My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 36

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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 36
“He’s the type to repay debts in kind. He’ll definitely come tonight.”
With that in mind, Agnes pretended to be exhausted and retired to her room early, while Ignitan drank heavily and feigned sleep.
“You will protect me if he comes to attack, won’t you?”
Ignitan nodded silently.
He would have preferred for such an attack never to happen, but if Baren moved as Agnes anticipated, punishing him would be straightforward.
“I wish there were someone among the Self-Guard members who held a grudge against Baren. That would make this much easier to resolve.”
In the darkness of the room, only Agnes’s whisper could be heard.
Ignitan made no reply, keeping his attention fixed on the world outside.
If only they could speak about something — anything — to break the tension.
From Ignitan, who sat utterly motionless, an almost palpable strain radiated outward.
Because of it, sleep would not come despite her exhaustion.
‘How long will we have to wait?’
In the suffocating silence, her mouth had gone bone-dry.
Just as she moved to moisten her lips, someone tapped at the window.
“Miss, are you asleep?”
Uncertain of who it was, Agnes remained silent, but the murmuring outside grew louder.
“Hey, you’re not actually asleep, are you?”
“If you are, we’re done for! Please, Miss, wake up!”
The tapping on the window intensified.
Agnes sprang up at once and opened the window.
Two men stood outside.
Their faces, illuminated by moonlight, were vaguely familiar — she felt she’d seen them in her childhood.
“What’s happened?”
The two men stammered in confusion; they had been certain Agnes was asleep, yet here she stood, perfectly awake.
“W-well, you see……”
The moment Agnes heard what they had to say, she and Ignitan bolted from the room.
There was no time to deliberate on how to respond.
Naturally, Ignitan moved faster than she did, so Agnes shouted urgently after his rapidly receding form.
“Get there first and stop it!”
It happened to be the dry season of spring.
Several days had passed since the last rain.
The storehouse stood apart from the village, but the space between them was dotted with several trees.
Should fire catch the brittle wood, the flames would spread unchecked and consume the village.
According to Peta and Jen, the arson would take place once the moon had crossed the zenith.
The moon had already passed over Agnes’s head.
How far had they run?
Smoke rose in the distance.
Even though she had run until her breath caught in her throat, by the time she reached the storehouse, fierce flames already engulfed it.
Oil had been poured liberally — the stench was overwhelming.
The wooden structure, tinder-dry, burned as if the fire would consume it entirely.
‘Where is the Self-Guard?’
Not a soul was visible in the vicinity. They had fled the moment they set the fire.
‘What do I do?’
The flames had already grown beyond human control.
Agnes retreated from the billowing smoke, her eyes darting frantically about her.
Already the sparks were racing along the brush on the ground and leaping to the trees beside it.
“Ignitan!”
When she called out to him, standing motionless before the inferno, his gaze turned toward her.
Indifferent eyes.
As if this small village, reduced entirely to ash, would concern him not at all.
Yet Agnes desperately needed his help now.
“Help me!”
She cried out with every ounce of strength, and her throat burned with pain.
“The fire will spread to the village!”
“What should I do?”
“You have to remove anything that could catch fire! Those trees, there!”
More than a dozen trees lined the path into the village.
But he nodded, seemingly unbothered.
“As much as you need.”
Ignitan approached the tree nearest the village and wrapped both arms around its trunk.
The moment veins stood out prominently across his thick arms, threatening to burst.
The ancient, deep-rooted tree began to sway, creaking loudly.
Crack! Boom!
Following a sharp tearing sound, the earth lurched and dirt exploded upward in a cloud.
Ignitan hurled the uprooted tree far into the distance.
A low rumble echoed across the ground.
The earth trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
“Good heavens….”
She’d spoken the words partly because she’d thought it might somehow be possible.
After all, he’d torn out that massive door back at the mansion—surely a tree couldn’t be beyond him.
But seeing it with her own eyes, shock crashed over her.
In the moment she stood transfixed, Ignitan was already uprooting a third tree.
Agnes couldn’t simply stand idle and watch.
“Fire!”
She pounded on the nearest house door, shouting with all the strength in her lungs.
The people who rushed out in alarm went pale at the sight of the raging flames, but soon began moving with organized precision.
It was the result of training repeatedly on how to respond when fire broke out.
“Bring buckets! Hurry!”
“Lora, you get to the village square and ring the bell!”
“Where are the sand bags? Get them out now!”
The fierce flames burned bright as daylight in the night.
The villagers gathered before the storehouse, frantically drawing water from the nearby stream.
In the meantime, Ignitan finished uprooting all the trees.
But the last tree he pulled up, he didn’t hurl far away—instead, he gripped it tightly in both hands.
“Step back.”
After clearing the people away from the stream, he plunged the tree deep into the water.
Thin branches snapped and cracked loudly as he worked.
Lifting the tree heavy with water, Ignitan swung it toward the storehouse.
Whoosh!
Water showered down from the tree like a downpour.
How much time had passed?
Thanks to Ignitan’s overwhelming efforts and the villagers’ labor, the ferocity of the flames began to falter.
Black smoke rose from where the fire died, and scattered embers were smothered with sand bags.
When at last they had extinguished all the flames.
The people, their faces and clothes covered in soot, breathed sighs of relief.
But there remained one final task.
“Here! We found it!”
A voice called out from behind the storehouse.
There lay a charred corpse, so badly burned it was nearly unrecognizable.
After all, only one person had been trapped inside the storehouse—Baren, who had been bound with rope the previous night.
“We were planning to rescue him, but then you acted first, Miss, and….”
“We’re so sorry, Miss! Please forgive us!”
Jen and Peta lay prostrate on the dirt floor, trembling with fear.
Agnes gazed down at them, breathing slowly and deliberately.
Looking back on it, it was almost fortunate.
If those two had gone to rescue Baren, the fire would have spread to the village, causing irreparable damage.
The bodies of Jen and Peta bore smudges of soot—evidence of their efforts to extinguish the flames.
They would need to be punished, but now was not the time.
Agnes issued them a command.
“First, bring me those who set the fire. The interrogation will come after.”
As dawn’s pale light crept across the sky.
The Self-Guard members who had conspired were dragged in, bound with rope.
Following Baren’s instructions, they readily confessed to pouring oil around the storehouse and setting it alight.
Agnes immediately confiscated their identification badges and ordered them thrown into the river and exiled.
If fortune favored them, they might survive; if not, they would perish.
The weeping of their parents could be heard, but no one dared protest the sentence.
Peta and Jen, who had informed on the others, were allowed to remain in the village.
“Because of you, we were able to stop the fire before it consumed the village. I will not hold you accountable for your past wrongs. Instead, reflect on your actions and dedicate yourselves to serving the village.”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Thank you!”
Soon after, the Self-Guard members—all except Peta and Jen—climbed into the carriage.
They made all manner of noise and wailed as they departed, but not a single villager who had nearly died that night spared them a shred of sympathy.
After they vanished beyond the hill.
Agnes stood silent, surveying the gathered crowd in the Village Square.
They regarded her and Ignitan with eyes full of awe.
Timona, Kania, and even the children who had been playing so happily yesterday—all held their tongues.
Agnes realized only then that the emotion in their gazes had changed.
She was no longer the young lady from the Lord’s mansion.
She had become someone whom the monster-like Ignitan would willingly aid, and the master of the fiefdom who held the power of life and death over the villagers.
Agnes recalled what Kesenor had said to her.
‘They are entirely different people from you. Do not treat them as equals. Even should circumstances worsen further, they will simply follow another lord.’
‘So that is why he had me inspect the fiefdom.’
To Agnes, the village had always been merely a playground where she had run and played happily in childhood.
Now she understood that an invisible line existed between them and herself.
Just as parent and child cannot stand as equals, Agnes and the villagers bore vastly different responsibilities.
‘Even if we are the same kind, our roles are different.’
Agnes grasped what it meant to govern a fiefdom, and her shoulders suddenly felt heavy.
‘Can I do this?’
Agnes pressed her lips firmly shut.
‘Must I truly be responsible for their lives?’
No—she did not wish to think that way.
‘They too must be capable of taking responsibility for their own lives.’
As her thoughts traced backward to their origin, Agnes suddenly recalled what had begun all of this.
Yohas.
A trusted Village Chief had crumbled when his son fell into ruin.
Just as the Laberose mansion had teetered when her father and mother collapsed.
Agnes sensed now what she must do.
“Kania.”
She called to her with gentleness, yet with a weight that had not been there before.

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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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