The Male Leads Were Stolen By The Extra [EN]: Chapter 113

Having heard something she never imagined, Celonia froze.

What is all this?

Is this woman in front of me Grace Bennett?

Then who was the woman I’ve been meeting?

No, is that even possible? How…….

“……”

The questions that kept multiplying eventually stopped.

As she quietly reflected on the past, she could no longer doubt whether such a thing was possible.

Even she herself had experienced something absurd.

Although she didn’t believe this woman’s words, she was also in a position where she had possessed Celonia’s body.

So, she couldn’t definitively say that using someone else’s body was realistically impossible.

But wasn’t I the only possessor in this world?

Besides, I didn’t even want it; I just woke up possessed. Completely different from what this woman is saying about intentionally stealing it.

“What nonsense? If you’re the real Grace, then who is that woman?”

Tan frowned and asked again.

“Hic, that woman is a thief who forcibly took my body…….”

As if she didn’t have the strength to get up, the woman just lay on the floor, only shedding tears and moving her lips with difficulty.

Her lips were cracked like drought-stricken land, showing how long she had been trapped here. There were scabs in the cracks.

“What proof do you have that you’re the real Grace?”

Instead of the stunned Celonia, Tan was diligently pressing the woman for answers.

If this was true, it was a bigger deal than they had expected.

“On the left, there’s a blue dot on the back of my left thigh…….”

“No. That’s not proof. Tell me something else.”

Tan was merciless towards the woman who looked like she was about to die.

But Celonia also agreed with Tan’s words. Physical characteristics were things that a maid serving Grace would know, even if she wasn’t Grace herself.

It was insufficient as proof that she claimed to be the ‘real Grace’.

“Other, other things…… My mother passed away when I was five. After that, my father remarried but divorced soon after…… I learned to play the piano for the first time when I was eight, and when I was thirteen, I fell while walking by the pond and have a small scar on my right knee. My birthday is October 8th, and my name, Grace, was given to me by my deceased mother, who told me to live only in bright light, and also, also…….”

“Stop.”

The woman, who was desperately listing things to prove herself, eventually closed her mouth at Tan’s firm voice.

“How can I believe you’re Grace if you can’t prove yourself?”

“I just told you everything! Things that only I would know……!”

“Useless is such information that anyone can find out with a little digging.”

Tan had no mercy. His words, sharper than a well-honed blade, stung even the person listening beside him.

However, all the woman’s rambling words were an extension of the dot on the back of her thigh.

Information that anyone could know, even if they weren’t her.

If that woman was really Grace, it was unfortunate, but they couldn’t just blindly believe one side’s words right now. They had to doubt everything until there was clear evidence.

Celonia waited to see what the woman would say next.

“It’s unfair……. I’m Grace, but I have to prove myself. That woman took my body without permission……! Then should that woman prove that she’s the real Grace?”

After maintaining silence, the woman eventually poured out clear words as if she was frustrated. The woman’s body, lying on the chilly basement floor, was trembling so pitifully. It was a tremor caused by anger, not cold.

“So you can’t,” Tan raised his eyebrows as if annoyed, looking at the whining woman.

In fact, he thought the woman’s claim made some sense. The shackles on each of the woman’s wrists and ankles were not ordinary shackles that could be unlocked with physical force.

He could clearly feel the energy of black magic emanating from those shackles. The energy he had felt since entering the basement was also coming from here.

Seeing that she was thoroughly locked up so that she couldn’t escape, it seemed certain that this woman was someone who should never be revealed.

So, it didn’t mean that the woman’s words were completely unbelievable.

“Who are you…… Who are you to arbitrarily judge my pain! I’m wronged, wronged……! Sob.”

Perhaps hurt by Tan’s words, the woman screamed and shed tears again.

Large teardrops, like a faucet that wouldn’t close, continued to flow from the woman’s eyes, wetting the floor.

It seemed impossible to get definite proof that the woman was the real Grace at the moment.

Still, Celonia didn’t think all of this was an act. She had to hear more of the story to know for sure.

“We’re not on that woman’s side. Rather, we’re trying to uncover the things that woman is doing. So, we might be able to help you. Tell me more. Since when did you lose your body? And who is Grace now?”

“I don’t know…… I don’t know! One day I opened my eyes and was trapped in this place where there’s no sunlight. When you’re here, you can’t tell how much time has passed…… I don’t have any strength in my body. It’s like being a corpse. Sob…… I’ve been trapped here for a long time. For too long…….”

The woman’s voice, muffled by tears, was filled with deep sorrow. So deep that she couldn’t fathom its depth.

Celonia sympathized with the woman’s words.

In a space without light, she couldn’t count the passing time. Even if she opened her eyes, she couldn’t tell if it was morning or night, so there was no way she could count the days.

“Tell me anything you know. Was the point when you were trapped here before your engagement to Duke Ian Cherbil?”

“Yes? Engagement? What on earth is that woman doing with my body……!”

The woman was surprised as if she was hearing it for the first time. Her eyes, which had been shedding tears, were even widened, as if she really didn’t know.

“Then before you were trapped here, what’s your last memory when you were Grace?”

“I was about to have my coming-of-age ceremony soon. In the Empire, an expedition was being formed to subjugate the Demon King…….”

“What? What are you saying…….”

“Ah, it was the day of departure. Yes, that’s right! Everyone came out and waved their hands to wish for the expedition’s safe return……!”

The woman raised her voice as if the memory of that day had vividly come to mind.

However, Celonia was overwhelmed with shock, as if she had been hit with a hammer at that sound.

If that was her last memory, it was almost 10 months ago. And it was also before she possessed this body.

What is it? This is like…….

“I was also with my father……! Father. That’s right! What happened to our, our father? Is my father safe?”

The woman, who had been muttering in a voice full of longing as if reminiscing about memories, spoke urgently as if she had forgotten something important.

“Your father……?”

“That woman shamelessly came to me in my body and said that my father would never look for me……. Is our father safe? Is he alive?”

Celonia didn’t know for sure if Baron Bennett was alive.

Currently, it was publicly known that the Baron was abroad, earning money with a new business, but Celonia knew the truth through Daniel.

‘The business is fake. There’s just an anonymous sponsor who’s funding the Bennett family.’

‘Wait a minute…….’

Momentarily feeling something strange, she quickly recalled the conversation she had with Daniel before.

“I know that the Bennett barony barely makes a living with a mine in Denpris. But from a certain point on, their expenses skyrocketed, and now the weekly total of their expenses is like a noble family’s monthly budget.”

“When is that point?”

“It’s been 10 months since then.”

10 months ago.

It was around the time she possessed this body. From then on, the Bennett barony’s expenses increased.

At the time when she heard that, she only thought it was around the same time as her possession and passed it over without knowing what it meant.

At the time, the things she knew were sparse pieces, so she couldn’t put them together.

But not now.

If this woman’s claim was true, she could put all the pieces together, including this claim, and complete one puzzle.

The pieces scattered in Celonia’s head began to gather in one place.

The last memory the woman was talking about was the point when the subjugation began. The point when she possessed this body was also when the subjugation began.

At that point, the Bennett barony’s expenses increased. Come to think of it, there was an anonymous sponsor.

‘Fake Grace’ used black magic to seduce Ian, MacRian, and Reyev.

‘All the male leads in the original…….’

The perfectly matching timing, as if there was a script. Can all of this be dismissed as a coincidence?

But one thing doesn’t fit. One piece was missing from the puzzle that was about to be completed.

“Then please call my father here! My father would recognize me! My father would know who the real daughter is!”

Real daughter?

“Selli!”

Tan momentarily wrapped his arms around Celonia’s swaying waist.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick somewhere? Are you okay?”

“……”

Her mind was dizzy. Tan’s voice was just buzzing, and she couldn’t hear it properly.

Because the last piece fit perfectly into the woman’s words of finding her father.

The changed Grace. The anonymous sponsor in the Bennett barony. The Erzel necklace that Grace wore. The Erzel jeweler’s bill with her father’s personal seal.

Father. And daughter. No, real daughter…….

Galloway Bessin was the real Celonia’s father.

The first sight she saw after possessing was herself, that is, Celonia’s appearance, joining the expedition.

Like that, she left the social world for half a year and went on a subjugation with the male leads without seeing her family’s faces once.

In the early days of possession, she was confused about becoming Celonia. So she kept thinking separately.

She is her. I am me.

I wouldn’t have done this, but according to the original, Celonia would have acted and spoken like this.

But from some point on, she gradually stopped thinking like that.

To act like that every time in the monster forest where danger always lurks, she would have died at the hands of the monsters while thinking.

She had no choice to survive.

As time passed, she became accustomed to not thinking about the original Celonia’s position, and at some point, she had become assimilated with Celonia.

The words and actions she took eventually became Celonia’s thoughts. The male leads took it for granted. They always treated her as Celonia.

It couldn’t be helped.

Because they had never experienced ‘Celonia’ before the subjugation, they didn’t feel any sense of incongruity [lack of harmony or consistency].

Of course, Ian was the male lead, so he was the one who had faced the real Celonia before she possessed this body.

But it was just a formal meeting of dating a few times due to a political marriage, and it wasn’t enough time to fully know about the person Celonia.

Like that, Ian, MacRian, and Reyev always treated her as Celonia for half a year, and they never once doubted that she was Celonia.

They believed without a doubt. That she was Celonia.

But what if it was someone who had seen Celonia for over 20 years……?

She realized what she had been missing so far.

‘Can’t Father notice?’

Does Galloway really think of me as his own daughter, Celonia?

Didn’t he notice the changed attitude of his daughter at all after the subjugation?

When she lost consciousness and opened her eyes after 3 months, she faced the people of the duchy for the first time after possessing.

I was different from the original Celonia from the start.

So the people of the duchy gossiped behind my back about the changed attitude of the young lady overnight, but after a while, everyone just dismissed it as me just changing after going to the brink of death.

But did Father really think so too?

He’s the parent who gave birth and raised her? Even Galloway, who cherished his daughter?

If he knew everything…… then…….

Now all the puzzles have been put together.