My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 95

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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 95
Part 2
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When had consciousness returned to her?
Looking around, an unfamiliar landscape stretched before her.
An endless expanse of black sea.
The color was so deep that she couldn’t see into its depths, and it lay still as a lake, unmarred by any ripples.
A place without even wind.
When Agnes moved, the water didn’t ripple outward in concentric circles—instead it hollowed beneath her, then sealed itself shut.
When she scooped it up in both hands, the seawater flowed down with a slick, viscous feel.
‘What is this?’
Startled, she lifted her head and found Rupert beside her.
His blue eyes, heavy and subdued, caught her attention.
He had returned to his true self—no longer consumed by that consuming darkness.
“Rupert! Are you all right?”
Remembering his confrontation with the Crown Prince, she hurried to check his body, relieved to find him apparently unharmed.
“Of course I’m fine, but…”
His gaze drifted awkwardly to the side, and he reached for her wrist before withdrawing his fist stiffly instead.
He’d been meaning to lead her forward, it seemed.
So Agnes smiled and pulled his hand toward her instead.
His hand was broad-knuckled and rough.
It hadn’t been that way when they were younger—this was the mark of years spent taking on every task at the Mansion, laboring without rest.
Just as her own hands bore small scratches from chasing after the twins.
“Where do we need to go?”
Rupert seemed briefly at a loss, then his gaze fixed on something far ahead.
Agnes followed his line of sight.
A landscape she’d never seen before unfolded in front of her.
All that was visible was the dark sea, and above the horizon the sky stretched in an eerie, deep crimson.
It looked as though the sun were setting, yet nowhere could she see the sun itself.
Black lines stretched across the sky like a web.
A hollow, suffocating silence.
There was no sound, no smell, and despite being submerged up to her thighs in some unidentifiable liquid, she felt no sensation at all.
A space that had stolen all five senses.
“What is this place?”
She thought she’d asked calmly, but her voice trembled pitifully despite her effort.
“We’re inside a Crevasse.”
Only his voice and the warmth of his hand in hers offered comfort.
This was reality. Not a dream.
“I’ll explain as we walk. We need to hurry.”
As they moved, Rupert first told her how he’d carried out her orders.
The Capella Trading Company had agreed to actively spread information about the “Earl of Valdemar.”
Given that he was connected to them as well, and they promised to disseminate it throughout the capital, it seemed they’d at least manage to limit some of the damage.
“We’ve had the Capella Trading Company’s help again, then.”
“Yes, they seem quite trustworthy indeed.”
“Edmund should be all right, shouldn’t he?”
Thinking of Amy and the others, her chest grew heavy.
Would they all be safe?
She’d left so much behind and had no way of knowing how it would all be resolved.
Even here, trapped in this strange world within the Crevasse, what she’d left behind continued to weigh on her.
As if to break through her troubled thoughts, Rupert began explaining this place.
“When the sky glows that red color, it’s night, and when it brightens, it’s day.”
“There’s no sun or moon, or stars either, is there?”
“We’ve essentially descended into the earth, so it might be best to think of this as an underground world. Regardless, the important thing is that Monsters emerge when day breaks.”
“What? From where?”
Rupert glanced around once before offering a reassuring smile.
“From everywhere here. They could emerge from anywhere. There’s nowhere you can escape to.”
Yet the content of his words offered no reassurance whatsoever.
Unlike the pale Agnes, Rupert continued calmly.
“It’s all right. I’ll hold them off. I’m only telling you this so you can prepare yourself mentally.”
In a purely straightforward manner, as if simply conveying information, Rupert slowly continued his explanation.
Monsters devour humans.
Even when killed, they keep appearing until nightfall, when they vanish.
If you walk long enough, you reach a village, and if you go there, you find people to help you hold out — making survival easier.
Which meant they were heading toward a nearby village right now.
“People actually live in a place like this?”
“Yes, but they are not living people.”
“What?”
“It seems those who died on the surface come to this place.”
Agnes gripped Rupert’s hand hard, her fingers tightening involuntarily.
A primal fear.
“Then this is… the Afterlife?”
Rupert’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile.
“It appears so.”
“How did you figure that out?”
“By speaking with the people. They all had memories of dying.”
A chill ran through her.
‘Surely not Mother…’
Rupert, sensing her thoughts, shook his head gently.
“So far, I have not encountered anyone I knew.”
“So death isn’t the end — does everyone just live another life here?”
“Perhaps our belief that death was an ending was mistaken. In any case, this world seems much like the surface — ordinary people living ordinary lives. The difference is that we must fight monsters endlessly.”
“So we have to escape before they appear?”
“That is correct. I could stop them, of course, but there is no need to invite danger when we can avoid it.”
Agnes found herself wondering about the moment Rupert first fell into the Crevasse.
How had he managed to survive in a place like this?
She wanted to ask, but this was not the moment for such a conversation. Rupert seemed to share the thought, steering the topic elsewhere.
“In any case, there is little difference from the surface. You remember Karun City, west of Kalburn City?”
“Of course.”
Karun City, like Kalburn City, sat adjacent to the Karun River, a great city between Eloyd Territory and Valdemar Territory.
“In much the same way, villages have been built at every location where cities exist on the surface.”
“Then there’s a village at the location of Kalburn City too?”
“There is, but that is not where we are headed.”
“Why not?”
“There are people of questionable character there.”
“I see.”
Agnes looked up at Rupert and smiled.
Some comfort settled over her.
It meant there were decent people in the direction they were going — people Rupert felt comfortable trusting.
“If you grow tired, I can carry you.”
“No, I’m all right.”
Though she should have been exhausted, Rupert’s revelations had been so startling that she found herself managing better than expected.
Soon, solid ground began to appear ahead.
A blackened wasteland.
Only barren sand and earth clung together; not even a hint of grass was visible.
Rupert lightly pulled Agnes’s hand as she stood gazing blankly at the desolate expanse.
As if to say it would be all right.
‘Besides, with Rupert here, what could happen?’
Rupert seemed very familiar with this world.
“How do we get back to the surface?”
“I can open a door.”
She glanced at him, a little startled by this.
“Did you open it when you came here?”
“I’m not sure. It was not intentional.”
“Can we go back right now?”
“It will take some time.”
Just as Agnes was about to set foot on solid ground—
She stopped, having spotted something.
A small yellow cat stood at the water’s edge, its eyes flecked with an uncanny luminescence, fixed upon Agnes.
“Rupert.”
But Rupert paid it no mind and continued forward.
“Isn’t there a cat over there?”
An animal in such barren ground—it made no sense.
No matter how she looked at it, something was wrong, but perhaps it wasn’t worth worrying about?
Rupert turned to face Agnes, his brow furrowing.
“A cat?”
From his reaction—as if she’d said something absurd—it seemed the creature was invisible to him.
Agnes, hesitating, seized Rupert’s hand, and the moment her feet touched the wasteland—
the cat leaped into her arms.
At the same instant, her vision dissolved.
She thought she heard Rupert cry out, but the sound wouldn’t reach her.
Only the warmth of his palm remained, brief and fleeting, against her skin.
* * *
Agnes opened her eyes again.
She looked around.
An endless black sea stretched before her. Above, a sky swallowed in crimson darkness.
The same place she’d seen before.
Agnes pushed herself upright.
Her perspective felt strangely elevated. More than that, something lay cradled in her arms.
‘The cat?’
Recalling how the cat had leaped into her embrace just moments ago, Agnes hurried to check her chest.
“This is….”
Her own voice sounded unfamiliar.
But something else startled her far more.
Where the cat should have been lay only a brilliantly luminous White Pearl, no larger than her palm.
At that moment, her lips moved of their own accord.
“Miss Amy…?”
What?
Only then did she notice that the hand holding the pearl looked nothing like her own.
A broad-knuckled hand.
Agnes examined her own form in silence.
Her heart seemed to plummet into an abyss.
A moment she’d never forgotten, not for a single day.
The night the crimson darkness had split open, and Amy and Rupert had vanished into it.
Rupert had worn clothes exactly like these.
She could never forget.
With little to their names, Rupert had worn whatever Martha had mended for him.
Her vision burned red.
‘Then….’
Could it be that I’ve become Rupert?
The voice settling near her ear did resemble his—perhaps it was true.
‘But where is Amy?’
Since they’d been torn apart together, Amy should surely be at her side.
If she wasn’t… could it mean…?
Agnes couldn’t confirm whether her suspicion was correct, but her hand moved of its own will, pressing the pearl carefully into her breast.
And she began to walk forward.
‘Not that way.’
Though uncertain, Agnes guided him—or guided what she now inhabited—toward the direction Rupert seemed to have headed.
And then Rupert began to move, truly beginning to walk in the direction Agnes had meant to go.

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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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