My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 90
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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 90
However they had heard that sound, dozens of knights waiting outside the Mansion came pouring in.
Count Valdemar followed in their wake, as though he had known what was coming.
While the thunderous footfalls of the knights shook the floorboards, they drew their blades and encircled Agnes and the three men in concentric rings.
The Crown Prince stood before them; a company of knights blocked their retreat.
Silmare unsheathed his sword, and Ignitan clenched his fists to face them, yet the Crown Prince showed not the slightest sign of unease.
If anything, he laughed with evident pleasure, raising his blade.
“All of you are deserters who have strayed beyond the boundaries established by treaty. Bind them—by any means necessary!”
At his command, Ignitan launched himself forward.
The Crown Prince stood alone.
If they could restrain him—the commander issuing orders—such lawlessness could not continue.
It was a wise decision, but the Crown Prince merely curled his lip and took a single step back.
He issued a curt command to Kesenor.
“Guard me, Kesenor!”
Without hesitation, Kesenor darted forward and unfurled Defensive Magic.
Crash!
Ignitan’s fist, before it could reach the Crown Prince, struck the invisible barrier and sent the air convulsing violently.
The impact reverberated through him fully; Ignitan flexed his hand lightly in response.
“How dare you—!”
Kesenor, whom Ignitan had naturally believed to be his ally, had blocked his attack; sparks flew roughly in Ignitan’s deep reddish-brown eyes.
Yet Kesenor only stood with his head bowed, his features stripped of all emotion.
“Hah.”
In the moment Ignitan exhaled that low sigh and furrowed his brow sharply, his already imposing frame began to expand further.
It was a remarkable sight, yet the Crown Prince merely laughed with ease.
“Kesenor, bind them at once.”
The Crown Prince appeared to have no doubt whatsoever that Kesenor would obey his command without question.
Like a well-trained beast, Kesenor once more traced a Magical Circle in the empty air.
Several five-pointed stars intersected in intricate patterns, hovering in space before gathering into multiple strands of light that shot toward Ignitan and Silmare.
It resembled Rope, meant to bind the two men.
‘This cannot happen—!’
As Ignitan and Silmare moved to stand their ground and defend, Agnes rushed forward in alarm.
Silmare and Ignitan reached out their hands, and Kesenor hastily activated Teleportation.
In that instant when all three men grasped Agnes’s hand simultaneously, a blinding light exploded outward from them.
It was a radiance so intense that no one could keep their eyes open.
Beyond the blindness, fragments of light scattered like spring sunshine, carrying a warmth that ought not be felt, settling gently upon skin.
Across cheeks, across the fabric covering arms, across the Leather Armor worn by the knights, that impossible warmth was perceived as vividly real.
When at last the light faded, and everyone’s vision returned,
all those present saw a clear mark emerge and fade upon Kesenor’s hand where he had grasped Agnes’s wrist, and upon the back of Agnes’s hand.
A Seed and a leaf.
At the same moment, Kesenor pulled Agnes to him and held her close.
As if protecting her from everything surrounding them both.
“Miss Agnes.”
Kesenor, who had kept his head bowed and silent until moments before, now whispered urgently, his breath coming fast.
“I must apologize for not forewarning you, but I too am bound by a constraint much like the Snare Curse.”
“You cannot defy the Crown Prince’s orders?”
“That is correct.”
Kesenor’s affirmation was plain, yet his face was stained with bitter contempt.
Kesenor appeared to have much more to say, but time had run out.
The knights, their vision now restored, were advancing toward the four of them, one measured step at a time.
“This matter will require a thorough explanation.”
Silmare, who had overheard Kesenor’s whispered words along with Agnes, spat fury between his teeth and moved to block the space between the knights and Agnes and Kesenor.
Ignitan followed suit.
With Agnes and Kesenor positioned inside the narrow doorway of the Reception Room, two forces now stood opposed in the hall.
The Crown Prince had by then stepped out of the Reception Room and taken his place behind the line of knights.
His golden eyes gleamed with brilliant intensity.
No trace of his earlier ease remained.
His facial muscles twisted sharply as he raised his voice.
“Marquess Kesenor! It seems there is one crucial fact I had forgotten!”
At last his gaze fixed upon Agnes.
Not upon Amy on the second floor, not upon the Non-Human Race who had come forward—but upon her.
Thirst burned through him.
A searing fury tore through his heart.
‘I told myself the southern countryside’s petty noblewoman was beneath my notice.’
His throat burned as if parched, and everything inside the Laberose Mansion filled him with astonishment.
‘He broke my command.’
The yoke that Celesta’s name had fastened upon him.
A power only one destined to be Emperor could possess.
‘How dare he find a way to defy my orders!’
He had dismissed even the news of a Non-Human Race raising its head for the first time in a thousand years as mere chance.
It was no more than a trivial plaything to him.
Of course, the report of someone who had escaped the Rift was curious, but the Rift was not his domain.
Yet Celesta was his.
Slaves inherited across a thousand years since the founding of the Cardius Empire.
They could never defy the Emperor’s command.
That was the prerogative granted to the Emperor and his heir across those thousand years.
And in exchange, he had been granted vast northern territories and immense power.
‘How on earth did he do it?’
The Crown Prince had seen it clearly.
The moment Agnes rushed forward, Kesenor broke the command and released magic to save her.
Of his own will.
He did not know what the mark that appeared on the back of his hand meant, but perhaps Agnes had somehow cast a new magic upon him to break free from his control.
It was arrogance beyond measure.
Laberose was territory of the Cardius Empire.
Which meant it was his.
Yet it teemed with things he could not control.
It was unbearable.
With the humiliation of having filth thrown upon his face, or with the fierce desire that burned through his veins, Crown Prince Balthior Cardium trembled.
He would place everything beneath him, possess it all.
And so Balthior cried out.
“Use any means necessary! Leave not a single one unbroken! So long as they draw breath, I care not!”
At the supreme Crown Prince’s command, knights filling the hall surged forward against the four.
Agnes stood guarded by Kesenor, while Silmare and Ignitan faced the others.
There were only two of them to fight.
Kesenor merely stood in a protective stance before Agnes, and for some reason did not use magic.
They thought it would end easily, but the situation unfolded differently than expected.
Both men proved difficult opponents.
Silmare’s graceful, slender blade moved like wind.
When it struck the knights’ thick longswords, it seemed it would bend or shatter at any moment, yet it did not.
“Hya!”
One from the front, and two from each side.
Three knights closed in on Silmare and attacked at once.
As the front knight gripped his sword with both hands and drove it downward, those on either flank thrust their blades at Silmare’s sides.
Clang!
Metal collided with sharp, ringing force.
Silmare did not evade the longsword flying at him from the front but met it squarely and thrust it back.
The heavy longsword was helplessly deflected by the slender blade.
More than that, Silmare used the recoil to lightly parry the blade thrust from the side.
He did not merely overpower the knights’ blades with strength alone but redirected the force of impact in unpredictable directions.
‘How is this even——!’
There was no room for carelessness.
Silmare, who evaded attacks like the wind itself, pressed his assault in unpredictable ways.
Movements that defied all logic.
Even though three fought one, they could not block his strikes, and small wounds accumulated steadily.
Moreover, Ignitan swung his fists like a warhammer.
When the knights drove their swords downward, Ignitan blocked with his own arms.
His solid forearms were like armor—the blades would not sink in.
Seizing that moment, Ignitan gripped the sword with his bare hand and drove his other fist down with crushing weight.
Each time, the knights could not endure the dull thunder reverberating through their bodies and had to fall back.
Even clad in light armor, it was a terrifying sight.
‘The damage is greater than anticipated…….’
Ernst Hismark, the Second Commander of the Golden Knight Order who guarded the Crown Prince, realized the situation was deteriorating.
The hall was far too narrow to exploit their numerical advantage, and the fighting styles of the fairy who parried his longsword with a slender blade and the giant who negated armor with his bare body were equally difficult to counter.
In fact, his subordinates’ injuries were mounting by the moment.
Ernst glanced toward the Crown Prince.
He stood beside the Count Valdemar, observing the battle while conversing with him.
His demeanor was almost deliberately detached.
Ernst swallowed what felt like a clot of blood rising in his throat.
As always, the Crown Prince gave no thought to their wounds or deaths.
‘Yet this is unexpected.’
Ernst knew of the Marquis Kesenor’s reputation.
If that great mage merely gestured, dozens of his own knights would be forced to withdraw in an instant.
Then why did he not move?
‘If he truly wanted to protect the woman, he could simply flee.’
Not knowing of the Snare Curse the Crown Prince could wield against Kesenor, Ernst could only assume that his once-loyal Marquis had lost his head over a woman.
‘Though openly fighting would amount to treason—he wouldn’t wish to cross that threshold.’
Ernst watched Kesenor carefully, then swiftly pulled the wounded aside to send them to the physicians.
So long as they did not die, it mattered little how grave their injuries.
Their own mages would heal them if they lived.
Since they were not Celestial mages, they would not answer to Kesenor’s commands anyway.
If Kesenor truly would not offer aid, then time itself became their ally—the opposing side could only grow weaker.
His subordinates would have no choice but to press forward despite their wounds, a tragic necessity, but the Crown Prince himself—the very embodiment of the Cardius Empire—would inevitably claim victory here.
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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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