—The instant he had lain down and felt something was wrong, he should have changed chairs immediately, no matter how tired he was!
Orr sank into painful memories, but the salad in his mouth was also so damned delicious that his inherited handsome face twisted slightly. The sight frightened Faan into silently swallowing the words he had been about to use to persuade Orr to relax during the holiday.
“…Have you really made up your mind?”
Pulling himself out of his memories now that the salad was almost finished, Orr tossed his spoon into the plate and looked up at his brother.
Faan’s ears twitched uncomfortably at the sharp sound of metal spoon striking white porcelain. He frowned in mild confusion, then understood what Orr meant and broke into a smile.
“Yes. I’m going to study at Lian. You already knew that, didn’t you? It’s been my dream since I was little.”
Dream.
Orr could not stop a cold smile from appearing—Lian was a school as famous as Hain. But while the latter was a military academy that trained personnel for imperial military bases, the former was an elite academy dedicated specifically to educating Omegas.
Though it had been founded for Omegas, Lian had developed with the times and now offered many courses beyond traditional etiquette subjects such as flower arranging and tea ceremony, including practical fields like medicine and nursing, mechanical assembly, cryptography, and mental-energy regulation. But based on how well Orr knew Faan, his brother would never lay so much as one finger on any of those “coarse” subjects.
Your lifelong dream is obviously to marry André, have a baby, stay home, support your husband, and raise children.
Orr thought sarcastically.
“Speaking of which, André graduated from Hain too. I heard the training halls still preserve his scores as the highest in history!”
Faan’s delighted voice rang out.
…See?
“I’ll beat him.” Orr raised an eyebrow. His brows were thick, and his hair was buzzed short, so the gesture made him look especially fierce. “If you like him so much, why don’t you go with me?”
Omegas generally reached sexual maturity later than Alphas. So although Faan had been born two years earlier than Orr, the two of them would still begin university at the same time. Imperial regulations required Alphas to begin early education from the age of two, once they could walk, while Omegas began anywhere between the ages of three and five.
“What? …You mean I should go with you? To Hain?” Faan’s beautiful eyes widened.
“What? Is that so surprising?”
“Of course it is… I’m an Omega!”
“Hain started admitting Omegas two years ago!”
“…”
—Actually, it was not impossible to understand. Ever since Orr’s pheromones had fully matured, he had started looking at Faan as though everything about him was wrong. Faan had simply assumed his younger brother was going through a rebellious phase and classified every hint Orr gave him as awkward little displays of affection… He had never imagined the real reason was that he simply did not fit Orr’s tastes.
Faan helplessly pursed his lips. It had to be said that when he made that expression, he looked exactly like Orr.
“Orr,” he said, “have you been reading those ‘Domineering Omega Officer Falls in Love with Me’ novels again?”
Bang—! Orr could not stop himself from slamming a fist onto the table and practically roared, “What nonsense are you talking about?!”
Faan looked at his younger brother’s face, flushed red with anger, and smiled with excellent temper. His hair was very long and, because he was reclining, spilled over his arm. Honey-gold strands framed a slender, pale wrist exposed by his sleepwear, making the gold appear even more golden and the white even whiter. In the bright light, it looked like fine streams of gold flowing over white porcelain.
“There’s nothing wrong with liking those stories,” he comforted him. “As long as you don’t mix them up with reality… You know, real life can’t possibly be like the novels.”
Not only had laying everything out failed to persuade Faan to go to military academy with him, Orr had instead been accused of loving “domineering Omega” novels. Furious, he punched the innocent coffee table and stormed away.
Left behind, Faan sprawled across the large sofa and sighed faintly as he watched Orr’s retreating back. One of his soft, pale little feet slipped from its fluffy slipper, and he gently rubbed the surface of the crystal-glass coffee table with his little toe. Only after confirming that Orr had not cracked it did he relax.
With one foot still resting on the table, he admired the pedicure he had just done. The solid pink polish made his feet look another shade paler.
“Sigh.” Faan sighed again. This time, the sound was full of love and admiration for himself.
“…”
Orr, who had already turned a corner, thought about it, came back, and decided there might still be a chance to save him.
Impossible.
Orr thought painfully. This damned weak Omega would never dominate a battlefield like the cool male leads in those novels.
In the middle of a fight, all he would do was scream at everyone not to ruin his beautiful nails!
–
Hain Military Academy.
When Orr came to register, the campus around him was filled with freshmen just like him. At a glance, almost every one of them was a tall, powerfully built male Alpha wearing a crisp freshman uniform. Most had empty hands, while a few had household robots beside their legs carrying luggage for them.
As the Empire’s largest military training institution, everyone who came to Hain dreamed of becoming a soldier. Compared with other Alphas their age, its students were generally more independent.
The student apartments for freshmen came fully supplied with daily necessities. If there was anything else they wanted, they could request and purchase it through the student terminals issued by Hain. Bringing a household robot along was already uncommon, to say nothing of having parents come to see their children off to school.
Orr heard an Alpha nearby let out a huge sigh and mutter, “So there really aren’t going to be any Omegas.” He could not help frowning.
It was not that he had entertained fantasies about finding the opposite sex at school. He had simply been reminded once again of the unambitious Omega back home, and irritation rose in him all over again.
Orr clicked his tongue irritably and strode toward his assigned apartment building. He had already finished registration, and an upperclassman at the registration desk had helped activate his student terminal. For the next four years, this terminal would replace his old personal terminal. It had all the functions of the old device as well as freshman guidance and a campus map. Of course, if you committed some disciplinary violation, it would also report directly to the central system in real time, and within minutes you could find yourself wearing the campus patrol’s handcuffs.
Hain had two large residential zones on the eastern and western sides of the academy. Each covered a substantial area. The student apartment buildings were all constructed from alloy and equipped with a complete range of emergency systems, including protection against fire and electrical hazards. Their safety rating was extremely high.
Each apartment housed four people in a small-suite arrangement with bunk beds, a private bathroom and toilet, a balcony, and a washing machine. Unlike other schools, no one lived on the ground floor. The entire level had been converted into training grounds. The training areas were enclosed, but numerous electronic projection screens outside allowed spectators to see the situation inside clearly—not because the academy wanted to pressure the Empire’s future soldiers into training harder, but because putting a large group of hormone-drenched young Alphas together in one area guaranteed arguments and fights. Since that was unavoidable, they might as well have somewhere to let off steam. Hain’s special nature also meant it encouraged this kind of competition between Alphas.
The Empire needed its strongest warriors.
Warriors like the historical legend who had walked out of Hain: André, the youngest general in the entire Empire.
When Orr entered the apartment complex, he found the entrance to his own building almost deserted. The neighboring building, however, was completely blocked. A huge circle of Alphas had formed around its entrance, and deafening noise poured from the crowd.
The chaotic shouting was so loud that Orr could not make out what anyone was saying.
He frowned and was just about to ignore the matter and enter his own building when the noisy circle next door abruptly fell silent. Then a soft voice sounded from its center.
“Everyone, don’t crowd. You could get hurt. We’ll have plenty of time together later.”
As the words ended, the Omega at the center of the crowd smiled gently. A huge wave of sharp inhalations instantly came from the surrounding Alphas.
Orr had excellent eyesight and could easily tell what was happening from the idiotic expressions of the Alphas at the edge of the crowd. Narrowing his eyes, he looked carefully at the name of the building next door—everyone knew that Hain had begun admitting Omegas two years earlier and had also established student buildings exclusively for them, with even higher security than ordinary student apartments.
From the moment it decided to admit Omegas, Hain had developed special Omega student terminals capable of real-time pheromone monitoring, advance heat warnings, and other functions.
The most distinctive feature was its light-grid defense, designed to protect Omegas from physical harm. If some Alpha really lost his mind and tried to climb an Omega dormitory building, or attempted something against an Omega who was alone somewhere, activating the function would affect every Alpha within half a meter and sedate them through photoelectric pheromone suppression.
Because the function was so powerful, every time it was used the owner of the terminal had to report the specific circumstances to the academic affairs office. Only after the account was verified would the terminal be recharged, ensuring that it could perform the next defensive activation.
Yet despite all these measures two years ago, Hain had faced the embarrassing situation of not a single Omega showing interest after the admissions notice was released. Several lonely student buildings stood completely empty, and every full moon single Alphas would climb onto the windowsills and howl mournfully at the vacant dormitories like wolves.
Then the dorm supervisors would arrive, whip them into the training rooms with teaching switches, and assign extra training.
The fact that Omegas had enrolled this year was probably because the online novels of the past two years had fueled an increasingly popular craze for Omegas to join the military.
Many newly arrived Alphas who, like Orr, had been preparing to enter their own buildings realized what was going on. With wolfish howls, they sprinted toward the already enormous circle. Orr followed close behind, refusing to be outdone, and immediately—
Stayed exactly where he was, opened his student terminal, and sent a message to Faan at Lian.
“Hah! Some Omegas are still enjoying comfortable lives!”
Orr’s gaze was icy as his fingers flew over the tiny projected screen of his terminal. “While other Omegas have already thrown themselves into Hain and stand ready to sacrifice their lives for the Empire at any moment!”
“What a vast difference there is between one Omega and another!”
