OKHS 01

Chapter 1

Mona’s Secret Research

“Finally got it……! The newspaper with Lord Richard’s handsome face!”

“Really!?”

“Look at this. They say this is the illustration that captures Lord Richard’s real appearance best.”

“Please sell this to me. How about 1 gold?”

“1 gold, my foot. Even if you offered ten times that, I’d have to think about it. Do you even know how precious this newspaper from the 14th is!?”

The empire had been abuzz for days over Richard Kronel, who had won the battle against the Black Dragon, Baelmos.

A hero who, at a young age, led the knight order to the front lines and, after a three-year expedition, subjugated the monsters threatening the borders!

His exploits alone were magnificent enough to go down in history, but Richard Kronel positively overflowed with star quality.

Young and unmarried, heir to the Grand Ducal house. Commander-in-Chief of the Black Knight Order, the empire’s elite, with a handsome face to boot.

It was the reason his name was bound to be on everyone’s lips wherever one went.

“Hey, you’re crumpling the newspaper! Be careful with it.”

“Then am I supposed to float it in the air to read it?”

Mona, shuffling past the academy students squabbling over the newspaper featuring Richard’s illustration, crossed the campus with dragging steps.

‘……I’m tired.’

No matter how much the surroundings buzzed with the hottest gossip, nothing reached Mona’s ears.

A master’s degree and early graduation.

Because she was recklessly chasing both at once, Mona suffered from chronic sleep deprivation.

Lately, the assignments her senior piled on had increased too, leaving her with neither spirit nor stamina to spare.

‘I should have gone to bed a little earlier last night.’

Making the same pointless regret she repeated every morning, Mona trudged endlessly up the academy hill and stopped in front of an old building.

[Department of Monster Studies Laboratory]

It was the laboratory where Mona, a research student affiliated with the Imperial Academy, reported to work every morning.

As one could tell from the outdated facilities and its location tucked away in a corner of the academy, the Department of Monster Studies was an extremely unpopular department.

And it was also Mona’s major.

The reason Mona, who had entered the academy in the top ranks, chose such an unpopular department was very simple.

‘Because it’s fun.’

Monsters were peculiar from their very origins.

When the gods were creating the world, there was chaos their hands had not yet reached.

The beings that flowed out of that chaos, called ‘Chaos,’ were what people called monsters.

Monsters, which did not follow the laws of nature and took bizarre forms, had been objects of terror to humans since long ago.

But to Mona, it was the opposite.

Mona felt a strong interest in these unknown beings derived from chaos.

Far more than in the perfect hero everyone revered.

‘I admit it—I have unusual tastes.’

But admitting it was separate from having any will to remodel her firm preferences.

It was impossible from the start, anyway.

Mona’s grandmother had also been a monster researcher—perhaps it was true that blood can’t be helped.

‘Well, being an unpopular department also made it much easier to receive a full scholarship.’

Since it suited her aptitude well and fit perfectly with her impoverished circumstances, Mona chose the non-mainstream Department of Monster Studies without hesitation over any popular department.

And, as a result, the department itself was good.

‘……The problem is always the people.’

The moment she thought of that thuggish professor and certain people in the lab, a headache rushed in as a conditioned reflex.

Pressing her temples, Mona entered the research building and rummaged through her pockets at the end of the corridor.

When she took out the key and opened the old lock, a dim laboratory revealed itself along with the sound of hinges engaging.

Looking around the interior, Mona habitually sniffed the air first.

As a sour smell mixed atop the familiar scent of culture solution pricked her nose, her dazed mind snapped awake.

Mona hurriedly set down her bag and ran to the inner part of the laboratory.

Inside the cultivation room—

The densely lined transparent glass containers were filled with slimes tinged with pale blue.

The slime, a semi-transparent viscous monster, was a preferred experimental subject in laboratories because it was low in danger, sensitive to environmental changes, and easy to breed.

However, because its physical properties were excessively squishy, it was not easy to handle.

“Ahhh! It’s not even a loach—this damned slime brat escaped the test tube again!”

“The slime moved so violently that all the point nuclei got crushed!”

Because of this, every time they handled slimes, cries and screams inevitably erupted in the laboratory.

But that was not the case for Mona.

‘So this is why it smelled like vinegar.’

When she took the reddish-tinged slime out of the glass bottle at the center of the experiment table, the slime quietly entrusted its body to her palm.

Slimes, which sprayed slippery mucus and fled the moment a person so much as reached out a hand, were no different from docile puppies before Mona’s touch.

Mona narrowed her eyes at the slime, which even danced jauntily on her palm as if acting cute.

((♥_♥))

“This one’s got too much sugar.”

It was a slime with a sugar high.