The Male Leads Were Stolen By The Extra [EN]: Chapter 37

As midnight passed and the dark sky gradually turned blue, dawn approached.

Tan was watching Celonia as she slept.

She had fallen asleep on the sofa, nestled against his chest, and Tan had remained motionless for hours.

She burrowed her face deeper into his chest, her soft skin pressing against his, and he couldn’t bring himself to pull away.

No, that was a lie.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t pull away, but that he didn’t want to.

He didn’t want to let go of the body that had come to him first. His heart had been beating faster ever since she touched him.

Tan looked down at Celonia’s peacefully sleeping face, his own still flushed.

Her face, resting comfortably, was mostly hidden by strands of fine hair that cascaded over it like silk.

Strangely compelled, he reached out with his large hand, acting without permission.

Swoosh.

As his long fingers moved, the fine strands of hair slowly parted and swept behind her ear.

Her fair cheek was revealed in the moonlight.

His Adam’s apple bobbed.

The desire surged again. His red eyes, filled with passion, burned even brighter than usual.

In the end, his hand couldn’t return to its place and gently stroked her white cheek with the back of his hand.

So soft. It tickled the back of his hand.

How could everything be so soft?

He knew her hands well from holding them every day.

But her cheeks, her slender upper body nestled in his arms—everything was soft and tender. Even her hair.

It was definitely different from his own body, which was firm and taut.

Was that why?

He wanted to touch everything, even the parts he couldn’t see.

He wondered if it was because he couldn’t feel that texture himself, or if all of her was this soft.

Why?

He had never really thought about touching anything other than to heal, so why now…

“Umm.”

Just then, Celonia stirred, uncomfortable.

Tan froze again.

After wriggling around a few times to find a comfortable position, Celonia buried her face in Tan’s chest.

Her faint, warm breath seeped into his shirt and onto his chest.

“Ha.”

He let out a hot breath he had been holding in and stared at the ceiling.

His head was spinning. His heart was racing even faster than before.

It felt like his heartbeat was the only sound echoing in the quiet room.

The sound was so loud that he worried she might wake up.

Tan looked around in the darkness, trying to calm himself.

Perhaps he had been too moved by the book, because the acts the protagonists shared kept flashing through his mind.

Until just a moment ago, he didn’t understand why they did it. He didn’t really know what was going on, seeing it in writing.

He was sure of it, so why was he feeling the urge to do those things to her?

His mouth was dry. A fierce longing washed over him.

His eyes, filled with a desire hotter than fire, wouldn’t cool down.

In the end, Tan scooped her up. If he stayed in contact with her like this, he felt like he would really do something he’d regret.

Carrying her light body, he quickly walked to the bed and laid her down.

She didn’t wake up, except for a few twitches of her eyelids, as if she was in a deep sleep.

He was about to return to his room, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her sleeping face.

Just a little longer, just a little longer.

Time flew by, and it was almost dawn.

Finally, Tan left her room just as the sun was rising.

* * *

“My lady, let me help you prepare.”

Celonia sat in front of the vanity, entrusting her hair to the attendants.

‘Did I sleep in the bed yesterday?’

Celonia was puzzled.

She was sure she had fallen asleep on the sofa after telling Tan to leave last night, but she woke up in the bed.

Curious, she asked Tan about it during breakfast this morning.

“Didn’t I fall asleep on the sofa?”

“What? When I said I was leaving, you went straight to the bed.”

He answered without ever looking her in the eye.

He just fidgeted with his teacup.

Anyway, she seemed to remember falling asleep on the sofa, but she woke up in the bed, so she must have laid down on her own, as Tan said.

She must have been so sleepy that her memory was hazy.

‘I’ve really gotten a lot weaker lately.’

Just as she was thinking about eating some health food, Ella asked.

“I heard that Lady Denroa is ten years old?”

“That’s right.”

Celonia nodded.

Today, she was attending the Denroa family’s banquet celebrating the tenth birthday of the young lady of the house.

“By the way, I need to prepare a gift.”

She had received the invitation last night, so she hadn’t had time to prepare a gift.

She couldn’t give away what she already had, so what should she do…

Then Celonia remembered what her father had told her yesterday, that Lady Denroa liked the Saviors, especially the healing mage, herself.

‘Then wouldn’t she like this?’

She became excited as she realized what she had come up with.

* * *

The Grand Duke’s castle, located in the north.

“Shouldn’t we find out?”

Kelvin, standing on the terrace and looking into the distance, turned around with a frustrated expression, as if he had been holding back for a long time.

Kelvin Finegger.

The commander of the Grand Duke’s Knights, he was in his mid-30s with golden-brown hair and brown eyes, and a visibly burly physique.

Every morning and night, Kelvin stood here, looking at the place where he used to live.

The Demon King’s castle was visible from this towering Grand Duke’s castle, which straddled the walls near the Demon Forest.

It was very clear on clear days like today. The Demon King’s castle, now ruined and uninhabited.

“It may be that the energies of the demons are mixed, so you felt that way.”

“But Lord’s energy is getting stronger and stronger every day!”

Kelvin’s eyes flashed at Ius’s indifferent reply, and black energy emanated from his body.

However, the sharp, spiky black energy soon subsided.

“You have no strength. Foolishly shortening your own life.”

Ius clicked his tongue at Kelvin.

He was Ius Hershbrook, the Grand Duke of this castle.

Ius, who was 50 years old, had completely white hair, but his face had few wrinkles, making it difficult to guess his age.

In addition, perhaps because he never neglected training, his sturdy physique was as strong as that of most young men.

Was that why? Still unmarried, he was still popular with young women.

“If our lord were alive, he wouldn’t have failed to find us.”

Ios added a word to the Knight Commander Kelvin, who was leaning against the terrace railing and speaking informally to the Grand Duke.

He was treating Kelvin as if he were a colleague.

That was inevitable. They were not the real Grand Duke and Knight Commander.

Ius and Kelvin’s real names were Tom and Jack.

They were demons, few in number, whose characteristic was that they were humanoid.

In addition, they had the ability to enter the bodies of other living beings and use them as their own.

They liked to play, so when the Demon King was sealed, they lived in the human world in human form.

Then, when the Demon King was resurrected, they naturally served him.

Tom and Jack were the Demon King’s vassals and closest aides, always serving as their lord’s eyes and ears, faithfully attending to him.

But three months and several weeks ago, just before the humans invaded the castle, the Lord ordered them to leave the castle, saying that he was sufficient on his own.

Ius and Kelvin naturally tried to stay with him, but were forcibly driven out.

That day, their lord died. It was complete annihilation, not a seal.

Unlike demons [a race of beings], the *demons* [a specific type of demon] could share the Demon King’s power.

However, since they had the Demon King as their host, the *demons* naturally perished when the Demon King died.

So, as soon as Tom and Jack realized that their lord was dead, they instinctively entered the bodies of the humans in front of them.

Otherwise, they would have been completely annihilated.

They took over the bodies of humans and tried to extend their lives in order to take revenge, but the bodies they entered happened to be those of the Grand Duke and his Knight Commander, who had come out to hunt down demons.

Moreover, since the host had disappeared, they could no longer use their power.

In the end, they entered the Grand Duke’s castle, disguised as the Grand Duke and Knight Commander, and were eking out a living day by day.

However, even this would not last long. Their source of power and lord was no longer in the world.

It was a miracle that they had survived this long without being annihilated.

But a while ago, the lord’s energy, which had been very faint, began to feel stronger and stronger.

“Still, we should find out.”

Kelvin did not let go of the thread of hope. He firmly believed that his lord could not have disappeared so easily.

“Leave the castle?”

“Ha, you crazy bastard. Do you think you’ve become a real human? Get a grip. Stop playing this ridiculous human game.”

At Ius’s reply, Kelvin chuckled and frowned with a look of disgust.

‘Who was it that killed the Lord? Is leaving the Grand Duke’s castle the problem now? Their lord might be alive.’

In the first place, if they had only had the power, they would have killed all the humans.

“…….”

Ius had nothing to say to Kelvin’s words.

Even though he had lived as a human for several months, it became ridiculous to worry about leaving the castle as the owner of the castle.

As he said, no matter how long they had lived in the human world before, they were not real humans.

“All right. You’re right. Let’s go.”

They left without delay—to the center of the empire, where the lord’s energy was felt, to the capital.