The Contract Wife Tries to Leave - Chapter 1
〈Setting Guide〉
Omegaverse: A world where there are ‘beings’ with traits called Alpha and Omega. In terms of romance, marriage, pregnancy, and childbirth, gender distinctions are irrelevant.
Alpha: An entity with pheromones that attract Omegas. They possess physical strength far beyond that of ordinary humans. Many dominant Alphas occupy the main ruling class of society. Alphas can impregnate partners regardless of gender.
Omega: An entity with pheromones that attract Alphas. They are often born with stunningly beautiful appearances that captivate others. Many Omegas are inherently weak. Omegas can become pregnant regardless of gender.
Beta: An ordinary entity without pheromones. They are regular people who cannot sense the pheromones of Alphas and Omegas.
Kururug!
The thunder roared fiercely. Lightning flashed in the gray sky filled with dark clouds, and finally, the rain poured down.
Swoosh—
Johanna hurried her steps towards her lodging. Although the deeply pulled hood blocked the rain, it wouldn’t be long before she was completely soaked.
In this southern region with a warm climate, it often rained even in the middle of winter, never turning into snow. So she always carried an umbrella when going out, but she had been so distracted these past few days that she had forgotten it today.
‘You’re not alone, so you need to be careful.’
‘Make sure to eat regularly. And about the suppressants… it’s best not to take them during pregnancy.’
‘By the way, who is the baby’s father?’
The doctor’s words, replayed over a hundred times already, echoed in her mind once more. Johanna unconsciously hugged her lower abdomen and bit her lips tightly.
When she first learned she was pregnant after coming here, she wished she had heard it wrong. She felt sorry for the baby, but there was no other choice. The baby’s father… her relationship with Marquis Neubitz was completely over.
She could no longer return to his side. That would be best for both of them. But what about the baby in her womb? The question that had plagued her for days, still unanswered, echoed relentlessly in her heart.
“It’s raining a lot outside… Huh? Oh my! You’re drenched!”
As soon as Johanna opened the door and stepped into the entrance of the boarding house, Mrs. Drebyul, the landlady, hurried over to greet her. Mrs. Drebyul, who had a keen interest in gossip, often showed curiosity towards Johanna, a young woman who had suddenly appeared in this city one day.
Though her curiosity could be a bit excessive, she wasn’t inherently a bad person. She generally treated Johanna well, as long as she didn’t subtly pry into where she had been or what she had been doing before arriving here.
“Especially in your condition! How could you walk in the rain like this? Oh dear.”
Mrs. Drebyul quickly fetched a dry towel and began to press it against Johanna’s wet hair, having removed her hood. The heavy rain had soaked through the hood in no time, leaving Johanna drenched from head to toe like a wet rat.
“Are you alright? You’re not feeling cold, are you? Let’s get you to the fireplace right away.”
Mrs. Drebyul led Johanna to the reception room on the first floor. The narrow hallway of the boarding house seemed even gloomier than usual, possibly due to the dreary weather. After taking the now damp towel, Mrs. Drebyul suddenly remembered something and quickly spoke up.
“Oh, look at me! I almost forgot to tell you. You have a visitor.”
Johanna stopped in her tracks at the unexpected news. She was about twenty steps from the reception room. Turning to Mrs. Drebyul with a puzzled expression, she asked,
“…A visitor?”
“Yes. But, I hate to say this, the person seemed… not in their right mind. And their appearance and clothing… they looked like a noble. What’s your relationship with them?”
Johanna’s face quickly went blank. …A noble? She quickly thought it over. If it was a noble who would come to find her in this city, there was only one person: Karl Babenhausen.
Karl, who worked under the pen name ‘Jeremih Baselitz,’ was a painter who traveled freely to find inspiration. It made sense for him to visit this city by the sea.
Meeting him here had been purely coincidental, a stroke of unexpected luck. He had been the one who helped her when she was in danger not long ago.
“He was also soaked from the rain. What kind of noble travels without a single attendant? I told him to wait in the reception room. I didn’t know your relationship, so it didn’t seem right to send him to your room.”
“That person, could he be… Ah, never mind.”
Mrs. Drebyul was a ‘Beta,’ someone without any ‘traits.’ Betas couldn’t sense the pheromones of ‘Alphas’ or ‘Omegas.’ So, asking if the person was an Alpha was a pointless question.
“What exactly did he look like? His hair color, for instance…”
So, she asked for easily identifiable characteristics. While it was likely that Karl was the one waiting for her in the reception room, it was better to be sure.
‘That person’… She never thought he would come all the way to this small town in the far south to find her…
“Let’s see, his hair was as black as a raven’s feather, and his eyes… golden? No, they were darker than that. Like a sunset. I’ve never seen eyes like that in my life.”
However, as soon as Mrs. Drebyul’s description reached her ears, Johanna’s heart, which had been beating relatively calmly, plummeted into an abyss.
Black hair, sunset-colored eyes…
While black hair was common, eyes resembling a blazing evening sky were certainly rare. Just like Mrs. Drebyul, Johanna had only ever seen such eyes on one person in her entire life.
Leonid Neubitz Rinke Elderique.
…It’s him.
