My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 25
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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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Chapter 25
“Something feels off about this. They didn’t hide their identities, they openly declared themselves the Security Force, yet they’re committing robbery. It doesn’t add up.”
“You mean there’s someone behind them?”
“Exactly. They want to kill everyone here—it’s reckless. Even if they destroyed the evidence, with so many witnesses, it wouldn’t be simple.”
The whole situation felt murky. She was certain these men hadn’t planned this alone.
‘The mayor of Calben City? Or someone we owe a great debt to?’
At Valdemar Mansion, she’d heard the mayor of Calben City was an opportunist. So it seemed unlikely he’d orchestrate something this reckless.
The creditors seemed more plausible, but none of them possessed the authority to command the Security Force.
‘Someone with that much influence…….’
To the east and west of Calben City were Count Valdemar and Count Laenheim, but men of such vast wealth would never covet the money Agnes possessed.
‘No one knows how much I have anyway.’
The moment she thought this, the answer crystallized.
‘I have to follow them.’
“Silmare. I need to ask you something.”
“Speak, Agnes.”
“I think I need to follow the Security Force commander. If there’s someone behind this, he’ll meet them as soon as we reach the city.”
Silmare looked at Agnes with a gentle smile—she who had nearly collapsed from exhaustion just moments ago, yet now blazed with resolve.
“You intend to go yourself?”
“I won’t be much help, but if you’re willing, would you come with me?”
It might be dangerous.
They might even try to kill Agnes this time.
But they had tried to murder everyone in the Laberose House.
She had to discover the reason why.
Yet Silmare simply shook his head.
“I cannot allow that, Agnes.”
“What?”
“I don’t mean I won’t go. I mean I shall go alone.”
“You can’t do that! It’s impossible!”
“But Agnes, it will be easier for me to move that way.”
“What if you’re put in danger?”
Then the man standing silently beside her let out a soft laugh.
It was a laugh that said it would never happen—and Silmare smiled back at him.
“So there are still stories about us beyond the Flame Mountain Range?”
“There are.”
“Impressive, given that our lives are shorter than yours.”
“We were allies once.”
The two men exchanged words whose meaning eluded Agnes, then both turned their gaze back to her. Silmare spoke in a gentle voice, as if to reassure her.
“He will vouch for my safety. So please, Agnes, don’t worry. Rest. You’ve endured much today.”
Agnes hesitated. Should she hold him back, or bid him a safe journey?
Honestly, she couldn’t simply let an incident like this pass. She had to find who was behind it.
If the Laberose House had possessed power, they would have done the same.
So she ought to be grateful that Silmare was offering to help, and yet…….
‘But it’s our family’s matter.’
It troubled her that a complete stranger like Silmare was taking it upon himself to resolve it.
Silmare cut through Agnes’s hesitation with finality.
“This time, you won’t convince me otherwise. I’ll be back shortly.”
He spoke the words like a declaration and ran through the gaping doorway. There was no time to stop him.
As Agnes stood gazing at the empty space where Silmare had been, the man beside her spoke in a cold, censuring tone.
“He’s right. If you went with him, you’d only get in the way.”
“But…….”
“Don’t you want to protect this place? Why are you wavering?”
Agnes pressed her lips together firmly.
She couldn’t deny it.
They had tried to kill the people in this mansion.
If it had been only Agnes’s own life at stake, perhaps it would be different, but over a dozen lives had been threatened in a single moment.
‘But if Silmare were to be injured…….’
In the end, she simply didn’t want to feel guilty.
The answer laid before her was clear enough.
‘Should I really let a petty unease hold me back?’
Agnes found herself thinking of Amy—barely six years old—traveling across the entire continent.
Beyond the Flame Mountain Range where the giants dwelt lay the western reaches of the continent, and the Naopa Forest where the faeries lived stretched to the far eastern edge.
She had crossed the continent in truth.
‘And there I sit at home, waiting in comfort.’
Agnes gripped the hem of her dress between her fingers.
When she looked up at the man again, her gaze had grown steadier, more resolute.
“Forgive my late introduction. I am Agnes Laberose. Might I ask the name of the one who helped us today?”
“Ignitan.”
“You must be exhausted from such a long journey. I’m afraid the house is in some disarray and will need tidying for a while yet. I’ll have you shown to the drawing room to rest. If you’re willing, please tell me about Amy as well.”
Ignitan nodded.
Outside, the servants bustled about putting the mansion in order, while Agnes sat across from Ignitan in the drawing room.
As expected, he asked to see the World Tree Mark.
His hands were different from those of Kesenor or Silmare.
They were rough and coarse.
As though he feared her delicate fingers might crumble under his touch, Ignitan held only her fingertips with great care.
The same pattern she had seen before appeared on the back of her hand.
A leaf and a seed.
Upon seeing it, Ignitan released a sigh whose meaning was unclear.
As though that confirmation alone were sufficient, Ignitan leaned back against the sofa without expression.
He seemed to have no wish to speak further.
Agnes, eager to learn of Amy’s welfare, pressed him with questions.
“Have you seen Amy? It’s been so long since we parted, and I’ve been so worried. Is our Amy well?”
“She was lying in bed, ill, when I departed.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing serious, she said. Simply that she was exhausted, or so she told me.”
Ignitan spoke as though it were of little consequence, but Agnes could not accept it in that light.
Her heart sank, and she pressed him urgently for more, but Ignitan merely shook his head once and gazed toward the distance.
* * *
Beyond the Flame Mountain Range, in the land of the giants, Elog.
Their dwellings were carved from rock and cave, and though the giants were said to stand some five meters tall by nature, such a height made daily life impractical, so they kept their bodies reduced to a size only somewhat larger than humans, it was said.
Even so, a giant’s bed was large enough for three grown men to lie upon it comfortably.
Upon such a bed lay a child, small as a doll.
It had been ten days already.
Fever had left her lips pale and cracked. Her eyes scarcely opened, and she released only slow, faint moans now and then.
Ruppert placed a damp cloth upon Amy’s forehead with a look of deep concern.
Each morning, a physician of the giant-folk—tall of frame, white of hair—came to examine Amy.
After taking the fever-reducing medicine he provided, she would eat and drink, but when night fell, the fever would rage again without fail.
“Is she eating well enough?”
“To some degree, ……yes, she is.”
“The giant children don’t fall ill like this. Are humans naturally so fragile?”
He grumbled that she was too small to manage properly, yet he tended to her with genuine care nonetheless.
“With enough rest, she’ll improve. Wandering about in that small body must have been taxing.”
“Can the illness last this long?”
“That, I cannot say. Still, the medicine is working, isn’t it? She’s eating well. The young ones recover on their own like this. All we can do is wait for her to heal naturally.”
With that, the physician left the room, and once more Amy and Ruppert were alone together.
The cloth had grown warm again, so Ruppert wrung it out in lukewarm water and wiped Amy’s face with it. Her breathing eased a little at his touch.
In moments when the fever clouded her mind and consciousness grew hazy, Amy would call out for Agnes.
“Sister……”
“You must recover, Miss. Miss Agnes said she wished to see you, after all.”
How much must she long for her sister, that she calls for her even in such a state.
That was what Ruppert thought, but the truth was otherwise.
Every night, Amy encountered Agnes in her dreams.
Though the meetings were scarcely joyful ones.
* * *
‘It’s strange. It feels as though I’m watching something real, not a novel.’
The memories of her past life, surfacing since she escaped the Rift.
This world was from a “Reverse Harem Decadent Novel”—she couldn’t even recall the title.
Had she known she would be reborn as the younger sister of the protagonist Agnes, she would have read it more carefully.
All she could remember were the broad strokes of the plot; the finer details of events eluded her.
‘Elsewhere people rattle off entire plots, but ……how am I supposed to remember every detail of a book I skimmed?’
Perhaps that was why.
Whatever had reincarnated Amy seemed anxious that she might forget the crucial details.
It kept showing her visions of Agnes’s anguished life in her dreams.
Of course, it appeared to filter out the scenes that were too grotesque or brutal.
But the novel itself could never be anything other than a decadent work of obsession — utterly unsuitable for general audiences.
‘I’m only six years old! Whether this world has a god or whatever, is it really okay to show me this stuff without any rating standards?’
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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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