My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 78

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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 78
It was an agonizing memory.
Recalling it, that sensation of having half her body torn away came rushing back to life.
By repeating the work she’d carried on mechanically, the days brightened and darkened in turn.
“How could you—how could I ever have thought you might come back alive?”
Agnes, her emotions welling up unbearably, buried her face in her hands.
Even now that he had returned, things weren’t all right.
No matter how busy she was, she would fall asleep beside Amy each night, and Agnes would wake repeatedly in the darkness to check.
Whether Amy was truly there beside her.
Whether this reality in which he existed was not merely a dream.
Whether each moment—when morning came and he smiled, when Amy whispered that she loved her sister—was not a phantom.
Whether Ruppert’s presence, greeting her with familiar ease each dawn and standing at her side, was real as well.
“I thought you and Amy would return, that we would meet you both whole and unharmed, and such hope made me feel like a madwoman. Rationally, yes, I told myself there was no chance you could ever come back. But my heart couldn’t bear to surrender, so together with you, as though we were Amy’s parents, we raised her—and I cannot fathom what state of mind I endured for that entire year…….”
Only after the two had left did she understand.
Amy and Ruppert were the steadfast pillars that held her fragile self upright.
“Debt collectors pursued me, hunger gnawed at us for want of food—those times were easier than this. Truly……I had no strength left to bear it. I wanted to abandon everything, to do nothing at all!”
She would have wished for her breath to simply stop.
Before sleep, sunk in pitch darkness, Agnes lay staring blankly at the ceiling and wished it so.
She lacked even the courage to let go herself; she wished someone would end her breath for her instead.
Yet somehow she had dragged this pitiful life forward.
“But how could you speak such cruel words? You’ve come back, and you say something like that—as though your death were nothing, as though it meant nothing…….”
The killing intent Ruppert radiated terrified her.
But what frightened her even more were the horrible imaginings that rose in her mind.
Ruppert scaling the wall, struck by an arrow, collapsing.
Ruppert locked in battle against hundreds of knights, blades piercing his body.
Ruppert, who had severed Count Valdemar’s head and carried it back, brought before judgment and condemned to death.
Across dozens of such phantoms, Ruppert died and died again.
Anguished, Agnes shook as sobs wracked her frame.
“Would swallowing some poison kill me that easily?”
Her father, utterly robbed of his senses, had survived nonetheless.
His body was broken, but he did not die.
He survived, and he was able to see you—and Amy.
But we’re told the suffering we endured was wrought by someone’s malice.
That someone tried to drag us into an abyss we couldn’t fathom.
Horrible feelings.
We’d only just reclaimed what we’d lost, yet I still cannot believe you’ve both returned.
What if someone tries to take you from me again?
“So you must swear to me—!”
Agnes rose abruptly and fixed Ruppert with a glare.
Her eyes were blurred with tears.
Having nothing to wipe them with, Agnes pulled up the hem of her dress and scrubbed her face roughly.
At last Ruppert’s devastated face came into focus.
He looked at her in pain, his expression sorrowful—unable to offer even the slightest comfort.
It looked as though her heart was being shattered into pieces.
Agnes strode forward, seized his collar, and pulled him toward her.
Their eyes came level for the first time.
As though driving a wedge into those deep blue irises, Agnes thrust her will forward.
“This is an order, Ruppert.”
As one who carried the name of Aden, he owed obedience to House Laberose.
Agnes demanded submission of him for the first time.
“You may do anything else. But I will not permit you to undertake dangerous work that might cost your life. Your safety must be your absolute priority. Not even speaking of it will I forgive.”
Ruppert’s lips trembled then, as though he were enduring exquisite agony.
When his gaze, which had wavered away, met hers again, his eyes burned like cyan flames.
A murky voice escaped between his teeth, and he expressed his resistance faintly.
“If, even if you were in danger, am I to protect myself, my lady?”
Because it was not a question easily answered, Agnes found herself looking away from his piercing gaze almost thoughtlessly.
Then Ruppert let out a soft laugh.
His greatly dilated pupils rippled like a dark marsh.
“Even if Miss Amy were in danger, you would still command me not to risk myself, would you not, my lady?”
“That is……!”
The moment she tried to protest and met his gaze, Ruppert wrapped his hands around Agnes’s two hands, which were gripping his collar.
Her hands disappeared entirely within his large palms.
Holding her hands with great tenderness, Ruppert whispered slowly.
“That’s why it’s an impossible premise from the start.”
The moment his unusually low voice reached her ear, a chill ran down her spine and Agnes shrank her shoulders.
“The way my death is something you cannot accept…….”
Ruppert lowered his head deeper still.
As his lips moved at a distance where their cheeks might almost touch, she could even hear the soft, wet sound of his breath.
“For me as well, your safety is precisely such a matter.”
Her heart thundered wildly.
For a moment, Agnes did not understand what he had said.
Ruppert gave a brief smile to Agnes, who stared up at him blankly, then slowly released his hands and stepped back.
On the way back, neither of them spoke a word.
The distance that had seemed short on the way there felt endless on the return.
* * *
Not long after, Count Valdemar truly did reach out his hand toward Agnes.
It was exactly as Agnes had anticipated.
It was Kesenor who first detected the change.
“The location of the Glass Bottle has shifted.”
“Where to?”
“To the administrative district of Kalborn City. It seems someone affiliated with Kalborn City Hall has received the Count’s orders.”
“Then it’s probably the Treasury Official. The Public Order Captain who raided our house last time also said he was acting under that man’s command.”
“This Public Order Captain, blinded by greed, hurried and thus left a trail to follow.”
“Well, I did spend money like water myself.”
Recalling the time when she had spent money lavishly to make the Mansion look presentable before Amy arrived, Agnes smiled bitterly.
Now that she thought about it, it had been a long time since she’d seen Gallus’s face.
It was because the major construction work had been completed once Amy’s room was finished.
In the midst of all that bustle, Alfred had even paid the construction bills, so the last time she’d seen Gallus was when she’d ordered items to furnish Amy’s room.
“I think the Treasury Official was also said to be from a merchant guild.”
“Could it be the Petus Merchant Guild?”
“Oh, yes! That’s right. That was the exact name.”
“They hold the royal supply contract and are a firm that Count Valdemar deals with. Recently they’ve been trading in goods needed for war preparations.”
“So they were already closely connected to the Count.”
“If it’s the Treasury Official of Kalborn City, which is adjacent to Valdemar, it’s safe to say they’re practically his extension.”
After that, anxious days followed, never knowing when Romanil would appear.
Since the last time Agnes had clashed with Ruppert.
She had said she would try not to consume Romanil if possible.
And she had instructed Alfred, Martha, and Elena—those she could trust in the Mansion—to inform her if any suspicious circumstances were discovered.
Yet Ruppert was apparently unsatisfied with these precautions and began tasting Agnes’s food in advance.
“What if you become poisoned yourself?”
When she asked in concern, Ruppert laughed lightly.
“It’s fine. Most poisons have no effect on me.”
“How would you know that?”
At this, Ruppert simply bowed his head and did not answer.
Agnes stared at Ruppert, who wore a stunned expression as he concealed his feelings.
What had happened at the Lake seemed like nothing more than a dream.
Ruppert, who had so rarely shown his emotions, had again hidden everything beneath his usual affectionate and obedient demeanor.
Agnes disliked that Ruppert was tasting her food beforehand, but since she herself had said something along the lines of “Romanil won’t kill you if you consume it, so it’s fine,” she couldn’t stop him.
As a result, under the pretext of helping Elena, it became Ruppert’s daily routine to enter the Kitchen early and taste the food.
Then, one day.
Agnes was sitting beside Amy in the Garden for the first time in a while.
Lately, Amy had been going down to the Village to play more often.
From what she heard, Amy was playing and getting along with the Village children.
“Yesterday when we went to the Stream, the water was so cold. So…….”
As Agnes listened warmly to Amy’s chatter with a pleased smile, she spotted Ruppert approaching from some distance away and brightened.
“A snack?”
His hands held tea and refreshments, but his expression seemed different from usual.
Seeing his face heavy and sunken, Agnes finally understood that Romanil had appeared.
“Which one is it?”

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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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