The Male Leads Were Stolen By The Extra [EN]: Chapter 26

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It was midnight, the hour when everyone was asleep.

As always, Celonia, who had been waiting for him on the sofa, slowly rose from her seat.

Whether he was late or not coming at all, he didn’t show up.

She recalled what the knights had said earlier.

‘It was just a normal duel.’

The knights all answered the same way to her questions.

Just in case, she asked the servants who were there, and the answers she got were different.

‘I overheard the Deputy Commander and the knights talking, and they said that even though he held a sword, he didn’t use it. It was like he was trying not to hurt him. If he had really fought seriously, he would have been cut everywhere.’

‘I saw it from the beginning, and the Commander-in-chief seemed angry that he was just being pushed back, so he suddenly threw dirt at him, didn’t he? I think he got slightly cut because of that…’

The moment she heard those words, Celonia realized that she was too caught up in the past and hadn’t been seeing reality clearly.

“Why aren’t you coming?”

So, she wanted to find out for sure, but he wasn’t coming.

Chewing her lip in anxiety and stomping her feet, she finally jumped up from her seat.

She was a little worried that something might have happened to him, maybe because he felt sorry.

Just as she was about to open the door, thinking she should go to his room.

“Ugh, hold me…”

She heard his voice from behind, along with a presence.

Celonia quickly turned around and approached him.

“Are you okay?”

As soon as she reached out her hand, his long, trembling fingers clung to her hand as if drawn by a magnet.

He desperately intertwined his fingers between hers, holding on tight.

As if he couldn’t let go under any circumstances.

Celonia took her place next to him.

He was leaning against the velvet sofa in the middle of her room, which had now become his designated spot, his body slumped.

Whether the pain had been eating away at him before he came, he looked more tormented than she had seen him in days.

Above his heaving Adam’s apple, his lips, swollen red from being bitten too hard, were on the verge of bursting.

The pain-filled pupils in his moist eyes were shaking violently, like a ship caught in a storm.

Could it be that he couldn’t bear the pain after worrying about what happened earlier, and came to find her late?

Feeling somehow sorry, Celonia lowered her head, and she noticed that the sleeve of his right arm was torn.

“…Were you really hurt?”

He didn’t answer her question.

When Celonia quickly raised her head, she saw a sharp glint in his eyes, the lingering trace of pain, staring at her.

His complexion had returned, and his breathing had become regular.

“Why do you ask that?”

He raised the corner of his left mouth and sneered.

With the moonlight behind him, his face, shadowed, looked fiercer than usual.

His gaze was so sharp that Celonia couldn’t help but swallow hard before slowly opening her mouth.

“You didn’t use your sword?”

“…”

“You really didn’t use your sword because you were afraid Rubeus would get hurt?”

“Ha, yeah.”

When she persistently asked again, as if determined to get an answer, he let out a sigh and spat out the words as if annoyed.

His heart was colder than ever. What was the point of asking now? He was sure she would misunderstand again.

He was quite used to this.

Perhaps because of his appearance and physique, he was often misunderstood just for holding something.

Even though they were too scared to say a word, their eyes, glancing at him, were filled with suspicion.

Even if he had no memories, even if he knew nothing, it didn’t mean he couldn’t feel those negative emotions.

However, he simply didn’t care because he was terribly uninterested in others and the world.

But now that he was feeling a little better, was that why he was so annoyed when this woman misunderstood?

“…Why?”

“Are you kidding me? What’s so special about that bastard?”

The reason he didn’t use his sword and only pushed with his body was partly because Rubeus was a nobody, but also because of his promise to Celonia.

He had promised not to lay a finger on anyone around her.

As promised, she had been holding his hand every night, so he could at least keep that much.

“…I’m sorry.”

“What?”

It was then. His red eyes widened a little more than usual because the words he heard were unexpected.

Her voice, full of dejection, was trembling terribly.

What is it?

He looked into her dark blue eyes, which were holding his hand tightly.

It was different from before.

It wasn’t the thorny blue eyes that had been pushing him and scolding him arbitrarily.

In that moment, he felt a surge of emotion.

What is this feeling? Would he know if he heard it again?

“Say it again.”

“I’m sorry. I misunderstood.”

“Again.”

“I sincerely apologize.”

Celonia apologized several times at his request. With each answer, her sincerity grew stronger.

Even though she knew he was the Demon King, even though she knew he was the final villain who tried to destroy the world, the reason she felt this way was… because her apology was directed at the ‘him’ she had experienced over the past few days, not the Demon King.

Not the arrogant and merciless Demon King who drove the saviors to their deaths, but the ‘him’ who had been eating with her every day.

He was really different from the Demon King she knew in the past.

And he didn’t cut Rubeus, even though he was cut by the sword, for the sake of his promise to her.

“…”

He slightly raised the corner of his mouth as he looked at her blue eyes, which contained him and seemed to draw him in.

Unlike the apologies of others, who were afraid and made meaningless apologies, her apology was somehow so pleasing that he felt like he could listen to it all day long.

Clearly, his throat had been blocked and stuffy all evening, as if a stone had been stuck in it.

He had even hesitated to go to her at midnight.

But at some point, that stuffiness had disappeared like snow melting.

He didn’t even know why.

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“Would you have listened to me?”

“…I’m sorry about that too.”

It was true, so Celonia immediately agreed and apologized.

It was she who had unilaterally pushed him, so she had nothing to say.

She had been looking only at the person and misunderstanding him arbitrarily. He was a dangerous person, and he had dangerous power.

Of course, she was convinced that he would treat his promise to her as insignificant, like a pebble on the road.

It was she who didn’t believe that the promise would be kept.

“I’ll treat your arm.”

Celonia bent down and took out the first aid kit from under the table.

She let go of his hand, which was now in better condition, and cut off his torn sleeve with medical scissors.

Then, a thin, long wound was revealed. It had been left unattended, and the blood had already hardened and stuck to his skin.

She first wiped the wound with cotton soaked in disinfectant.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes. I mean it.”

“If you’re really sorry…”

“I’m sincere about the apology, but I really don’t know, okay?”

Celonia answered first, anticipating that he would tell her to confess about himself again.

He had been telling her to talk about the him she knew so often.

But what he said was completely unexpected.

“From now on, don’t call me hey, you, that way, or that side, call me by my name.”

“Name?”

“Yeah.”

The incident at the training ground came to mind, and he frowned.

He didn’t like that she had misunderstood, but he was also very upset that she called that guy by his name and him ‘hey’.

At that moment, he even thought that he should have a name.

When people often asked him what his name was, he never felt the need to make one or wanted to have one.

“…What’s your name?”

Celonia, who had been treating his wound, stopped in embarrassment.

A name. Could it be that his memories had returned?

Her heart began to beat rapidly with fear.

But, contrary to her worries, his answer was absurd.

“How would I know?”

“Huh? You told me to call you by your name.”

“Yeah. Make one up.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. You do it.”

Celonia was dumbfounded by the sudden request to name him.

She didn’t know this man’s real name.

Even in the original story, he was mostly referred to as the Demon King and wasn’t really called by a name. Not even until the moment he died…

That’s right. When she thought about it, being called only the Demon King, or a pronoun as he said, might be a little sad.

She also felt sorry, so she tried to come up with a name.

But since earlier, only one name kept coming to mind, and she couldn’t think of any other names.

In the end, Celonia cautiously opened her mouth, watching his reaction after much deliberation.

“…How about Tan?”

“Tan?”

He repeated the name that flowed from her red lips.

“Yes. It’s simple and easy to call. It suits you too.”

Celonia added a rather elaborate reason. Because that was the only name that came to mind right now.

“Does it suit me?”

He asked, his face perked up at the word ‘suits’.

“Of course. It suits you.”

Nod, nod. She nodded her head.

‘Tan’ is taken from ‘Satan’…

It can’t help but suit him.

“Okay. Then call me that from now on.”

Tan liked the name very much.