I Became the Omega in a Game - Chapter 47

‘This kind of atmosphere is a bit burdensome.’

Riche quickly linked arms with Cairos and pulled him, saying let’s look at other flower beds. Cairos burst into hearty laughter, thinking she was acting cute. Fortunately, he didn’t do anything embarrassing like before. Relieved, Riche walked side by side with Cairos and looked at the flowers.

“Are you close to His Highness the Crown Prince, Cairos?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“I heard that you supported the current Crown Prince when no one else noticed him.”

“I used to hang out with him when I was a boy.”

“Then you’re friends.”

“I guess you could say that.”

Cairos pondered for a moment and nodded readily.

“Wouldn’t he be disappointed if you didn’t greet him, Cairos?”

“Well. I don’t think he cares about that.”

Cairos chuckled and suddenly looked at her.

“Have you ever seen His Highness?”

Riche, who was unnecessarily startled, shook her head. She was a woman who looked weak and innocent on the outside, even though her inner self was like a hungry hyena craving a delicious prey. Cairos spoke softly with eyes that looked at something cute.

“I was going to introduce you anyway, so it wouldn’t be bad to see him today.”

Riche was overjoyed at those words. She didn’t know what it meant that he was trying to introduce her to the Crown Prince, but anyway, she could achieve her goal today. She had been nervous and carefully choosing each word in case she was suspected, so she felt a little empty at the situation unfolding so smoothly.

Cairos took Riche’s hand and headed to the farthest place from the entrance of the back garden. The back garden had a structure where you could see the training ground after passing the exit, and the closer you were to the exit, the better you could see.

“His Highness often practices archery. Countless courtiers and nobles visit this garden to see His Highness. You can easily meet those who are aimlessly wandering around in the garden.”

“Do you also train in martial arts at the training ground, Cairos?”

“Yes. I came out without fail when I wasn’t on an expedition.”

Riche blurted out unintentionally.

“Then there must have been many people watching you, Cairos?”

“……”Because you’re so cool.””

Cairos was silent. When Riche glanced at him, he was covering his mouth with his hand. The corners of his mouth, visible between his fingers, drew a smooth arc.

“That’s kind of true.”

He replied quietly and then cleared his throat.

‘He has this side to him, too.’

For some reason, she found him cute, and Riche smiled. It wasn’t so bad to see a big, unsociable man acting like a teenage boy puffing out his chest muscles in front of the woman he liked.

They soon reached the end of the garden, where the training grounds were visible. As Cairos had said, there were already several courtiers there, from well-dressed women to young men in stylish tailcoats. They wandered around the garden, pretending to look at the flowers, but Riche could tell that their attention was focused on the training grounds.

“General?”

A man who had just entered through the garden’s exit spotted Cairos and rushed over. He was wearing the uniform of a knight, and his shoulder epaulets were the same as Cairos’s. He was a member of the Red Eagle Knights, which Cairos led.

“I thought you were resting at home today. What brings you to the Imperial Palace?”

“I had some business to take care of. What about you?”

“I’m on my way back from seeing His Highness.”

“Is he practicing archery?”

“Of course. He’s been at it for a while now. He’s even made a bet with Grand Duke Ristaeuph.”

“A bet?”

“His Highness has won one out of three rounds so far, but the Grand Duke’s skills are formidable, so it’s quite exciting. You should join in, General. You’re also an excellent archer, aren’t you?”

“If I join, it won’t be a fair match. I don’t want to spoil the fun.”

“Ah, His Highness might get angry, so that wouldn’t be good.”

The knight, a close aide to the Crown Prince, joked without being intimidated by Cairos.

“By the way, I didn’t know His Highness had such a talent for archery. Grand Duke Ristaeuph is said to have dominated the North with his bow in his younger days, but His Highness is slightly ahead of him. He truly lives up to his reputation as an alpha of extreme dominance.”

“He wasn’t that good when he bet with me before. Is the Grand Duke being too polite to His Highness?”

“No, not at all. See for yourself. It’ll be His Highness’s turn soon…”

The knight led Cairos to the end of the garden. Riche took Cairos’s hand and walked with him. The training grounds came into full view in the open scenery between the flowering trees. The courtiers attending to them looked like they were the size of her palm from this distance.

“He’s over there.”

At the knight’s words, Riche turned her gaze to where he was pointing.

Two men stood in front of a red tent. The men in their splendid attire were unique not only in their clothing but also in their aura, so they were easily recognizable.

The Grand Duke, probably the Crown Prince’s betting opponent, had neatly combed back his half-gray hair and possessed a solid physique that didn’t match his age. Even from a distance, she could see the sharp glint in his piercing eyes. It seemed that even an average young man wouldn’t be a match for him. However, the Crown Prince, as if proving his noble birth, was not at all inferior to the Grand Duke.

He wore a degaže top with red accents that emphasized his broad shoulders, and white wisar pants that were wide-legged. Although they weren’t tight-fitting culottes, they were very slender and long, suggesting sturdy legs. Rather, the silhouette that was slightly revealed whenever he moved his legs made one imagine the well-trained legs of a stallion inside.

Even to Riche, who had lived in a world without social classes, the Crown Prince seemed a little special. This must be what a human blessed by the gods from birth looks like. That was the thought that naturally came to mind. It was a man with an aura of nobility. It was the Crown Prince’s turn, and he raised his bow toward the target.

It wasn’t an ordinary bow; it was a large bow that was nearly a meter long. It wasn’t easy to draw the arrow on the string, and the veins on the Crown Prince’s hand stood out tautly. However, his face remained calm, and the Crown Prince’s blue eyes sparkled sharply as he looked at the target.

At that moment, Riche, who had been happily observing the rare type of ‘extremely dominant alpha,’ flinched as if struck by lightning.

Why does this feel so familiar…?

“Wow, the pheromones are reaching all the way here. He truly is His Highness the Crown Prince.”

Someone’s admiring murmur brushed past her ear.

Pheromones.

Is this strange sensation because of pheromones? She took a deep breath, and a strong sense of déjà vu made her head spin.

The smell of a lush forest in the misty dawn, deep in the mountains. It pressed down on her whole body, demanding that she kneel. An overwhelming presence, like a spirit that governs all life in the forest.

Gasp. She gasped for breath.

‘Something’s wrong.’

Her heart was pounding violently. Her heart was racing as if she had overdosed on caffeine. ‘Anxiety’ consumed her.

[You have fallen into the abnormal state ‘Anxiety’.]

Riche irritably dismissed the system message. At the same time, Riche suddenly realized that this scent was not really unfamiliar. A strange scent. But one that seemed to remain in her memory…

‘When was it?’

She groped through her memories like a blind man feeling an elephant.

At that moment.

Thwack!

Riche raised her head at the sound of the bowstring.

Far away, an arrow was shot out. The pheromones, which had expanded explosively with great force, swept around like a raging wave. As the concentration of pheromones that had been slowly covering her body intensified, Riche staggered.

“Riche?”

Smell is more sensitive than sight. Sometimes, a scent can vividly bring back past events as if they happened yesterday. The strong scent of pheromones brought a fragment of the past to Riche’s eyes.

‘Haa… gasp, hic.’

Moans. The sound of flesh colliding. Dark surroundings.

‘Hoo.’

A satisfied sigh. A sensation of being pulled in strongly. The sticky feeling of sweat-soaked skin rubbing and sticking together, a slight discomfort. Riche breathed heavily. The breath she inhaled excessively, like a patient hyperventilating, didn’t even reach her lungs. She couldn’t remember the words. It was because she didn’t understand their meaning, so they didn’t remain in her mind. Yes. This is a memory from that time.

Riche’s pupils dilated. The focus of her eyes, which were shaking anxiously, went out of focus. Her irregular breathing scattered uneasily due to the excessive shock and the flood of information. Bang! Lightning struck in her head.

The very beginning when she crash-landed in this dimension.

The person in her memory, shaking like a doll with a broken arm, being shaken as she was told.

It was her in that period when she was ignorant and didn’t even understand the meaning of words.

At the moment the arrow was shot, Riche was helplessly swept away by the domineering alpha pheromones.

In the first place, it didn’t make sense for her, whose memory was at the level of the highest race, to forget something, especially something as intense as being imprinted in her mind. But strangely, everything was blurry at that time. The unprepared dimensional shift shook her internal senses, and her semicircular canals were dislodged, so she didn’t even have a proper sense of space.

The man swallowed her in that state.

‘What interesting gift is this?’

He thought that she, who didn’t speak the language here, was a woman who had been pushed in by one of his vassals.

‘It’s less fun to embrace a beta, but I can’t help it.’

And he embraced her. A week, or more? Maybe even a month.

In the memory of being entangled like beasts every day, the sense of time was meaningless. Instead of memories, the sticky sensation of that moment remained. The man was strong, she couldn’t escape, and he was persistent.

After she managed to escape from that place by sheer luck, she suffered from an unknown fever. After groaning for days, a strange status window appeared in front of her eyes.

[Congratulations. Your genetic traits have changed, and you have become a recessive omega from a beta. Unleash your pheromones and study the traits of this dimension.

Reward for success: Key of Return.

Penalty for failure: None.]

That’s right. That’s what happened. So, for a year, she studied alphas and omegas, the natives of this place, and now she has grasped a clue to dimensional travel. Riche was dumbfounded to the point that her eyes were spinning at the clarified memories. Not only that, but she was so dumbfounded that her breath was constricted.

Why hadn’t she thought deeply about why she had become an omega?

Even though it was very rare for a beta to become an omega, as Laska had said.

In fact, the reason was obvious. The human mind is weak, but it is well equipped with defense mechanisms. Her body instinctively refused to recall unpleasant memories. The shameful time when her reason, instinct, and emotions all failed to function had left her with deep scars.

Laska was right. She had become an omega because she had been continuously submerged in the pheromones of a strong alpha.

At the time of forced manifestation, she was in an incomplete omega state because she had escaped from him, and her pheromone concentration increased as she came into contact with other alpha pheromones.

Back then, when she was a beta, she couldn’t sense pheromones, so she didn’t even know he was an alpha. But now she could feel it.

The feeling of entering a forest full of strong sunlight. The feeling that the master of the forest, lurking somewhere unknown, was watching her from somewhere…

‘This is an extremely dominant alpha.’

There was no other way to describe the pheromones of an extremely dominant alpha other than to say that they were overwhelming. Her legs were trembling. Riche was flustered. This was not the original plan. The only plan was to gauge what an extremely dominant alpha was like from a distance, examine his character, and, if possible, create opportunities to encounter him often. Fortunately, she thought optimistically that it wouldn’t be too difficult since Cairos, his close aide, was there.

But all those future-oriented plans were based on the premise that observing the extremely dominant alpha would be under her control.

‘It’s a failure.’

Riche realized that she was in a mild panic state. Her head was foggy as if it was covered in mist, her heart rate was higher than usual, and her breathing was rapid. The flow of thoughts that had been flowing without ceasing was also creaking as if a huge boulder had been embedded in it. She even felt like she was about to cry.