MRG Chapter 10: Your Highness, I’m Scared

Translator: Gin

Editor: Agneya

At 10 o’clock in the morning, the sound of footsteps could be heard in the desolate, empty palace.

“You guys just wait here.”

Kyle instructed the bodyguards behind him as he turned around the corner of the corridor, before continuing alone.

Gazing upon the broad and majestic gates before him, irritation creeped up into his heart again.

Why did this merman’s bedroom seem to be bigger than his own?

After looking around to confirm that nobody was there, Kyle used an access card he had prepared beforehand to unlock the digital lock on the door and tiptoed into the bedroom.

If that merman was in fact in the pool right now, Kyle was prepared to call Shelley over to take a peek before leaving.

How annoying.

Would he have risen early to peek at a stupid fish like some petty thief if not for the fact that he worried about regretting his actions and losing face?

In the dim lighting, Kyle observed the merman break the shimmery surface of the water and jump out, tousling his satiny, silver hair. Within moments, the water in his hair had dried completely.

The merman sat on a reef with his back to him, combing and preening his waist-length hair with his hands. His pale skin that was merely a few shades away from pure white gave him an air of other-worldliness and his translucent ear fins glimmered in a way that was more dazzling and bewitching than the shine of all the jewels Kyle had ever seen.

However, this merman belonged to Light.

This realization stirred up the jealousy in Kyle’s heart once again.

“Woof! Woof! Woof!”

The sound of a dog barking came from the room next door.

Kyle halted in his steps and his breath became tense as he discerned that this was the sea dog gifted to the merman by Jorah.

And that this dog originally was meant for him.

The next second, that merman had already turned around from where he sat on the reef. His face held a child-like innocence, but the blue eyes that bore into him were, other than being momentarily taken aback by his presence, completely calm, so calm they made people feel scorned.

“This is my bedroom, what are you doing in here?”

Faced with Mu Chen’s question, Kyle’s heart boiled with the pent up rage.

“This is the palace of the Oz Empire. I’m the prince of the Oz Empire, why can’t I enter?”

A mere merman who got picked up a week ago, what right does he have to speak to him that way?

Kyle had heard the merman call Light “Your Highness” before, always sounding so sweet every time he said it. He would even call the king in a similar fashion, using “Your Majesty.”

Why did he only have such an arrogant expression and use such a pompous tone when he faced him?

In a fit of rage, he stepped towards the reef, wanting to drag that merman to shore.

Just as he reached out to grab the merman,

“Hiss!”

A faint prickly pain radiated across his skin. Mu Chen’s fingernails had left a bloody scratch on the back of his hand.

“You f*cking dare to scratch me?”

Facing those malicious blue eyes, Kyle became thoroughly enraged. He grabbed the iron fishing net used to fish things out of the pond and swung it at Mu Chen.

Mu Chen did not hesitate and directly jumped into the pond just before the shadow of the net fell on the surface of the water.

Kyle was furious. He brandished the fishing net like a madman, attempting to catch the merman.

Mu Chen’s blue eyes reflected the fishing net that came ever closer to him. In that moment, the shadows in the sky seemed to transform into the shape of a whip, overlapping with a memory that had been collecting dust, locked away in a corner of his mind.

Snap!

There was a sound of a whip cracking.

He could almost hear the sound of skin and flesh splitting.

The next moment,

“Hiss—”

The merman’s vocal chords vibrated, letting out a low growl.

Mu Chen’s ear fins spread open. A glassy toughened layer formed over his nail from the sides of his fingernails, sharpening it. His originally dark blue eyes became pitch black and the scales on his merman tail began to close in a layered manner.

Kyle discovered, to his shock, that the once gentle and harmless merman could transform into this appearance. Within mere seconds, the merman had jumped out of the water and used his hardened claws to rip the fishing net to pieces.

Similar to most, he was unaware that mermans even had a second form.

In fact, most mermans of previous generations possessed beauty, but were weak and incompetent. Even if they wanted to, they could not transform into a second form, resulting in many people forgetting that the former ruler of the deep sea could transform into a more aggressive form in battle.

In many senses, Mu Chen was an outlier of the last Atlantis Royal Family.

Mermans could only have one spouse in their entire life. Once the period of courtship was over, they could only stay with that spouse for the rest of their life. Originally, this was a romantic blessing representative of loyalty and love, but in the last dynasty, it had become a sort of twisted curse.

For the sake of the descendants of the azure-bloods, and in order for the lineage of the dynasty currently in decline to continue, Mu Chen’s mother died in childbirth.

Before him, his parents had had three other children. They were deformed and weak and none made it past the age of three.

Mu Chen was unexpectedly healthy.

As for his father—Atlantis’ last king, looking upon his declining dynasty and his wife who died for his sake, he was powerless. There was nothing he could do.

After countless bouts of excessive drinking, Mu Chen’s father finally found an outlet for his helplessness. He took out all his anger on this son of his who carried bad omens.

Mu Chen’s azure blood was the most powerful amongst those of his race. No matter how hard he was whipped, within a few days, the scars would all fade.

When he was young, everytime he was hit, the pain would make him cry incessantly. However his cries did nothing to stop the beating, if anything it only made it worse.

He had also attempted retaliating, but a failed resistance would only result in a more severe punishment.

This continued until one time, while his father was beating him, a sharp hardened layer suddenly formed on his fingertips, directly slicing the leather whip into two.

His father tossed the whip aside and something in his eyes changed. For the first time, the violence inflicted upon him ended prematurely.

From then on, the frequency of his father’s beatings decreased and he would look at Mu Chen with a certain mien that was filled with hope, often saying things like, “You are Atlantis’ hope.”

That gaze…it was just psychotic under all its bizarreness.

However, through that layer of sharp nails, Mu Chen could not see any hope…

He only knew that becoming stronger was the sole principle.

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” this was the way to survive in this world.

During the six years he had spent on the abandoned island, Mu Chen never once was able to leave behind the shadow of what he experienced in Atlantis. He did not become cheerful, nor did he heal by the passage of time.

However, he did learn to use his weak and harmless appearance to disguise his true nature, burying all his dark thoughts deep inside his heart.

……

“F*ck!”

Kyle’s distressed cries reverberated around the palace.

Blazing crimson blood splashed on the floor.

Along with the fishing net, his cheek had been scratched open too.

Kyle used his outstretched hand to cover half his face, blood continuing to seep through between his fingers. With a malicious look, he glared at the merman diving back into the water.

“Just you wait!”

Once he cleaned up his wound, he would be back to teach this beast a lesson!

He must reveal the true face of this merman to everyone in the palace.

……

About half an hour later.

Following the lead of an attendant, many people began to gather outside the bedroom door, including King Jorah and Queen Katherine.

Kuina’s face was filled with surprise. “Your Highness, are you saying he attacked you for no reason?”

Mu Chen was such an obedient kid, how could he ever do such a thing?

Kyle angrily pointed at his face that was wrapped in gauze, hollering, “Do you not see the injury on my face?”

“Your Majesty.” Katherine touched the gauze on Kyle’s face, her eyes reddened and her expression full of distress and heartbreak. “Mermans are beasts after all, look at how much he scratched Kyle…Where is Light?”

“Does he not know that he needs to be responsible for his merman?”

Jorah pursed his lips, his gaze heavy. “Let’s go in and take a look first.”

Under the orders of the king, the attendant pushed open the heavy door.

A strong scent of blood instantly rushed towards them.

Bang!

The attendant asked a butler to turn on the lights.

On the porcelain white marble tiles, streaky and blotchy stains had formed where the blood had flowed.

Kyle bitterly pointed out the stains, “Look this…this is what he did…what the f*ck happened here?”

He stopped abruptly mid-sentence…

At the end of the blood trail, the little merman lay curled up in the corner. His originally pretty silver tail bled endlessly, a mere few steps away, fragmented pieces of the fishing net were strewn on the floor haphazardly and bloodied scales hung from the sharp wires.

Kyle was dumbfounded.

He turned his head stiffly, meeting Jorah’s questioning gaze.

From a distance, intermittent sobs could be heard—the little merman seemed to be crying. He hugged his thin shoulders, burying his face in his knees as his silver hair cascaded down his shoulders. He was curled up into a little ball, feeling very insecure.

Jorah’s brows furrowed and he asked Kyle, “Is this your doing?”

Kyle rushed to Mu Chen’s side hastily. “Nonsense! I never touched him!”

His fishing net was cut open by Mu Chen the moment he threw it on. If one were to think about who exactly was injured in the prior scuffle, it could only be him and his face!

But how could there be scales and blood on the floor now?

Just as Kyle was preparing to pull Mu Chen up and clarify the situation with him, the surroundings suddenly quietened, becoming deathly silent.

Then, from afar he heard, “Your Highness.”

Kyle turned to see Light standing by the bedroom door.

He didn’t even have enough time to change his clothes and had clearly just returned from the training grounds.

Light’s cold eyes swept around the bedroom before landing on him.

Kyle opened his mouth to say something.

But before he could utter a word, he felt his throat tighten as his collar was grabbed by someone. Immediately after, Kyle stared into the man’s furious eyes.

Light grabbed him by the collar and tossed him against the wall, “What exactly did you do?”

Kyle was no match for the battle-hardened Light and in the moment could only grab at Light’s forearm, his neck turning red.

The attendants next to him dared not stop the eldest prince.

“Your Majesty!” Only Katherine gripped Jorah’s arm, clutching her chest as she exclaimed, “Light, what are you doing to your little brother?”

Light gazed at the horrifying blood stains on the ground, his pupils narrowed, “Why don’t you ask what he did first?”

Kyle, “Cough…cough…I really didn’t fucking touch him!”

“Your Highness…”

Next to them, the little merman continued to whimper softly.

Light abruptly released his grip on Kyle’s collar and walked towards the little merman, letting Kyle slump sideways.

He kneeled in front of Mu Chen. The little merman lifted his tear-stained face, crystal teardrops leaving his red and swollen eyes, his originally moist ruby lips had lost all their blood, becoming pallid.

“Your Highness…”

Mu Chen resembled a frightened kitten, instinctively calling out a phrase that comforted him. Still shaken up, he buried himself in Light’s embrace, “Your Highness…I’m scared.”

Light could feel the little merman trembling against his torso. Looking at the ear fin still dripping blood out of the corner of his eyes, he felt as if heart was being squeezed tightly by someone, leaving him feeling helpless and remorseful.

He picked up a cloth next to him and wrapped the little merman up in it, gently rubbing a hand over his back again and again,

“It’s over now, don’t be scared.”

“Wu…”

Perhaps because he finally saw someone he could rely on, Mu Chen couldn’t help but burst into tears.

Light hugged him,

“I’m here.”

“Don’t be afraid.”