My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 74

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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 74
His lips were pressed tight, yet his expression was cold enough to cleave through anything before him.
To Herbart, Count of Valdemar, everything that composed the “world” was nothing more than a pawn on a chessboard.
“A mere count’s daughter, no less.”
When he first planned to bring down Laberose, she had been only fifteen.
Herbart had seen her exactly once.
She bore her father’s delicate appearance, while her small, soft frame resembled her mother’s.
Like a cookie that would crumble to dust if crushed in a single hand.
And so he had looked down upon her.
It was his nature to gnaw relentlessly at anything that grated on him, to tear it out by the roots.
That very instinct—the survival law of a second son in an unremarkable position—was what had allowed him to seize the title.
From his youth, Herbart could not accept the fact that he was not the family’s heir.
‘That irresolute, irresponsible fool.’
His elder brother, who always treated those around him with a smiling face, seemed contemptible.
Though Herbart honed his own abilities, he came to realize that the family’s trust in his brother ran deep; so he turned his gaze outward.
When his steps carried him to the far corners of the continent, Herbart let out a cry of wonder.
He had assumed the place backward for lacking even Magic’s reach, but it was not so.
The Kingdom of Asmarin had developed its own techniques by studying the precious artifacts of dark elves washed ashore from the sea.
The Kingdom of Merredith had come to know the secrets hidden in nature thanks to exploring the knowledge of the forest-dwelling elves.
Though mere parlor tricks compared to Magic, Herbart’s nature—never to let even trifles slip past—led him to discover Romaril.
‘Seeing such things, I am far more suited to dominate than those fools trapped in a well.’
And so Herbart dreamed.
Of course, he never thought to stand against the Emperor’s absolute power.
He would prove his worth, take his place at the Emperor’s side, and enlighten those hopelessly dim-witted creatures.
His first attempt was directed at his brother, the family’s heir.
On a day when an important contract was to be signed, Herbart laced his brother’s food with Romaril.
The drug’s effect was immediate.
His brother, who had never made a single misjudgment in all his years, that day fell for the opposite party’s crude blandishments like a fool at the negotiation table.
In the end, he signed documents surrendering the family’s core interests at a pittance.
The family was thrown into chaos, yet there was nothing his blundering brother could do.
Naturally, Herbart stepped forward as the one fit to clean up the mess.
While kinfolk floundered in confusion and condemned his brother, Herbart uncovered an archaic clause buried in the family rules.
The unilateral oath of an heir who is not the Family Head could be nullified by unanimous consent of the Family Council.
The contract was thus reset to its original state, and in the same stroke, he secured the support of the family elders.
That was where it began.
‘I’m going absolutely mad! Can you understand why?’
Herbart gazed at his brother with cold eyes, thrashing about like a madman.
Lehardt, his brother who had always been so composed, now tore at his previously neat hair and bellowed.
‘My head feels foggy lately. I feel like I’m growing stupider!’
‘What does the physician say?’
‘He says there’s nothing wrong! That I’m simply shocked from recent events. But my head aches terribly, I feel like I’m losing my mind—even the mage says he doesn’t know what to do!’
‘Perhaps you’re simply tired. Why not rest somewhere for a while.’
‘No matter what, I’m still your older brother—how can you speak to me so coldly? Now that I think of it, ……you. You coveted the position of Family Head, didn’t you. Could this be your doing?!’
Like a cornered man, Lehardt lunged for Herbart’s collar, but even so slight a motion threw him off balance, and he tumbled disgracefully to the floor.
‘Rest seems to be what you need. I’ll arrange a suitable place for your recovery.’
‘Damn it all!’
Watching the pitiful form of the loser, Herbart’s lips curled upward, invisible to all.
Lehardt, who had departed for distant recuperation, soon sank into drink, and unable to steady himself, ultimately fell into the Lake and met his end.
Of course, it went without saying that Herbart had employed a small technique learned from Asmarin in that process.
In any case, Herbart had never once stained his hands with blood.
All he had done was suggest the poisoning.
The retainers who resisted troublesomely, those who rashly advocated his brother’s reinstatement—over a span of many years, Herbart methodically drove away everything that stood in his way.
Stefan Ritter and the Count of Laberose, both close friends of his brother, were the highest priority, yet both happened to be figures of considerable repute.
Herbart recalled the first time he met the Count of Laberose.
He would gaze at him with eyes of steel that belied his gentle appearance.
As if the Count knew everything Herbart was doing.
Unable to ignore that sense of penetrating insight, Herbart had the Count of Laberose investigated.
The result: the Count of Laberose was looking into the downfall of the retainers.
Worse still, the Count of Laberose was in contact with the Count of Laenheim, his political rival.
‘With that innocent face, he dares oppose me.’
As payment for his arrogance, Valdemar resolved to erase Laberose from the south entirely.
At last, an opportunity came to him as he waited patiently in the shadows.
The Countess of Laberose died in childbirth with their youngest child.
It was remarkably easy to push him deeper into despair.
The moment he arrived in Calburn City to claim her dowry after his wife’s death.
Having tasted a touch of Romaril, he surrendered to drink with fervent abandon, and before long, he was utterly senseless—a hollow shell staring at nothing.
Throwing such a man into a gambling den was simplicity itself.
Herbart watched him only once from a distance—that vacant fool, unaware his fortune was slipping away, his stupid eyes fixed on empty air.
After hiding and waiting so long, it was anticlimactically dull.
In any case, thanks to the Count of Laberose’s ruin, Stefan was equally simple to dispose of.
He had come looking for the Count of Laberose as a supposed close friend.
Naturally, every drop they drank was laced with Romaril.
And so it was finished.
When Herbart sent the Count of Laberose home, judging him beyond any hope of recovery.
He meant to place a period on his ancient grudge at last.
If only for Agnes of Laberose.
‘She sold the precious objects in the mansion to pay the interest.’
‘She dismissed all the servants and lives in poverty, skipping meals altogether, they say.’
It mattered not. Time would solve everything in the end anyway.
When she finally crumbled under her relentless burden, backed into a corner where she could do nothing.
‘Laenheim is stirring. It seems he intends to aid Laberose.’
Word came that the Count of Laenheim meant to take those children under his wing.
‘That cannot be allowed under any circumstance.’
And so he laid an inescapable trap for Laberose.
He gave her just enough thread of hope to keep breathing, letting her gasp after an impossible dream until she finally surrendered and gave up.
‘Tell the lady to hire that woman as a governess.’
It was the minimum measure necessary to forestall Laenheim’s interference.
Though Laberose’s ruin had been delayed, Herbart could wait as long as needed.
He had much to do in the Capital anyway, and watching things destroy themselves slowly never grew tedious.
If she endured past twenty, he could simply sell her far away on the pretext of debt—such a difficult woman deserved nothing less.
He would play the benefactor while sneering that a fallen noble’s daughter had no business thinking of marriage.
There were plenty of wealthy commoners greedy for titles; he would hand her off to whichever suited his purposes.
When he expected at last to place that final period.
Rumors spread that the youngest of House Laberose—supposedly dead—had returned.
Moreover, he had supposedly brought an enormous fortune with him.
Herbart’s plans to finish Laberose were entirely upended, but his patience still knew no bottom.
‘It matters not.’
It was precisely the season when Romaril bloomed.
Not even the Arch-Mage of Celestia or the foreign beings that infested that mansion would anticipate what came next.
The Romaril he had commissioned this time was meant for her.
Following in her father’s footsteps, she would become an idiot; if her family would care for her, that was all the better.
If he severed that stubborn woman, at last he could wipe Laberose from that land entirely.
And then only worthless children would remain.
‘Marquis Celesta, even you cannot stop this.’
Recalling that proud, frigid gaze that had chilled him each time they passed in the Capital, Herbart twisted his mouth into a sneer.

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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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