Omega Manual chapter 78

Extra: Offering Day (Part 1)

As time passed, the leaves on the street trees outside the window turned from emerald green to dark green, and wildflowers bloomed one after another. It seemed that spring had just arrived not long ago, yet summer had already rushed into Nantes with hurried steps.

The villa, which had seen no change for five years, inexplicably acquired many strange and quirky items due to Irey’s arrival.

For example, a mixing cup bought for five yuan at the street market. It was said that its design was different from ordinary cups, making it easier to mix coffee and milk. Shelley tried it and found that coffee grounds stuck all over the bottom of the cup, making it not only inconvenient for mixing but also harder to drink from.

There were also scented bath balls thrown into the bathwater, turning the water a bright red like a crime scene and emitting a cheap fragrance. Besides adding a lot of housework, these also completely masked Irey’s pheromones, causing Shelley, who had a sensitive sense of smell, to push him away with a frown for three consecutive days and refuse to share a room with him.

On another occasion, Shelley came home to find the study filled with scattered books, and the bookshelf crooked and toppled over because Irey had a sudden whim to dismantle the old bookshelf and use the wood to make a new one.

Shelley admired Irey’s flexible mind and creative ideas, but that didn’t stop him from pulling Irey down from the ladder by his ear and venting his anger.

Of course, Irey did end up making a new bookshelf, which looked better than any that could be bought outside.

Living with Irey for this past month made Shelley feel a bit dazed.

Time flew by so quickly that it slipped through his fingers before he even noticed, bringing the next day’s sunrise.

Yet time also passed very slowly, so slowly that he could barely recall how he had spent the previous winter. That journey to embrace death seemed to have happened in another lifetime, vague and surreal, as if it weren’t reality.

But occasionally, when a fierce wind blew outside and the sky was covered with dark clouds, Shelley would look at the bent street trees and suddenly remember that night when everything was about to begin.

When he received the government’s Omega list for Offering Day, it was on such a stormy, cloudy day.

The entire city of Nantes was deathly silent. He sat on the sofa in the villa’s living room, without turning on the lights, staring blankly at the empty ceiling, his eyes following a spider crawling in the corner.

Winter was coming, and the temperature was dropping. The spider struggled to weave its web, unaware that no prey would visit.

It moved its limbs slowly, drawing out a silk thread, its movements getting slower and slower until, under Shelley’s gaze, it curled up into a ball and lay still on its web.

At this moment, the villa’s doorbell rang. A black-uniformed Alpha with a cold expression entered, holding a long list. He scanned the list from top to bottom and read out a name, “Shelley Manta, unmarked Omega, you have been selected as a devotee for this month’s Offering Day. Tonight, you will follow the team to Lansai for the Offering activities. Please ensure your participation is completely voluntary, otherwise the Gender Control Agency has the right to dispose of you.”

“…” Shelley looked at the expressionless Alpha and recited the words he was supposed to say, “I assure you, my participation in the Offering activities is completely voluntary.”

“Very well, follow me.” The Alpha put away the list and turned to walk out the door.

Actually, with Shelley’s relationship with Manager Rodell, if he didn’t want to go, a single phone call could have his name removed from the list.

But as the Alpha turned, a vague plan formed in Shelley’s mind.

He was an unmarked Omega, and since the new regulations, he only had the chance to leave the city on special occasions like Offering Day.

In other words, only tonight could he meet an Alpha from another city who had no ties to the Manta family and was a complete stranger.

At that time, Shelley didn’t realize how naive and ridiculous his idea was, still judging the world with pre-disaster innocence, unaware that the world had already turned into a living hell.

He thought that Omegas were inferior, but they were still human and deserved basic respect and dignity.

Little did he know that such thinking would lead him to fall into hell that night.

Offering Day had no Offering and no voluntariness. When two or three people held him down and forcibly injected him with heat-inducing drugs, Shelley finally realized that in today’s world, Omegas were no better off than livestock in a pen.

They had no human rights, no dignity. Their only purpose for struggling to survive was to be assigned to Alphas to satisfy their desires and to provide reproductive value to society.

Alphas held power, Betas were people, and Omegas were just tools, dutifully doing what tools should do, or they would lose all value and be discarded.

The Alpha assigned to Shelley was a 200-pound, burly man.

The Beta guiding him opened the door and rudely pushed him inside. The door mercilessly closed behind him.

A putrid smell invaded Shelley’s nostrils from all directions, making him almost vomit.

The fat man’s eyes lit up, and he loudly clicked his tongue, “Damn, my money was well spent. It’s really an S-grade!”

As soon as he spoke, the fat man eagerly began taking off his shirt, revealing a large, white belly.

Despite this, Shelley still forced himself to try and communicate with the man.

“Excuse me, can you wait a moment?” Shelley suppressed the nausea deep in his stomach and politely asked, “I participated in Offering Day to find an Alpha who can make a deal with me. May I ask—”

However, the fat man had no intention of listening to him. He quickly yanked off his own belt, roughly grabbed Shelley’s arm, and threw him onto the bed.

“Please wait!” Shelley raised his voice. “I want to make a deal with you. I promise it won’t be to your disadvantage—”

Despairingly, the fat Alpha showed no sign of stopping. He wasn’t listening to Shelley at all, just pinning him down on the bed, ready to get on with it.

“I have money!” Shelley made a last desperate attempt. “I promise you won’t be disappointed. Can you at least stop and listen to me?”

This time, the fat man finally reacted. He glanced at Shelley’s face, showing a contemptuous smile.

“Omegas looking to offer themselves always have a lot of reasons. Which one haven’t I heard before?” he said. “You might as well save your energy. You won’t even be able to cry in a bit.”

In that moment, Shelley lost all hope for everything.

For the environment, for society, for Alphas, and for himself.

He was no longer treated as a living person. His mouth was moving, clearly speaking a language humans could understand, yet no one listened. No communication was possible.

In the next second, realizing this, he gave up trying to communicate. He lowered his head and bit down hard on the fat man’s arm.

In physical confrontations, Omegas are at a disadvantage, but their bite force is comparable to that of Alphas and Betas.

He used all his strength, and blood appeared instantly.

The fat Alpha let out a pig-like scream and instinctively pulled back. Shelley didn’t hesitate. He pushed open the door and ran, hearing the Alpha’s enraged shouts behind him, “Damn it, you dare run! Someone! Something’s wrong! My Omega ran away!”

Shelley had no time to hesitate. He could only keep running.

The fat Alpha wasn’t nimble enough. Several times he almost caught up, but tripped over debris on the ground. Shelley’s mind was blank. He only knew to keep running forward.

He didn’t know where he was going or where he could go, just that if he stopped, it would all be over.

He didn’t know how long he ran through the dark alleys. Finally, the panting, cursing of the fat Alpha faded. Leaning against a wall, Shelley took deep breaths and looked back.

That Alpha wasn’t chasing anymore.

So, was he free?

The answer was obviously no.

He had been injected with forced heat-inducing drugs, his pheromone levels at their peak. Wherever he went, Alphas would immediately smell him. Like now.

Unknowingly, he had run to the entrance of a bar. Alphas around him followed the scent, causing a commotion inside the bar. Vulgar words occasionally reached Shelley’s ears.

He mechanically struggled, mechanically voiced his refusals, knowing deep down that no matter how he struggled, he couldn’t escape the impending nightmare.

He would be taken away and divided by these strange Alphas here, possibly dying in the worst scenario.

Shelley longed for death, but not this way.

Then that voice sounded.

“He’s my Omega. Who dares touch him?”

He looked up and saw Irey Halton’s face for the first time.

At first glance, the person in front of him didn’t look much different from the Alphas surrounding him. The same dirty appearance, old clothes covered in dust, even the cigarette in his mouth smelled just like the bar.

But those dark brown eyes shone brightly, reflecting the moonlight outside, making him stand out in this chaotic world.

Years later, when Shelley recalled this moment, he still felt that the moment their eyes met was like the beginning of a fairy tale.