My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 61

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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 61
Rupert laughed silently and held out a handkerchief to Agnes.
Agnes covered her swollen eyes with the handkerchief and whimpered like a child.
“I’m disappointed. Hurt. I don’t even know how much you’ve suffered, and yet you keep helping only me.”
“Thank you for your concern.”
“That’s exactly what upsets me. Am I a stranger? You hide your struggles, say nothing about them, and only try to comfort me.”
Rupert suddenly rose from his seat.
Startled, Agnes soon realized he was attempting to light the lamp.
The room had grown dim without her noticing.
Once the light kindled, shadow and radiance carved themselves sharply across his features.
Agnes’s gaze drifted to his arm, exposed where his rolled-up sleeve fell back.
It struck her as odd.
Unlike his hands, which bore countless small scars, his muscular forearm showed not a single notable mark.
It shouldn’t have been that way.
After she’d dismissed the groundskeeper, Rupert had taken on that work himself.
His arms had been scraped raw many times from cutting grass, and Agnes had needed to apply salve to his wounds more than once.
‘Can magic heal even old scars?’
The moment that thought crossed her mind, Rupert turned.
His gaze, vacant and fixed upon her, suddenly felt impossibly sharp.
A pressure that bore down on her entire body—as keen as a blade honed a thousand times, yet heavy and suffocating.
Beneath his linen shirt lay a trained physique, and broad shoulders from which his garment hung, cinched firmly by a substantial belt.
At his side hung a long sword.
Without thinking, Agnes found herself imagining him drawing and wielding it.
The moment tension coiled through his sturdy thigh as he stepped forward, the instant his arm rose with the blade unsheathed and cyan veins stood out across his skin.
And then she recalled—with utter certainty—that it was with this very sword he had felled a dragon.
Whether from fear or some other feeling, her heart thundered so loudly it rang in her ears.
She found herself thinking that the shadow cast across his face, turned away from the lamplight, ran particularly deep.
Then he whispered softly.
“I was afraid.”
“Rupert.”
As though only now, after painstakingly gathering together scattered and worn emotions, could she finally recognize the shape of his name.
The soft curve of his lips warped, then finally crumbled.
“I wanted to see you.”
“Rupert….”
Looking back, he was only twenty-one—merely a young man.
Agnes hurried toward him.
Standing before her, he was impossibly tall.
Though she longed to embrace him, she could not; so Agnes simply seized his hands instead.
Despite the warmth of the day, his touch felt cold.
As though it had been frozen.
Holding his large hands tightly, Agnes lowered her head and pressed her forehead against his.
“I’m glad too. I’m happy you’re alive. Thank you for coming back.”
What more did she wish to know?
The fact that he had returned alive should have been enough.
Yet she possessed already more than she could hold, and still she cried like a child, claiming it insufficient, desperate for more.
“Don’t go anywhere anymore.”
She lifted her head, meeting his gaze.
She whispered into those abyssal eyes of his, so utterly inscrutable.
“No, you can leave if you wish—but don’t go to places as terrible as Rifts. Wherever you want to go is fine with me.”
“I won’t go.”
Rupert gripped both of Agnes’s hands firmly, his voice heavy as an oath.
“I will inherit my father’s work here and remain at your side always.”
“But won’t that be difficult? After all, you slew a dragon. The Duke seemed to take quite an interest in you because of it.”
“In me?”
“Yes. He seemed concerned about you. I wondered if he might take you to the Magic Tower.”
Rupert’s expression turned utterly horrified.
His handsome face contorted so grotesquely that Agnes couldn’t help but laugh.
“What, you hate that idea so much?”
“I’m certain that won’t happen.”
“Will it?”
“Yes.”
“Is that so? I’ll have to ask him about it.”
At that, Rupert’s brow furrowed even deeper.
But thanks to it, the heavy mood lifted.
Agnes tossed out the remark lightly, thinking of Ignitan and Rapitor who had both seemed to dislike Kesenor, and asked him.
“Do you dislike the Duke as well?”
“That’s something I’d like to ask you, miss. I’ve heard that a ‘Soul’s Companion’ must choose a seed.”
It was an oddly uncomfortable topic.
The idea that she had to choose one of them still felt unreal, so Agnes deflected with a joke.
“Are you going to say something equally absurd? That you’re a future husband, or one of the husband candidates?”
“Did someone say such a thing?”
“Yes.”
At that, Rupert’s expression turned quite fierce.
Agnes, suddenly flustered, decided she absolutely must not reveal that it was Kesenor who had said such a thing.
‘Now that I think about it, Silmare also spoke as if he were ‘my soul’s companion,’ didn’t he?’
She’d have to add Silmare to the list as well.
In any case, it felt wonderful that Rupert was angry on her behalf, taking her side.
She had found such talk burdensome and uncomfortable all this time.
“I’m glad you’re here, Rupert. Even if someone were rude to me, I wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Has someone done that?”
“No, I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that it’s reassuring because you’d scold them for me. The way I said it makes you sound just like Father.”
“……Me? Like your father?”
“That’s just how it came out.”
Agnes shrugged as she spoke and led Rupert to the table.
“Let’s have some cake together.”
“I brought it for you, miss.”
“I want to eat it with you. We’ve both had a hard time.”
The cake seemed to be Elena’s handiwork—it tasted familiar, and because of that, it was all the more delicious.
After they finished it without leaving a crumb, Agnes let out a short sigh.
“I need to visit the Duke again today.”
It was something she checked around this time every day, so Rupert immediately understood and nodded.
“Are you going to check on Silmare?”
“Yes.”
“Please don’t ask if there’s a chance he might hire me.”
“I won’t. I don’t want to let you go.”
As she smiled brightly in response, warmth bloomed in Rupert’s eyes as well.
Her cheeks tingled as if his warmth had touched her.
“I trust you.”
Though his appearance had changed somewhat, the mischief that lingered in his eyes was identical to when he was young, so Agnes smiled back at him.
For some reason, her heart felt more at ease.
Agnes promptly knocked on Kesenor’s door.
“Come in, Agnes.”
Without even asking who it was, Kesenor opened the door right away.
He had been in the middle of work—on the desk lay parchment inscribed with Magic Circles and Mana Stones scattered about carelessly.
“What were you working on?”
“A commission that came to my fiefdom. It’s work only I can do, so I was attending to it.”
“If a request came to the Duke, it must be someone of very high standing who asked.”
“Perhaps, but surely not as high as you, Agnes.”
Speaking as if in jest, Kesenor offered Agnes a seat.
Sitting on the sofa, Agnes pressed her lips together firmly and broached the decision she had made.
“I think I need to go look for Silmare.”
“Yes, he’s been motionless in that location for a week now.”
Kesenor nodded as if he had already anticipated it.
A month had already passed since Silmare had last sent word.
His last letter was about pursuing the Security Chief.
While Agnes had been worried during the long silence, Kesenor had shown her a way to learn of Silmare’s whereabouts.
When another-species left their territory, their location could be confirmed through Magic.
When she actually pulled up the map, three red dots flickered across it.
Two were in the Laberose fiefdom, but one was stuck motionless in the kingdom of Asmarin to the southwest.
That point was Silmare.
‘Other-species can’t even move freely within the empire.’
Every time she looked at the map, complicated feelings stirred in her—but at least she could confirm that Silmare was safe, and that brought her comfort.
Yet the red dot marking Silmare hadn’t moved for a week.
Worried, she asked Harold Miller, the former security chief, which direction Silmare had gone, and he told her she’d been sent west into Valdemar’s territory, to a remote village tucked away in a corner.
In other words, there was no reason to travel that far.
‘If Silmare were in danger…’
Agnes voiced her concern, and Kesenor assured her he could reach her directly by Teleportation.
Until now he’d hesitated because of the distance, but she feared that if she waited any longer, something irreversible might happen.
When Agnes finally made up her mind, Kesenor gave her a nod of approval.
“Have the investigations we discussed before yielded any results?”
It was something she and Kesenor had discussed in the past.
After returning from the Valdemar Mansion, Agnes had asked Alfred to investigate the servant who had attended her father.
She needed to confirm whether her father had actually gone to Calburn City and fallen into gambling.
Agnes kept her lips pressed together and nodded.
“Yes. Alfred told me about it two days ago.”
“And what were the findings?”
“One of them died, and the other became a cripple, so I heard.”
“For what reason?”
“From what I’ve been told, they fell into gambling and drinking alongside my father.”
Agnes paused, drawing a short breath before continuing.
“Curiously enough.”

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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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