My Youngest Keeps Bringing Home Male Leads - Chapter 97

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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 97
Agnes recalled the painful memory and bit her lip, but soon she answered with composure.
“Yes, I think so too.”
“Would you mind if I checked something?”
Kesenor reached toward Agnes’s wrist.
Agnes held it out without hesitation.
As expected, the mark gleamed not in red but in gold.
And she felt no sensation of blood being drawn away.
Instead, there was only a gentle warmth.
“It seems the Crown Prince drained your power. Is that correct?”
“Yes. I don’t know how he was able to do it, but it felt like something was being pulled out from inside my body.”
“You still don’t know what power you gave to Silmare and Ignitan.”
“No. Should we try it now?”
A low chuckle followed his words.
“This doesn’t seem like the right moment. Let’s attempt it once we reach the Village.”
Then, almost by way of excuse, Kesenor explained his circumstances.
“What the Crown Prince did to me is an Imperial Firstborn Heir Ability. Ordinarily it’s not an irresistible Suppression but rather a pressure of sorts, yet it works differently on our bloodline.”
“Do you mean it makes you obey whatever the Crown Prince commands?”
“It’s agonizing, but yes. Of course, the influence diminishes as one grows stronger. That’s why I tried my best to resist.”
“So I became an unpredictable variable.”
“Truly, an utterly unforeseen one.”
Kesenor recalled bitterly what Amy had cried out.
—If only you weren’t here, Kesenor!
It was something a child who saw the future had said. A dull ache pierced his chest.
A helplessness born of enormous failure and defeat, or perhaps something like self-reproach.
“Is that why you threw yourself into this with us?”
With her brow slightly furrowed, she gazed up at him, and her face seemed almost innocent.
He’d wondered if she might resent him.
Even now, even after everything, her eyes still seemed to trust him.
Ignoring the sudden urge to press his lips to her brow, Kesenor forced himself to look away, turning his gaze toward the Horizon.
“Truth is, I ran away because I had no face to show.”
“You, my lord?”
Her tone suggested disbelief—as if the Master of the Celestial Magic Tower could never resort to fleeing.
“Because of that, you saved me.”
Agnes whispered, gripping the fabric of his sleeve tighter.
“Thank you, my lord.”
He’d put on airs and in the end had saved neither her nor the Mansion he’d worked so hard to maintain, yet she spoke those words.
For some inexplicable reason, his chest tightened.
Pressing firmness into his lips to suppress their trembling, Kesenor pointed with his finger toward the Village that was beginning to come into view in the distance.
“That seems to be it.”
The first thing that became visible was monsters surrounding the Village and attempting to breach it.
Behind a fence woven densely from branches, people were fighting fiercely.
Among them, something caught the eye with unusual prominence.
Someone stood before the fence, scattering a pitch-black aura and sweeping away the monsters.
It was Rupert.
Even from a distance, it was unmistakable.
Her anxiety dissolved in an instant, and Agnes nearly let go of Kesenor’s hand.
Fortunately, Kesenor held firm, but before she could even thank him, Agnes cried out his name.
“Rupert!”
At that, Rupert’s head snapped up and his gaze fixed upon her.
Their eyes met.
Yet Rupert’s silhouette wavered once more.
‘What…?’
Whether because he’d been dangerously fighting the monsters before the fence or for Agnes’s sake, Rupert began racing toward them desperately.
But the closer he drew, the more her vision crumbled.
Static. A sensation like noise and interference. As if someone were blocking their reunion.
‘No…!’
“Agnes!”
In the moment Kesenor’s urgent voice reached her ears, he’d even forgotten the formal address.
Once again, all sensation vanished.
* * *
“What in the world…….”
Kesenor gazed down emptily at the place where Agnes had been cradled in his arms.
There was nothing there.
Rupert, who had fought his way through the monsters, looked up at him with a pale face as he hovered above the ground.
Not wanting to face anything whose nature he couldn’t fathom, Kesenor touched down on solid earth with a barrier still raised around him.
“Where has the young lady gone……!”
The way he trailed off suggested he was thoroughly shaken.
Just moments before, his eyes—which had been pitch black—had returned to their natural blue.
‘It was the same when he faced the dragon.’
It seemed to be Rupert’s ability, whatever its source.
A power whose origin remained shrouded in mystery—he’d wielded his sword steeped in that darkness even when standing against the Crown Prince himself.
And he seemed remarkably familiar with Rifts.
Suppressing the flood of questions about Rupert that rose in his mind, Kesenor attempted to speak with him.
“Agnes has vanished again, hasn’t she?”
“How could you……did she tell you something, sir?”
“Yes. You disappeared suddenly, she said. So it must have been Agnes who vanished instead.”
“That is correct.”
Rupert nodded gravely, though his expression betrayed profound confusion.
“Do you have any idea how it happened?”
“None whatsoever, sir. How did you come to meet the young lady?”
“Wait a moment.”
Kesenor unfurled Detection Magic once more.
Just as he’d found Agnes before, he gradually expanded his range until he caught the unique wavelength each person carried.
He drew his mana to its absolute limit, but her wavelength eluded him entirely—as if she had ceased to exist.
The only things that revealed their presence within his range were strange, inexplicable entities.
“She’s nowhere. Could it be this world? That people simply vanish?”
“That’s impossible.”
Rupert spoke with certainty.
“From my experience, such things have never happened here.”
“How would you know that?”
Though he asked, Rupert gave no answer—only bowed his head.
“In any case, there’s no way forward now. Where exactly did you part ways with her?”
“Did you see the Black Lake on your way here? We separated right before it.”
“When I found her, she wasn’t far from there. So we have no choice but to assume she’ll reappear near where she vanished.”
Even as he spoke with feigned composure, anxiety parched his mouth.
When he’d stretched Detection Magic to its absolute limit, he’d felt viscerally how twisted this world truly was.
‘What is this place.’
It was called the Afterlife World, in a manner of speaking.
Unlike the world above, where transparent mana flowed, this place was like a murky swamp.
Not just monsters, but people too—throngs of them pooling and festering.
If it was neither mana nor the vital force that pulsed from nature, what else could he call it?
It felt like a pit into which very old, stale refuse had been heaped together.
And that mysterious power even possessed a kind of direction.
“Have you explored all of this land?”
“Yes, sir.”
“According to Agnes, there are villages in each city. Do you know if anything unusual exists in the Capital?”
“Nothing at all, sir.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Everything is flowing there and collecting together.”
Rupert’s brows twitched as if hearing this for the first time.
“There is truly nothing, sir. Only a Cemetery.”
“A Cemetery?”
“There is a legend that one can be reborn if one goes there, though……”
Rupert spoke with careful deliberation, his brow furrowing slightly.
“Is there something there?”
“Yes. What it is, I cannot say…….”
Kesenor’s lips curved into a thin smile.
“But there is definitely something.”
“Do you think it is connected to the young lady’s disappearance?”
“You said there’s no such thing as people vanishing in this world. If there’s something you don’t know, then that has to be the answer.”
Only then did Rupert reluctantly speak.
“You cannot.”
“What?”
“You cannot enter that place.”
“Why not?”
“Because you are not dead. Only the dead can cross into there, as I just explained.”
“And how do you know that?”
Rupert’s mouth closed again.
“So you’re certain Agnes has nothing to do with this.”
“That is……”
Rupert lowered his head, his lips pressed together in anguish.
* * *
«No, I cannot be certain.»
«Was it wrong to come here in the first place?»
«Honestly, I’m not even sure I opened the Rift.»
«If this world drew her here itself, how am I supposed to find her?»
«Could that thing in the center really be the World Tree?»
Though his lips remained sealed, Rupert’s voice reached her.
His thoughts were being read.
‘Rupert……’
Agnes was, in fact, standing right beside them.
She heard the two men’s conversation and tried desperately to raise her voice to reach them, but it would not carry.
As though trapped behind a transparent barrier.
Agnes stared at Rupert with anxious eyes.
So Rupert hadn’t opened the Rift, and there might actually be something like the World Tree at the center?
She wanted to ask more, but her voice could not reach them.
Soft thud.
Something brushed against her feet.
She looked down and saw the cat from before.
When she met its gaze, the cat leaped and bounded into her arms.
“Are you taking me somewhere again?”
The cat lifted its head silently and pressed its cool nose against Agnes’s chin.
It was damp and cold.
As real and solid as any living creature.
“What do you want with me?”
She recalled how the cat had shown her Rupert just after he fell into the Rift.
“Where are you trying to lead me this time?”
At that, the cat sprang from her arms.
It turned around and walked a few paces, then looked back.
“……”
Standing bewildered and uncertain, she watched as the cat returned to her, wound itself around her legs, and then moved in that direction again.
This time it took five steps.
Once more, it glanced back at her.
“You want me to follow?”
The cat settled down and began grooming its face with its raised paw.
It seemed to be waiting for Agnes to approach.
She took a slow step forward.
When she looked back, the two men were receding into confusion behind her.
Another few paces.
Then her vision lurched again.
When she opened her eyes, she saw Rupert.
His face was smudged with dust and dirt as he swung his blade.
It was not a real sword.
Just as when he had faced the Crown Prince above ground, black energy poured from his palm to form a sword’s edge.
Rupert moved without hesitation, cleaving through the shadows that rushed at him, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
Yet he could not defend against every assault—one creature sank its teeth into his arm.
Crimson blood sprayed upward.
The moment she clamped her hand over her mouth without thinking.
«It’s all right. I won’t die anyway.»
His voice echoed inside her mind.
‘What are you talking about?’
The moment she stepped forward in alarm, the landscape shifted again.

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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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