My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 6

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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 6
Deep in the night, when everyone had fallen asleep.
Kesenor found himself with an uninvited guest in his chambers.
“I hear he lost his mother when his youngest sibling was born—at fifteen, no less. The Baron and Baroness of Laberose were said to be deeply devoted to each other, so the grief drove him to ruin entirely.”
“No close relatives to lean on? Even distant cousins usually help in such circumstances.”
“No. The Baroness of Laberose lost her parents early, and though she had a stepbrother, they weren’t on good terms, apparently.”
“And yet in barely two years, a man considered so respectable brought his entire house to ruin.”
“Such is the unpredictability of fortune. In any case, Agnes had some years on her younger siblings, so she did what she could to hold the household together.”
“Which is how she ended up as a governess.”
“Still, isn’t that a mercy? Without the Countess of Valdemar’s intervention, the family would have scattered to the winds entirely.”
Aser delivered her report dutifully enough, yet her expression remained distinctly sour.
“That concludes my report, but when do you intend to return?”
Aser was Kesenor’s adjutant and student at the Mage Tower.
She had only just arrived via Teleportation from the Celestial Mage Tower in the north, and a faint Magic Circle still shimmered beneath her feet—it would vanish once she returned to the tower.
“Word will have reached the capital by now. The Crown Prince takes great interest in the Mage Tower Master’s every move.”
“The Crown Prince’s attention is the last thing I want.”
“Well, I’ve no desire to fathom his thinking either.”
Aser shuddered as though the very thought repulsed her, then folded her arms and stood with deliberate displeasure.
Kesenor was examining the documents Aser had brought.
With each page turned, golden dust scattered and sealed his signature. Simultaneously, the document caught flame and vanished.
Magically sealed, it would reach its intended destination.
Aser watched with a scowl—the look of a guard overseeing a prisoner at hard labor.
“In any case, I must know what the Mage Tower Master intends. The tale of that little Amy returning from the Rift is rather astonishing, but her elder sister—why? Surely you haven’t taken a fancy to a Young Noble Lady with no magical power whatsoever?”
“Leave it be. Don’t be tiresome.”
To someone ignorant of the full circumstances, it would certainly appear that way.
He understood well enough what Aser was fretting over.
The House of Celesta had always married only mages to mages, breeding only within the order.
While a Grand Mage for a parent did not guarantee a Grand Mage for a child, a non-mage parentage had never once produced a mage.
Mutations occurred on rare occasions, but they were exceedingly uncommon.
Thus Kesenor too would naturally marry a mage and pass his title to their children.
Should he fail to do so, the line of Mage Tower Masters—and indeed the very name of Celestial, preserved through history—could be irrevocably altered.
As a mage of Celestial, Aser was essentially demanding that the Mage Tower Master exercise caution and restraint.
‘They speak freely only because they know nothing of the World Tree.’
Kesenor’s mouth twisted in silent mockery.
Only his parents and the tower’s elders knew of the Mark upon his hand.
Aser had no authority to access such secrets, and Kesenor certainly had no intention of speaking of it lightly.
The World Tree—a force capable of shaking the very foundations of the world.
Before such power, what did the station of Mage Tower Master amount to? Nothing.
‘Above all, being treated so brazenly as though I were mere breeding stock is insufferable.’
Though it was a fate determined at birth, it sometimes left him breathless.
Uncomfortable as it was, he said nothing and continued processing the mounting pile of documents, until Aser couldn’t help but add one more jab.
“I simply cannot fathom it. Some little slip of a Young Noble Lady—”
Kesenor’s eyebrows twitched visibly. His fingers, which had been turning a page, shifted direction, and a beam of light shot forth, sealing Aser’s mouth shut.
“Mmph—! Mmmph, mmmph!”
“I told you to leave it be.”
He exhaled with an air of exasperation and looked away.
The towering stack of documents was gradually shrinking.
Mages from the tower pestering him for research budgets, various petitions from his fiefs, financial matters of every conceivable sort.
As both Marquis of Celesta and Mage Tower Master of Celestial, the work piled endlessly before him.
Merely two days ago, he had been buried beneath such a life.
Processing mountains of documents, buried in weighty tomes conducting magical research, and when his strength flagged, training among the knights to keep his body sharp.
It had been so short a time, yet it already felt like a dream.
Kesenor turned his gaze toward the window.
Outside was pitch black and silent.
Yet the magical power that flooded his body had sharpened even his senses.
Despite the windows being shut, he heard distinctly the whispers of people within the mansion and the cries of insects from beyond.
It should have felt clamorous compared to the Mage Tower, where Magic silenced sound to an almost oppressive degree.
And yet this place felt all the quieter for it.
‘A Young Noble Lady who looks like a child, she said.’
She wasn’t entirely wrong, if he was honest.
Playing in the fields with nine-year-old children, climbing trees with them, and now studying indoors in a tangle of half-formed lessons — that was her day.
Of course there were difficulties in her own way, but to Kesenor it all seemed far too light, too simple.
If her concern until now had been keeping her family afloat, that too would be solved by the gold coins she’d earned from the Dragon’s Lair.
In that case, her life ahead should be quite peaceful.
‘They said she was a tomboy when she was young.’
She was determined to make a good impression on Agnes.
She’d tried deliberately seeking contact, and even apologized when it seemed to displease her.
Beyond that, she’d made efforts to approach more gently.
Then came to mind the image of Agnes — pleased but clearly trying not to show it.
When she imagined what Agnes might be like as an ordinary young noble lady, not merely a governess.
Kesenor felt a strange sensation and turned her gaze back into the room.
Aser was blinking as though she’d seen something that wasn’t there. When she touched her lips, she found that somehow the corners of her mouth had tilted upward into a slant.
Pressing it down with her hand, Kesenor murmured softly.
“Look into the Valdemar household next.”
“Mm… mmm…!”
“It doesn’t add up. According to what you found, the Countess showed goodwill toward Agnes, yet to me she acted as though she wanted to dismiss her at once.”
Of course, from Kesenor’s perspective, none of it mattered.
When Amy returned, Agnes would no longer need to work as a governess, and the Countess of Valdemar would remain merely an acquaintance with whom she exchanged pleasantries.
Yet something felt wrong about it.
This morning.
Before going to see Agnes and the children, Kesenor had met with the Countess of Valdemar.
‘Are you asking me to oversee the children’s studies now?’
‘I know it’s an impertinent request, but staying here as I do, I have no way of knowing whether the children are learning well. As a mother, I’m always worried about such foolish little ones — I can’t even sleep at night.’
‘But according to what you say, isn’t Agnes already overseeing their instruction?’
‘That’s true, but the children have grown considerably now. They’re difficult young ones, so even boarding school is hard to arrange, and surely they won’t go on playing like wild little creatures forever.’
Yes, that was possible.
It was, after all, merely the instruction of a young noble lady.
How frustrated one must be to ask her about it.
Thinking thus, she’d laughed and let it pass.
‘Oh, but I’d prefer if you didn’t mention this to Agnes. I’m planning to ask her something else, and we’ll tell her about it when the time comes.’
Because she was curious about what kind of person Agnes truly was, Kesenor had spent the whole day observing her according to the Countess’s words.
‘What exactly is the problem…?’
She couldn’t understand it.
‘The problem isn’t with Agnes — it’s with the children.’
Agnes proved to be a far better teacher than expected.
With troublemakers like those, no one could teach them better than Agnes could.
‘If anything, shouldn’t they be holding onto Agnes?’
She understood that as a parent, it wasn’t easy to view one’s children objectively.
But the children were too hopeless for the Countess to take on such a patronizing air, claiming she was helping a young noble lady of modest means.
‘Does she really think anyone else would take on such brats?’
And then, at dinner that evening.
‘I heard from the Marquis that Miss Amy is alive.’
‘Agnes, I’m so happy for you! You must have suffered so much worry all this time.’
Unlike her cold tone that morning, the Countess showed Agnes such warmth.
Kesenor couldn’t shake the sense of something duplicitous.
‘Well, it’s none of my concern.’
A clumsy, worthless life — one might call it children’s games.
So there was no need to pay attention, she knew.
‘This time I have to do this well. She can’t get hurt, and she can’t be made unhappy.’
At that moment, in Amy’s large eyes, a terrible fear flickered — something no ordinary child should ever experience.
She hardly seemed like a six-year-old.
In that instant, the child was certainly seeing the future.
‘In the future that child saw, I must have conducted myself rather badly.’
In truth, had it not been for Amy’s warning, Kesenor would have treated Agnes’s life like a child’s game, wielding it as she pleased.
After all, a mere Baron’s daughter was nothing to the Marquis of Celesta.
Kesenor reached for the tea beside her.
It was the Herbal Tea she’d had earlier with Agnes. She’d heard it was a variety dealt with only in this southern region.
The liquid, already cold, had a sharp, bitter taste.
At that, Aser looked at her like she was mad, shaking her head firmly.
Kesenor let out a soft laugh and released the spell silencing Aser’s mouth.
He made no mention of the hand that had covered her mouth, and Aser began to grumble.
“Is that Young Noble Lady hiding some extraordinary treasure or something? She carries on with romance and Magic as usual—why should we concern ourselves with her unnecessary troubles?”
At that, Kesenor let out a low laugh.
“More or less.”
“Pardon?”
“That’s why I need to grow close to her before anyone else does.”
“Close to… whom?”

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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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