@MinNCompany
Okeydokey, this is a romance, and I'm a reader of romance. Romance is very much a genre related to people's fantasies, and is thus very subjective in certain ways. But I said this was gonna be from my subjective point of view, and my subjective point of view you shall get.
As I ended up reading from the beginning, an issue hung over me as I was reading and dampened my enjoyment of the rest of the story. This was the issue of contrivance. I get the impression that the idea of two characters being required to sleep together for warmth due to another character's illness came first, then the attempts to make that situation plausible. While that's how a lot of writing works, in this case, the explanations for how the situation ended up being what it was were not sufficient for me.
Kyung is cold at night due to her 'medicine'. The first logical solution is to light a fire, and it feels too convenient that the king just happens to have a severe phobia of fires, and glowing plants exist to provide light after dark in this world. This brings up a great deal of questions about how the castle is run. Are those baths of cold water? And if this were the case, it almost certainly would have been noticed by Azael and commented on before meeting Kyung.
There's also the fact that there are easier solutions to the problem than getting a strange, unknown servant to sleep in Kyung's bed at night. A servant that has known Kyung all their life, Kyung's father... The most practical and preferable solution would be the acquisition of a bunch of large, fluffy dogs to pile on the bed at night.
Then there's The Big One: Why was Kyung mutilated? Because the King was going to kill her? Why? The only answer seems to be that, because she was a female, she couldn't inherit the throne, but that's not a reason to kill a female child. A princess is still a princess, even if she will never become queen of the land, in the vast majority of cultures. There are circumstances in which this could be more plausible, but none of them are spelled out.
There are other tidbits that make it harder to believe in the world of the story. Kyung says, early on, that Azael must find royalty despicable for their wealth. But Kyung has been raised as royalty, a wealthy prince, likely taught all her life that she deserved this wealth, and taken it as her due. It's not impossible that a person of royal blood might be sympathetic to wealth inequalities, but it's definitely an unusual trait. And there seems to be an overall...lack of formality, between servants/slaves and their superiors in this world. Kyung's father giving advice about feelings to Azael, Azael's occasional boldness with royalty.
And this is where another big dollop of subjectivity comes in. I'm not really sure I can invest in these characters. They're very...hmm, how do I put this. Passive. Mild. This seems like the sort of romance I might enjoy in a fanfic between two characters I already enjoy, but not with two characters I don't know outside of the context of this story.
The more I think about it, the more I come around to the issue of passivity. Neither of them wants to be in the situation they're in. It was engineered by Prince Irean. Kyung doesn't reveal her secret to Azael; Azael overhears it accidentally. Prince Irean pushes Azael to reveal his backstory to Kyung. Kyung makes some efforts to get people to treat Azael with respect, but the implication is that she has no power despite being a prince to prevent this. The King is going to force her to marry a woman. And I skipped way down in the comic, and it looks like Azael is freed from the dungeon by a rebellion.
Passive characters who endure their lot can be interesting, but making that work is a lot harder than adhering to more conventional popular storytelling structures. Proactive characters who pursue what they want with all of their might are inherently compelling, even when they're awful human beings. Even otherwise interesting characters can be difficult to get invested in if they aren't doing much.
I guess the big questions are, what do the characters what? How are they tring to get it? What's at stake if they fail? I think trying to answer these questions will show there really isn't much going on in terms of conflict.
Okay! Moving on!
This may be bias, but I think traditional comic fonts in opaque white bubbles is the best way to go.
The character anatomy is great. Expressions and tender moments are handled well.
Backgrounds, though, could use work, along with clothing design. I know characters can wear anything in a fantasy world, but when it looks like they are wearing contemporary t-shirts, I don't really get a fantasy feel. Rooms also tend to be barren, though some of the perspective work is great.
This episode has a great outdoor scene in the beginning, but for the interior scene, there's nothing but a muddled brown
My favorite parts of the comic included Azael's backstory, specifically his relationship with the abusive Reijin, and the scene where Gina gives him a drink after his suicide attempt, and he begings to cry. Veryll well drawn emotional moments.