Not a single book described male pregnancy or the process of childbirth in any practical detail.
An ordinary person might have struggled to accept that men could become pregnant, but Kwon Minseong was a doctor. He had personally delivered a baby. At this point, doubting the existence of Omegas wasn't skepticism—it was a clinical disorder.
Just as his determination to accept reality, study diligently, and become the greatest Male Omega OB/GYN in the country was beginning to falter, the brass-colored mechanical arm moved.
Standing proudly beside the massive machine, Adelgius had introduced it as his greatest invention—a mechanical secretary.
Even though he had never voiced what he wanted, the mechanical secretary somehow understood. Without a sound, it placed a book beside Kwon Minseong.
"I already looked at this one."
Shaking his head, Minseong pushed the book away.
A machine was still a machine.
No matter how advanced its artificial intelligence might be, there were limits to what could be entrusted to one.
Quietly rising from his seat, Minseong began hunting through the shelves himself, examining the rolled pages one by one like cinnamon buns.
"No Male Omega specialists, huh... I can see why."
As Minseong moved, the mechanical secretary illuminated wherever he went.
Running his fingertips across the spines of books, he recalled what Adelgius had told him.
No textbooks.
Very few teachers.
Knowledge passed down from person to person like folklore.
There was no way a proper medical system could emerge under those conditions.
The environment was incredibly barren.
Yet strangely enough, Minseong looked energized.
His cheeks flushed with excitement at the prospect of diving into an untouched blue ocean of medicine and making a name for himself.
Grrrrowl—
His ambition wasn't the only thing that had revived.
Halfway through opening a book, Minseong clutched his stomach.
"Ah... I'm starving..."
Thinking back, he hadn't eaten a single thing since arriving in Elunem.
Assuming time flowed here at the same rate as in South Korea, the only thing he had consumed in the past forty-eight hours was a bottle of soju.
"I'm hungry..."
Muttering to himself, he glanced sideways at the mechanical secretary.
The secretary didn't move.
"No awareness whatsoever. What kind of secretary is that?"
Minseong openly criticized Adelgius's masterpiece.
"Excuse me. Do you take food orders around here?"
Stretching both arms toward the machine, he waved them dramatically from side to side.
His sleeves flapped like pigeon wings.
The clothes Adelgius had provided were absurdly loose, with sleeves so long and flowing that they fluttered with every movement.
While Minseong had chattered that he could probably take flight if he learned how to flap properly, Adelgius had merely informed him that it was the latest fashion in Elunem and that he should be grateful.
"Hellooo?"
Perhaps it couldn't recognize him because his hands were hidden inside the sleeves.
With that thought, he rolled them up to his elbows and waved even harder.
The mechanical secretary merely continued shining a yellow light at his feet.
"I'm starving to death here!"
This time he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted.
The secretary remained silent.
He clapped.
Snapped his fingers.
Nothing.
Apparently the machine knew how to recommend books and absolutely nothing else.
"Skipping meals at my age is genuinely depressing..."
Grabbing a shelf for support, Minseong lowered his head.
He didn't look like someone particularly interested in food, but everyone who knew him agreed on one thing.
Kwon Minseong could eat.
He had possessed an abnormal appetite since middle school.
Among all foods, tteokbokki had always been his favorite.
That was probably because his parents had run a snack shop.
The spicy aroma that awakened sleeping taste buds.
Plump, smooth rice cakes dressed in bright red chili paste.
Flat rectangular fish cakes that absorbed the sauce long before the rice cakes did.
The ingredients danced before his eyes in a circle.
He could almost hear the sizzling sound that erupted whenever someone splashed a large ladle of fish-cake broth onto the thickened sauce coating the iron griddle.
The bubbling, boiling, overflowing sound of tteokbokki echoed vividly in his ears.
Thinking about tteokbokki naturally led him to crave kimbap.
Some people insisted that blood sausage or assorted fried foods were tteokbokki's true companion.
Minseong disagreed.
The best thing to dip into tteokbokki sauce was unquestionably kimbap.
The reason was simple.
Fried foods and blood sausage weren't nearly as filling.
Tteokbokki and kimbap.
The moment he remembered the meal set that had defined his childhood, countless foods flooded his thoughts like a tidal wave.
Pork cutlet.
Cold buckwheat noodles.
Blood sausage.
Seasoned fried chicken.
Roasted chicken.
Old-fashioned whole chicken.
Fried chicken.
Rotisserie chicken.
Pork belly.
Pork jowl.
Pork neck.
Marinated ribs.
Sirloin.
Tenderloin.
Strip steak.
Sausage bread.
Bagels.
Baguettes.
Croissants.
Churros.
Chestnut bread.
Plain pretzels.
Onion pretzels.
Garlic pretzels.
Cheese pretzels.
Chocolate muffins.
Cheese muffins.
Blueberry muffins...
"This won't do. I need to eat something while I read. At this rate I'll starve to death."
Clutching his empty stomach, Minseong carefully selected another book.
"Not this one... no idea what this is... huh?"
After walking for some time, he suddenly stopped.
Another Kwon Minseong was standing between the shelves.
"What is this...?"
The other Minseong turned out to be a mirror.
Finding a door-sized mirror hidden among bookshelves was strange enough.
The truly shocking part made him stagger forward until his face was almost pressed against the reflective surface.
"Is this... me...?"
Muttering the sort of line people said on makeover programs, he pulled at his cheek.
It hurt.
That meant it was real.
And the skin that stretched beneath his fingers certainly didn't belong to a thirty-five-year-old man.
Since arriving in this world, he hadn't had enough time to eat, much less inspect his own face.
Yet the upward-slanting eyebrows, the elegant nose bridge that every plastic surgeon he knew had praised, and the narrow, refined nostrils were unmistakably his.
The difference was that the wear and exhaustion accumulated over thirty-five years of life had vanished.
Soft cheeks covered in fine downy hairs.
Eyes completely free of dark circles.
Clear white sclera.
All had replaced the shadows that once lingered there.
Creeeak—
Startled by his sudden rejuvenation, he touched his face again and again.
Then the youthful version of himself inside the mirror began to move.
"Uwah...? Wh-what is that...?"
The mirror's surface fragmented into countless tiny squares.
The full-length mirror split cleanly down the middle.
A black hand shot out from the opening and seized him by the collar.
A black hand.
A black arm.
A black mask.
The figure stepped completely out of the mirror, wrapped in a pitch-black cloak that seemed woven from shadows themselves.
The man filled Minseong's vision.
"Fearless, aren't you."
The man muttered softly.
There was laughter hidden at the end of his voice.
An unpleasant sort of amusement.
Minseong blinked blankly.
It was a feeble attempt to understand what was happening.
It didn't help.
The man dressed entirely in black was at least twenty centimeters taller than him.
Even craning his neck, Minseong couldn't properly see his face.
Just as he finally noticed the cold sensation lingering beneath his chin, the man spoke again.
"You entered the Emperor's study without fear. Who are you?"
The man reversed the blade and slowly brushed the flat of the sword against Minseong's neck.
The metal slid past the slight prominence of his Adam's apple and pressed firmly against his collarbone.
The clothes Adelgius had proudly described as the pinnacle of modern Elunem fashion were as thin as pajamas.
It felt no different from placing bare steel directly against his skin.
Saying he wasn't frightened would have been a lie.
But if he looked at it another way, he didn't have much to lose.
People always got sent back to their original world when they died in situations like this, didn't they?
Honestly speaking, the bank loans and interest payments he had left behind in South Korea were far scarier than the sword in front of him.
"Who am I?"
Smiling, Minseong raised a book titled Omega and Derfyu: The Endless Cycle.
"I'm the man who's going to become this country's greatest Omega OB/GYN."
"A physician...?"
The low voice dropped beside his ear.
"Adelgius gave me permission to come in. I'm not trespassing. I was invited here fair and square. It'd be a little unfair to treat me like a thief."
The blade moved away from his neck.
The threat, however, remained.
The man jabbed the book with the tip of his sword and knocked it to the floor.
Minseong stared intently at the man's hand.
Aside from its size, it looked exactly like the mechanical arms hanging from the library ceiling.
No.
It was more delicate than those.
And colder.
The chill he had sensed at the back of his neck apparently came from more than the sword alone.
"You speak an Imperial Family Member's name so casually. You must not value your life."
"Not particularly. I've got nothing left to lose. No family. No girlfriend. Never got married. Don't even have a clinic anymore. All I've got left is my negative bank balance."
He shrugged.
"Do you have overdraft accounts here too? Those things are a hundred times scarier than your sword. Besides, if I die here, I'll probably wake up back on the floor of my clinic. Go ahead and kill me. Let's see what happens."
At this point, there wasn't much left that could surprise him.
Men gave birth.
Marble floors moved like escalators.
There were moving walkways made of carpets.
Gigantic brass mechanical arms existed.
What else could possibly shock him?
With a small sigh, Minseong looked up at the man.
Ah.
There was still one thing.
Something capable of surprising him.
The indifferent eyes of a middle-aged man who had once complained about life over a bottle of soju beneath a convenience-store parasol widened until they resembled round marbles.
The man was beautiful.
No.
Beautiful wasn't enough.
If Minseong had possessed even a trace of literary talent, he might have found a thousand different ways to describe him.
But as someone who had walked the path of science his entire life, he could only arrive at a single conclusion.
The man was cruelly beautiful.
Soft orange light illuminated golden hair tinged with amber.
Beneath it were striking features that immediately commanded attention.
His long eyes resembled the curve of a finely sharpened dagger.
Lashes dark as brandy completed the impossible beauty of his face.
"Khk..."
Minseong's mouth fell open.
Not because he was overwhelmed by the man's unreal beauty.
The reason was far more immediate.
And far redder.
Clutching his abdomen, Minseong looked down.
His hands were turning crimson.
Something hot and sticky poured from his sunken stomach, seeping through his fingers before overflowing faster than he could contain it.
Blood dripped steadily onto the floor.
The man in the black cloak withdrew his blade.
Droplets of blood scattered across his beautiful face.
Even covered in blood, he remained stunning.
Standing amid the metallic stench that seemed completely incompatible with such beauty, Minseong slowly pitched forward.
The man looked down at him as he fell.
And smiled.
"As you wish."
Calmly.
Indifferently.