh air in, quickly turned around and bowed her head to answer Sungjin. “It’s because I’m an aura user, Your Highness.”
Perhaps because of the empress consort’s far-reaching influence, Edith remained relatively polite even when she was dealing with the notorious scumbag prince. She was a true professional who could separate her emotions from her work.
Of course, her professionalism was no use against the chatty, tattletale demon king.
Sungjin coughed awkwardly. “Ahem. An aura user?”
“Yes, Your Highness. ‘Aura’ is the force that is the basis of all life. It’s spread evenly throughout the world. Aura users are those who consciously amass this aura in their bodies and wield it as needed.”
Sungjin’s excuse that his memory wasn’t whole was serving him well. Even though he had asked such a basic question, Edith had generously explained without growing suspicious.
“Once you officially learn how to wield aura and become recognized as an aura user, you become eligible to try out for the Imperial Order of Knights.”
“Oh, does that mean… you too, Edith?”
“Yes. At first, I had also come to the castle as a squire aiming to become an imperial guard.”
“A squire? Like a knight apprentice?”
Sungjin only had more and more questions. Why was someone who had aspired to be a knight serving as a maid at the Pearl Palace?
“Well…” Edith hesitated for a moment, then said cautiously, “Uh, you… You were a little, well, harsh with some of the past servants, Your Highness.”
In short, Morres’ outbursts had produced too many injured and complaining servants. The first empress consort had tried her best to keep it under wraps, but not a day went by without a servant getting hurt. It was impossible to keep secret, and the news made its way all the way to the holy emperor’s ears.
“He’s uncontrollable, you say? Then we’ll employ people the prince can’t easily abuse.”
The holy emperor had decisively reassigned the numerous staff members of the Pearl Palace to other palaces and newly recruited a small number of high-wage servants. He had offered a generous wage for anyone who was at least a squire and could wield aura in their bodies skillfully. At first, everyone had thought that no one would apply. The applicants for the respectable imperial knights had all traveled to the capital with high hopes and dreams. No matter how high the pay was, what kind of person would settle on being a maid or a servant? But this had not bothered the holy emperor.
He had said nonchalantly, “There must be at least one.” And he’d been right. There was an exception to everything. Edith had had no connections whatsoever but had been determined to attach herself to the palace with nothing but her talent as an aura user. And she had arrived just in time.
“I’d taken the test to join the Imperial Order of Knights, but I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere by starting from the bottom.”
So that was how the most powerful maid had been hired. She deftly caught any dish that was hurled at her, she dodged any weapon that swung her way, and she picked out fish bones with a knife imbued with aura.
The more she explained, the more confused Sungjin grew.
Where did this all go wrong?
Morres, who’d acted so belligerently that only a highly skilled aura user could dare to be his servant, was certainly an odd one. But so was the holy emperor who’d had the bright idea of clearing out the palace of all servants and hiring aura users instead.
Of course, the strangest of them all was Edith, who had willingly taken the bait and become a personal maid.
“Anyway, Your Highness.” Edith looked up at Sungjin, cocking her head. “Are you all right now?”
“What?”
“You used to get furious whenever you heard about aura. You used to…”
“Used to?”
“Throw things everywhere.”
The more Sungjin learned about Morres, the more trashy he sounded. Why had he thrown things for such a trivial reason? Had he been a child?
Sungjin’s mouth gaped open, but he could think of nothing else to say. “Uh, sorry.”
His answer made Edith’s eyes go wide. She clearly hadn’t expected to hear an apology. Her eyes curved into a smile as she bowed and said, “It’s no trouble, Your Highness. It was quite the pastime to catch all those flying dishes.”
Sungjin looked down pitifully at Edith who had bowed her head down low.
He said to the demon king, She’s definitely a little weird, right?
Anyway, there’s a thing called aura, huh?
Sungjin fell deep into thought. Aura, holy power—these things that he had only read in fantasy novels actually existed here. Sungjin was struck once more by the realization that he was in a completely different world. Of course, Sungjin’s own world had been pretty fantastical when the gates to the demonic world had opened and war had broken out against monsters. But at least back then, it had clearly been a war of tangible strength.
At the time, hunters who absorbed monsters’ vital forces only grew stronger physically. Even the superpower they would develop had merely been psychokinesis that allowed them to wield physical force. It had been the same for the monsters. Some had the power to generate heat with flammable material and some had fought with corrosive toxins, but they had been few and far between. Most monsters had fought crudely with their physical strength.
So before the demon king had attempted to burn their souls with the inferno of Gehena, Sungjin hadn’t even imagined that such invisible forces could exist.
That’s a little offensive. And why are you leaving out Gehena? You said it was from the same lower plane of existence.
What? Sungjin’s eyes grew sharp. The demon king hastily changed the topic.
Sungjin blinked. What’s this systemic plane, then?
Stop being an asshole. Who cares if there are three or four planes of existence? You think that’s important right now? Sungjin shot back, and the demonic king lowered his voice.
Let’s get back to the point. So how can you use aura?
Now that Sungjin had learned about the possibility of a new power, he was very interested. Back on Earth, he’d been an esteemed hunter who practically flew around the battlefield. He was growing frustrated to no end being stuck in such a dull body like this one. There didn’t seem to be monsters in this world, so if he couldn’t restore his strength as a hunter, could he at least try to become an aura user?
Wow, you acted so arrogant like you knew everything there is to know about worlds. So there are things even you don’t know.
The demon king’s conceit knew no bounds. And to think that he had bawled at Sungjin’s beating.
Then how was the past Morres at it? Was he an aura user?
Apparently, one had to be born with holy power, so there was no way Sungjin would achieve that. But perhaps aura was something he could learn to wield. It wasn’t like he felt some special energy that could be called aura in this body, but since his guards and even a maid could wield it skillfully, Sungjin had concluded that it must not have been a very rare power. But Morres’ incompetence far exceeded Sungjin’s expectations.
The demon king felt out Edith’s soul for a while, scouring for information, then sighed.
What was the first empress consort thinking, trying to make a dolt like Morres a crown prince? Sungjin let out an exasperated sigh. I guess I’ll just focus on developing my physical strength for now.
Shut up!
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