After the Ending, I Received the Second Male Lead as a Gift

 

“What? The Duke of Rivolte is missing?”

 

About two weeks ago, at the reception held after the wedding ceremony, I was stunned to hear Lilian’s words.

 

“I haven’t heard from him in over a month already……. Have you seen him by chance?”

 

The female protagonist of the original novel, Lilian, looked worried to death.

 

“You’re asking me? I haven’t even seen his shadow for three months.”

“…I just thought you might know.”

 

Lilian smiled awkwardly, looking at me in confusion.

Ludwin Rivolte.

A Sword Master and the only successor to the Rem Empire’s most prestigious family, the Duke of Rivolte. He was the treasure of the empire.

And he was also the second male lead who killed Tyria in the original novel.

 

“Ah, Pedro’s calling. I’d better get going.”

“Okay, see you later.”

 

After sending Lilian off with a bright smile, I crossed my arms.

 

‘Where on earth did he go?’

 

For the past 10 years, I’d been friends with Lilian, but I’ve stayed away from the male lead and second male lead as much as possible.

Not only that, but in order to avoid encountering them, I’d always kept tabs on their whereabouts.

 

‘Ludwin disappeared completely the day the wedding was announced.’

 

That was ten days before the wedding invitation arrived.

Even in the original work, Ludwin didn’t show up at the wedding, so I thought it was normal, but Lilian seemed surprised.

After contemplating his whereabouts for a moment, I soon shook my head.

 

‘Well, he’s probably fine.’

 

Even if you dropped him in the middle of a battlefield, he’d come back unscathed.

I was sure he was just shocked that his beloved Lilian was getting married, and took a trip somewhere to cheer himself up…

I lowered my gaze.

‘But why are you here?’

Inside the pretty pink box, a giant dog was grinning with its big tongue sticking out.

Covered in pure black fur, his golden eyes sparkled like jewels, and his black tail, as long as my forearm, wagged as if he was happy to see me.

He even wore an adorable pink ribbon around his neck.

“Tsk!”

I flinched at that fatal sight, put both hands behind my back, and took a step back.

‘Wow, that was dangerous.’

The dog in front of me was Ludwin Rivolte, the missing second male lead.

I recognized him with only a glance.

There was only one animal in this world that was so large it reached up to a person’s chest, even when sitting.

Since there were no beastmen in the empire, to other people he would’ve just looked like an unusually large dog, but to me, it was as if he had the word ‘beastman’ written across his forehead.

‘Plus, that scar at the tip of his ear…’

On his pointy left ear was a scar in the shape of a star about the size of a coin.

It was invisible when he was in his human form, only revealed when he transformed.

Even that peculiarly shaped scar was caused by me.

Cold sweat broke out.

‘How could I not recognize him with only a glance?’

It would’ve been better if I hadn’t and just assumed that a dog had been delivered.

No, I should’ve just returned this suspicious box without opening it!

Invisible tears flowed.

The fact that Ludwin was a descendant of the beastmen was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Rivolte family.

According to the original story, his mother, a beastman, met and fell in love with the Duke of Rivolte while traveling, and unfortunately died while giving birth to Ludwin.

It was only after his wife died that the Duke of Rivolte, who found out that she was a beast person, was furious at the fact that his child was a half-blood, and imprisoned the newborn Ludwin in a tower.

 

“Get that beast out of my sight right this second!”

 

Ludwin, who grew up watching such a Duke, also considered his transformation into a dog a curse and hid it well.

 

“Don’t look! Don’t look at this horrible sight!”

“Don’t say such sad things! You’re still Ludwin. I’m not scared.”

 

The main character, Lilian, accepted Ludwin without any hesitation, and he allowed only her to see his canine form.

However, at the end of the story, Ludwin, eventually abandoned by the female protagonist, turned black, and when he was accidentally spotted in his dog form, he cut down everyone present, without hesitation.

 

“You don’t deserve to see that.””

Ludwin smiled coldly and swung his sword without hesitation. Soon everything was stained red from their blood…

 

“Ugh.”

Remembering that scene from the original, I rubbed my forearms, feeling a chill run down my spine.

‘Who on earth sent this terrifying human being to me?’

I glared at the black dog in the box.

‘Why are you sitting so still?’

And in dog form, too!

Just as I was about to tear my hair out from the endless questions, Lena called out to me.

“Miss, there’s a letter here!”

“A letter?”

Lena handed me a flowery pink letter from somewhere.

I quickly opened the envelope to see if I could find out the cause of this situation.

There was no sender.

Only one line was written inside.

 

[Please take care of him.]

 

What! The high-quality stationery crumpled in my hand.

‘Who on earth sent this?!’

A muffled scream echoed through the clear blue sky.

 

In any case, I couldn’t leave Ludwin alone at the flower shop, so I brought him home.

Every step Ludwin and I took, we could hear people everywhere freaking out.

“Hee, hee!”

Ah, it looks like someone fainted.

Upon hearing the news that I’d brought home something huge, my family came running out barefoot.

“Oh my God, Tyria! W-what is that?”

“Sister, you said you were opening a flower shop. Have you been going out hunting instead?”

“Tyria! Where did you even find a dog the same size of you?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at my family’s reaction.

In my hand was a rope-like leash, and the large Ludwin was sitting next to me, reaching up to my chest.

His animal form was similar to a Siberian Husky, with all black fur and golden eyes, he could easily be mistaken for a wolf.

Thanks to that, I was worried that he might get captured, so I quickly got a leash and put it on him.

Of course, the process wasn’t easy.

He was docile even after I put a leash on him, but when I handed the leash to a knight so we could go home, he started whining and refused to move.

He was so strong that no matter how hard the knight pulled, it was no use.

Then, when I noticed his gaze was still on me, I grabbed the leash as a test, and he immediately jumped to his feet.

The look on the knight’s face was priceless…

Thanks to that, we ended up like this.

Ludwin followed behind me without a care, to the point everyone’s concern for me was in vain.

“I received it as a gift.”

I answered honestly, and their faces turned even stranger.

They looked like they didn’t know what to say.

“From whom?”

“Maybe an acquaintance?”

Everyone seemed to be wondering why my answer sounded like a question, but I had nothing else to add.

Father looked down at Ludwin for a moment, then stepped closer and bent down.

“Father?”

He stared at Ludwin meaningfully for a moment, then put his hand on the top of his head.

“Huh!”

Startled, I glanced at Ludwin, but he just stared back at my father with his big golden eyes.

‘Doesn’t that make you mad?’

I was scared, he was like a ticking time bomb.

“Oh, he’s calm.”

“He seems to have a mellow personality.”

Internally I shook my head furiously.

‘No, that’s not it!’

There was nothing scarier in this world than a second male lead who was abandoned by the female lead and turned black.

And at this point, there was nothing more dangerous to me than this man.

My family, who had no way of knowing that I was breaking out in a cold sweat, seemed happy.

Especially my father, who petted Ludwin to his heart’s content and stroked the nape of his neck.

“You’ve received a good gift, Tyria.”

“What?”

This time he patted me on the shoulder.

“I was already thinking about how to assign a guard to you, but this works out well. If you train him properly, he’ll be even better than most knights.”

“Ah, father! You don’t need to do that. Our territory has the best security in the empire.”

I quickly tried to stop my father before he ruined the family.

Then, he chuckled, apparently amused by his daughter’s praise.

“That’s right, our Dilucia is the best! My daughter knows what she’s talking about, hahaha!”

Meanwhile, Tibon was constantly expressing his admiration while looking at Ludwin.

“He’s huge. It would be difficult to find another dog this size within the empire, right?”

His normally calm personality showed a rare flush of excitement at the size of Ludwin, who looked like he could swallow a man whole, with one gulp. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration, but still…

When Tibon approached, face flushed, Ludwin snorted and turned his head. It seemed he was uncomfortable.

“That’s right.”

I hesitantly confirmed Tibon’s words.

‘Because he’s a beastman.’

In this world, the beastmen lived in their own kingdom, deep in the mountains, avoiding humans.

There was no traffic at all between the Rem Empire and the Beastmen Kingdom, and basically no information about them remained, so it was safe to say that almost no one in the empire knew anything about Beastmen.

So, there would be no one able to recognize Ludwin’s identity.

Tibon also seemed to think of him as just some large dog breed.

“Is he by any chance from the Kingdom of Alke?”

He muttered to himself, amazed.

The Kingdom of Alke was located at the southern edge of the continent, and everything that came from there was extremely large.

“By the way, Tyria, what’s his name?”

“Ah! You can call him Lou.”

I answered my mother’s question without thinking too much.

‘Because we can’t call him Ludwin.’

However, since ‘you’ or ‘hey’ wouldn’t be good either, she decided to shorten his name and call him ‘Lou’.

“Hi. Nice to meet you, Lou.”

Mother smiled and greeted Ludwin.

Fortunately, she didn’t seem to be afraid of dogs.

“Then where are you going to let him sleep?”

I paused for a moment.

I was faced with my biggest problem since receiving Ludwin as a gift.

‘… Outside won’t work. If I made someone whose possibly already blackened sleep outside we could suffer some kind of disaster later in the future. We should probably let him stay in the house, right?’

Since I couldn’t let anyone touch him, even inside the house, I thought it would be best to keep him within the scope of my life as much as possible.

For example, the room next to mine.