My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 1
Part 1
A moonless night, dark as pitch.
Agnes woke abruptly from sleep.
She reached instinctively to the side, but the bed was empty.
‘Where did she go?’
Her five-year-old youngest sister, who had been sleeping right beside her, was nowhere to be found.
The girl had been born at the cost of their mother’s life, and Agnes had raised her with tender care.
Whenever Amy wanted to use the toilet, she’d wake Agnes in terror, afraid of the darkness—
A sickening premonition crept over her.
“Amy, Amy!”
Agnes bolted upright and rushed from the room.
The dark Mansion was eerily silent.
Below, on the first floor, a door hung slightly ajar, and a crimson light seeped in from outside.
It was wrong. With no moon in the sky, where could that light be coming from?
Holding her breath, she flew down the stairs, threw open the door, and crossed the garden.
Beyond the modest garden, the red light writhed and pulsed.
The moment she perceived what it was, her mind went blank.
A scarlet Crack.
Between walls of crimson darkness, like the gullet of some colossal beast, grotesque tentacles unfurled and undulated.
Her sister hung from one of their tips.
She met those pale blue eyes, wide with terror.
“Amy!”
In her nightgown and slippers, she didn’t care.
She lunged forward—
“I’ll bring her back!”
Someone seized her wrist hard and yanked her back.
“It’s too dangerous—stay here!”
“Rupert!”
Without a word, he was already sprinting past the garden.
Rupert was the butler’s son.
They had grown up together like siblings since childhood, and after their mother died, he’d helped raise Amy as well.
Though small in frame, he’d always been her anchor. Agnes watched his retreating figure and followed, clinging to the hope in her heart.
But Rupert was far faster.
Facing the impossible, he leaped with courage. Amy reached out her tiny hand toward him.
Her eyes full of trust.
The way a child trusts a parent—she believed, utterly, that Rupert would save her.
The moment Rupert’s hand closed around Amy’s and pulled her into his arms—
—a deep rumble, a sickening tear—
The Crack that had split the world began slowly closing.
“Amy, Rupert—!”
Agnes’s cry, though it tore from her throat, came too late.
“No!”
Where the scarlet Crack had been, only darkness-shrouded undergrowth remained.
As if nothing had ever happened.
What Agnes witnessed that night, people called a Crack.
Scarlet fissures appeared across the continent, swallowing people without warning. From others emerged creatures of unknown origin that slaughtered indiscriminately.
They faded in time, yet the Cracks kept returning.
Fortunately, five Magic Towers guarded the demon realm in the north, so the anxious people soon reclaimed their ordinary lives.
All except those few who had lost someone precious.
* * *
Her body felt heavy from the moment morning came. The nightmares were to blame.
‘Amy, Rupert…’
Nursing the dull ache that pressed down on her entire frame, Agnes rose slowly and arranged her bedding.
In the south of the continent, in a cramped, sparsely furnished room within the Valdemar Countdom—
Agnes worked as a governess, teaching the two children of the Valdemar Count’s household.
Shortly after.
Agnes moved through the forest, searching for someone.
“Leonard, Cedric!”
The distant sound of children’s laughter echoed back to her.
Agnes’s eyes snapped toward him.
Count Valdemar was a great feudal lord who ruled vast plains in the empire’s south.
The Mansion itself boasted an enormous scale befitting its master’s station.
In particular, the small forest arranged in the back garden was a place the count had personally cultivated for the twin children he’d acquired late in life.
The two children were notorious troublemakers—before Agnes took them on, they’d gone through ten governesses in three months, or so the story went.
Yet Agnes had been managing them for two years already.
It wasn’t that she possessed some secret trick, nor did the children behave solely for her.
‘It’s just that I’m broke enough to stick it out from sheer stubbornness.’
Today, as always, the children had fled into the forest, claiming they didn’t want to study.
Most governesses would have waited for them to return before scolding them thoroughly, but Agnes always went searching.
‘If I don’t force them into it, they won’t listen to a word.’
She followed the sound of laughter.
Trampled shrubs showed where new shoots had been carelessly crushed.
Beyond them, a shock of golden hair like spun silk poked cheekily above a thicket.
Quick little creatures, they were.
‘This is my only chance.’
If she approached clumsily, they’d bolt and scatter again, no doubt about it.
Agnes held her breath and crept closer, then suddenly threw herself over the thicket.
“Caught you!”
“Ugh, Agnes!”
“You should call me teacher!”
The identical pair of rascals, now caught in her grasp, thrashed and flailed their limbs wildly.
Ever since they’d turned nine this year, holding on to them had grown rather taxing.
Agnes gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on the two children.
“Let go!”
“We don’t want to study!”
“No arguments. It’s time for lessons now.”
“Stubborn Agnes!”
“Agnes has no decorum!”
No matter what the two children shouted, Agnes remained unmoved.
She’d grabbed the twins’ wrists and was turning back toward the Mansion when—
Leonard, struggling violently, suddenly wrenched free from her grip.
“Leonard!”
Of all places, he bolted straight into the Stream where water gurgled softly.
Splash, splash.
Leonard bounced merrily for a moment, then his foot slipped and he went tumbling.
Water droplets arced into the air, catching light as they fell—the sight swimming slowly into view.
‘Oh……’
Agnes let out a low sigh.
By the time she’d caught them again, all three were drenched.
“This is ridiculous—I’m soaked too!”
“But it was fun!”
Watching the children giggle so thoughtlessly, something she’d kept bottled up inside finally burst through.
“How long are you two going to carry on like this? You’re nine years old now—isn’t it time you learned some sense?”
Still, the twins paid her no mind. They merely grinned infuriatingly.
“What’s it to you, Agnes?”
“If we behaved, you wouldn’t make any money!”
“Your mother’s dead, and your father’s a gambler!”
“And your brother’s dead too, isn’t he?”
“Your whole house is falling apart, and you’re earning because of us. Isn’t that right?”
It felt as though someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over her burning head.
She knew they meant to wound her deliberately.
They’d probably just picked up servants’ gossip and mimicked it.
‘Stay calm, Agnes. This is nothing new.’
But today it cut far more sharply than usual, and her eyes stung.
Normally she would have scolded them crisply for their rudeness.
As Agnes stood silent, lips pressed shut, the children exchanged nervous glances and resorted to bluster.
“What? Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“Even if you told us to apologize, we wouldn’t!”
“W-we didn’t even say anything wrong!”
Agnes made no reply and led the two children toward the Mansion.
The children, sensing perhaps that they’d overstepped, followed without further resistance.
As they crossed the threshold, the servants spotted the three of them and erupted into commotion.
“Goodness, Young Master! Have you run away again today?”
“We must get you changed at once!”
Agnes quietly raised a hand to stop the servants as they rushed forward.
If she left them in the servants’ hands, the children would certainly vanish into some corner of the Mansion to hide.
“Bring only towels.”
“Surely you don’t mean to hold lessons like this?”
“I do.”
“Yes, understood.”
Taking the children’s hands, Agnes headed toward the twins’ study, but whispers trailed behind her.
“Miss Agnes must be twenty years old now, mustn’t she?”
“No marriage prospects? Oh, but her family fortune’s collapsed, hasn’t it?”
“What good is a title then? She’s worse off than we are. We just need to keep house, but she’s…”
This was where the twins picked up their rough language.
The servants of Count Valdemar had been gossiping in this vein for over two years now.
Agnes sighed, a habit worn smooth with repetition.
‘They’re not wrong. A noblewoman working as a governess instead of attending social functions—hardly the picture of privilege.’
But what did it matter?
Agnes steadied herself against the sensation that her composure might crumble at any moment.
Five years ago.
It had all begun when her mother died giving birth to her youngest sibling.
Her father, broken with grief, had fallen into drink and gambling, accumulating tremendous debts.
Agnes had been fifteen then.
Below her were three younger siblings, including an infant.
With no relatives from either side of the family, only Agnes remained to manage the Mansion and oversee the fiefdom.
The tenant rent from the fiefdom could scarcely cover the interest, and selling every possession from the house left them still short.
Then Count Valdemar’s household had offered her a position as governess.
They said they wished to help, given the connection between their house and Laberose House.
Agnes had no reason to hesitate.
She had torn herself away from her youngest sibling, who clung to her weeping and unwilling to let her go, and set out for the Count’s residence.
She’d thought only to endure until her siblings could support themselves.
Then, one day.
Cracks appeared across the entire continent.
With a thunderous roar, the earth split open, and an inexplicable darkness surged forth like molten lava.
‘Amy…!’
That day, she had taken rare leave to return to the Laberose Mansion.
As she watched Amy and Rupert vanish into the horrifying crack, Agnes found herself powerless to act.
After hurrying through her lessons and returning to her room, Agnes leaned heavily against the wall.
“Hah… hah…”
Alone at last, the emotions she’d kept tightly bottled erupted without restraint.
Struggling to calm herself, Agnes pressed her burning eyes shut with the heel of her hand.
Get ahold of yourself, Agnes.
You still have two siblings left.
You have to endure at least until they both reach adulthood.
But how much longer?
When the twins grew older and stopped obeying her commands, what would she do then?
Then.
A knock at the door shattered Agnes’s reverie.
Knock, knock.
“W-who is it?”
She asked, startled, and a familiar voice replied.
“It’s me. Agnes.”
She opened the door quickly to find Countess Valdemar standing there.
Her hair was neatly pinned up, and her face bore the gentle impression of a noblewoman whose eyes curved slightly downward at the corners.
She was the mother of the troublesome twins.
“What brings you here, ma’am?” Agnes asked anxiously.
It was the first time the Countess had ever come directly to her room.
Normally she would call her to meals or tea to speak with her.
Moreover, the Countess examined Agnes from head to toe, her gaze lingering with unmistakable suspicion.
Agnes’s intuition screamed danger.
“Has something happened to Leonard and Cedric?”
In the silence that followed, a dozen terrible possibilities flickered through her mind.
Had the children fallen ill?
Or had something today upset them so badly that they’d demanded she be dismissed?
What would she do if they fired her?
If she lost this position, Agnes would have no choice but to sell the Mansion and its Territory outright.
Noble title or not, she might find herself living a life worse than a peasant’s.
Her mouth went dry with tension.
Her hands, gripping the hem of her dress, trembled.
Powerless as she was, Agnes could only wait for whatever the Countess would say next.
Noticing Agnes’s distress, the Countess smiled gently, as if to soothe her.
“Agnes.”
“Yes, Countess?”
“We have a visitor. Do you happen to know of the Marquis Celesta?”
Of course she did.
Celesta was a renowned house that ruled the northern territories of the Empire, one celebrated throughout generations for producing exceptional mages.
And the Marquis Celesta himself was the master of the world’s greatest Magic Tower, the Celestial Tower.
But since she had no personal acquaintance with him, she shook her head.
“No, not at all…”
“The Marquis Celesta has come calling at this late hour, asking to see the young noblewoman. Are you quite certain you’ve never met him before?”
Now Agnes understood why the Countess had regarded her with such displeasure.
She had suspected that Agnes, living off the charity of the Valdemar house, had been secretly meeting men behind their backs.
Agnes shook her head vigorously.
“I promise you, I’ve never met him even once.”
“Then why would he wish to meet with you alone?”
There was no way Agnes could know the answer to that.
Leaving the suspicious Countess behind, Agnes made her way to the Parlor.
As she opened the door, a man rose from the sofa.
The moment she laid eyes on him, Agnes drew in a sharp breath.
Violet? No—black?
The color was otherworldly.
The iris shifted like a jewel, changing hue with each turn of the light.
A Jewel Eye.
From what she’d read in books, such eyes appeared only in mages who had reached the highest reaches of their art.
Hair black as midnight fell past his waist, spilling across the sofa.
He was a handsome man with the fair skin and sharp features characteristic of the northern peoples.
The man, who had been studying Agnes intently, now rose from his seat and bowed.
“It is an honor to meet you. You are the young noblewoman Agnes, are you not?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I apologize for calling at such a late hour. A matter of some urgency brought me here in haste.”
The moment Agnes sat across from him, the man held out the Box he had placed beside him.
“This is something Amy asked me to deliver.”
“Amy?”
“Your younger sister, is she not?”
“She is, but my sister went missing a year ago after being caught in a Crack.”
“Then this must be it. She told me the very same story.”
“Can it be—is Amy alive?”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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