The Fate of the Perennial Sub Male Lead is in My Hands

I don’t know how to describe this texture.

When I say fluffy, it sounds like a fluffy pillow. But it’s not hard either. Vileon’s chest felt thick enough to cushion the impact, but also bouncy.

‘Bouncy?’

Perverted, perverted, perverted. Marienne Didi, there’s nothing you can’t say!

I could smell a minty soap smell I’d caught a whiff of earlier, now that I was snuggled into Vileon’s arms. It smells even fresher up close. If not now, when would she ever get to smell it? Marienne breathed in deeply as Vileon recited his lines.

I wonder if there’s a way to store this good smell somewhere? If I could make it into a perfume, I could spray it into the air and soothe myself whenever life gets tough.

“Aide Didi, I’ve been thinking.”

“…Yes? Ah, yes.”

Vileon pulled Marienne out of his arms, and the good smell with him. Ahh.

“No matter how careful we are, yanking on a wrist is too violent.”

He moved slowly to Marienne’s back.

“I’m not sure I’d be able to control my strength in a real fight.”

“I dare say you’re not alone in your concerns.”

“I don’t know why the hell you’re trusting me, but… but I’m pretty damn strong.”

Marienne rolled her eyes silently, because with those biceps, those breasts, and those thighs, if you’re not strong, you’re in serious trouble. Vileon would miss Odette’s wrist if he missed, but he would never hurt her.

Only she knows that.

“Not if it’s to catch someone leaving.”

The next moment, Vileon’s arms were around Marienne’s back. She could feel his broad chest, the one she’d admired so much, against her back. He lowered his head as he held her in a bondage-like embrace. Then his face was right next to hers.

Their cheeks lightly touched.

Vileon’s soft cheeks rubbed against her skin.

“I think it’s better to hold you from behind like this.”

“…”

“How about that?”

I didn’t mind bruising my wrists for Vileon’s practice. Marienne was ready for anything. But she hadn’t imagined this.

The spot where our cheeks touched was ticklish, like dandelion seeds blown by the wind on my cheek.

For a moment, I couldn’t think straight. Marienne’s thoughts were as white as dandelion seeds and as black as a northerner’s hair. Unsurprisingly, the words didn’t come out straight.

“Uhm, uh, hmm…”

I should have answered his question about how he was doing, but all that came out of my mouth was a strange sound.

“Wah.”

“…!”

Vileon exclaimed angrily, dropping the body. He quickly checked his subordinate’s body here and there, asking where it hurt. His face hardened frighteningly as Marienne’s mouth twitched like a goldfish.

“Oh, it doesn’t hurt.”

He barely managed to squeeze out something resembling human language.

“It’s just that we’re so close, uh, face to face. Yeah, so.”

“You’re surprised.”

“Yeahh…”

The spot where I’d touched Vileon still tickled, and if I’d moved my head just a little more, my lips would have been on his cheek. The heat of his skin, the sound of his voice, his breath, his good smell, his almond-coloured hair falling forward.

It was more than just excitement, it was shock. Was there something special about bare skin against bare skin. Was this why Odette had had such strange dreams that night?

Even if Vileon had ripped open a novel and danced naked in front of her, she wouldn’t have been this shocked.

“I’m sorry, Aide Didi. I should have asked permission.”

He rubbed his forehead and sighed.

“I’m really sorry.”

“Ah.”

“I guess this isn’t the way to go after all. To be honest, yes, if this is really Her Highness’ taste… I fear for her well-being.”

It’s not a taste that would do Odette any favours, he added. The common sense man was saying something overly common sense again. Emergency. Emergency. Vileon is about to stop practising. Marienne, who had been out for a while, came to her senses.

“Okay, let’s do what you just did again, it was okay, even, uh, good, but we need to, uh, refine our moves!”

Marienne continued her deliberately overly cheerful behaviour. The practice continued for another twenty minutes. Throughout the various postures and dialogue, Vileon’s face remained serious.

Marienne, meanwhile, worried that her cheeks were as red as strawberries, kept making mistake after mistake throughout the practice.

In other words, they were both lost in their own thoughts.

◇ ◆ ◇

On the fourth day, Marienne tried to calm Vileon down, who kept saying that it didn’t feel right. Marienne decided to scrap the ‘act like a northerner’ plan. Even though she had to stop at the practice stage, she was not disappointed.

No matter how she thought about it, Vileon hadn’t done anything wrong. Far from it, Marienne had only reaffirmed his versatility in recent days.

He could talk and act like a northerner whenever he wanted to. He’d even come to some excellent agreements, like figuring out how to hug her from behind instead of pulling her wrists.

‘But the end doesn’t justify the means.’

Marienne sighed in exasperation.

‘I told you not to do anything that’s not possible for any reason or for anyone. In the meantime, he even apologized to his subordinate for trying hard.’

His upright demeanour resonated with Marienne Didi, who was prepared to do any amount of violence to make Vileon Byers the hero.

“I have to make it.”

Marienne’s dark sky-blue eyes burned with determination.

“There’s always a sneaky librarian under a righteous lord.”1

I’ll do the dirty work, you walk the flowery path, I’ll figure it out somehow. This may not have been Vileon’s intention, but ironically, the better he looked, the more determined Marienne became.

He never told Odette he loved her until the moment the reader closed the book. But even that was done so as not to add to Odette’s burden. Moreover, Vileon had given everything but his love. A commitment that the Northman could not make, dead or alive, and Vileon had made.

It is clear that he is a much better man than Cain Blackwood. Odette would agree, and so would Cain Blackwood.

‘Why should the better man suffer more?’

This had always bothered Marienne. Just because someone is nicer doesn’t mean they deserve to fall in love, but couldn’t the courtship process at least be a little less painful?

Why does it have to be the sub male lead’s job to witness the main couple confirm their feelings with a kiss? It was Vileon who stood by a distraught Odette, not the Northman. It’s Vileon, its always him.

When he had to leave, they were kissing passionately when he returned. Like a well-behaved subordinate who knows his place, Vileon quietly turned around and disappeared. A single yellow sunflower in his hand adds to the misery.

‘Things have not changed since Odette ascended the throne.’

In the side story, Vileon’s appearance is less than that of a chick’s tears2. It was just briefly showing his face to comfort the Empress who had a fight with her husband.

A few days later, it’s Vileon who has to watch the couple making out as passionately as ever. The Chancellor approaches the couple, smiling thinly as always, to discuss state affairs.

A person who will take all the checks from the Northern guy and support Odette for decades like that.

Marienne felt sorry for Vileon, who, after so many years of devotion and trust, could only be a friend and servant.

“Ha.”

Enough of the sadness, let’s get practical.

The hair dye failed.

The plan to imitate the original leading man also failed.

Time is getting tighter and tighter, so what now?

“I know there’s a brilliant way to do this, but I can’t seem to think of it…”

I must have received a severe blow to the head when I entered the novel. It must have damaged the memory area. If it comes to mind, it comes to mind immediately, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t come to mind until the end. What’s the one thing I can’t seem to get out of my head?

“There’s a hidden card that’s going to turn the game on its head, but I can’t remember what it is.”

Marienne Didi, who remembered everything, even the lines of the northern man’s shriveled hands and feet! It’s crazy that she forgot the most important setting.

But she couldn’t actually jump up and down. The box she was carrying was full of papers that needed to be moved to the top. There was also quite a bit of stuff that the people who recognised her had given her to take with her ‘on the move’.

I don’t mean to complain, but Aide Phil and the second aide don’t do this. Why on earth do I have to take care of returning the books they borrowed from Sally, who is in charge of cleaning the upper house?

“It’s because I look too cute…”

Marienne let out a deep sigh.

“People aren’t afraid because they don’t know how crazy the souls inside can be.”

Thud. Thud. Thud.

“Still, it’s okay to do the grunt work. It’s nothing compared to carrying goods for the Northerners.”

The Chancellor’s third aide’s salary isn’t bad. And the internal welfare is excellent. Still, Marienne Didi is a different kind of person than anyone else in the north, so I have a bit of a conscience about eating her salary day in and day out.

Just then, I heard shouting in the distance. A group of people were running towards them. “Look out!” she shouted, and turned her head.

A wagon was hurtling towards her. Worse, the horse attached to the wagon was running wild with excitement. Marienne’s thoughts knew she had to get out of the way of the heavy crates, but her body wouldn’t move.

Up close, the horse was huge. If it lifted its front legs and slammed down, it would crush Marienne’s tiny body.

‘I can see why they say you get crushed by a horse’s hooves.’

Her frozen legs were painful. In situations like this, she thought what she should do to avoid it. But the training she had done in her head was completely useless.

Marienne thought briefly about what would happen if she were to possess someone in the novel and died in the process. Will <The Marriage Alliance> offer a way to return to a specific point in time? She couldn’t run away to safety, but it was bizarre that she had the time to think about it.

“It’s dangerous! Run away!”

Mr Guardsman, I’d like to dodge too, but I can’t move, and you know it’s been less than five seconds since I saw the carriage.

Fortunately, the horse swerved. It’s a good thing it swerved, but this time the wagon that was connected to the horse was coming at Marienne with a terrifying spin.

‘Damn it. It’s just a different way to get crushed.’

That was the last thing on her mind.

Someone leapt between Marienne and the carriage. The other person stood with his back to the carriage, holding Marienne in his arms. Common sense would dictate that anyone who intervened would get killed. But what happened next was different.

The moment they collided with the man’s back, the rather sturdy side of the wagon broke and the heavy sacks fell to the floor.

Fine sugar dust flew through the torn sack. The fine, sweet powder fell like snow on Marienne’s hair, eyebrows, and lips. Debris from the wagon also flew in all directions, but the man’s large body provided a shield.

Suddenly, time seemed to slow down, and the movement of all things slowed.

‘Why are there special effects here?’

The sweetness on the tip of her tongue was unpleasant. A shiver of foreboding ran down her spine, a powdered sugar baptism in a moment of desperation. Marienne slowly lifted her head from the man’s embrace.

“You’re…”

His hair, darker than a demon’s belly, fluttered in the breeze. Where the hell was this wind coming from? It hadn’t been windy at all earlier.

And blue, emotionless eyes. An arrogant air of looking down on the rest of the world. The unmistakable smell of the north.

Her toes tingled in revulsion. Marienne’s instincts let out a muffled scream.

Bastard from the start!

It had to be Cain Blackwood.

means that even the best and most noble people can have some less than honorable people in their service

used to describe a very small amount of something. It implies that the amount is so small that it is barely noticeable or insignificant, much like the tiny droplet of a tear shed by a baby chick