How an Omega Villain Survive chapter 56

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Once he could no longer hear them chasing him, Henry let out a quiet sigh.

He wasn’t sure if he had fully shaken them off, but at least for now, it seemed the danger had passed.

Perhaps it was thanks to the thorns he had spread on the ground, or maybe it was because of the box they were focused on, but either way, this was his chance.

“I need to get out of here.”

Henry approached the exit.

He only needed to climb the rope one last time, but the sight of it made him hesitate.

He couldn’t afford to waste time, yet the thought of climbing the cliff again weighed heavily on him.

In the end, accepting there was no other way, Henry reached for the rope.

As he waved his hand to grasp the rope swaying in the wind, he realized the breeze was stronger than expected.

Though the wind wasn’t directly against him, the gusts blowing toward him were mild.

Henry steadied himself by placing his hand against the wall and reached out further.

Just as he was about to grab the rope, a hand suddenly shot out and seized his.

“Ugh!”

Startled, Henry inhaled sharply instead of exhaling, messing up his breathing and causing him to cough to the point of tears.

Through his blurry vision, he looked at the person holding his hand.

The man was firmly standing inside the cave, staring back at him.

“Sir Teher?”

“I’ve come to escort you.”

“How did you know I was here?”

Henry was still baffled by this meeting, especially after leaving Sir Teher behind in his quest for the treasure.

But instead of explaining, Sir Teher simply held out a harness attached to his belt.

“Wrap this around your waist, and secure it. From here on, I’ll handle everything.”

Remembering how Henry had struggled to climb up last time, Sir Teher had come prepared to support him.

“No, really, you don’t have to go this far…”

“If your strength fails midway, it’ll be much worse. So lean on me.”

Despite Henry’s protest, Sir Teher insisted firmly, and Henry couldn’t refuse any longer.

After fastening the harness and securing the rope, Sir Teher double-checked that everything was in place.

“It’s not hard to predict where you’d go. So instead of asking how I knew, next time, take me with you.”

“Ah…”

Henry awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, trying to hide his embarrassment.

He sheepishly nodded while lightly scratching his scalp.

“Next time, I’ll go with you.”

He couldn’t argue with Sir Teher’s concern.

After promising never to go off alone again, they finally prepared to climb.

With Sir Teher leading the way, Henry, now much more relaxed, was half carried up the cliff.

‘Am I losing my mind?’

While climbing, Henry chuckled at himself for thinking, just moments earlier, that the hand grabbing him belonged to Edwin.

He had been fooling himself ever since Edwin’s confession, imagining things that weren’t even there.

‘Get a grip. Are you worried Edwin might end up with someone else?’

Annoyed with himself, Henry smacked his own head, urging his thoughts to stop fixating on Edwin’s words and focus on something else.

Though Sir Teher noticed, he remained focused on their ascent.

Soon, they reached the top of the cliff, taking much less time than it had taken Henry to descend.

Sir Teher practically pulled Henry up in the end, allowing him to reach the hill with little effort.

Dusting off his sleeves, Henry thanked Sir Teher for his help.

“There’s a carriage waiting in the same spot as before.”

“Wait, before that, there’s something I need to do.”

Henry gestured for a moment and turned back.

He approached the tree where the rope had been tied.

It had supported him throughout his climb, and now he looked at it with newfound appreciation.

Drawing a short dagger from his waist, Henry swung it with all his might.

The blade left a mark on the tree, and with a few more cuts, the tightly wound rope snapped.

As the frayed strands slid off the tree, the rope hanging down the cliff slithered to the ground like a snake.

One route to the cave was now severed, and Henry felt a weight lift from his shoulders.

It was as if this action symbolized the end of his complicated feelings toward Edwin.

Though they had bickered often in the cave, he hoped they would all become fond memories someday.

Henry turned back, ready to leave.

“Let’s go.”

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As the carriage rumbled along, Henry pulled his bag onto his lap.

It was battered from all the rough handling, but miraculously, there were no tears.

He rummaged through it, and soon, his hand brushed against something hard.

He pulled out a small, angular box—the treasure of the Grand Wizard.

“For a treasure, it sure looks small and unimpressive.”

Hundreds of people had pursued this box… Henry barely glanced at it before lifting the lid.

He reached inside and grabbed everything he could find.

His fingers touched a crinkly paper and small, round stones.

“Is this paper the letter?”

Henry’s attention immediately went to the old, crumbling piece of parchment. This was likely the diary or final words of the Grand Wizard.

‘People revered me as a great being. They praised my magic and treated my words as if they were divine.’

Henry frowned and stopped reading after the first sentence.

“It can’t be full of this kind of stuff, right?”

It felt a little cheesy, though it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you’d say to someone long dead.

Still, Henry decided to keep reading, curious about where the letter would lead.

‘But I was just like them, no different. Just a regular man who could feel emotions and love someone. Yes, I truly loved him.’

“Huh?”

As the content took an unexpected turn, Henry found himself getting drawn into the letter.

‘But he didn’t acknowledge my feelings. Like everyone else, he only worshipped me as a wizard. Even having him by my side didn’t change that. If anything, it made things more uncomfortable, with many days when our pheromones clashed awkwardly.’

The letter’s content, which had passed over simply in the original, now gripped Henry’s full attention.

‘At first, I thought the solution to all this was an imprint. I never imagined it would be my only failure. Since I forced an imprint that could only be completed by fully embracing each other, it was bound to fail. In the end, he lost his pheromones because of me, and I lost hope.’

The wizard’s situation closely mirrored Henry’s.

He too had formed an incomplete imprint with Edwin.

Because of that, Edwin couldn’t detect others’ pheromones, and Henry’s status as an omega remained hidden.

That’s how imprints worked.

Once made, they were an eternal shackle that couldn’t be broken unless one died.

‘Feeling sorry for him, I clung to pheromones for the rest of my life, and finally, I created this. Now that I could break the imprint, I decided to let him go. But before I could release him, he left me first.’

The letter was nearing its end, but Henry’s hands trembled, blurring the letters.

He had gotten so emotionally absorbed in the Great Wizard’s story that he had to close his eyes and take a deep breath to calm down.

‘So, I leave behind this last remnant of my futile hopes, made only through theory.’

When Henry finished reading, he looked at the pheromone stone with a heavy heart.

It was the perfect item for someone like him, who also had to break an imprint.

But the bitter feeling remained.

He hadn’t realized how much hidden meaning the pheromone stone held.

Until now, he had thought it was just a tool that Kayla used to absorb energy and help Edwin, and it came as a small shock.

The Great Wizard, who had suffered from an incomplete imprint and sought a way to end it for his partner’s sake, was not so different from Henry.

Only, Henry had the Great Wizard’s arrangement, while the Great Wizard had no easy alternatives.

“I’m not like you…”

Henry muttered as he rubbed the small stone in his hand.

“But our desire is the same. I want to break this imprint to free Edwin from his misery, too.”

At first, he had clung to the hope of changing Henry’s fate in the original story, where he died after revealing his imprint with Edwin.

Edwin was destined to find happiness eventually, even if he had to suffer for a while.

Henry, though, was doomed to wither away as a villain, so of course, he had focused on his situation.

But now, things had changed.

Henry could no longer think only of himself.

Being exposed to Edwin’s pheromones had made him keenly aware of Edwin’s emotions.

Despite wearing a hard mask, Edwin was still a person with feelings.

It was just that nobody could sense his pheromones, and he couldn’t feel others’, so he had built a wall around himself.

Knowing that Edwin had built that cold wall over five years of personal suffering made it impossible to ignore.

For Edwin’s sake, Henry had to break the imprint.

Clenching the stone tightly, Henry gritted his teeth.

Why was he now worrying about Edwin…?

“This journey was the problem. Damn that crown prince.”

If only he hadn’t gone with Edwin, none of these thoughts would have crossed his mind.

Henry mentally cursed, then sighed in resignation.

Cursing the crown prince wouldn’t change anything now.

The damage was done, and he could no longer see Edwin as just a living statue.

Henry had already begun to feel compassion for Edwin, and even the simplest of Edwin’s words shook him.

And, to make matters worse, seeing Edwin with Kayla had stirred a discomfort he hadn’t anticipated.

All of this was because of this journey.

‘Once I break the imprint, I’ll ignore him completely.
And I’ll never give Edwin a shred of emotion again. I won’t let myself confuse his words with a confession.’

As if sealing his resolve, Henry glared at the letter but gently folded it, careful not to damage the fragile paper, and placed it in the box.

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