Do you remember which shrine man was bugged? I distinctively remember having trouble with one (the guardian of the Rain Staff probably). I never got to finish the Lady Lara events which is why there's no compass or reaction from the king. There's no need for an oracle as the world of DQ1 is pretty small when compared to more modern RPGs, so finding where to go should be easy, especially if you speak to various NPCs.
I plan on porting this over to MZ as well since it has additional features & newer, better plugins to improve the game. I was also hoping that this would be more popular as I was wanting to do a remake of DQ2 & possibly DQ3 as well.