The Sleepwalker’s Mansion Chapter 49

He couldn’t tell how much time had passed. He cried until his knees were damp, then, exhausted, he sat blankly staring at the faded wallpaper for a while. His eyes spun dizzily. His dry face stung from the tears, so he rubbed his cheeks roughly with the back of his hand. It still didn’t feel real.

‘Stay quiet as a dead mouse until I find a suitable match for you. Though as a recessive omega, there won’t be anything but a concubine’s position.’

Concubine. At that moment, Doha’s words from before came to mind.

‘If hyung is a recessive omega, instead of studying abroad, he’ll sell you off as a concubine to some old mister with a protruding belly. That’s Seo Taeoh’s way.’

Was his father’s way to send him off like selling him off as a concubine without a second thought? Haa, a sigh as if the ground was caving in burst out as if it would shatter his lungs.

Is this really the end?

Really the end?

His eyes heated up again. Tears he thought had dried filled up once more and flowed down. He felt pathetic for just stupidly crying like this.

He couldn’t find a way to escape this quagmire. The only clear fact was that he would have to go out like a doll to the ‘match’ his father had mentioned, foolishly locked in this room.

It was when he rubbed and wiped his reddened eyes with his palm.

Crack.

“……?”

A sound that was familiar yet unfamiliar, eerie.

Crack, crack, crack….

The sound was coming from the ceiling. The desire not to confirm its reality clashed with the feeling that he had no choice but to look. An illusion or hallucination. As long as he didn’t see it, it wouldn’t disappear, right? Doeon slowly raised his head.

“……!”

The spider monster with its head twisted was hanging from the ceiling permeated with darkness, flashing its bluish evil light. Every time it turned its soot-blackened face, crack, crack, the sound of wood twisting chillingly scraped at his scalp.

[Don’t… let… them… take… the… mansion….]

With its thread-like eyes slit narrowly to the side shining sharply, the spider monster muttered as if chanting a spell. It poked, poke, its legs abundant with antennae like centipedes and insects, approaching as if it would immediately cover him with its house-sized bulk and swallow him in one bite. Doeon knelt down and clasped his two hands together.

“It’s all over… It’s all been found out… Hng….”

[Protect… the… mansion….]

“…How could I…. I’m going to be sold off as a concubine….”

When he replied in a self-mocking voice, the spider monster twisted its small mouth covered in fine fuzz and opened its stiff lips.

[Get… pregnant….]

That sound again. The voice murmuring as if invoking a spell circled his ears. Get pregnant. He couldn’t understand that spell-like word at all. Doeon trembled his jaw while lifting his head.

“I, I don’t understand what it means…. Why are you doing this to me…. Stop appearing, please…! I can’t do anything anymore…! A-Am I going crazy and that’s why? Am I crazy and that’s why I see you…?”

As he spat out his pent-up feelings, crack, crack, the antennae of its long legs stood on end like the feelers of an arthropod and extended in all directions. The goosebump-inducing sight was vividly imprinted in his almond-colored pupils.

[Get… pregnant….]

It was then. The legs that had extended in all directions crossed rapidly—da-da-da-da—and climbed down the wall. The bluish glowing evil light rolled fiercely and moved, striding toward Doeon.

“Eek…!”

With nowhere to hide, he crumpled his body into the room corner and hunched his shoulders. It felt like he would be stabbed to death by those long sword-like legs any moment.

“P-Please spare me…! I, I did wrong…!”

Tap, tap, the sound of thorn-like feet stamping on the wooden floor surface gnawed sharply at his spine. As it came closer and closer, his terrified white face was reflected in the protruding bluish eyes.

The closer the spider monster got, the more a unique scent like pine resin secreted from wood pierced his nostrils. The ends of his hair stood on end, and goosebumps spread throughout his body.

“D-Don’t come, s-spare…!”

In that instant, the spider monster’s first leg lifted high and then plunged, thud, toward Doeon’s lower abdomen. Along with the pain of his body splitting open, an intensely flashing light covered his eyes.

Doeon blinked his eyes that felt like they would go blind and lowered his head. The well-honed long sword-like leg sprouting antennae was embedded in his stomach. Doeon murmured in disbelief.

“Wh-Why, why, to me… why… st-stop….”

The pain of his lower abdomen being pierced kept his jaw from closing. In his eyes widened in horror, tears fell without respite. This is a dream. It has to be a dream. His vision grew dark, and the signal flickering in his mind faded into the distance.

“Haa….”

[If… you… get… pregnant… you… will….]

The spider monster’s voice gradually subsided. Its small mouth covered in fine fuzz was wriggling to continue speaking. But nothing reached his deafened ears.

Drop.

As if a hanging thread snapped, his consciousness cut off as well.

Taeoh was in a bad mood. His eldest son Doeon had audaciously hidden the fact that he was a recessive omega and pretended to be a beta all this time. He hadn’t neglected to investigate Doeon’s background after receiving contact from him.

But it was his own oversight that he had believed his words without suspicion because his ex-wife, Park Heemin, had perfectly forged the documents of Doeon’s traits to beta during her lifetime.

He had been completely deceived.

An inexplicable anger surged. Like when he had seen Doeon under Doha, an indescribable anger gnawed unpleasantly at the back of his head.

Doeon is a recessive omega….

Skin as pale as if it had never seen sunlight all year round, pupils light like cappuccino. Red lips contrasting with his pallid complexion. A slimmer build than his peers, slender limbs. As Yubin had put it, the precariousness like a deer right before being hunted was a trait of recessive omegas, who would have thought.

Taeoh reminded himself once again of his belief.

The precarious is dangerous.

Taeoh was not the type to keep dangerous things by his side.

Variables abound, unpredictable where they might go, weak entities.

That was exactly a recessive omega.

Not an existence that needed protection because it was weak, but an existence that used its own weakness as a weapon to manipulate others—that was how he thought of recessive omegas.

That narrow perspective held no exceptions even for his own bloodline. No, because it was his bloodline, he couldn’t forgive it even more. Moreover, Doeon had even lied. He had even acted as a beta. As punishment for the deception, he had already finished instructing Jeong Taeseok to find a suitable match. He had felt guilt toward Doeon, who had grown up alone without him, and had prepared to complete the procedures for inheriting the mansion after this welcome party. So, when he learned he had been deceived, the sense of betrayal was even greater.

“Young Master Doeon was a recessive omega… I was so shocked, President. How did he fool us so completely?”

As he opened the door to the guest room and entered, Yubin, shining with curious eyes, immediately poured out questions as if he had been waiting.

“Recessive omegas are like that. They’re a race that lies as easily as breathing.”

Taeoh took off his suit jacket and handed it to Yubin, speaking indifferently. He didn’t need to look far. He couldn’t tell Yubin, who didn’t know about the relationship between Doha and Doeon, straightforwardly, but it was probably due to pheromone assimilation.

As people commonly say ‘soaking into the loved one,’ the omega who receives the alpha’s seed assimilates to the alpha’s pheromones, making their original pheromones faint. That part aligned with possessiveness as well; the alpha’s possessiveness to claim what’s theirs overlays in the form of pheromones onto the partner omega. That was probably why Taeoh and Yubin hadn’t noticed Doeon’s pheromones. Moreover, since Doeon was originally a recessive omega with minimal pheromones, it had been even harder to detect.

‘Dad, I like hyung. We’ll go live together, just the two of us. Just give us permission….’

His two sons had toyed with their father.

At the thought of being deceived by Doeon and Doha, Taeoh furrowed his fine brow. As he loosened the stuffy tie choking his neck, Yubin stepped forward and quickly reached out to pull the tie.

“So, what will you do from now on?”

Yubin asked probing as he removed the deep navy blue tie.

“I suppose I have to find a match for him.”

As a recessive omega, a main wife position would be difficult, but if he looked into widowed entrepreneurs or older alphas who had missed their chance, there were many candidates to make a match. Even as a recessive omega, if he was Seo Taeoh’s son, they would accept him as a concubine at least.

“Ah… You’re not sending him to study abroad?”

“He’s at an age where his prime is tight; if he misses the timing, he’ll become a burden.”

“Well… That’s true.”

Recessive omegas had a custom of marrying early. Because of irregular heat cycles or slim pregnancy probabilities, it was advantageous to form a family in their 20s when reproductive ability was still strong, but if they were lucky to meet a mate in their early 20s, that was fortunate, but if not, as time passed, they were treated more and more as burdens and had to hastily enter even a concubine’s position. Unable to be respected as independent individuals, finding a place to rely on was their best option.

Doeon’s age was twenty-two. He would arrange for him to safely meet a mate before the year ended.

“Since Young Master Doeon has no inheritance rights as a recessive omega, once he meets the mate you choose and leaves this house, it’ll just be you and me left in the mansion, right, President?”

“That would be the case.”

So that Doeon could inherit the mansion without issue, Taeoh had already settled all the debt relations tied to the mansion in advance. But if Doeon was a recessive omega, the story changed.

Yubin held Taeoh’s upper arm with both hands and blinked his large eyes as if he had something to say.

“What is it?”

“President, I really like this mansion. It feels like coming home. Cozy and warm… Like meeting a longed-for lover, you know?”

Taeoh furrowed his brows in annoyance at the words circling emptily.

“What do you want to say.”

“Um… This mansion, can’t you not sell it?”

Though worn, the historic old-fashioned mansion fit Yubin’s taste perfectly, and it would be a shame to sell it to someone else. If sold now, with the real estate market in decline, he wouldn’t get proper value, so rather than that, remodeling it to live with Taeoh and later, when a child came between them, moving to the city but using this mansion as a weekend villa seemed good. Without any foreign elements, just Taeoh, himself, and their future child. Yubin’s chest swelled with hope as he envisioned their peaceful time together as three.

“I’ll think about it.”

His head slipped down in disappointment at the curt reply. In that instant, Yubin’s eyes widened like saucers. The thickly bulging front of Taeoh’s pants was drawing his gaze.

“P-President….”

“……?”

Seeing Yubin’s gaze directed at his front, Taeoh’s head lowered. The bulging front disrupted his vision. Taeoh was flustered. When did this happen? With no excitement to stimulate his arousal, the erection was strange.

“Where are the rut suppressants?”

An unexpected erection—it felt like a sign of his rut cycle coming.

“Rut suppressants? Wait a moment.”

Yubin opened the nightstand drawer and peered inside. After rummaging around several times, he tilted his head in embarrassment.

“I definitely put them here….”

“They’re gone?”

“I put them in the nightstand when I unpacked, but it’s strange, President.”

Of all times, no suppressants when he needed them most. Yubin, who had been intently watching Taeoh’s forehead crease slightly, turned his back as if to open the door and go out right away.

“I’ll tell Mr. Taeseok to get a rut suppressant prescription from Dr. Kim. Please wait just a moment.”