The Male Leads Were Stolen By The Extra [EN]: Chapter 22

As sunlight streamed through the window and birds began to chirp, he opened his eyes.

He had been lying in bed, using his arms as a pillow, and he rose feeling refreshed.

He hadn’t been sleeping.

He hadn’t slept at all. He was simply waiting for the morning to arrive.

His legs were long, and it took him a moment to stand. As if he had been anticipating this, he opened the door and walked down the hallway.

Now quite familiar with the Duke’s residence, he moved through the hallway without hesitation.

He relished this morning that followed a pain-free dawn.

Because he knew he would see her.

He was happy. He couldn’t remember when he had felt this way.

No, he had no memory, so this must be the first time in his life he had been so happy.

His life had begun to change since she had held his hand every midnight.

With her, even the hellish nights were bearable now.

The terrible pain that had tormented and incapacitated him for three months vanished like snow the moment he held her hand.

It only squeezed his chest a few times before retreating, like a mouse fleeing from a predator.

The exhilaration he felt at that moment was indescribable.

Before her, it was a terrible pain that he couldn’t shake off until dawn, no matter how he tried.

It wasn’t a coincidence after all. She was the answer.

For him, who had lost his memory and wandered for more than three months, a week with Celonia represented the first ordinary and perfect days he had ever experienced.

He felt for the first time that a life without pain could be so vibrant and fulfilling.

Perhaps that’s why the tedious life that had felt like a punishment was now a little more worth living.

“Oh, hello there!”

At that moment, a voice came from ahead.

He raised his head indifferently at the unfamiliar voice and saw two women standing a few steps away.

The women were dressed in the uniforms of the staff who worked here.

One of them was blushing and fidgeting with her hands.

He knew they were greeting him, but he didn’t respond or even look at them, and he continued to walk past them at the same pace.

“G, good morning…! Ah… he didn’t acknowledge my greeting…”

“He probably didn’t hear you. He’ll acknowledge it next time.”

He heard disappointed and comforting voices behind him.

After spending a week at the Duke’s residence, people often greeted him like this. At first, he had been preoccupied with escaping the pain.

But he didn’t care. He wasn’t interested.

He only had one thing he was interested in.

He smiled naturally as he thought of the face that held his hand every night, clearly intending for her to endure for only a month.

“That won’t happen.”

He muttered as if it were impossible.

Now that he was feeling better, there was no way he would let go.

Even if he didn’t regain his memory, even if she never told him about himself.

That woman was essential to him.

“Hehe.”

He hummed happily and stood in front of Celonia’s room, which he had arrived at without realizing it, and knocked on the large door.

Knock knock knock!

“Hey. Wake up.”

Someone shouted, banging on the door.

Even though she was in a deep sleep, Celonia’s eyes snapped open at the sound that echoed through the room.

She immediately recognized the source of the sound.

There was only one person in the Duke’s residence who would knock on her door without permission.

“Come out quickly.”

“Ugh, just a bit longer!”

She frowned and pulled the blanket over her head.

“Come out.”

“Eat alone!”

“Come out before I break down the door.”

“Ugh…!”

Celonia kicked off the blanket, annoyed by the persistent voice.

She thrashed on the sheets, truly irritated by this daily repetition, and then got up. To have breakfast with him again today.

There had been no major incidents in the past week since the negotiation with the Demon King.

He had removed the bandages, and the wound had healed well.

And every night, he teleported to her room, and she held his hand as he suffered.

That was the routine that ended the day.

Contrary to her worries, he didn’t ask for anything else besides holding her hand.

Except for threatening to reveal what he knew about her every now and then.

Of course, the more she held his hand, the more complicated her heart became, but she only had to endure for a month.

If she endured for only a month, he would leave this house on his own.

“Can’t I please eat breakfast alone?”

Celonia, who had already washed up, grumbled at him as he sat in the dining room.

“You can if you wake up early.”

He only stated the obvious and cut a freshly baked croissant in half, then spread golden butter on it.

He was quite accustomed to eating now, doing it all on his own.

‘It’s because of whom that I go to bed late every day,’ she thought.

Celonia barely suppressed the urge to punch him, who was so annoying, and sat down.

She had been eating with him every day lately.

That was because of his obsession with food. To be more precise, his obsession with eating with her.

Whether he meant it or not, he kept coming to eat with her.

He often woke her up in the morning while she was sleeping to eat, like today.

He wouldn’t listen even if she told him to eat alone.

He threatened that the condition of eating together was included in their contract from the beginning, and that he would cling to her if she didn’t keep it.

She had no choice but to eat with him.

She didn’t understand why he was so obsessed with eating, even though he didn’t need to eat.

Still, she didn’t know whether to be grateful or not that he was knocking diligently instead of teleporting.

He was faithfully keeping his word not to teleport within the Duke’s residence except at midnight.

“Tsk. Your mouth will tear.”

He clicked his tongue as he looked at her yawning with sleepy eyes.

This woman, whom he had been observing for a week, was truly lazy.

She did nothing but stay in her room every day or have tea time in the garden every hour.

The only active thing she did was take a walk in the garden, and that was only for a few tens of minutes.

He had never seen such a person before.

Well, even that was amusing to watch from the side.

“It’s because I went to bed late, because of whom.”

Wiping the tears from her eyes caused by yawning, Celonia glared at the Demon King with a sulky look.

She had learned one thing while spending time with him: he didn’t sleep, so he didn’t understand her fatigue.

To be free from appetite and sleep made her realize once again that the Demon King was not the same as a human like her.

“What do you mean, sleeping all day?”

“Ha.”

Celonia let out a scoff as he snapped at her as if telling her not to talk nonsense.

But she pretended not to notice because she had been hit where it hurt and took a sip of tea.

Maybe it was because it was morning, but the food didn’t appeal to her. The plate containing the breakfast that the chef had painstakingly prepared remained untouched.

In comparison, the plate in front of him was almost empty.

Today was another morning just like yesterday.

* * *

Do people know?

How annoying it is to deal with a Demon King who has lost his memory.

It was like teaching a chick that had just hatched from an egg.

“What’s that?”

“They’re knights. They’re training.”

Celonia answered with a tired face to the questions that had been going on for several tens of minutes.

By the way, to call people ‘that’.

Even if he didn’t have his memory, it was clear that he couldn’t suppress his inherent nature.

“Knights? Those things? Ha. Look at how they’re holding their swords. Terrible.”

He scoffed at the knights swinging wooden swords, as if he were dumbfounded.

Oh… strangely annoying, isn’t it?

They were the knights of the Duke’s residence, and she was passing by the knights’ training ground.

But she couldn’t help but get annoyed when he harshly criticized the skills of the Duke’s knights.

“I think they’re better than you.”

“Want me to show you?”

He readily accepted the words she had thrown out in a fit of anger.

His eyes, glimpsed between the swaying black hair, were shining with confidence.