I Became the Omega in a Game - Chapter 53

The Emperor stamped his seal of approval on his conquest of Evelyn. This was tantamount to a declaration that he would not interfere with whatever the Crown Prince did, and it suggested that it was only a matter of time before Yante became Emperor.

But the Crown Prince’s declaration of conquering Evelyn was not a good move in many ways. Even Yante’s close aides were wondering why he was acting so unreasonably. Some of the ministers who fanatically admired Yante, an extreme alpha and an outstanding man, thought that he had other plans that ordinary people could not see.

To put it bluntly, Yante did not declare that he would conquer Evelyn after looking several moves ahead. He coveted Evelyn for extremely personal reasons. To find his small, lewd bird that he lost a year ago. The one that accidentally landed on his hand and flew away while he took his eyes off it for a moment.

He also thought that she was not Evelynian because she could not speak Evelynian, but her black hair resembled the characteristics of Evelynians. She must be hiding in Evelyn.

He had to catch her again before another hunter took her. Yante, who was getting impatient day by day, set out to find her as soon as he became Crown Prince. Since he had even mobilized the army, it would not take long to find her again.

Once he had completely conquered Evelyn, he would turn the country upside down to find her.

A desire close to madness made him act irrationally. And the result was not bad at all.

Cairos Strigo, the strongest sword on the continent, had carried out the mission admirably.

As the conquest of Evelyn was imminent, those who had pointed fingers at the Crown Prince, calling him reckless and arrogant, applauded and offered their respect. But those things were only secondary benefits to Yante.

He wanted Hajin to return. A blue-eyed enchantress with black hair. My small, lewd bird!

And as he wished, he met her. Not in the Evelyn mainland, which he had focused so much on, but in his imperial palace.

Yante opened his eyes. When he saw the empty bed, flames flashed in his blue eyes.

“She left the palace at dawn. I didn’t know if I should hold her back… Please forgive me!”

The courtier, who had been summoned by the Crown Prince from dawn when the sky was still dim, was sweating profusely and prostrating himself. There was no answer from above. The courtier closed his eyes tightly. He did not expect to receive the Crown Prince’s wrath from the morning.

When the Crown Prince brought a woman from a place other than his lewd detached palace, he thought it was unusual, but he didn’t think it was special. There were many pretty and obedient omegas in the Crown Prince’s detached palace, and no one thought of leaving the Crown Prince’s side. So he thought naively.

The price of carelessness was the Crown Prince’s wrath. Swish. He heard the chilling sound of a sword being drawn. The courtier’s spine tingled. Through years of palace life, he intuitively realized that he was at a crossroads between life and death.

Yante was sitting on the bed. He had one leg on the bed, his elbow on his knee. Sitting blankly on the bed with translucent curtains, he looked like a sculpture lost in thought.

When the courtier trembled like an aspen tree and could not say anything, the Crown Prince’s confidant answered instead.

“I didn’t receive any separate instructions regarding her, so I didn’t think of holding her back. She moved so calmly that I didn’t even know that she hadn’t reported to Your Highness.”

“So.”

When Yante’s gaze reached the courtier, the confidant closed his mouth. The courtier was the one who had been assigned the task of handling the Crown Prince’s secret nights. He was so afraid that his heart would fall to the ground, but he bit his tongue to draw blood and spoke.

“Yes, yes. So I just watched her go… Ah!”

Thinking that this was not it, the courtier’s mind went blank, but his mind flashed like a candle was lit. His face brightened.

“But I thought I should guide her on her way, so I was going to ask her how she was going back! It was late, after all!”

“And?”

The courtier’s face, which had been happy at the possibility of avoiding responsibility, turned pale.

‘Wait a minute, can I say this?’

Yante’s eyes turned cold at his hesitant attitude, which was different from before. As the overbearing alpha pheromones pressed down, the courtier prostrated himself flat on the floor.

“The Count was there.”

“…?”

Yante twitched one eye.

The courtier trembled in his chilling heart and recalled what had happened a few hours ago. It was a time when ordinary people would have ended their tiring day and fallen asleep, but this was the imperial palace. There was always at least one pair of eyes watching in all directions at any time of the day. The courtier, of course, did not miss the moment when the person the Crown Prince had spent the whole day with left the palace.

‘Of course, I didn’t know things would turn out like this back then.’

The Crown Prince had never caused any trouble with women, unlike most alphas, especially extreme alphas who were said to have strong sexual desires. At least, not on the outside.

Most of the Crown Princes in the past were dominant alphas, and they enjoyed taking beautiful omegas. There were even cases where they took more than three omegas at once in one night.

The first in line to the throne who had resided here before Yante occupied the Crown Prince’s palace was like that, and Yante had also created his own detached palace, so the courtier did not find Yante and Omega’s affair surprising. Besides, until then, he thought that the woman the Crown Prince had held all night was the same being as the other omegas in the detached palace. An accessory of the detached palace that was only useful for satisfying lust for one night.

The courtier did not take it seriously and was going to guide her to a carriage that she could take from the imperial palace, as he had done before.

It was then that the courtier also discovered it. The existence of a man buried like a shadow in the darkness.

And he hugged the omega that the Crown Prince had held all night. As if she was very precious.

‘Oh my?’

It was the moment when the courtier’s eyes, which had been indifferent until then, lit up.

The question he had at that point swelled like a snowball with anxiety as he knelt before the Crown Prince now. The courtier felt Yante’s gaze looking down at him and trembled his lips.

“Count Cairos Strigo was waiting for her.”

His heart was racing like crazy. This was because no matter how well he thought about it, he did not see this situation as positive.

‘Wait a minute, then Count Cairos Strigo and His Highness are fighting over one woman…?’

Competition.

The courtier’s prostrate shoulders convulsed at the word that came to mind without thinking. Who could compare to the Crown Prince? It was a word he could not dare to think of. But the opponent was the great general who could bring down even flying birds.

There was no courtier who did not know their relationship, which had gone from childhood friends to lord and right-hand man. How special and how thick their trust was!

No one would be able to penetrate their solid shield-like relationship.

Everyone thought so.

But the courtier was also a person who had witnessed many secret histories of the imperial palace. Even close father-son relationships could turn into hateful relationships where swords were drawn and poison was exchanged because of one woman.

‘No. But it’s Count Cairos Strigo. Surely he wouldn’t have any strange thoughts about that loyalty?’

The courtier tried to shake his head. The Crown Prince still had political enemies, and the political situation was unstable. In such a situation, discord with Cairos, who was like his right-hand man. If the Strigo family, a meritorious family and holding military power, rebelled against the Crown Prince.

The courtier felt a chill.

It would be the prelude to a huge bloodbath.

The courtier intuitively realized that he was standing at a very important moment. It was not just a matter of his personal life and death. There was a risk that the entire family would be involved if he made a mistake.

“Cairos…?”

The courtier felt a cold wind brush against his chest when he heard Yante’s low murmur.

“Count Cairos Strigo seemed to be waiting for her. But there was no other movement, and he just quietly returned home.”

The courtier was not sure what attitude to take. It was right to report as it was, but he wanted to convey that Cairos had no other purpose, such as deceiving Yante or taking away what was his. But was that really the case?

‘I don’t know what Count Cairos Strigo is thinking.’

The reason he was vaguely defending him was because he himself wanted him to.

Because he didn’t want to be torn apart in the bloodbath that would occur as the powerful figures of the empire clashed.

“Ah, yes. Cairos. Yes. Cairos was there.”

Yante let out a sigh that was ambiguous whether it was an exclamation or a lament.

The courtier cautiously looked up at him with questioning eyes. But all he could see was Yante’s expressionless face.

Meanwhile, Yante was so engrossed in his thoughts that he could not even feel the courtier’s gaze. It was a very, very complicated thought.

‘Cairos…’

Had he been a moron for a moment? He could have known if he had thought about it a little. Yante smiled bitterly.

It must have been Cairos who brought Riche here in the first place. The foreign feeling he felt when playing the archery game was Riche’s pheromones, and she seemed to be under Cairos’s protection.

Cairos would have come to greet him as usual, and he thought it was strange, but now it didn’t seem strange at all.

‘If he’s deeply in love with Hajin, it’s not strange at all.’

It was embarrassing, but a man in love becomes a moron. A romantic smile appeared on his face, which was so cold that it would freeze anyone who saw it.

He was like that too, so it was not so special that Cairos omitted the greeting to him, whom he only served as his lord. Thinking about his own actions of attacking Evelyn to find Hajin even though it was not the time…

‘But it’s troublesome.’

Yante rubbed his forehead meaninglessly with his thumb and forefinger. He had once jokingly said to Cairos that if a woman appeared who made him, the god of war, feel passion, he would make the marriage happen even if the other person was the precious princess of Evelyn.

It was a joke, but the words of the royal family are heavier than any promise or guarantee. Now that this situation had come, the promise at that time had backfired on him.

“Shall I send a letter to Count Strigo?”

The courtier said urgently. Yante frowned at the nuance that if the Crown Prince ordered it directly, he would have no choice but to bring the woman. The courtier, who wanted to ease his mood with a very fierce smile, flinched and kowtowed on the floor.

“I misspoke!”

“Yes. It was a slip of the tongue.”

Yante sneered.

“Are you telling me to bring the sharpest sword to my neck with my own hands? Are you trying to mock me?”

“That’s not what I meant at all! Surely, the loyal Count Strigo wouldn’t hold anyone in higher regard than His Highness the Crown Prince…”

Yante scoffed. The slash-like wrinkles on his handsome face made him look as fierce as a wild beast.

“Even a docile animal bares its teeth when its territory is threatened, let alone a human.”

The courtier could say nothing more and only trembled. At Yante’s clicking of his tongue, his neck almost snapped backward at a right angle.

Yante no longer paid attention to the courtier waiting for his death. As he spoke, his thoughts became clearer. If he had been the eldest brother, the one closest to the Emperor’s throne before he ascended, he would have immediately summoned Cairos and ordered Hajin to be brought before him.

Even though taking a subject’s woman was distasteful, he was a foolish man who thought he was a great prince and deserved any woman he desired. If he had been the cunning Second Prince, weaker in power but difficult to bring down, he would have plotted behind the scenes to get the woman.

Yante was neither.

‘I have no choice but to watch for the time being.’

The judgment he reached after careful consideration was unexpectedly bitter enough to twist his insides. He had held Hajin, whom he had longed for so much he dreamed of her, in his arms, but he couldn’t bring her right away. However, Yante could endure more. Waiting was not difficult for him, who had lowered himself for over 20 years to avoid the checks of his vicious blood relatives.

‘First, I need to confirm how important Cairos considers Hajin.’

He solidified his thoughts coldly. The first reason he didn’t act rashly was that Cairos was a vassal and friend who had steadfastly protected him on his journey to this position, and the second was that he couldn’t ignore his power and influence.

That wasn’t the only thing to consider. Just as he had noticed Cairos’s presence beside Hajin, Cairos would have noticed him as well. How would he act, knowing that his lord had persistently desired his omega all night long?

Yante was curious about the emotions and thoughts Cairos had harbored when he met Hajin in front of his palace, but he refrained from making rash assumptions.

His hand already felt empty.

No matter how many times he reaffirmed his resolve, he couldn’t shake off the lingering regret and attachment that settled thickly in his heart like fog. Thoughts of her wouldn’t leave his mind.

Yante, his chin propped on his tightly clenched fist, hid his displeasure beneath his slowly closing eyes.

My Hajin.