How to Protect My Sub Male Lead Dad

Asta who had just woken, sat & looked at me.

Then she smiled as if she was relieved.

“Physician are you teasing me! Isn’t she just a child? Were you just joking around to make me feel relaxed?”

Then she looked at Hart and Patrick and gave them a generous look.

“I suppose you two haven’t found my antidote either, then maybe…”

Asta frowned, as if solving a riddle. Then she blurted out a line that had been reserved for Philen in the original.

“Did I cure myself with my healing powers?”

“That’s not it, Asta…”

“But that’s okay, I’m grateful enough for your efforts alone.….”

“Physician Hansen is right, that kid made the antidote that saved your life.”

Hart said, unable to look at the woman he admired, acting deluded.

Asta looked at Patrick as if to tell her, ‘It was a lie’. But he also nodded in affirmation of Hart’s words. Then Asta’s gaze slowly turned to me.

Her ice blue eyes trembled.

“This is ridiculous. How could this happen… A child this young made my antidote! Philen, is this all true?”

Asta asked in disbelief.

To others, it will simply look as embarrassing herself.

‘But no, Asta was only doing this because she’s convinced that no one can create the antidote.’

But I’m here to shatter that conviction.

“It’s true, Saint…”

Philen couldn’t look up in shame.

Asta bit her lip and looked at me reproachfully for a moment.

A shiver ran down my spine, but I didn’t hide.

‘Who told you to do that?’

The person who put the drug, known as ‘poison’, in the cookie Duke Eisen had given, was Asta herself.

‘Asta did it to trap the Princes in an emotional debt, to use them when she needed them.’

In the original, Hart and Patrick, who were unable to do anything for Asta, felt indebted to her. The guilt Hart felt, especially after watching her collapse in front of him, was immense.

‘Asta used that guilt to ask him to do something dangerous.’

She asked him to find evidence of treason that would bring down the regime. They succeeded, but Hart was gravely wounded in the process. But as always, Asta got the glory of taking down the traitor, and Hart got to bear the blame.

‘Helping Asta was always like that.’

A body that gets exhausted and wounded instead of Asta.

The growing misunderstandings and stigma.

Facing the isolation and loneliness. Asta’s gaslighting added to that.

“I’m so upset that everyone keeps criticizing you. How can they call you a monster?”

“Even when you were sick, no one came to see Hart, or asked how you had been doing . It’s not that they didn’t know about your sickness, they just didn’t want to see you.”

“His Highness is the problem, why are you making it worse by trying to make excuses?”

“Now, just leave me alone. I’ll take care of everything, and I want you to consult with me before doing anything in the future.”

“It’s okay, only I’ll be by your side.”

She made sure that the wounded and mentally broken Hart had no choice but to cling to her.

With only Asta left, he could not refuse her repeated requests.

‘Eventually, he became Asta’s loyal dog.’

To the point where even Asta was cried out, “Why are you doing all this for me?”

‘And he ended up being sacrificed for her.’

I couldn’t watch that.

No matter what kind of father he is, Hart is still my favourite.

‘I can’t let him die an unjust death!’

This was the second reason I came to find Hart.

To protect him from Asta.

To save my favourite from being killed like a dog!

 

***

 

“That’s great. You saved my life, child.”

As I gathered my resolve, Asta spoke to me.

She suddenly changed her expression and smiled sweetly at me.

‘Because it’s a behavior that children like.’

I snorted inwardly, but outwardly, I clasped my hands together ‘joyfully’ in greeting.

“No. Hanelope likes the Saint! Hanelope is very happy to help you!”

Hart glanced at my polite behaviour as if it were no big deal.

Seeing the pea-sized creature folding itself in half while greeting, Hansen laughed heartily.

“Oh dear! Such a good child.”

I’m sure it was a genuine smile, but it felt scary to me. I tried to turn a blind eye to Hansen.

“By the way, sweetie, just out of curiosity, what kind of poison was that?”

Asta asked in a coy voice.

She was smiling brightly, enough to melt any cold expression, but I could feel it. A sneering certainty that said, ‘You’ll never be able to answer that’.

I hopped on my toes, as if I were so happy that the saint had asked the question.

“That’s not poison!”

“…what?”

“The thing Hanelope made, it’s not an antidote for poison!”

Everyone in the room widened their eyes.

Asta who belatedly grasped the situation began to contemplate.

“The ones made by Hanelope….”

“Wai-Wait a minute…”

“It was just a fatigue antidote.”

After I finished speaking, I smirked at Asta.

Asta’s face went frighteningly rigid.

‘You didn’t take poison. Why would I make an antidote?’

What Asta had consumed with the cookies was not poison, but a drug that would put her to sleep for weeks. It was Philen who got her the medicine and falsely diagnosed her as having been poisoned.

‘That’s why no one could get the antidote. Because she wasn’t poisoned in the first place!’

Knowing this, I gave Asta a nutritional pill aligning to the time she woke up in the original. It was the product of a failed attempt to find a cure for genetic disease with mana-boosting effect.

‘But it does help the body’s mana circulation, it’s just not strong enough to cure hereditary diseases.’

A simple nutritional supplement could not be more effective. Even people who fainted from overwork would wake up after taking it. In the original story, of course, it was said that Asta recovered because of her holy power.

It was actually a ruse by Asta and Philen.

Thanks to this, Asta’s reputation as a Saint increased.

‘But not anymore.’

Asta was now a mere over sleeper.

“It wasn’t poison?”

Patrick repeated the question, as if he didn’t understand.

I nodded vigorously.

“Yes! She was just tired and overslept. Kugh- sleeping pills, she must have taken a lot of them in order to rest, so I gave her an anti fatigue pill to wake her up!”

Asta had been taking sleeping pills for insomnia after her regression.

So she couldn’t deny it.

“I can’t believe it was something like that….”

Patrick muttered despondently.

Hart was just as dejected.

They had been scouring the empire for Asta’s antidote, resulting in only tiredness.

Sensing something was amiss, Asta spoke up, “I’ve been an inconvenience to everyone. I can’t believe I’ve been asleep for a month without being poisoned.”

“The sleeping pills used, can sometimes have an effect like that if you take an overdose. That’s why I advised you to take only the right amount when I prescribed them”, Hansen said with a sigh.

Asta, who was about to plant a seed of doubt, was embarrassed.

“But when I ate the cookie, my throat burned as if I’d swallowed poison, and it’s kind of funny that it was a child who saved me…”

“Asta, that child woke you up when no one else could. And that’s not all, you opened your eyes at the time the child told you would.”

Hart said bluntly.

“I don’t doubt it. I just want to be cautious…”

“The only one who claimed to have found poison in the cookies was Philen, the same Imperial physician who confused the name of a medicine that even a child knows.”

Asta was left speechless by Hart’s rebuttal.

Hart was right. Philen was the only one who said there were poisons in the cookies. At first, everyone was skeptical about the ‘unknown poison’. But when Asta didn’t wake up, Philen’s argument gained traction.

‘In other words, it was Philen, who made the princes sweat to find an antidote that didn’t even exist!’

The princes’ fierce gazes turned to Philen. Philen looked at Asta terrified, and she sighed heavily.

“Doctor Philen, you advised me to take more sleeping pills than Physician Hansen prescribed, and then you tell me you detected poison where there was none?”

Philen’s eyes widened as Asta, the woman he thought would defend him, made him take the fall instead.

“S-Saint, what are you…”

“Of course I understand. You were just trying to help me with my insomnia, but it must have been very embarrassing for you because it went wrong. So it must have been hard for you to make the right judgement.”

Asta smiled benevolently at Philen, who was at a loss for words, and then looked at the princes.

“Even though he made a mistake, physician Philen is young and talented. I’m sure he’ll do well so why don’t we forgive him and give another chance?”

Asta smiled brightly. It was a beautiful smile, like sunlight sparkling on a pure white snowfield.

Patrick nodded, mesmerised.

“If she, the greatest victim of all this, can forgive him, then I should do the same.”

Hart, who looked shaky, hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“If you ask me this much, I’ll let it slide this time.”

I was dumbfounded at the sight of the princes being bamboozled by Asta.

Hart’s lack of speed, especially as he’s the sub male lead, made me want to burst out laughing.

“They are idiots. Dad’s an idiot…”

But it wasn’t over yet.

‘I’m still here!’

I won’t let this slide.