AFLBRR Chapter 2 (Part 1)

2. An Omega Caught Between Fighting Alphas

“An alpha who has stayed abstinent for twenty years… isn’t someone you can face lightly.”

I almost died. I thought my brain was going to evaporate.

With a worn-out body, I clung flat against the carpet on the floor and muttered. The alpha holding me from behind pressed a kiss to my nape and whispered.

“Thank you for acknowledging my long wait.”

“I didn’t want to acknowledge it like this…”

When an omega in heat meets an alpha who hasn’t touched an omega in twenty years, the whole room turns into a disaster zone.

If it were someone else’s business, I would have admired the stamina of a virile middle-aged alpha, secretly jealous. But when it becomes my problem, the story changes. I never wanted to know what it felt like to crawl on the floor begging for mercy only to have my ankle grabbed and be dragged back into bed. Or the dull ache in my stomach paired with the sensation of something hard rubbing against my back.

“Noe…”

“Mishka, damn it! Get a grip! We need to talk. I have something to say…!”

“We’re talking even now. You once said it yourself. That sometimes the body is more honest than empty words.”

I did say that. After choosing the wrong birthday gift and making Mishka sulk, I’d told him that seeing him like this was the best gift of all.

But that was meant to soothe his hurt feelings, not justify shoving himself inside me like a man possessed.

Once his rut hit, restraining a half-crazed alpha became impossible, and I ended up being ravaged until below the waist felt completely numb. While sandwiched between Dmitry’s thighs and smothered with kisses, I thought:

‘This man hasn’t considered even once that I might not be Noe.’

His intuition wasn’t wrong. But even so, throughout this seemingly endless ordeal, I was grateful that I really was myself.

For a full week, we broke the bed, tore the curtains, smashed the desk, and destroyed every piece of furniture I had used in my past life. That was why the northern lord was lying on the carpet, using the bed sheets as blankets instead of sleeping on the bed.

Over the past week, Alexei had burst through the door yelling whether Dmitry was planning to make himself another illegitimate sibling, only to be chased out after dodging a fountain pen hurled like a spear. And just a moment ago, the omega who’d been locked in the basement was lingering by the door before being dragged away by Alexei.

“Alyoshka, wait! At this rate someone’s going to die!”

“Unless you plan to be the one crushed under him, shut up! I told you over and over not to go near that deranged old man!”

Listening to the two becoming more distant, Dmitry pressed a kiss to my cheek as I lay sprawled.

“That brat has nothing pretty about him except his eyes.”

“Is that something a father should say…? How did he even grow up like… hey!”

“Shh, Noe…”

Flattened on the carpet, I felt Dmitry rub his swollen length against the cleft of my ass. I flinched and pushed him away.

It wasn’t that I hated it. But we really needed to talk now. A real conversation, not the kind disguised as sex.

We’d already done plenty of bonding and knotting. What more did he want? At sixty years old, he should rein in his greed a little…

But Dmitry, looking thoroughly dissatisfied, still grabbed my chest.

“Are you really Noe? Strange. Noe would never reject me.”

“You ask that awfully late, my lord. Shouldn’t you have checked before clinging to me like a mutt in heat? I, Ivan Sidorov, promise you this: if I ever get the chance to leave this castle, I’ll return with the sword that will take your head.”

I pinched the back of his hand as he groped me, and Dmitry laughed in delight.

“My apologies, Noe. A careless remark. You’re the only one who can talk to me like this.”

“Try being suspicious for once! What if I were an assassin sent by the emperor? Anyone can make up a story.”

“My brother doesn’t have the wits to train an assassin this well. Not in the past, and even less now.”

I almost snapped back but stopped. The emperor being an idiot was as undeniable as us loving each other once had been.

If he had been capable of proper thought from the start, he wouldn’t have kept a talented younger brother alive until adulthood only to suddenly banish him to the north. He also wouldn’t have forced him into a marriage with an omega from a blatantly inferior house. If he couldn’t kill the sprout early, he should’ve nurtured it into a loyal tool, yet the emperor lacked even basic competence.

“Alexei hates the emperor intensely. After I died, what did the emperor do?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t say that fool’s name. He isn’t worth keeping at your side. Throwing him off a cliff would barely be enough.”

“He’s our son… And he doesn’t seem that stupid. You won’t even let me say the name of my own child? What is wrong with you?”

I never imagined Dmitry would become a pathetic father who gets jealous of his own son. What a mess this family had become.

“That brat dared insult you. He’ll pay for it, so rest easy. Don’t waste your thoughts on him.”

Pay for it? Pay for it?

“Lord Slavatov, have you lost your mind? You’d kill your only heir now? And kill my child? Is that something a husband says?!”

I nearly drove my knee into his groin but decided I’d regret that more. Instead, I bit his forearm. I immediately regretted that too. For someone who hid in the castle for twenty years, his arm was annoyingly firm.

“Noe, that hurts.”

“Stop whining. I know it doesn’t.”

Without a hint of pain on his face, Dmitry only drooped his brows and stroked my hair. My soft hair snagged on the calluses of his palm. His slow touch drifted over my head.

In our past life, whenever I hugged his shoulders while he worked, he always stroked me like this. Overcome with the hazy memory, I closed my eyes.

“Aren’t you… curious why I’m here? If I were you, I’d have so many questions.”

Until I entered the castle and met Alexei again, I hadn’t truly felt the weight of those twenty years.

I didn’t expect to reveal everything instantly or enjoy a cheerful tearful reunion. But I hadn’t completely given up on the vague hope that things might somehow work out.

Yet under Alexei’s boot, I abandoned that hope entirely. We might never return to what we were.

I had died young, and in this new life, the memories of my past felt as vivid as yesterday. Eighteen years of living and growing wasn’t a long time. Remembering the past, learning what I needed, seeing the world change every day, there had been much to feel and enjoy. Nothing like the two who lived trapped in the castle.

‘More than anything… I didn’t have to face my own death. I never felt the grief of losing someone I loved.’

I’d died young without witnessing anyone around me die first. I died before my siblings, even before my parents. But Dmitry and Alexei were different.

They both lost the one they loved at the same time. I left them a will, but a dead person’s last words can’t heal the ones left behind.

“Alex, I’m sorry I couldn’t play with you more. But I love you. Mishka, take care of Alexei for me. And please, don’t follow me into death. Live happily. Don’t cry… smile for me. I want to see your smiling face one last time.”

My will held no power.

Considering Alexei’s temperament and their strained relationship, Dmitry had surely drowned in grief and neglected his child.

Even in its neglected, barren state, nothing in the castle had changed from twenty years ago. I could tell exactly how he had lived.

Dmitry had remained frozen at the moment I died, and Alexei, forced to grow up alone, had come to hate him.

“I’m sorry… for dying too early.”

What could I possibly say to the child who wandered the castle like a ghost, or to the man who killed himself slowly among crumbling furniture?

Because I died too early, everything fell apart. Dmitry being mocked as a toothless wolf was my fault, and Alexei being insulted as a half-wit heir was my fault too.

If I had lived and cared for them properly, the people wouldn’t be risking their lives crossing the border, and the tax collectors from the capital wouldn’t be terrorizing them.

“If I had just lived a little longer… even five more years… things wouldn’t be like this. Both of you could have lived better…”

No matter how much I wiped them away, the tears kept falling. I swallowed them down and apologized.

‘I can’t do anything. I can’t ask House Horus for resources to help the poor in the territory, and I can’t go to the capital to request the emperor to establish relief shelters.’

‘And I can’t even play the role of Alexei’s mother now, not after all this time. That child must already think I’m the emperor’s spy, or some cunning seducer.’

“Noe, I have never once resented you. So please, don’t cry.”

Dmitry held me and soothed me as I cried. The way he had when, in our past life, during our newlywed days, he found me lost and crying after wandering out on a nighttime walk. He wrapped me up and patted me gently for a long time. I cried in his arms again. The comfort made my heart ache.

“Every moment I spent with you was a blessing. I never forgot, not even for a second, and never once did I hate you. As a descendant of the dragon, I swear these words hold no lie.”

“Please don’t say such musty things. It feels like your words have mold growing on them.”

“I am sixty this year. It’s only natural for my words to sound old. That time has come.”

Descendants of the dragon… All royalty are called that. The emperor, him, Alexei. The empire’s history begins with a dragon who, weary of its lonely existence, rampaged wildly, and the mage who sacrificed themselves to seal it.

The dragon scattered its power into the world as it was sealed, allowing even non-royals to become alphas. And to suppress the might of those alphas, omegas were born inheriting the mage’s essence.

“That is why omegas must have the generosity to accept their alphas, no matter what.”

The archmage had said this during our wedding, a threat disguised as advice. It was probably just the emperor’s way of reminding us that even if Dmitry beat me to death, divorce was not an option.

Thanks to Dmitry dragging out dead old sayings, I ended up laughing through my tears.

There was a time when I teased him for being ten years older, calling him an old man. Now we had a forty-two-year age gap. A noble alpha who had rejected every omega sent for him to remarry suddenly taking in an eighteen-year-old commoner omega… Anyone seeing us would think the two brothers had gone senile together. One ruining the country from the capital, the other ruining his territory in the north.

“To me, the fact that the archmage runs the country instead of the emperor and the empire is still standing is stranger than your reincarnation.”

“That was weird back in our past life too. Maybe he’s blessed by the dragon or something.”

If the brothers were both insane, why should Dmitry be the only one blamed? How many sane people even exist in this country?

I laughed through a stuffy nose and took Dmitry’s hand. Then I pushed him down onto the soft carpet and climbed over him.

I wanted to forget the residents fleeing our land, the collapsing empire, the kidnapped omega, and the son rotting from the inside out.

An omega’s dream is to spend time with the alpha they love without any worries. Humans live chasing their dreams. What’s so wrong with thinking of nothing and living only in the moment?

“How should I call you in this life?”

“Ivan Sidorov, but you can still call me Noe. You’re still Mishka, after all.”

I was born as Ivan Sidorov, but I wanted to live as Noe Horus. Though I already knew that was impossible. Still, I had Dmitry. An alpha filled with devotion to uphold my illusions.

I leaned down toward Dmitry slowly. Feeling his hand trace my nape, I kissed him. In response, his fingers returned, parting the narrow space again.

“Ah…!”

The sensation of being opened inside never became familiar. When I let out a soft groan, the fingers rubbing my inner walls paused.

I reached back and forced my index finger inside. His and mine tangled deep within me. The momentary hesitation ended as his hand began moving again. I couldn’t tell whether the bite at my collarbone or the fingers stirring inside me was the greater stimulus.

It was exactly what I wanted.

---

“Can you stand?”

“No… I want to die again. Just let me go once… I’ll come back…”

“Out of the question.”

I had been the one to start things, but I hadn’t imagined it would end like this. My body had no strength left. Messing with an older husband carelessly had earned me a brutal lesson.

“I fear hearing such words even in my dreams, so please refrain.”

“Uuugh…”

Dmitry lifted my limp body upright and draped a white sheet over my head. A ring appeared from who-knows-where and slipped onto my ring finger.

I knew what was coming next. He bowed his head respectfully and kissed the ring. A marriage vow.

“A wedding? Just like that?”

“An old man with little time left must hurry.”

“A bride wearing a veil stained with… that… this sounds like something out of a dirty romance book.”

“If you wish to be the protagonist of such a book, I will gladly cooperate.”

His eyes were serious enough that I shut my mouth. No need to scratch at something that would only fester.

By tradition, a mage would officiate, but Dmitry had learned basic magic in the past to fight monsters, so he could do it himself. A kiss filled with affection, joined hands, and a vow. After the simple ceremony, the tattoo on the back of my hand appeared.

I stroked the same mark inscribed upon me in my past life, the vow of eternity etched into my skin. The dragon pierced through the heart with an arrow was clear and vivid.

“Mishka, no matter what, isn’t this too slapdash? We’ve only known each other for a week.”

“I waited twenty years for you. I can’t wait any longer. I want to claim your life in this world as soon as possible.”

“Alexei will hate this.”

“If that brat complains, tell me immediately. Not just him, no one will ever look down on you again.”

With a face neither quite smiling nor crying, I collapsed against Dmitry’s chest. The presence lingering outside the door crept away.

‘This is the limit of what nobles can imagine.’

In this life, growing up as the child of commoners, I learned a few things. One of them was that even servants could choose the master they wished to serve.

Of course, no matter how proud a servant was, a servant was still a servant; once someone pressed them down with formal authority, they couldn’t resist. But doing so would never earn true respect.

Servants did everything they could within the limits of keeping their heads attached to their necks to make an unworthy master uncomfortable. They competed as if betting on who could inconvenience their master the most.

A memory I didn’t want to recall suddenly flashed through my mind.

“Damn it, he acts so high and mighty just because he played leader of the idiots at the capital academy! I’m a man who lived in the north all my life. Does he think I know less about forests than some book-fed dainty noble? Arrogant brat!”

“Ivan, calm down. Those nobles don’t even have the guts to step into the forest themselves. Such omega-like bastards.”

“Exactly! Do you know how pathetic they are? They asked for a monster specimen, so I scraped by, peeled off its hide, handed it over, and the little shit fainted at the sight of dripping blood!”

When I worked at the tavern doing odd jobs, the lowest-ranking servants and mercenaries shouted insults about their superiors every evening.

They mocked them for not being alpha-like, for being paler than omegas, for being bookish weaklings. They bragged endlessly about how cleverly they fooled those nobles and made fun of them.

“That knight bastard is definitely an omega. If you pulled down his pants and rubbed him a little, he’d beg to be mounted and spill all over the floor. The way his hips swayed reminded me of Dunya crying out last night…”

“You bastard, so that’s why Dunya looked pale today? That was you?”

“Forget that. Did you see the knight grimace earlier while drinking his soup? I mixed a little fresh alpha semen in the idiot’s soup!”

“Ha ha ha! By now he must be having a fiery time with the attendants he brought from his tent!”

I hated them. But taverns existed to empty the pockets of people like that.

I had no choice. Keeping myself dignified wouldn’t solve anything. Three people’s livelihoods depended on that place.

The Sidorov couple would do anything to keep the tavern running. They weren’t bad people, but they weren’t particularly virtuous either.

No one praised virtue, and as long as you didn’t suffer losses, that was enough. It couldn’t be helped.

“I don’t want to serve that table! They’re bragging about passing an omega around between the three of them! And I’m an omega too!”

“Quiet! Just keep your lower half safe. Who cares about some alpha you won’t even meet again? Keep your mouth shut! Go and earn a tip!”

In the end, I learned how to twist my body to avoid having my backside grabbed while carrying beer to the mercenaries’ table. But they would casually seize my thigh the moment their hands touched the cup. There was no real way to avoid their hands.

“Well, well. What brings you to the table of real men? Is that little hole of yours already itching? Want me to fill you tight with something big and thick?”

“No! You ordered drinks. I’m just putting these down… hey! I have to go…!”

Even through my pants, I felt their rough hands rubbing my crotch. The mercenaries got drunker and louder, using the trembling omega in front of them as entertainment.

Few things were as sticky and filthy as the touch of drunk men with wandering hands. I was just one person, and there were many hands.

“You’re old enough. Why don’t you use that cute little hole down there for service? I’m a regular, you know. Hey! Got any omega spirits?”

“Just drink your liquor and leave! This kid doesn’t do that!”

Every time their hands were about to slip inside my waistband, my foster mother rushed out from behind the bar to save me.

The alphas smacked their lips as they watched me hide behind her. I hated the sight of those mouths smacking between wiry beards.

‘Mishka would never have grown old like that.’

So I clung even more tightly to hope. Not all alphas could be like this, I thought. These filthy creatures in a shabby tavern couldn’t be all that existed. All my short life, I longed for the normal alphas I once knew.

But…

‘Reality is a sewer.’

That son of mine grew up exactly like those thugs. Maybe sane alphas were actually the minority in this world.

In truth, even the castle servants weren’t much different from people outside.

“Which brothel did you work at? There’s no way there’s a face around here that I don’t know.”

“I worked at the Sidorov couple’s tavern. Not a brothel.”

On my first day in the castle, someone asked me that before we’d even exchanged names. Other people in the halls weren’t much better. Whistles followed me down the corridor.

Some made obscene gestures directly in front of me, and others openly rubbed their groins as they walked by. The castle was full of swine worth less than stable pigs.

I had expected it. That didn’t make it any less stressful. And…

‘Enough. Stop thinking about it.’

I shook my head lightly and buried my face in Dmitry’s chest. His rough hand naturally rose to my cheek.

‘How far did my moans carry over the past week?’

There was no way rumors hadn’t spread about the omega who entered the castle and was immediately ravished by its master. Silence would have been stranger.

The servants were probably debating every detail about the omega screaming in the former lady’s room for a week straight.

Those discussions would have leaked outside the castle day by day, and by evening, in some tavern, my whole body would be torn apart in filthy men’s gossip, chewed slowly between their few remaining molars. Dmitry would be chewed alongside me. I didn’t need to see it to know.

‘It would be faster to find a place untouched by the rumor.’

In truth, our passionate reunion was a major disaster threatening the castle’s stability. There was no chance I would be accepted as the lady of the house. Even Dmitry’s remaining honor was in danger.

To clean up this mess, the only method left was for Dmitry to take a new bride and shove me into the role of a hidden mistress.

‘But Mishka would never do that.’

My thoughts spiraled, and my eyes drooped shut. The hand stroking my cheek pressed gently over my eyelids.

“Are you tired? You would be. Close your eyes.”

A part of me wished he would devote even half the care he gave me to his own life.

But in a world full of bastards who drag others down while ruining themselves, this much devotion was already a blessing.

So I turned my eyes from the tangled reality and enjoyed our makeshift honeymoon.

Dmitry did the same. In a room preserved in old memories, he lived as if it were still just the two of us.

But a castle built on sand cannot stand long.

Even if I closed my eyes and shut my ears, reality wouldn’t disappear. Moment by moment, the cost we would pay approached. It was a disaster long foreseen.

---

“They wouldn’t have refused the money.”

“Noe, what’s wrong? Why are you making that serious face? Was there something wrong with the letter?”

Even as I glared at the envelope stamped Returned to sender, the letters didn’t change.

On the day marking my first month in the castle, I sent money to keep my promise that I would forward my wages.

But the money came back untouched. Things outside the castle walls were deteriorating fast.

‘Are they… even alive?’

Fear curled in my gut. I wanted to see with my own eyes. I stood, pulling on my outer garment. It was only a simple motion of fastening a cloak, yet I fumbled several times.

“Mishka, I’m going to visit home for a moment.”

“Home, meaning House Horus? That’s too far. Let me come with you.”

Where in the world do husbands learn to say things that make their wives want to scream?

“Noe Horus is dead. I want to meet the parents of Ivan Sidorov.”

“I’ll assign an escort. It’s dangerous for an omega to go alone.”

“It’s fine. It’s just nearby, I’ll be back soon.”

An escort. What a hollow word. For almost a month, every servant in the castle had scrambled to leave early, each with their own excuse.

With the remaining staff, even running the castle was barely possible, let alone guarding me.

‘And the ones still here probably want to kill me.’

The so-called attendants were, officially, servants, but in reality they were the third or fourth sons of minor noble families scattered across the north. They had almost no chance of becoming heirs or receiving titles, but noble was still noble.

With pride far greater than their abilities, they propped up their meager existence by attaching themselves to the title of “Dmitry Slavatov, the emperor’s half-brother and once the great hero of the north.” They clung to the castle, doing tasks beneath their temperament.

[I may be poor and unmarried, but I serve the royal blood. I am the loyal retainer who has not forgotten the hero of old.]

That thin line of thought was their only pillar of self-worth.

During the twenty years Dmitry slowly went mad, they too decayed. And when he committed the outrage of taking an eighteen-year-old commoner omega as his wife, the rotting ones spat out foul resentment and fled, searching for another illusion to cling to.

The few who stayed were no longer serving their lord. They only remained because they had nowhere else to go, because their families had no place for them anymore.

“After spending a whole month together, it’s a pity to part already. Don’t be too late.”

Dmitry buried his nose in my neck. I pinched the back of the hand slipping under my clothes. Trying to grope me even now, really?

“I still have to visit home at least once.”

Tsk. Thankfully, he clicked his tongue softly and withdrew.

A month was more than enough time for returning alphas to spread the scandal through their families. Soon, the minor houses might band together and declare independence.

“I’m only going to see my parents for a moment. It won’t take long.”

We parted without another word before the empty castle gate. Everything I knew, he already knew as well. He knew everything. Even so, he let himself believe my shallow lie. To cling to a little more of the small, shabby happiness we shared.

“…Even so, I’m still your child. You could’ve at least left a letter.”

But the false play had to end.

I let out a hollow laugh as I looked at the ruins of my home. The tavern had long since become an abandoned wreck. Everything made of wood had been broken into sharp splinters.

The neighbors must have taken the pieces for firewood. Winter was coming. Firewood was precious.

Climbing up to the house on the second floor, I worried I might find my parents’ bodies on the floor, but thankfully it was completely empty.

“You must have left in a hurry…”

Because of me.

Scattered drawers and clothes, spoiled dishes left in the cupboard… I could easily imagine how quickly they must have run.

The moment rumors about me spread outside the castle, they must have hurried across the border. To avoid being mocked as the parents of a loose omega who seduced a Slavatov.

The floor creaked under my heels. The cold, lifeless house felt unfamiliar. My eighteen years had been swallowed whole by a single month in the castle.

From now on, what will I have to lose entirely in order to gain something else? I didn’t want that. I wanted to protect what was precious to me.

“Mom… Dad… what do I do now…? What am I supposed to do?”

They hadn’t been good parents. But they were the ones who raised me. They were the ones who protected me from the ghostlike howling wind.

My cries filled the empty house, yet the chill didn’t fade.

“Damn it, why’d you make us come all the way up here?”

“Just wanna check if there’s anything worth taking. Who knows if that slut sent something valuable to her parents?”

As I sat collapsed, hiccuping, a rough voice sounded from the landing. An unfamiliar voice, at least two of them.

I quickly swallowed my sobs and hid.

House looters were everywhere. People kept disappearing, empty houses kept increasing. It was common for someone with nowhere to go to stay in an empty house, only to be killed by looters. As footsteps climbed the stairs, the smell of alcohol mixed with the scent of alphas. The slut they were talking about was obviously me.

‘I can’t get caught.’

I curled up in the narrow attic, holding my breath. The alphas began rummaging through the house with practiced ease. They kicked at the clothes on the floor, at the drawers, spat on the ground, even pissed on the floor and walls.

I couldn’t see them from inside the attic, but from the hissing sound of their piss hitting the floor and their chatter, I could guess exactly what they were doing.

“Smells like piss all the way up here, you bastard.”

“Oh look at you, running your mouth when one punch would knock you flat. You’re the one who dragged me to this empty dump, yet now you’ve got complaints about me taking a leak!”

Hearing them laugh and trade insults, it seemed they weren’t professional thieves.

Even if the phrase ‘full-time bandit’ sounded ridiculous, people who lived off exploiting others weren’t rare. But these drifters seemed like two drunks who wandered in after knocking back cheap liquor.

‘Good for me.’

I let out a silent sigh of relief inside the attic. Drunken wanderers weren’t likely to climb up into a cramped hidden space.

The man enthusiastically rummaging around clicked his tongue.

“Tsk, wasted trip.”

“What did I tell you? An omega smart enough to send gifts to her parents wouldn’t spread her legs for some wrinkled old alpha in the first place!”

The other alpha muttered as he pulled up his pants. Even though the owners were long gone, it was absurd hearing people who broke into someone else’s home talk about ‘common sense.’ Truly the end times.

Although, manners and decency were luxuries too fragile to survive such a harsh winter. Not everyone who ripped apart the bar tables was a shameless thief-in-training.

‘Please go. Hurry up and leave. Go finish the rest of that liquor and get lost.’

Feeling in my toes slowly disappeared. Sweat cooled and drained the warmth from my body. Cold air crept in through the thin walls and crawled up from my feet. Forced into the cramped attic, my awkwardly twisted ankle throbbed painfully.

Thankfully, perhaps the sealed dragon had heard my silent prayer, the petty thieves spat loudly and left. Even though they grumbled about finding nothing, I heard the rustling of something being taken anyway.

“With this, let’s finally get some real booze. Let’s pawn it at the shop next to the new tavern.”

“You idiot, what you were drinking earlier wasn’t booze, it was rat piss!”

“I’m saying we should save the good stuff your runaway wife brewed, you moron. No wonder she crossed the border saying she couldn’t live with you!”

“Bastard, hitting where it hurts! It wasn’t running away. She went thinking it couldn’t be worse than when I broke my leg and couldn’t earn… and then she actually died. …Poor woman.”

The two alphas sniffled as they walked off. Left alone, I mulled over their story.

A common story. A poor couple barely scraping by, one of them suddenly injured and unable to work. The remaining partner turns to crime to survive, only to lose their life. The one left behind wastes away and starves, or even if they survive, they never return to who they used to be.

‘Did they cross the border safely…?’

I pictured the icy river that carried drifting ice all year long, and along that river, the bodies of the Sidorov couple floating down.

I shook my head hard to erase the image.

They were no longer people who mattered to me. They abandoned me to live their own lives. I had to live the life I chose.

Carefully, I opened the attic door and stepped down without making a sound. My stiff joints forced me to limp in circles around the room before I could walk properly again. But walking wasn’t impossible. I tightened the laces on my aching right shoe.

Before returning to the castle, there was somewhere I needed to stop by.

“They said a new tavern opened, didn’t they?”

The purpose of coming outside the castle today was to check on my parents’ wellbeing and at the same time understand what was happening beyond the walls. A tavern was the best place to grasp the public mood. The harsher life became, the more people drowned themselves in liquor. And drunk people became far too honest.

I had never once seen a drunk who worried about what others thought.

“That damned Dmitry Slavatov! He’s been acting pitiful for twenty years just because one omega died!”

‘You’ve got a damned ugly face yourself, so who are you calling damned? Miserable bastard.’

Back at my parents’ tavern, drunkards would often insult Mishka loudly. Every time they did, I watered down their drinks. If I opened my mouth, I felt like curses would come flying out, so I kept quiet.

With the hood of my cloak pulled low, I followed the newly formed flow of people toward the tavern that had just opened. It wasn’t hard to find. All I had to do was follow the flushed-faced, glassy-eyed crowd stumbling forward.

‘All the lowest of the territory have gathered here.’

The new tavern stood right in the middle of the red-light district. A genius choice of location. Towering like a pillar at the center where three streets split, it was surrounded by drunkards rolling around and others who would soon join them.

I drew in a small breath and held it. Staying close behind an alpha who smelled musty, I slipped inside as if part of his group.

“Ugh, it’s noisy. And it stinks.”

The inside was packed with loudly drinking alphas. Omegas rushed around carrying food and drinks. It looked similar to our old tavern, except every serving omega was half-naked.

‘I never wore anything like that. Is that why our tavern failed? Not that my parents could ever have put their child or spouse in clothes like these.’

The serving uniforms were barely even fabric scraps. Omegas wore unfinished pieces of cloth that exposed their shoulders and legs, accepting alpha hands with hollow smiles. Their lifeless eyes as they forced themselves to smile were horrifying. The lewd jokes made even our tavern seem innocent.

“Your fried potatoes and grilled herring are here. Enjoy.”

“The fish is too dry. Aren’t you going to drizzle something over it? Something from below, you know.”

“That kind of service costs extra.”

“It’s just water that comes out when you touch it. Why so stingy? Looks like you’re already dripping anyway.”

Pretending not to notice the scene, I sat at a random empty seat. At the table beside me, an alpha calmly slid his hand between an omega’s legs. The alphas at other tables weren’t any different.

‘Can’t a fire just break out here? Maybe I should start one.’

I had never wished so earnestly for someone else’s business to burn down. I traced the grain on the wooden table with my eyes, trying to block out the noise.

My pity for the trespassing alphas from earlier was gone. If they came here with stolen goods, they couldn’t possibly be living well. If anything, they were probably living even filthier lives with that money.

From two tables diagonally to my right, I heard the voices of the petty thieves. They were both short, with reddened bulbous noses, men who looked almost like twins. Dead drunk, they lamented in unison.

“I’m saying we don’t need to live here anymore! Why stay when everyone else is running away? Does our hometown feed us? Why starve to death paying taxes? One tax for the castle, one for the capital! What kind of nonsense is that?”

‘Double taxes?’

This was the first time hearing such a thing. Dmitry would never collect taxes like that. Even when he poured money into saving me, he used the family funds, not the people’s taxes. The interior of the castle was far from luxurious. Decorations I had chosen in my past life, long out of fashion, just sat there collecting dust.

So who was lying in Slavatov’s name and tormenting the people?

“Excuse me, your order…?”

“This one.”

A server approached hesitantly. I pointed at a random item on the menu and sent him away. The food didn’t matter. I needed to hear more of these men’s conversation.

“The collectors come so often I’m sick of them, damn it. My own house barely feels like mine anymore. They eat my bread when I’m not home. And what taxes am I supposed to pay? It’s not like I earn anything! They’ll just shove it all into that new omega’s backside anyway.”

“That bastard must be happy. He’s got an alpha to fill him up top and bottom. Meanwhile my omegas can’t even fill their top mouths and cry about being hungry. Drinking tonight is my last luxury. The omegas can suck up to some other alpha. I need to find my own way to survive!”

“Hey, idiot. If you’re crossing the river, take me with you. In my village, anyone with strength ran away already. I’m the only young one left. What’s the point staying with just dying elders and orphan brats? Better to drown in the river than starve sucking on my fingers.”

“My village too. I’m the only one left who can walk on my own. And hearing what those tax bastards say, Slavatov will fall soon. Even the castle servants are fleeing at night. My sister who married far away wrote me. Their lord suddenly dragged young alphas to the castle for training. They say he’s squeezing every last coin out of them until they’re dry. My sister asked me to send her money… damn it. A war is coming soon. If you don’t want to die like a dog, run!”

I didn’t need to hear more.

Slowly, I dragged my hand down my hooded face. Even tearing at my hair didn’t hurt. The throbbing pressure in my forehead was worse, as if my skull would crack.

“Your assorted side dishes have arrived. Enjoy.”

The server set down a large plate piled high with food on the table.

‘So this is what I ordered.’

I must have pointed at something quite extravagant. The server kept glancing back and forth between the lavish food and me.

His stomach was sunken. He was naturally thin, but the exhaustion from constant overwork made it worse. Even when I handed him a few coins, he didn’t leave. He lingered by my side.

‘Why is he doing that?’

The answer came quickly.

At the table behind me, several alphas had cornered an omega and were teasing him as if offering him a piece of roasted potato only to snatch it away at the last moment. Watching the omega desperately wave his hands to grab even a morsel made my insides twist. What was so amusing about tormenting someone hungry?

“Sir…?”

“Here, eat this. Keep the change.”

I stood abruptly, grabbed his wrist, and sat him down. Leaving the startled omega behind, I strode out of the tavern. I needed to return to the castle as soon as possible.

‘I have to get out of this country. If we stay, everyone will die.’

Even a ragtag army is overwhelming when they come in numbers.