Into The Rose Garden

Once again, Klopp was busy with work. Now there was nothing but work. He needed to save money so he could capture Aelock and build a cage to lock him up.

Ah, I feel like I’m going crazy.

Klopp, who had just written ‘Aelock Teiwind’ on an important document, sighed as he threw his pen. It had already been two months since he last saw Aelock. If this continued, he might really go crazy because of his unfulfilled desires or burst out in anger and vomit blood to his death.

Occasionally, he spent some nights with omegas, but it didn’t help at all. It only made him thirstier, as if he had drunk saltwater. Now, unable to endure any longer, he put on his jacket and left the office. Picking up the cane by the door, he descended the stairs with determined steps.

It was late in the evening, and he walked home without taking a carriage. It was a long way home, but not impossible to walk, and it was a pleasant change of pace when his feelings were complicated. The streets changed little by little as he walked. The office was in the downtown area, while his house was in the suburbs, and in between, aside from storefronts and residential streets, there are dark back alleys and brothels. Most people would take a detour, but Klopp didn’t have enough stamina to go back, so he kept going straight. His gloved hand tightened around the cane.

Not long after entering the shady, smelly alleyway, a group of drugged Omega whores and prostitutes appeared out of nowhere, some with their legs up, some with their breasts out. However, it was a very unpleasant sight for Klopp. Looking into their lifeless eyes, a strange frustration arose as if something would come to mind, but it never did.

Throughout the walk, he tried to figure out what was bothering him, but it was like digging deeper into a seal that had been tightly put on, the more he delved, the more it hid its traces, and he ended up forgetting what he was trying to recall. As his mind was wandering off, his legs kept moving on their own, taking him to unknown paths. But he was used to this.

“Where is this again?”

Klopp frowned. He was in a deep alley in the slums called the “bottom place,” and there were no streetlights. He spotted a run-down bakery at the far end, and the dying light emanating from it was all that was visible.

As he approached that place to ask for directions, two men who looked like alphas appeared from the opposite alley where Klopp was. They glanced at the well-dressed stranger walking down the dark street, then turned their heads quickly when they saw the cane in his hand. Then they entered the bakery. When Klopp reached the bakery with neither a slow nor fast pace, the bakery owner was just about to close the shutters. When Klopp stopped him from closing the door with his cane, the rather fierce-looking owner threw a gruff remark.

“What? The bakery is closed.”

“I want to ask for directions. Which way should I go to get to the riverside from here?”

While putting a few coins on the counter and asking in informal speech, the bakery owner quickly snatched them and gestured, saying, “That way.”

Klopp, who saw the direction the owner pointed to, glanced towards the bakery’s owner to give a nod of thanks. But then he saw the two men he had seen earlier sitting at a table inside the bakery. It was a small shop, and the neighborhood was quiet as if there were no rats around, so he could clearly hear their loud voices.

“That Omega guy appeared again?”

“He came to get some drugs. I gave him some for now.”

“How did that rich guy, who looks like he has never been here in his life, know that you sell drugs?”

“I don’t know either. Maybe he sent his servants to find out.”

“Isn’t that dangerous? It could be a crackdown.”

“No, but there’s a lot of people who’ve been turned into half-idiots by an unknown demon lately. Maybe he’s connected to it.”

“We’ll see about that.”

At that point, the bakery owner looked at him and asked, “Do you need anything else?” The men on the opposite side saw him and turned their heads to look in the other direction.

“No. Goodbye, then.”

He exchanged nods and turned away. The bakery owner, who had been watching Klopp move away, quickly closed the shutters and shouted to his two friends.

“Where’s that Omega? You should keep an eye on him to make sure there won’t be any trouble.”

Klopp was feeling a little tired, so he wanted to just leave. To this unknown demon, these guys were not the only targets. However, considering that an omega, who didn’t seem to fit into this world at all, could suffer from their actions, Klopp couldn’t simply ignore it.

When Klopp first started walking across the streets of the bottom place, he easily dealt with those who provoked him. It didn’t take long for word to get around that the burly, upper-class alpha who occasionally showed up with a cane had tremendous skills. At first, some troublemakers tried to confront him with their strength, but when once he unleashed the full force of his boiling anger, they no longer challenged him in the streets. It was a bit regrettable.

The men, realizing that Klopp would just walk past them as long as they didn’t intentionally provoke him, didn’t pay any attention to Klopp anymore. They soon resumed their dirty and despicable acts as usual. And Klopp didn’t care what they did among themselves.

However, things were different when he saw two alphas, who seemed to have spent their lives in the slums, sexually assaulting an omega woman on the street. The crime he abhorred the most was a bunch of low-lives mad dogs assaulting an Omega.

He couldn’t remember anything, from the moment he locked eyes with the terrified woman who was too scared to cry, until the next moment when two alphas, their heads cracked open, ran away half-crawling. When he came to his senses, there was blood splattered on his cane, and the pitiful woman with torn clothes was shaking in fear as if she had seen a demon. At that moment, Klopp was also slightly taken aback and quickly left the scene.

He then had gone to bed, putting aside Martha’s worried nagging when she saw the bloody cane that day. He seemed to have recalled the Count. It was highly irrational of him to recall Aelock Teiwind, a person of high position who was usually enjoying luxurious feasts and having numerous servants, when he saw the miserable female prostitute being sexually assaulted by multiple people in the alley.

From then on, something must have gone wrong in his brain.

Clasping his cane to his armpit, Klopp pulled on his gloves to make sure his long and thick fingers were able to move freely. He observed the bakery from the darkness. A while later, the two men and the bakery owner came out. They looked around and began to scurry about, looking everywhere, and Klopp quietly followed them.

They were very cautious and turned around several times in the confusing alleys. It was impossible to not get found out and lose track of the bottom place dwellers who moved quickly in this maze-like place. They probably realized that someone was following them, they soon split into three directions and Klopp eventually lost track of them. He was overwhelmed by great anger and unbearable anxiety. He had to find them. If not…

Feeling like he was already exposed, Klopp searched the alleys without caring to lower down the sound of his footsteps. Sometimes he even ran lightly. However, he couldn’t find them anywhere.

At the height of his impatience, Klopp managed to reach the center of the bottom place. It was a shabby, dirty place, nothing like the city center where his office was located, but at least it had wide streets and street lamps. He saw groups of people sitting together around the outdoor tables, drinking cheap alcohol. He was about to go over to them and ask if they had seen an unfamiliar Omega or the bakery owner when he spotted a face he recognized.

It was quite a surprise to find him here. While Klopp himself was an unwelcome presence in the bottom place, that person was alien here in every sense of the word. Sitting confidently at the outdoor table, listening to the person in front of him, his silver eyes widened like a wolf when he spotted Klopp.

A moment later, Klopp followed the brusque man who was guiding him. The man was a servant of that guy from earlier, and without saying a word, the man carried a torch and briskly walked through the alley, turning here and there.

“Is this the right way?”

To the questioning words, he only nodded his head. His appearance was rough, but for some reason, he seemed trustworthy. Still, Klopp had no idea how men like him and the Marquis knew each other. Above all, what surprised him was that the man was willing to help him.

– I’m not fond of those guys either.

Although the Marquis only said those words, he seemed too cooperative considering his previous weird hostility towards Klopp. He even arranged for someone to guide him. It seemed like he knew the bottom place well, like a man with many hidden secrets. But that wasn’t important to Klopp at the moment. Right now, it was more important to him to hunt down the mad dogs. That wolf would come after the dogs were caught.

“There, that’s the person you’re looking for.”

The man pointed to a narrow alley with his stoic words. As they approached closer, he could hear a lot of chatter in the usually dreary alley. Giggling laughter and the sound of hurried footsteps. Klopp grasped his cane and looked at the man, then the man placed the torch on the ground.

“I’ll stay here and keep watch. It would be troublesome if they ran away. You can keep going.”

This is the final chapter of Volume 2! There will be 4 parts 🙂

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