The Protagonist of a Romance Fantasy Only Likes Me - Chapter 18

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Potter

◈ The Protagonist of a Romance Fantasy Only Likes Me ◈

Chapter 18: Saintess Marigold. (2)

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“Mary.”

Marigold had begun having dreams when she turned fifteen. Sometimes once a week, sometimes once every two or three months.

“We will meet again someday...”

Fragments of memory.

The face and voice were both blurred, but whenever Marigold encountered him in her dreams, she felt as though she were being pulled into a bottomless depth.

Thump. Thump.

Her heart pounded. A stifling pain rose from deep in her chest. Her breathing grew ragged.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Marigold... you... were... alive...”

Thump.

“Miss!”

“Eep?”

Marigold jolted awake.

Birdsong and sunlight brightening beyond her cloudy vision greeted her. Pina pressing insistently against her face was waking her up.

“Did you forget today is laundry day? If you don’t go, the priest will scold you again.”

“Ah! Laundry!”

“A patron is coming, too. They say he’s a knight, and he’s rich. Really rich!”

“Rich? Hmm. What if he’s another strange person?”

Marigold was already worried. Whenever a wealthy patron came, strange things always happened at the Church of Salvation’s temple.

* * *

“This is the prayer room. We offer prayers here every morning.”

Lancel only half-listened to the priest as he looked around.

Children’s scribbles seemed to cover every surface. The priest gave an embarrassed chuckle.

“Ha ha, it also serves as an orphanage, so it’s a little messy. They should be hanging laundry right now. Why don’t we go have a look?”

Have a look at the children. The wording felt a little odd, but Lancel obediently followed him.

When they entered the garden, countless white sheets hung from long clotheslines.

Children hurried between the pure white curtains swaying in the breeze. Lancel found Marigold at a glance.

She was feeling her way through hanging the laundry with her poor vision. Perhaps because she was used to it, she was managing a person’s share of work.

“There’s a child who can’t see.”

“There are all sorts of circumstances at an orphanage, aren’t there? We can’t make exceptions just because someone has a disability.”

“I heard she used to beg.”

“Uh... You knew? You said you had only recently arrived in the imperial capital...”

The flustered priest cleared his throat.

“Our patrons have been scarce lately, you see...”

“I thought so.”

“Pardon?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Of course. There was no way that money would end up in Marigold’s hands. He had seen enough in the last Iteration to roughly guess as much.

“Things must be difficult to run.”

“As you can see, we are in great need of patrons’ interest. People like Sir Lancel.”

Even so, what could they possibly be thinking, sending even a blind child out to beg in the streets?

For the past several hundred years, Lancel had not merely failed to believe in gods. He had actively mocked them. So he could not be certain whether the Church of Salvation was especially materialistic, or whether this was simply standard for obscure, shitty little sects no one had heard of.

‘What a wretched fate, Marigold.’

Lancel silently watched Marigold among the noisy children.

“Mary, guess who poked you.”

“Mary can’t see, so she’ll never guess.”

Those little bastards?

“Have you made a decision about your sponsorship?”

“How much would it cost to build a temple?”

“Pardon?”

The priest’s mouth hung open for a moment.

‘If building temples and spreading the religion lowers Karma...’

He was not certain.

He was just trying it once.

“It, it would cost a considerable amount, but do you have that kind of money...?”

The priest trailed off, but what he meant was obvious. Do you really have the means? And naturally, Lancel did not.

“Don’t worry. I have enough money.”

“It would be approximately this much.”

“I’ll give it to you today.”

“R-Really?”

‘Yeah. I can just borrow it.’

He could borrow it from Baron Evil Shen and pay for it. All he had to do was write a promissory note saying he would repay several times the amount in exactly ten years. Baron Evil Shen would readily lend it to him, trusting completely in House Dante’s credit.

In other words, free money.

“Then, when would you like to receive our token of appreciation for your sponsorship?”

A token of appreciation?

Lancel considered it for a moment before answering.

“As soon as the temple is built.”

“Understood!”

Two seasons later, word came that the temple had been completed.

* * *

[Fallen Noble Lady Simulation]

-The second week of January, when Marigold was sixteen, has passed!-

Charm 42 -> 43 UP.

Morality 57 -> 59 UP.

Elegance 31 -> 32 UP.

Sensitivity 58.

Sex Appeal 23.

Mana 1.

Strength 13 -> 14 UP.

Stamina 9 -> 11 UP.

Faith 231 -> 229 Down.

Condition 41 -> 32 Down.

Karma 200.

-You worked hard after being assigned to decorate the new temple! Faith, Stamina, and Strength UP!

-You fell while walking down the street. Your ankle is a little hurt. Condition and Faith Down!

-You learned proper comportment from the nuns. Charm, Morality, and Elegance UP!

* * *

“Hmm.”

Lancel watched it in silence and thought.

“It didn’t go down.”

Karma: 200.

It remained fixed without the slightest movement.

“Ah, you’ve come, Sir Lancel.”

Lancel met the Church of Salvation priest wearing an even more indifferent expression.

Now that he knew the doctrine the man had spoken of was just empty nonsense, there was no reason to feel attached to the place anymore.

“Thanks to you, we completed the temple and began accepting donations today. It is all thanks to you, Sir Lancel.”

“Yes, well. Sure.”

Lancel answered while tending to his nails.

‘Whatever you’re giving me, hurry up with it.’

This Iteration was ruined anyway. That was Lancel’s conclusion. He would waste time as he had before and aim for the next one.

“So, about that... Bring her in.”

“Yes, Priest.”

The listless Lancel raised his eyes. Marigold was entering while holding a nun’s hand.

She wore a pure white outfit that left one shoulder and her side fully exposed. Red and yellow flowers adorned her braided hair. She wore light makeup, and a subtle scent of perfume drifted from her.

Anyone could see that she had been dressed up excessively.

“I had this prepared because you seemed to like her last time.”

“What... do you mean?”

“You sponsored us with a great deal of money, so you should adopt the child.”

“Adopt.”

“Yes. Adopt.”

Marigold’s blind face had gone rigid with tension. Adoption. A nineteen-year-old knight adopting a sixteen-year-old child.

“Wouldn’t God be angered by this?”

“He would be pleased. If He knew we took in pitiful children abandoned on the streets, raised them chastely, and sent them to good people, He would surely bless us instead. I’m sure the newly built temple would please Him, too.”

Apparently, the man mistook Lancel for someone playing coy.

“What are you doing, Mary? Hurry and greet him.”

Mary greeted him with stiff movements. Her expression was frozen. She did not even know who stood before her. In this Iteration, they had not properly exchanged a single conversation.

“I greet our patron.”

I see.

The commodification of purity.

Was that one of the Church of Salvation’s ways of making money?

“To think that no one showed interest despite her exceptional looks because she cannot see, but then such a fine person comes along. How fortunate...”

Lancel suddenly rose and kicked the priest square in the chest.

“Urgh!”

“Aah!”

The priest fell backward as the nun screamed. A display cabinet toppled over, and a vase shattered with a Crash! Startled, Marigold felt around her and backed away toward the wall.

“Even the bandit guild calls people who sell human beings scum, and you strut around calling yourself a priest while picking up children to sell? Even if God is a fucking idiot, He’d send someone like you straight to hell, you bastard.”

“Wh-Why are you doing this, S-Sir Lancel...?”

“Close the temple by tomorrow. I built it with my money, so you won’t complain if I take it back, right?”

That was right. The temple was built with Baron Evil Shen’s hard-earned money, which meant Lancel’s money. It was not money that should go to some fraudulent heretical cult.

“Th-That’s absurd! The money has already been spent, and it wasn’t a small amount either!”

“It wasn’t a small amount. That’s why it was my money, not yours.”

“Goddamn it!”

The priest braced himself and spat out a curse.

“You knew before you came here! If not, you should have gone to the Church of Martyrdom. Why come to a place like this?”

From the priest’s perspective, that was fair enough.

Even Lancel, who had little interest in religion, knew that nothing compared to the Church of Martyrdom. Was it not the religion upheld by the Imperial Household itself?

All other sects were simply groups that lived off the scraps thrown to them by the Church of Martyrdom.

Places that survived by bowing their heads and saying, Please do not kill us, we are your cute little brothers.

The Church of Salvation was one of them.

“Even at the sect next door, if you donate enough, the nuns will do anything for you. We’re fucking... being restrained here...”

Anything?

As the priest came to his senses, his words gradually dwindled away. Of course, Lancel had no intention of showing mercy.

“I’ll have the temple torn down, so keep that in mind.”

“W-Wait, you must be joking, Sir Lancel? We have only just begun our business... no, our missionary work. If you get rid of it...”

“Would you like more proof that I’m not joking?”

“Eek...!”

Lancel took Marigold’s hand and immediately left.

“P-Patron?”

“Come with me. You can’t stay here.”

“A-Ah, my arm hurts...!”

“Then get on my back.”

“What? Ah!”

He quickly hoisted the flustered Marigold onto his back.

‘If I had done nothing, would she really have been sold?’

There had been no sign of that with Marigold in the previous Iteration.

The Church of Salvation had been such a truly pathetic sect that even people willing to sponsor it lost interest, and Marigold had inadvertently become a genius beggar who brought in silver coins by the handful. Naturally, there had been no need to sell her.

But if that had not been the case?

If he had simply left her alone?

It would not have been strange if she had been sold off somewhere.

Lancel intended to make sure that, at the very least, nothing like that happened to Marigold.

“Stay here for the time being. Hestie, I need a favor. She has trouble with her eyes.”

“Yes, young master.”

Lancel handed the bewildered Marigold over to Hestie.

He intended to have her stay at Baron Evil Shen’s estate.

‘Right. This Iteration is ruined anyway, so just live off the maids’ care. Take it easy for the remaining nine years.’

* * *

Some time later.

Lancel called the master of the Thieves’ Guild again. He wanted to return the Church of Salvation’s temple to nature. Building took a long time, but destroying it took no time at all.

The problem was...

“Sir Lancel. No matter how tiny the Church of Salvation may be, a temple is still a temple. If we demolish it outright, people may think poorly of it...”

The master of the Thieves’ Guild, who would do almost anything for money, voiced an unusual concern.

“What if we tear it down and build something new there?”

“If you have enough money, that would be the best justification. Is there a particular sect you have in mind?”

“No.”

“Then whose name are you planning to build it under...?”

“Good question.”

Lancel thought for a moment.

Who should it be for?

‘The Church of Martyrdom? No, there’s no reason to do the Imperial Household a favor. Should I look for another small sect? But there’s no guarantee the same thing won’t happen again.’

Small sects all had petty, underhanded sides to them, differing only in degree.

The Church of Salvation priest’s claim that other places even arranged prostitution was probably true. Conduct like that could well be commonplace in a medieval world.

Lancel did not want to waste money on a place like that again. Baron Evil Shen’s purse was not endless, after all.

“Hmm.”

After some consideration, Lancel came to a simple conclusion.

“Let’s build it and think later.”

“Works for me.”

==========

Fame Event: “Marigold’s Church” has been built for the first time by its followers! Your legend truly begins now, at this very moment.

※ Marigold’s Karma has decreased by 1 point.

==========

“You little bastard.”

“Y-Yes?”

At Lancel’s harsh mutter, Marigold gave a start and answered.