My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 43

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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 43
“You mean that?”
“Yes. I protected you in the Rift, and we both came out alive. I got rid of the dragon along with Kesenor.”
In truth, Amy had no memory of the past year.
From the moment she was pulled into the Rift, it felt as though she’d simply slept for a night and awakened.
She’d returned to this world as if she’d never fallen into the Rift at all, and at the same time, she’d come to realize this world was the novel she’d read in her past life.
When she opened her eyes again, a year had passed, yet Rupert scarcely spoke of what had happened in the interim.
He only smiled at her gently, as he did now.
“I don’t know much myself, I’m afraid.”
Still, as if taking responsibility for the needless worry he’d caused her, Rupert spoke softly and earnestly.
“But should such a thing occur again, I will do everything in my power to prevent it.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
But Rupert only smiled, offering no answer.
Watching his solid frame and trustworthy face, Amy fell into thought.
‘Can I trust Rupert?’
Now that she’d recovered her past memories, his presence seemed all the stranger.
‘Isn’t he just an ordinary servant? Why does he help me to this extent……?’
If she had to find a reason, perhaps it was because he’d lived with her sister even longer than she had.
‘Rupert is a year older than me.’
So he must have been with her sister since birth.
Which made him, in a sense, a childhood friend.
‘Should I ask him?’
But thinking he wouldn’t answer anyway, Amy held her tongue.
Somewhere along the way, a distant island came into view.
That was the last one.
It wouldn’t be long now before she could return to her sister.
* * *
When Agnes arrived at the Mansion, she spotted a familiar figure in the Garden and broke into a radiant smile.
“Duke, you’ve come!”
Kesenor sat at an outdoor table placed in the Garden.
He wore a black shirt and jacket with a soft sheen, his long hair gathered and tied neatly back.
Looking down at Agnes as she approached with quick little steps, he gave a faint smile that reached his eyes.
“How was the Rift resolved? You’re not injured anywhere?”
His expression full of concern, he examined her carefully, but fortunately she seemed to have no complaints.
“Would you like me to check more thoroughly?”
Kesenor spread his arms as if inviting her to continue her inspection.
Agnes, growing a little embarrassed, shook her head.
“No, I’m relieved you’re all right!”
As Agnes waved her hand in protest, the bracelet hanging from her wrist glimmered.
He glanced at it briefly, but Kesenor made no mention of it, conscious of Ignitan standing behind.
He understood well that the more people who knew a secret, the harder it was to keep.
“Is this the Giant Race representative who came this time?”
“Yes! That’s Ignitan!”
Agnes’s face as she cried this out was far more vibrant than before.
Her hair, lightly braided at the temples and then allowed to fall loose below, gleamed like sweet caramel, her eyes resembled freshly sprouted leaves, and her cheeks glowed with a rosy hue.
Having gained a pleasant amount of weight in just a month, she looked beautiful in her pale pink dress.
‘Compared to the noble ladies of the Capital Kavash, she is rather plain, it’s true.’
Yet just as the abundant peonies were lovely, the daisies and daffodils that bloomed commonly in the Garden possessed their own quiet beauty.
“Where have you two been? Has something pleasant happened?”
“Yes, so much has happened!”
Agnes’s answer came with an expression neither smiling nor frowning, but her complexion was not dark.
At least the outcome seemed not to have been poor.
“Ignitan helped me greatly. Without Ignitan, things could have gone very badly indeed.”
At this, Kesenor’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He gave a short laugh of assent and bowed his head to Ignitan.
“How fortunate indeed. Thank you for protecting Agnes in my absence.”
It was an arrogant remark, as though he regarded Agnes as his possession, but Ignitan showed no particular reaction and moved past Kesenor.
“I’ll be going inside now.”
“I beg your pardon? You’re not going to greet him?”
“Greet whom?”
Ignitan was ignoring Kesenor with blatant disregard, as though the man didn’t exist in this place at all.
Agnes, taken aback, silently mouthed a question toward Kesenor.
‘Have you met before, perhaps?’
Kesenor shook his head quietly.
In past years, when he’d wandered the worlds and set foot in the Giant Race’s domain, he’d encountered no one.
In the meantime, Ignitan opened the door.
“I’ll go in first.”
“Wait, Ignitan!”
Just as Agnes called out to him urgently, Kesenor stepped forward and blocked the doorway.
The man before him was a Giant.
The sheer weight of his presence bore down on Kesenor’s shoulders merely from looking up at him, yet Kesenor was hardly the sort of man to be intimidated by such pressure.
Kesenor tilted his head at an angle and smiled, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“The Fairy Race, and now the Giant Race. Have I wronged you all in some past life?”
“Duke!”
It was a cutting remark, though Ignitan had provoked him first—so Agnes, flustered, seized his arm.
Or rather, she’d placed her slender hand upon the Giant’s thick, muscular forearm, which amounted to much the same thing.
Kesenor regarded her touch with displeasure and continued speaking.
“I’ll have a separate word with this gentleman. Agnes, would you be so kind as to see that refreshments are brought to the Dining Room?”
Agnes looked between the two men with anxious eyes.
But seeing that Ignitan stood silent and unmoved, she nodded.
“Yes, I will.”
The moment Agnes’s figure vanished completely into the Mansion, the air between the two men turned glacial.
The smile that had lingered at Kesenor’s mouth was gone.
He was genuinely irritated.
Bad enough that he had one more rival; now this man was laying bare his hostility.
He almost preferred Silmare’s constant disdain.
“Well then, do tell. What exactly is your grievance?”
“Grievance?”
The ease with which this stranger parroted the word back at him was infuriating.
Kesenor, dropping all pretense of courtesy, cut his words sharp and short.
“Yes. Why are you and your kind hostile toward me?”
“I dislike you.”
The curt reply carried no hesitation whatsoever.
Despite his discourteous manner, Kesenor could detect no anger in Ignitan’s gaze—only a hollow absence of feeling.
Kesenor curled his lip into a sneer.
“You won’t even give me a reason, yet you treat a stranger with such contempt? Have the Giants forgotten their manners during all the centuries of your isolation?”
“Mage.”
In that instant, with a rumbling growl, Ignitan’s hand shot forward toward Kesenor’s throat.
His crude, powerful hand lunged straight for the mage’s neck.
Just as his grip was about to close—
Flash!
A sharp light carved through the space between them.
Ignitan staggered back a step, his hand scorched red with burns.
Kesenor looked down at it with contempt, his lips curling upward.
“I must be quite amusing to you.”
Another blade of light streaked toward Ignitan’s feet.
Blood droplets scattered into the air, but when Kesenor made a casual gesture, they ignited and vanished mid-flight.
The path that once lay overgrown with weeds now had neat stones laid carefully along it.
Blood stains would only upset Agnes.
Despite the wounds to his hand and ankle, Ignitan’s expression remained unnervingly calm.
Kesenor studied the pain-free gaze meeting his own and pressed forward, accusatory.
“Now tell me—is this hatred directed at me personally, or is it aimed at Celesta?”
Ignitan shook his head slowly.
“I don’t trust you.”
“What?”
“We are taught this from birth. Never to trust a Mage.”
The moment he spoke those words—
It was as though flame suddenly kindled deep within his dark eyes, ancient and burning as roots of old wood.
“It’s unpleasant enough that you stand beside her at all.”
Ignitan, reluctant as he was, took another step toward the door.
“So step aside.”
“And if I refuse?”
“She’ll be upset.”
……!
Kesenor studied his wounded hand and ankle once more.
If Agnes returned and saw the state he was in, there would be a scene.
Worse still, she would surely cling to Ignitan, insisting his wounds needed treatment.
Rather than witness that, Kesenor silently stepped away from the doorway.
Ignitan then opened the door with his uninjured hand.
Before crossing the threshold, he left one final word for Kesenor.
“Just as I thought—she’s not your first priority.”
It was a barbed remark, one he’d heard before.
Before Kesenor could even respond, Ignitan had already vanished into the Mansion.
‘If Agnes doesn’t choose you, you’ll abandon her.’
‘I never expected anything to begin with. You’re a Celestian after all, and mages are all the same.’
“My Lord?”
Only when Agnes called out to him did Kesenor realize his fists were clenched so hard his nails had left marks in his palms.
He shook out his cramped hands so she wouldn’t notice, then forced a smile.
“You’ve returned.”
“Where is Ignitan?”
“He said he’d go in ahead.”
“Ah… Nothing happened, I hope?”
“No, well. Nothing much.”
But Kesenor’s expression was far from bright, and Agnes’s brow furrowed slightly.
‘What could have occurred?’
Agnes found herself genuinely puzzled.
Why did everyone—Silmare and Ignitan alike—seem to dislike Kesenor?
‘You said there would be another husband candidate.’
‘In the end, we are all merely subjects vying to be chosen by you.’
If they were truly competing to be chosen as the World Tree, all three men should resent one another. Yet Silmare and Ignitan were different.
When they first met, both men had been cordial with each other.
In fact, Silmare had entrusted everything to Ignitan on that first meeting and taken his leave.
The mood was growing too heavy, so Agnes ventured a light joke.
“Did you perhaps do something to deserve being disliked?”
“Perhaps I did?”
Watching Kesenor shrug as though it were nothing, Agnes recalled something Acer had said not long ago.
‘How roughly you treat me—whenever I offer counsel, you silence me with magic until I can scarcely breathe.’
‘And when I bring you research results I’ve labored over, you criticize them all day long. You’ve even hanged me from the ceiling when displeased.’
Perhaps he was only kind to her, yet merciless to everyone else.
‘That can’t be true. Besides, he said he was meeting Ignitan for the first time.’
Still, it troubled her to harbor such suspicions about someone who had been so generous to her in every way.
She resolved to ask him what had happened, when the opportunity arose.
Just then, Lilia brought in refreshments.
As they sat facing each other and sipped the fragrant tea, Kesenor’s expression gradually grew calmer.
‘Good. It was nothing after all.’
Agnes smiled with relief, and Kesenor spoke first.

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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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