My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 59
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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 59
What caught her eye most was the sight of children kicking something around in play.
Amy, who had been wiggling her toes inside the soft leather shoes, finally released Rupert’s hand and made her way toward the children.
“What’s that?”
A child jumped in surprise and answered at once.
“You kick it and try to get it into that.”
An elderly woman nearby, flustered, quickly adjusted her tone.
“Sol, you should speak politely.”
“No, it’s fine. Just speak naturally.”
The child named Sol glanced nervously at her grandmother, then pointed to a corner with the tip of her finger.
What the child indicated was something like a net set up on one side.
‘Ah, is this something like football?’
Amy, recalling a similar sport from her past life, asked cautiously.
“Can I play too?”
“Your clothes will get dirty.”
Sol looked at Amy’s particularly pristine and lovely dress with a worried expression.
Amy turned back to Rupert.
Before she could even ask, Rupert smiled gently.
“It’s no trouble at all. Agnes used to return home with dirty clothes every day, so she won’t say a word.”
Amy brightened and echoed his words.
“See!”
“Then let’s go!”
The children, awkward at first, soon mingled with Amy in play.
As they tumbled and rolled across the stone ground, her dress grew soiled, but no one seemed to mind.
Amy laughed and played with the children for quite a while.
After that, she even played a stick-sword game with Rupert.
Even when ten children swarmed around him, Rupert deftly parried their sticks.
He even remembered to pretend to take a few blows now and then.
As the sun tilted westward, adults began gathering one by one in the Village Square.
All of them recognized Rupert and started in surprise, exchanged greetings, and then disappeared down the Alley with their hungry children.
Amy sat beside Rupert along the edge of the Fountain, watching them go.
Her hands held a large bowl full of Wild Berries.
Timona had given them to her, saying that Agnes had also liked them.
‘Come to think of it, I don’t even have parents.’
Watching the children leave, she found it strange that she felt no loneliness at all.
Just then, she saw a familiar figure coming toward her from the Alley.
It was Agnes.
‘Ah, I see.’
The moment Amy saw her sister, she understood why.
‘It’s all right because I have her.’
Amy smiled widely, handed the bowl of berries to Rupert, and jumped down from the edge of the Fountain.
Then she ran toward her sister.
“Sister!”
“When did you get here? Have you been waiting all this time?”
Agnes caught Amy as she ran toward her and lifted her up, asking the question.
“Yes. Rupert said it was dangerous to go near the Smithy.”
“That’s true enough.”
Having heard belatedly that Amy had arrived, Agnes came rushing over, breathing heavily, and smiled.
“It’s even nicer to see Amy here.”
“I heard everything about you!”
“What did you hear?”
“About when you were little! How you’d climb trees and go swimming……!”
“My goodness.”
Only then did Agnes notice that the dress Amy was wearing was dirty, and her brow furrowed delicately.
“Martha is going to scold us.”
“Did she scold you too?”
“Of course.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We’ll have to wash it in secret, I suppose.”
“Okay. That should work!”
Their noses touched as the two sisters laughed together.
Soon Ignitan and Rapitor arrived as well.
The walk back to the Mansion.
The sky had already turned crimson.
With her short legs, climbing the Hill was no simple task, so Amy insisted this time that she ride on Ignitan’s back.
Rupert offered to carry her, but she refused outright.
‘Rupert would find it taxing too.’
A giant would surely be better suited than a human.
Ignitan’s back was broader than Rupert’s, and far more comfortable.
As her eyelids grew heavier with sleep, Amy drifted in and out of the conversation the four of them were having.
“Then, as we discussed earlier, shall we begin by improving the Mill and constructing an automatic water-lifting device?”
“Good heavens… I simply cannot fathom it. People are still doing such work by hand? It defies comprehension! The Empire’s reliance on Magic is entirely to blame!”
“The Nobility need only command their subordinates, after all.”
Listening to them, Amy began to grasp what Agnes and Rapitor were planning to create.
‘They’re making a leather belt to automatically lift the grain from the Mill…?’
Perhaps something like the conveyor belts used for package delivery.
The water-lifting device seemed designed to make it easier to draw water from the Well or a river.
“But Agnes, you’re Nobility yourself. How did you come to realize such work was inconvenient?”
“I used to visit the Village often as a child. The older girls who played with me were always busy when evening came. There was grain to mill, water to fetch. It made me rather sad.”
Through drowsy, wavering vision, Amy glimpsed Agnes’s face shining brightly.
“If we can save time on these small tasks and have hands left over, everyone might try other pursuits. Work that yields greater profit.”
When Rapitor shrugged, Agnes smiled at him with a sidelong glance.
“If you need any materials, do say. I’ll procure whatever is necessary.”
“There’s nothing we lack! We have everything already! The Empire truly has its merits. Back home, we quarreled endlessly over scarce materials.”
“You seem rather delighted by all this.”
“Of course! Abundant resources, so many things to experiment with, and here I have a strong helper!”
With that, Rapitor tapped Ignitan’s arm playfully.
The tap startled Amy’s eyes open, and seeing this, Rapitor flinched and raised both hands.
“Oh, sorry, Amy. Sleep if you’re tired. I won’t bother you.”
“Mmm.”
Listening to Agnes explain even the process of filing a Patent to prevent others from taking the invention, Amy fell into a deep slumber.
‘Even when I read about her in novels, I thought my sister was remarkable.’
She had always admired how her sister never gave up no matter how difficult the challenge.
But seeing her now—so vibrant and happy—felt even better than before.
Tonight, she would surely have pleasant dreams.
* * *
Rapitor had completed every device Agnes and he had discussed in just one week.
First came the Mill.
All the work that once required hauling sacks of grain by hand, sorting the resulting flour, and removing coarse chaff became entirely automatic.
Somehow the machine produced only fine flour, and when they baked bread from it, the result was the kind of white bread only Nobility could normally afford.
“Oh my…”
The villagers stood transfixed, mouths agape.
The moment the innocent children bit into their pieces first.
“Wow, this is so delicious!”
“It’s like the bread melts in your mouth!”
Hearing this, everyone eagerly bit into their bread and surrendered to the happiness of its soft, fluffy taste.
The surprises did not end there.
Previously, one had to lower a Bucket into the Well to draw water.
With the pump Rapitor had made, all one needed to do was pour water into it from above and push the Handle up and down.
Then water came pouring out in abundance.
Rapitor stood before the astonished crowd with his hands on his hips, laughing with unmistakable pride.
“Now you don’t have to strain your arms drawing water anymore!”
The villagers erupted in cheers for Rapitor.
Rapitor rubbed his nose, looking a bit bashful.
It happened to be June, when the grain harvest was due.
Rapitor began constructing a machine for harvesting and threshing grain alongside the carpenter Parban and the blacksmith Brik.
“Are you not overexerting yourselves?”
Though she had asked, Agnes felt concerned seeing the work pile up continuously, so she posed the question to Rapitor, who simply shrugged.
“They’re paying me in Elixir, so I had better work hard.”
Hearing the two speak, Parban and Brik, who had been quietly shaping wood beside them, asked Rapitor a question.
“What reason could there be for you to help us so much?”
“We’ve been working all this time, and since it was always like this, we never even thought it was hard.”
At that, Rapitor broke into a grin and answered.
“What was it again? Agnes said it. She hoped you’d all live a little better, given how hard you work.”
Parban and Brik let out soft exclamations and turned to look at Agnes.
Agnes smiled awkwardly, caught off guard.
She had asked for their help in exchange for the Elixir, but she hadn’t expected Rapitor to go to such lengths.
‘Ordinary people struggle just to achieve self-sufficiency, and then they have to pay taxes on top of it. We’ve collected taxes for our own reasons, but I wish people didn’t have to sacrifice their livelihoods just to pay them.’
‘Then what should we do about it?’
‘I want to give them more time—people burdened by nothing but farming. Reduce the repetitive labor so they can rest, the way Elena has now.’
‘But giving them free time doesn’t put money in their pockets, does it?’
‘True. But once they start to rest, they’ll want to try other things, and maybe then they can strive toward a better life, don’t you think?’
As she spoke, Agnes looked back on the past two months.
When she had debts to repay, she’d been crushed under the weight of it all and couldn’t do anything; but now, she wanted to do whatever it took to build a better life.
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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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