My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 82

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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 82
Before long, the carriage arrived at Calborn City.
Agnes entered the courthouse right on time, and a man who appeared to be a court official promptly verified her identity.
Kesenor, the Marquis of Celesta, did not search her body in any particular way, but Rupert, who carried the evidence box behind her, examined everything meticulously.
Even after having already inspected her with a Magic Tool, he inserted his hands into her sleeves one by one to check, and even lifted her garments.
Agnes exchanged a glance with Kesenor for a moment.
‘Do they always go this far?’
Kesenor shook his head slightly.
Fury stiffened the back of his neck.
Perhaps by handling a servant so roughly, he meant to offer me an insult.
But there was no need to shrink back at uncertain suspicions.
The moment her feet moved toward the courtroom to which she had been guided.
“Agnes.”
Then, Kesenor’s voice sounded directly in her mind.
Fortunately, thanks to having experienced it before, she was able to avoid startling.
The day she had met Silmare at the Valdemar Mansion.
She remembered when he had spoken directly into her mind while discussing an almost unbelievably vast fortune.
“The security is more stringent than I expected.”
Agnes barely suppressed the urge to glance around and exhaled evenly, trying not to betray anything.
“If necessary, I will give you a signal. For Teleport, it’s three times with red. Use it if things look dangerous.”
Agnes was still wearing the bracelet Kesenor had given her today.
She had never taken it off since receiving it from him.
She believed that respecting his wishes meant keeping it on.
Instead of nodding, Agnes turned back to Kesenor for a moment.
Kesenor gave her a reassuring smile.
As they finally reached the courtroom entrance, the guard standing at the door announced Agnes’s arrival.
“Agnes of House Laberose and the Marquis of Celesta, Your Grace.”
The courtroom was older and darker than expected.
Since disputes between nobles were usually held in the Capital, this place was mainly a venue for the common folk.
Although the judge was affiliated with the Central Court of Law in the Capital of Kavas and had maintained a certain dignity, the choice of this particular place likely signified that Agnes’s lawsuit was to be concluded hastily.
Naturally, the floor was worn and creaked underfoot, and the long benches showed discolored wood wherever hands had touched them.
The windows were set high so that the interior could not be seen from outside.
Light streaming through the windows converged at the very center, which appeared to be the judge’s seat.
A raised platform with a desk and chair.
A man stood before it.
With his back turned, she could not determine who he was.
Yet he appeared to be shining alone in the dim courtroom.
From his platinum-blonde hair to the gold tassels hanging from his shoulders’ epaulettes, to the cloak decorated with gold leaf bearing a sun-pattern symbol.
All the ornaments adorning his body reflected the concentrated sunlight brilliantly.
It was only then that Agnes noticed, as if in his escort, rows of black-uniformed knights standing in the darkness on either side.
Their chests too bore the emblem symbolizing the sun.
The only difference was that theirs were white embroidery.
The emblem known as the ‘Golden Sun’ could be worn by only two people in the entire Empire.
The sun that ruled the Empire—the Emperor of Cardius and the Crown Prince who would succeed him.
Since the Emperor was said to be confined to bed, the person standing before her was likely…….
‘The Crown Prince of this Empire. Baltior Cadiam.’
It was unbelievable.
Why would someone so noble visit such a narrow, dilapidated courtroom?
When Agnes stood speechless, looking up at him.
The man slowly turned his body around, and his gaze met hers.
Golden eyes.
Like minerals or metal, they resembled inorganic matter in which not a trace of vitality could be found.
The moment she perceived this, an instinctive revulsion welled up, and Agnes trembled faintly.
It was a strange sensation.
He, standing on that high platform, appeared like a god who had descended merely to observe this place.
As though he felt interest in nothing in the world, cared nothing for human joy or sorrow, yet performed this duty regardless because it was unavoidable.
Frozen in place and unable to open her mouth, the man spoke first.
“I find myself meeting someone for the first time who gazes upon me without greeting or acknowledgment. Perhaps you do not know who I am.”
Flustered, Agnes hastily bowed her head.
“Agnes of House Laberose, paying my respects to Your Highness. I had not anticipated meeting you here, and my greeting came late. I humbly ask your forgiveness for my discourtesy.”
Fortunately, she had rehearsed the courtesies owed to the imperial family countless times as a child, so she executed the bow with natural grace.
“Yes. Agnes of House Laberose.”
He parroted back her introduction before settling immediately into the judge’s seat.
It seemed as though he had been waiting for her all along.
To prove the point, the Crown Prince struck the Judge’s Gavel three times on the desk.
“Now that the plaintiff has arrived, I hereby commence proceedings in the suit brought by House Laberose against House Valdemar.”
Agnes started, her eyes darting toward the defendant’s stand.
There stood the Earl of Valdemar himself.
His presence, which might otherwise have commanded all attention, seemed swallowed whole by the Crown Prince’s sheer dominion over the space.
Though he had been her family’s enemy and the source of her deepest dread, Agnes found her gaze slipping away from Valdemar again and again, drawn inexorably toward the Crown Prince.
‘So this is the Crown Prince I’ve only ever heard whispers of……’
He was perhaps five-and-twenty years old.
Only five years her senior, and yet since his majority he had governed this entire Empire.
True to his reputation, he occupied the very space around him simply by existing.
‘How could anyone possibly stand against such a man.’
She had believed that if she could strike a wound in Valdemar’s reputation, it might delay whatever war the Crown Prince meant to wage. But facing him directly, the prospect seemed impossible.
‘And it seems he wouldn’t lose a moment’s sleep even if something happened to Valdemar……’
Yet from another angle, perhaps this was a stroke of fortune.
‘In fact, this is better. I’d worried the judge they’d chosen would brush aside even solid evidence, given his ties to Valdemar. But the Crown Prince might not.’
Agnes stood rigid before the plaintiff’s stand, holding Valdemar’s gaze.
The middle-aged man, his hair beginning to gray, showed not a flicker of emotion in his bearing or expression—just as Aser had said, like carved stone.
‘Does he realize the Romanil had no effect?’
Even as her mouth went dry with tension, Agnes felt a thrill of satisfaction at having caught him off-guard.
‘He never thought I’d come through unscathed. He came himself because he was certain he’d win.’
The thought of laying before him—her family’s enemy—all the evidence she had painstakingly gathered made her heart race.
If her preparations were thorough enough, she would see that bored, impassive face crack.
The Crown Prince scanned the documents laid before him with a dry stare, then pushed them aside.
They were presumably the complaint petition Agnes had filed.
He exhaled sharply and turned his head toward Agnes.
“Proceed.”
“I… Your Highness?”
“You claim you owe nothing to Valdemar. Can you prove it?”
Agnes lifted her chin.
She had rehearsed this very moment countless times whenever she was alone.
She took a moment to gather herself, letting her eyes sweep the courtroom.
Every person in that narrow space was watching her.
Every face bore the cruel certainty that she would fail—that she would ruin everything.
As she hesitated in the grip of tension, she caught the corner of Valdemar’s mouth deepening into a smile.
It was the briefest of movements, but it burned itself into her mind.
‘Is he laughing at me, thinking I owe everything to the Romanil?’
The thought kindled a hot fire in her chest, and she felt her shrinking frame begin to thaw.
Agnes clenched her fist and opened her mouth.
“Your Highness, I submit this: first, that contract is not reasonable.”
She paused to catch her breath, let her eyes travel once around the room, then continued.
“Two years ago, I renegotiated my obligations with my other creditors, but not with Valdemar. The Countess Valdemar did not demand it of me, and moreover, the principal owed to House Valdemar is so vast that if I were to renegotiate under identical terms, the sum would become impossible for me to repay.”
The Crown Prince responded with evident indifference.
“Indeed. An interest rate that doubles each year would render even the sale of a fiefdom insufficient to settle the debt.”

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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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