The Male Leads Were Stolen By The Extra [EN]: Chapter 126

“What happened?”

MacRyan jumped up and asked, looking at Leyev who had just entered. However, Leyev simply shook his head with a troubled expression.

“Damn it!”

“They say there’s nothing wrong with his health, so why…”

Leyev sighed deeply, as if frustrated, and took a seat opposite him.

It had been revealed that the monster that had turned the Imperial Palace upside down was Ian, transformed by the side effects of black magic. The revival of forbidden black magic had surfaced.

As a result, the Cherbil family was being thoroughly investigated.

While the mastermind was yet to be identified, Ian was a prime suspect.

If Ian had defended himself, things wouldn’t have escalated this far, but for some reason, he remained unconscious.

“That damn woman was released immediately.”

MacRyan growled, his face full of anger.

The investigation was unavoidable for those around Ian. Naturally, MacRyan and Leyev were also subjected to the Imperial Palace’s investigation, and Grace, his fiancée, was no exception.

However, as there was nothing particularly incriminating, the investigation ended quickly. Even for Grace.

“I’m sure of it. That woman took them.”

MacRyan gritted his teeth as if disgusted.

He had intended to report the tea leaves to clear Ian’s name.

But, unbelievably, the Darjeeling tea leaves that he, Leyev, and Ian had received from Grace had all vanished without a trace.

Moreover, no matter what means they used to ask the servants about the whereabouts of the tea leaves, they all responded with puzzled faces.

‘Tea leaves? There weren’t any to begin with?’

Reluctantly, MacRyan tried to testify even without concrete evidence.

However, he couldn’t bring himself to speak because of what Celonia had said yesterday.

The fact that the Celonia they knew wasn’t the real Celonia. The story that Grace Bennett was only trying to return to her original body.

How were things turning out like this?

“Leyev, listen carefully to what I’m about to say.”

Two heads are better than one, and since he couldn’t find an answer no matter how much he racked his brain alone, MacRyan told Leyev everything he knew.

Leyev looked at MacRyan with a pathetic expression, as if saying, ‘Not again,’ but his expression gradually changed.

“Is that… possible?”

And Leyev’s mouth didn’t close after hearing everything.

“I saw it and heard it myself.”

“How could such a thing…”

Leyev’s eyes, lost and shaken by MacRyan’s firm answer, wandered aimlessly.

Celonia wasn’t ‘Celonia’? Her soul had been switched?

Moreover, the Demon King killed by the saviors was not only alive but also a Grand Duke?

It was an impossible story, like a dream. But MacRyan had seen and heard it himself.

Though he was pathetic, he wasn’t the type to joke about such things.

“This can’t be happening. What on earth…”

Leyev was confused.

He had blindly loved Celonia. But if that person wasn’t the real Celonia, if the real Celonia was Grace Bennett…

Then who exactly had he loved?

Who was the Celonia he had loved?

“If all this is true, then the owner of that body… isn’t her.”

“…That’s right.”

“So she’s trying to return to her original place…”

“Yes.”

A moment of silence descended upon the drawing room.

Neither MacRyan nor Leyev could easily open their mouths.

Of course, plotting such a scheme in the first place was a clear mistake. But wasn’t it for the sake of returning to her original place?

“…Still, this isn’t right. Didn’t you say that a human life is needed to use black magic?”

It was Leyev who broke the long silence first.

He had almost convinced himself that it was right to return to her original place according to the natural order, but then he suddenly came to his senses.

According to the teachings of the temple, all lives are equal under the name of God, so he couldn’t sacrifice an innocent life.

“I know. I know that too.”

MacRyan ran a hand over his dry face.

“You should be grateful to me. I’ve allowed you to stand where you originally belonged.”

“I’ve only reclaimed what I deserved.”

Was that why? Was that why that damn woman had said those words?

MacRyan remembered what Grace had said to him when he was re-affected by black magic.

Of course, as Leyev said, he had no intention of defending or forgiving her.

“What should we do about the Demon King?”

“Damn it… I don’t know either. Where the hell did she go?”

At Leyev’s question, MacRyan leaned back on the sofa with complicated feelings. He had a mountain of things to hear, but Celonia was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

“Aaaargh! That crazy bitch is playing with me?!”

Titania’s shoulders shook, her face filled with resentment.

The princess’s room was already a mess.

The overturned dressing table was smashed and broken, the teapot and vase on the table were shattered, and the carpet was soaked with water and tea.

“When is she coming! Bring her to me right now!”

Unable to control her temper, Titania threw a fist-sized ornament at a maid.

Thud!

“Ugh!”
The maid trembled, her head bowed, making a groaning sound with a rather loud impact, as if she had been hit hard.

She could have avoided it, but she didn’t. The moment she dodged, she would incur the princess’s further wrath, so she simply took the hit silently.

“I-I’m sorry, Your Highness. That woman is the fiancée of Duke Ian Cherbil, so she’s currently under investigation. She said she’ll come to see Your Highness as soon as it’s over…”

“Shut up! Shut up! I don’t care about the investigation, bring her to me right now!”

Titania’s face, unable to hear anything, turned red.

She had used the tea leaves on the Grand Duke, trusting only that woman’s words, but it had no effect.

Moreover, her birthday banquet, which should have been grand and splendid, had been ruined by the appearance of the monster.

“I won’t let her get away with this. I’ll crush her face so she can’t even show it.”

As the princess gritted her teeth and spat out murderous words, the maids could only tremble in fear, hoping that Grace Bennett would come even a little sooner.

“Your Highness, Lady Grace Bennett is…”

“Come in! Immediately!”

It was then.

As the knight outside the door announced Grace’s arrival, Titania screamed, her eyes gleaming.

Soon after, the door opened and Grace appeared.

“The Empire’s beautiful little moon, greetings to Your Highness the Princess…”

Slap!

Grace, who was holding her dress with both hands and bowing politely, could not finish her sentence.

A fierce hand struck her cheek.

“How dare you deceive me, the princess, and expect to get away with it?!”

Slap!

This time, the opposite side of Grace’s cheek turned.

Her mouth was filled with a bitter taste as blood burst inside from the stinging pain, as if she had put all her emotions into it.

However, Grace had no particular change in expression. Because she had expected all of this.

She had just finished the investigation. Of course, there was nothing to find fault with, so she was released immediately. Thanks to her father, who had cleared things up in advance.

But there was only one thing. The princess was the problem.

She had come on purpose, knowing she would be hit, to find out why the trick didn’t work even when she was wearing the earrings.

“Your Highness, I was wrong. Please listen to me for a moment. It’s really important.”

“Shut up! You ignorant thing. I’ll tell my father to make it so you can’t even show your face. No, no. It would be better to tear your limbs in half and throw them to the crows.”

“I can explain why it didn’t work. If you dismiss the people, I will tell you in detail.”

Grace knelt down with a pitiful expression and pleaded earnestly.

The princess, who had been looking down on Grace as if she were a bug, opened her twisted lips.

“Everyone out.”

At the princess’s order to leave, the maids and knights who had been gathered in the room rushed out.

She had no intention of letting her off the hook, but her mind changed at Grace’s attitude, who, despite being slapped, didn’t cry and knew her place well.

Anyway, she could get rid of her whenever she didn’t want to see her.

“Speak.”

As the princess’s arrogant voice was heard from above, Grace slightly raised her head to check the room.

To make sure everyone was gone, there was no one in the princess’s large and magnificent room except for herself and the princess.

“Gale.”

“What?”

It was when the princess raised her eyebrows at Grace’s nonsense. Gale, who had appeared without a sound at the call, immediately reached out to the princess.

The energy flowing from a small jewel with a black magic circle drawn on it permeated the princess.

“……”

The princess’s face, which had been frowning fiercely, relaxed in an instant and soon collapsed.

“Move her.”

At the order, Gale easily lifted the princess and sat her on the sofa.

Grace dusted off her dress, which had been stained with dust from kneeling on the floor, and approached the princess, waving her hand.

The closed eyes didn’t even flinch.

“Look at this. It works so well. Why?”

The trick that Gale had used worked. When the princess, who had fallen asleep for a moment, woke up, she would forget all her animosity towards herself.

But why didn’t the trick placed on the earrings work? Even though she’s still wearing the earrings now.

“Gale, find the tea leaves.”

Grace ordered Gale and roughly took off the earrings that the princess was wearing.

Anyway, the trick worked now, so she had to take this back.

“I found them.”

“Good. Go first. I’ll follow soon.”

Grace dismissed Gale, who had easily found the tea leaves, and poked the princess’s limp cheek.

“You’re so stupid.”

A sneer towards the princess hung on her lips.

“Kill who? You can’t even do anything.”

It was ridiculous. As if the princess was anything special.

“I’ll never die. I’m the main character of this world. Unlike you.”

Her cheek still stung from being hit, but she wasn’t so petty as to take revenge on someone who had lost consciousness from such a thing.

If she went out now, other people would think it was strange that the princess was asleep, so she had to wait until she woke up.

Now that this was over, everything would be back in place if she just went back.

“Hehehe~”

Grace sat opposite the princess, humming a tune.

In the princess’s earrings that she had taken back, a light was flickering. A blood-red light.

* * *

“Is this it?”

“Yes.”

Tan and Celonia were standing near the makeshift building that Galloway had built.

They had secretly broken into the central library, read a forbidden book containing records of black magic, and learned a very important fact.

So they had to check it out.