WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
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◈ The Protagonist of a Romance Fantasy Only Likes Me ◈
Chapter 16: Warrior Marigold. (11)
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The tang of blood reached his nose.
A dead man and Marigold.
“Master, I...”
“You did nothing wrong.”
Lancel took out a handkerchief and quickly wiped the blood from Marigold.
“This man... he’s a noble, Master.”
He knew.
The man was a member of the Imperial Knights who always stuck close to the Sixth Prince. He was undoubtedly a Court Knight.
Even if Marigold had killed him with a single stroke.
Lancel ground his teeth as he looked at the Blindweed powder in the man’s hand.
If things had gone even slightly differently, Marigold might have lost her sight forever. When he thought that far, he could no longer suppress the something rising from deep within his chest.
Kill him.
Something seemed to whisper to him.
Kill whom? The Sixth Prince?
‘Should I?’
Ever since he learned that the Sixth Prince led the Imperial relief force, had he not privately considered that things might turn out this way?
What am I hesitating for? Just kill him. Killing someone once is difficult, but would killing someone twice be?
Right. Even being burned alive had not been so unbearable that he could not endure it.
This was for Marigold, too.
There was only one punishment for a commoner who killed a noble: beheading. If she was unlucky, she would be executed on the spot.
I should kill him, right?
A decision slowly began to take shape within Lancel.
This life was only one of the countless moments he had repeated dozens of times.
‘The one who massacred the command staff aboard the train was Lancel Dante. Marigold leaves this place and lives in hiding somewhere far away... Clean enough.’
The moment he finished calculating everything in his head, Lancel moved.
Click.
He picked up the sword that had fallen to the floor and murmured quietly.
“Stay in this room. I’ll make it so that, within thirty minutes, it’s as though nothing happened.”
It was a good idea.
Honestly, this was fucking irritating.
That guy always seemed to invite trouble.
‘Come to think of it, I have nothing to lose.’
Right.
Kill him.
Burned at the stake? So what? He could just start over from the beginning.
That was what he thought.
“Master!”
Until Marigold wrapped her arms around him from behind.
“No, Master!”
“What?”
“I-I don’t know, but please don’t.”
Lancel heard fear in her trembling voice. He suddenly noticed the cheap necklace around her neck rattling softly. So she wore it even when she slept.
“Let go, Mary.”
“No! I feel like something bad will happen to you, Master. I don’t want that.”
“What are you talking about? You aren’t making strange assumptions on your own, are you?”
“I... I wish it were only an assumption.”
An exchange continued with a corpse lying on the floor beside them.
Lancel could not hide his bewilderment at this stubborn side of Marigold, which he had never seen before.
‘I’m telling you, I just have to die.’
But he could not say that aloud. She would think he was genuinely insane. Even though he was this calm and perfectly normal.
“Please don’t, Master. I don’t know what you’re planning, but please, never do it.”
Marigold’s grip was weaker than usual today. Her arms around his waist trembled constantly as she desperately held on to him.
He could have shaken her off with the slightest effort.
But he did not.
Lancel said nothing for a while. After a long time, he spoke again.
“Then are you going to die?”
Honestly, yes.
He said it because he was frustrated.
“If the train stops now, we’ll be in the western part of the continent. Follow the river down, and you’ll reach a port city. Take a ship from there to an island, and you’ll find an archipelago.”
Lancel recited the map of the continent he had already memorized in his previous life.
“If you take a bag of gold coins, you’ll probably live a life anyone would envy. The fish, shellfish, and crustaceans on those islands are unbelievably good.”
They were words he had originally intended to tell her after he cleaned everything up.
Lancel was laying out that plan in advance solely to persuade Marigold.
“You’re a commoner. At best, you would have lived and died as some mercenary. Wouldn’t that count as a success? Accept it gracefully. You don’t have any other choice.”
“No. Happiness gained by using you, Master, would mean nothing.”
“I’m telling you, there’s no other way. Why can’t you understand what I’m saying today?”
“One day...”
Marigold’s muffled voice traveled through his back.
“One day, the last day was the day I spent with you at the guild, Master. Another day... the last day was the day I walked through the market.”
What was she talking about?
Lancel fell silent for a moment.
“One day, the last day was when we walked through the plaza together. Another day, it was when we bought snacks while walking down the street.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Master, every moment I see and hear while I’m with you is my last.”
Lancel understood that she was recalling the distant past.
A girl who had lost her entire family and been driven out at the age of ten. A fallen young lady who had lost her noble status and suddenly been forced to wander the streets.
It was a feeling born from living such a life. Someone who had lost many precious things.
Lancel vaguely sensed it through their touching skin.
“Don’t think I’ll be happy if I survive by using you, Master. Please let me decide my own ending, at least.”
Marigold’s voice shook fiercely, but it was full of resolve.
“You are the one who needs to be safe here, Master.”
Lancel rubbed his tired eyes. Honestly, this was unexpected.
“I’ll go confess now, Master.”
For a moment, he considered what he would have done in the opposite position. He did not need to think long. If he had been Marigold, he would have prostrated himself and begged to save his own life.
But Marigold was different. He had honestly never expected her bond with him to run this deep.
Lancel felt his mind grow cold.
At the same time, he had to admit it.
He had gotten a little heated, unlike himself.
“No. There’s no need.”
Lancel set down the sword in his hand.
Then he found a dagger at the dead man’s waist. It was decorative, but the blade was sharpened.
“Mary. Don’t misunderstand this. I have no intention of dying either.”
“What? Master?”
Lancel drove the blade into his own limbs in quick, deep thrusts.
“M-Master!”
“Stay quiet.”
“Master... Why? Why are you doing this, Master?!”
Only now did he notice that Marigold’s face was soaked in tears.
To her, it must have looked as though her guild master had gone mad and was hurting himself.
‘This much is still fine. My recovery is absurdly good.’
He steadied his breathing.
If he was going to do this, he had to do it properly. If he went easy on himself, they would only find something to pick at.
Lancel drove the blade into his abdomen as well. The hard blade avoided his vital organs and pierced through the peritoneum. Someone who did not know better would think he was severely wounded.
“Ghhhhh!”
His blood seemed to race through his entire body. His teeth ground together. He barely kept his eyes from rolling back.
He could hardly breathe.
“W-why would you...?!”
“C-call someone. Hurry!”
“What? What?”
Marigold did not know what to do.
Groaning in pain, Lancel forced out the words.
“Wake... wake everyone up! Tell them some crazy bastard broke in... stabbed me, and ran off! Hurry!”
22.
“...What?”
“Y-you need to come at once, Your Highness!”
A disturbance in the middle of the night.
The Sixth Prince seemed to wake up at once.
When he entered the command car that had been used as a party hall, he heard a loud commotion.
“Where did all the guards go? Report truthfully at once!”
“T-that is not... Your Highness had...”
“You dare invoke His Highness’s name?”
The first thing he saw was the guards cowering under the barrage of shouting. The prince had moved them all elsewhere the previous night.
He had planned to take advantage of the lack of witnesses and simply carry Marigold off.
But something about the situation was strange.
“Sir Lancel is in poor condition, Your Highness.”
“Lancel is? All of a sudden? How bad is it?”
“It will be faster if you see for yourself.”
As he approached the gathered soldiers, he saw Lancel covered in bandages.
The wounds on his limbs and torso were obviously severe.
“They say he was stabbed while stopping someone who tried to abduct Miss Mary last night...”
The Sixth Prince’s expression hardened.
The injured Lancel did not catch his eye. All he could see was the corpse lying beside him.
“They say he had Blindweed on him. Where did he get such a valuable poison? Doesn’t this seem suspicious? Shouldn’t we investigate his background?”
“Don’t do anything unnecessary!”
The Sixth Prince felt things taking a strange turn.
“Sir Lancel is seriously injured. I believe we should send him back to the capital as quickly as possible so he can receive treatment.”
When the Sixth Prince heard that Lancel and Mary would urgently return to the capital for treatment, he finally looked over the troops left around him.
The First Imperial Relief Force was about to reach the battlefield, yet its atmosphere was as chaotic as that of a defeated army. They did not look like soldiers ready to go to war.
All he saw before him was an army whose morale had utterly collapsed.
“Your Highness, perhaps we should request additional reinforcements even now...”
“Shut up.”
The Sixth Prince had come here because he wanted military merit as well.
No commander wanted to return empty-handed.
23.
“What in the world happened here?”
When Lancel arrived in the capital by carriage, familiar faces were already waiting for him.
The Court Count, who had received the news by letter, was the first to hurry out.
He probably never imagined that his family’s son-in-law would be on the verge of death before even reaching the battlefield.
“A supposedly capable knight, and this happens before you even reach the battlefield?”
The Court Count fretted anxiously throughout Lancel’s journey under escort. The thought of his daughter becoming a widow was a nightmare.
Supported by Marigold, Lancel limped down from the carriage.
“Please take me to His Majesty. I have much to tell him.”
“What do you intend to do?”
“I have to return. To the battlefield.”
“In that condition?”
The color had long vanished from his face after the forced march with a body full of holes.
But his eyes still shone brightly.
“The Sixth Prince’s army will soon be wiped out as well. We need to organize a new relief force and depart.”
“...Choose your words carefully. Are you serious?”
Lancel had grounds for what he said.
Why?
Because he had already seen it on his way here.
============
Event Lost! Sixth Prince Karin Craig Freesia’s route has been lost.
Event Lost! Fifth Prince Ervin Cole Freesia’s route has been lost.
============
Ah. So that was what had happened.
A lost route meant one of three things: dead, captured, or vanished.
The Imperial relief force had been heading toward a fierce battlefield, but they had most likely been taken hostage rather than killed in action. Negotiations over the enormous ransom on the princes’ heads would now drag on for years, perhaps decades. Of course, they had no choice but to be removed from their routes.
‘Tch. This run is ruined.’
He did not care whether the Sixth Prince died or was captured, but the Fifth Prince was different. Had this not been a life where he had rushed forward looking only for that man? And it was over without even seeing his face once.
Lancel could only sigh as he received news of the Fifth Prince.
Well, still.
“I have to do what needs doing.”
Lancel looked at Marigold’s profile as she supported him. His eyes met hers, full of concern and worry.
To him, this world was endless time, a prison of time where it did not matter when he died. Whenever things went wrong, he had stabbed himself and reset more times than he could count.
Because he could.
Because he only had to open his eyes again after dying.
But Marigold was different.
Every moment is my last.
For her, it was always the last time.
Today, too.
Tomorrow, too.
Before, too.
Why was that? Lancel somehow felt comforted by that fact.
Perhaps because it seemed to remind him of something he had forgotten.
Hm.
‘I don’t know.’
* * *
After telling the Emperor, the fake one, everything that had happened, Lancel promptly received limited command authority over the Second Imperial Relief Force and a total of eight hundred soldiers.
As he wandered across the war-torn continent, Lancel devoted every day to nothing but fighting. There was nothing else for him to do now. Well, he could consider it being filial to his father-in-law, the Court Count, and his parents.
Wouldn’t it boost their pride to have the Empire’s war hero as their child and son-in-law? It could not compare to his third life, when he could see statues of himself wherever he went in the Empire, but this was still a fine rise in status.
However, he never properly saw the face of his fiancée, Lady Iceford, even once. There were countless battlefields for him in this land, and she did not particularly welcome Lancel either, so they had no reason to see each other.
She was probably all over some strange man by now. Lancel did not care either way.
Only one person.
“Master.”
Warrior Marigold remained at his side.
And so, ten years passed.
.
.
.
[Play Time: 10 years, 0 days]
Marigold has turned 25.
There is no marriage partner.
There are achievements.
▶ First Imperial Palace Wedding +300 points
▷ Advanced Swordsmanship Master +10 points
▶ Knight Rank Achieved +10 points
▷ Goddess of the Battlefield +30 points
Total Score: 350 points.
[Bad Ending 3. The Cheap Gemstone Necklace and Dark Knight Marigold]
This ending has been added to the “Album of Memories.”
Opening album.
.
.
.
Marigold followed her lord and distinguished herself in war for five years, earning countless military achievements.
You received the title of Honorary Knight from the Imperial family, so surely only brilliant days awaited you.
But the sudden death of your lord led you into loneliness once more.
There was no meaning in a world without him.
‘Don’t cry. We’ll meet again someday.’
Marigold remembered the first lie her lord left behind for the rest of her life.
There was no way to meet a dead person again in this world.
Loneliness.
Solitude.
Loss.
You spend your days sinking into grief like a swamp.
Taking revenge on everything that caused his death.
Tonight, too, the Dark Knight with the cheap gemstone necklace wanders the streets.
[The Cheap Gemstone Necklace and Dark Knight Marigold - fin]
Would you like to start the game again?
※ Slaughter Penalty: 200 Karma points accumulated.
.
.
.
What?
“Didn’t this end reasonably well?”
Lancel broke into a cold sweat at the ending overflowing with sorrow. A bad ending. It was a bad ending in the most literal sense.
‘What the hell went wrong?’
It was certainly his fault that he had failed to connect her with a prince. But surely those ten years had not been the kind that should end so damp and dreary? Had the atmosphere not been fairly good?
‘Why did I die in the first place?’
He could not have died for no reason. Why, exactly?
Hm.
By this point, Lancel wanted to somehow give her story a satisfying ending.
The best outcome would be if she could finally end up with a prince this time. At the very least, he wanted to see her find a proper marriage partner.
A marriage partner other than Lancel.
What else could he do?
Their marriage had not ended well.
“What am I supposed to do with this unhinged protagonist?”
Then came the next life.
From the very beginning, Lancel had to read shocking words with his own eyes.
============
Permanent Damage: Marigold has lost the sight in both eyes.
※ Marigold’s Karma has reached 200.
※ Until her Karma is resolved, permanent damage will continue to occur each time.
============
“Seriously?”
[Warrior Marigold - End]
[Next - Saint Marigold]
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