The Protagonist of a Romance Fantasy Only Likes Me - Chapter 19

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Potter

◈ The Protagonist of a Romance Fantasy Only Likes Me ◈

Chapter 19: Saintess Marigold. (3)

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Though Marigold could not see, she knew when spring arrived. Perhaps because she could not see, she felt winter retreating all the more vividly.

Ever since she had first been brought here by the man named Lancel Dante, Marigold had never found him frightening or unfamiliar.

Not when his firm palm supported her back, nor when he caught her shoulder as she was about to walk the wrong way and turned her in the right direction.

For some reason, Marigold felt at ease around him.

“You mustn't trust him too much! Every nobleman in this Empire is a beast. A beast!”

“But still...”

“The problem is that you're too softhearted, miss. Pina is truly worried.”

“Mm.”

Considering Pina nagged at her every night until it felt like her ears would grow calluses, that was only natural.

Rather than feeling any aversion to the nobleman Lancel Dante, Marigold was even at ease with him.

From Pina's perspective, it must have seemed as though their master had been completely taken in by some random man.

“Morning prayers? Fine, I'll go with you.”

Mm.

“What? If you feel stifled, go outside for a while. You can't see anything, but the air still feels different.”

Mmm.

“Where should we go next?”

Mmmmmm!

“If you're tired, lean on me. Why have you been so stiff since earlier?”

That night.

When Marigold realized that Lancel Dante's voice was the only thing that had lingered in her mind throughout the spring, she buried herself deep beneath the blankets.

“His family's a knightly one. Apparently, he hasn't even been here for a year?”

By then, even Pina seemed puzzled by him.

“Anyway, he does seem like a strange person. Why is he treating you so well, miss?”

“...I wonder.”

Marigold had nothing to do in this manor.

Other than praying twice a day out of habit, the maids handled all the laundry and cleaning. They even helped her with meals.

It felt as though she had returned to childhood.

“I don't know, but isn't it nice? It's much more comfortable than living at the temple.”

“But there's nothing I can do for him.”

“Well, Lancel Dante said it himself. He told you to relax and loaf around.”

“...It's strange to only receive kindness.”

It was not simply because she had received things or been treated so well.

She just wanted to do something for him, too.

But there was nothing Marigold could do for Lancel Dante when she could not see.

If this life continued, there never would be.

Marigold felt as though she would not be able to bear her own uselessness.

“Mary. Want to try using Heal?”

The change came after spring had passed and summer was nearing.

Come to think of it, Heal was truly strange. An ability that restored people. Compared to that, magic was fairly ordinary.

After living for hundreds of years in an age where even a needle wound could kill you if you were unlucky, its existence seemed all the more bizarre. Talk about unbalanced. No wonder it seemed like such a damn privileged class in the game.

There had been Heal in this game, too. He remembered something like that, one of the cleric skills called White Magic.

But Lancel had never seen anything even remotely similar in the past two hundred years.

If such a thing existed, Lancel might have become religious by now.

The ability to heal people. Was that not the clearest proof of divinity?

“Urgh!”

“Nothing's happening?”

“Uuugh...!”

“Don't you feel like something might come out?”

“Uuuuuugh...!”

After pestering Mary for around an hour as she stretched out her palm toward him and strained with all her might, Lancel finally became certain.

‘Of course... There is no way something like divine power exists in this world, is there?’

He only reached that conclusion after seeing Mary collapse onto the bed, having spent all day using up all her stamina trying to squeeze out whatever Heal was.

The protagonist of a game had spent years praying for hours every day, yet she could not even use a single bit of divine power? Game over. It was practically proof that it did not exist.

“I'm someone who can't do anything. I'll go out and beg right away.”

“Hmm...”

As Lancel watched the dejected Marigold, memories of the previous iteration came back to him.

Right.

This was already the second iteration in which he had brought Mary from the Church of Salvation to his manor.

There had already been a first iteration that had passed in a dazzling blur.

The story returned to when Lancel first saw that system message.

==========

Fame Event: “Marigold's Church” has been built for the first time by the faithful! Your myth truly begins now, at this very moment.

※ Marigold's Karma has decreased by 1 point.

==========

‘One point for one church? Then two hundred churches?’

It was not like a coffee franchise where he could aim for a two hundredth location.

‘This is doable.’

If he had enough money, building two hundred churches would be difficult, but not impossible. Once he repeated enough iterations, it would be nothing. If anything, Lancel felt things were going too smoothly.

That was why he immediately had two more churches built nearby.

No rule said the churches had to be grand, and Lancel had already mastered countless tricks for pulling in money. He would simply dump all the responsibility on himself ten years later.

“They're finished? Are you sure?”

“I visited several times to confirm it, Sir Lancel. Surely you aren't going to doubt a thieves' guild that survives on its reputation?”

When the first church was built, bad news arrived. No message appeared saying that Marigold's Karma had decreased.

‘Building a church wasn't enough?’

But when another was built afterward.

==========

Fame Event: The second church has been built!

※ Marigold's Karma has decreased by 1 point.

==========

“It worked!”

“Eek! You startled me!”

Lancel's voice made Marigold, who had been taking a walk with him, jump in fright.

‘One counted, and one didn't. What was the difference?’

Only after visiting them himself did Lancel learn the difference between the two churches.

“Please grant us your blessing.”

“Please let me make lots of money, Saintess.”

“Please make women flock to me!”

It was whether there were worshippers who actually came to pray. A church that nobody visited was nothing more than an abandoned house.

So he built a third church.

“Why doesn't this one work, then?”

It was enough to drive him mad.

He had spent more money to secure a decent location. There were even around fifteen visitors every day. Yet there was still no message saying Marigold's Karma had decreased.

What could possibly be different this time? Lancel found the answer without much difficulty.

‘A Saintess statue.’

It was the presence of a statue modeled after the saintess from myth.

That was also the difference between his churches and other temples, which mostly made statues of goddesses.

He had made a Saintess statue instead of a goddess statue, deliberately avoiding a connection with any particular sect. Who would have thought that was the answer?

Lancel quickly had one made and placed it inside the church.

==========

Fame Event: The third church has been built!

※ Marigold's Karma has decreased by 1 point.

==========

“This is it!”

He learned later that even a building was unnecessary.

Only two things were needed.

1. A Saintess statue.

2. A worshipper praying before it.

‘Easy enough.’

He decided.

He would only build a few dozen each iteration.

If he repeated his life four or five times, the Karma score would quickly fall from 200 to 0.

...Or so he thought.

Ten years passed.

[Play Time: 10 years, 0 days]

Marigold has turned 25.

There is no marriage partner.

There are no achievements.

[Normal Ending 36. Marigold, the Noble Household Freeloader]

The ending has been added to the Album of Memories.

Opening the album.

‘It's the life of a useless freeloader.’

Kindness that she only received was embarrassing, but once she got used to it, it was rather nice.

‘I'm sorry, Sir Lancel. I really can't live without you after all. Since it's come to this, just marry me and make it a done deal! We'll have children and raise them together! No more and no less, just three daughters and four sons, seven children! Yes, right now!’

You cannot live like this, Marigold!

[Normal Ending. Marigold, the Noble Household Freeloader - fin]

Restart the game?

============

Permanent Damage: Marigold has lost the sight in both eyes.

※ Marigold's Karma has reset from 163 to 200.

============

Her Karma had returned to its original state.

‘Don't try any tricks. Build all two hundred within ten years.’

That was what the system was telling him.

“Ha ha.”

He could only laugh.

“I'm someone who can't do anything. I'll go out and beg right away.”

“Hmm...”

When Lancel finished reminiscing, Marigold was lying facedown before him, exhausted after desperately trying to force Heal out of herself.

What if.

What if that ability called Heal had manifested in her?

Two hundred churches would not even have been a problem. Anyone who witnessed the miracle of her healing the injured would worship Marigold. She might found one great religion and spread it across the entire continent. Yes, within ten years.

But that was impossible.

‘Wanting fantasies is foolish.’

Lancel had already built seven Saintess Churches in this iteration, with the Empire's permission.

But there was no way he could build two hundred within ten years. He needed something far more groundbreaking.

“Young master.”

“Come in.”

Hestie entered after a knock.

“There is a visitor outside.”

“Who?”

“They say they are from the Holy Knight Order of the Church of Martyrdom.”

The Holy Knight Order?

“They came to invite you to join a pilgrimage party. What should I tell them? It seems they came because they know you've been building churches, young master.”

Lancel's eyes flashed open.

‘A pilgrimage party.’

It was a procession of clergy who claimed to know their way around a sword, gathering to kill monsters, bandits, rebels, and demons.

Of course, Lancel had no intention of joining them.

“Tell them I'm not here.”

“Understood.”

Monsters, bandits, rebels, and demons were all merely excuses. In truth, they were a procession of fanatics who stirred up trouble everywhere, waged war and plundered, and reduced all corners of the Empire to ruins.

Lancel had encountered those pilgrimage bastards several times when he lived in the provinces. They were nothing but thugs.

Thugs who could not be reasoned with, at that.

Naturally, fear of religion soared during that time, and faith plummeted in the opposite direction.

Even Lancel did not want to fight them. Who could stop a pilgrimage approved by the Emperor?

They were true natural disasters backed by both god and imperial authority. Unless he planned to fight the entire Empire, he had to avoid them.

Every region the pilgrimage party passed through would become hell.

Then.

‘Wait.’

A flash of lightning went through Lancel's mind.

“Mary.”

Lancel raised the upper body of Mary, who had been lying facedown. He looked into her cloudy silver eyes.

“I need your help.”