WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Protagonist of a Romance Fantasy Only Likes Me ◈
Chapter 25: Saintess Marigold. (9)
──────
18.
Cries rose from the crowd.
“Black Armor was Beth Wayne?!”
“My money... My money...!”
Lancel’s master, Beth Wayne, was without question a madman. A crazy man born for nothing but battle.
“You’ve got quite the killer touch, boy!”
Even his allies would be terrified at the sight of Beth Wayne laughing wildly in the middle of enemy lines, drenched in blood.
A knight born only to fight.
The Empire’s greatest swordsman, Beth Wayne.
Lancel’s longtime master.
“Lancel Dante. I’ll apologize in advance. I’m not very good at holding back. I have this condition where fighting elegantly makes my skin crawl.”
Rumble...
The ground shook around Beth Wayne.
“As it happens, I was given permission to kill you. You must have really gotten on someone’s bad side.”
“Don’t you need the person concerned to give permission?”
“Of course not.”
He approached, dragging the bastard sword gripped in one hand across the ground.
“Stopping me and surviving is also your choice.”
Boom!
Beth Wayne planted his foot.
The force gathered at the ball of his foot, following the explosively swollen muscles of his thigh.
The hard dirt split apart, and even the gravel beneath it was thrown up.
“Grrrgh!”
A restrained battle cry escaped his mouth as he leaped.
Beth Wayne’s wildly gleaming eyes rushed right up to him.
“Take this, Lancel Dante!”
“...!”
His reaction to the descending blade that tore through the air was purely instinctive.
Lancel caught the bastard sword with his own blade held at an angle.
Clang!
The exploding sparks blocked his vision. He felt his grip tear open and blood spray out.
The impact traveled through his arms, shoulders, spine, and down to his knees. His brute strength was beyond human limits. He was practically a monster.
The reason Lancel had chosen him as a master was not particularly impressive. He was strong. Probably the strongest human on the continent with a sword.
Clang!
As Lancel deflected the impact, his blade twisted at a clever angle.
Its tip aimed precisely for Beth Wayne’s shoulder.
“Defense and offense in one move. Not bad!”
For an ordinary opponent, this was the moment to quickly avoid the blade and retreat.
But Beth Wayne was the opposite.
He deliberately let his body follow the blade as it grazed his shoulder.
Even a blunt weapon meant for matches was enough to leave a wound, yet he did not hesitate in the slightest.
“Hehehe. That stinging feeling is incredible.”
Gripping the hilt, Beth Wayne suddenly swung upward in a diagonal slash. The blade flew in at an angle Lancel could not dodge.
Slash!
The bastard sword passed by, scattering blood. A long wound ran from Lancel’s chest to his shoulder.
“Now you’re just like me.”
“...”
Lancel stared at his wound with a dumbfounded expression. It was in nearly the exact same place as Beth Wayne’s wound.
‘You’re still insane, Master.’
Right. Rather than fight while dodging, Beth Wayne chose for both of them to take one hit each.
Once, when Lancel asked how he had survived on the battlefield while doing this sort of thing as naturally as breathing, Beth Wayne gave him an absurd answer.
“People tried to kill me, but no one could. That’s all.”
A knight devoid of the emotion called fear.
That was the kind of person Beth Wayne was.
“As expected, you have enough skill to crush my disciple’s pride, Lancel Dante. Damn it! I like you now! I’ll give everything I have and kill you honorably.”
“...”
Beth Wayne smiled at Lancel’s impassive expression.
“I like it. I really like it. Especially the part where you’re not afraid to die.”
It seemed he thought they were alike.
Lancel wanted to deny those words. If he had only been given one life, he would have feared death.
“I’m coming, Lancel Dante!”
The swords clashed, and deafening booms erupted without pause.
With every exchange, another wound accumulated on each of their bodies. It was nearly a battle of attrition.
“Amazing. To have achieved this much at such a young age. It makes me wonder who taught you to wield a sword.”
‘You did.’
Clang!
The blade vibrated, and the impact spread through his entire body. He could feel the damage steadily accumulating.
‘At this rate, three minutes at most.’
No matter how much experience Lancel had, a body barely past twenty had its limits.
His accumulated mana, hardened muscles and bones, and stamina were still those of an immature novice knight.
Compared to Beth Wayne, who had spent decades becoming accustomed to war, he could only be a small fry.
“What are you doing?! You’re slowing down! Is this all you’ve got, Lancel Dante?!”
As proof, Beth Wayne was not slowing down at all. If anything, he moved more energetically, as though he had only now warmed up.
“Don’t let my excitement die! Make it more fun! Hurry! Please!”
His figure, soaked in blood, gleamed amid the clouds of sand and dust.
Clang!
Lancel staggered back several steps as he blocked the mercilessly swinging blade. His knees gave out, and he felt his muscles twitching.
He had reached his limit.
“This is the end. Still, don’t be sad, Lancel Dante! Under Imperial law, a knight who dies in the arena becomes an honored person whose name is remembered!”
Lancel clicked his tongue.
‘Would it be all right if I died now?’
Of course, it would probably be fine.
At the rate Marigold was going, she would eventually reach two hundred churches. Probably.
And if not... he could just start over from the beginning.
“If I die, will you give my family some prize money?”
“You’re an amusing fellow. Fine. I’ll see to it.”
“You seem like a good person.”
“...You’re truly too good to kill. If not for my lord’s orders, I would have spared you and made you into someone even more entertaining.”
As Beth Wayne approached, sighing repeatedly, Lancel met his gaze with half-lidded eyes.
It was then.
An unidentified power slowly began rising within him.
* * *
Amid the cheering crowd.
“Aaaah! Eeeek!”
Baron Evil Shen kept screaming.
He could not sit still as he watched the two men in the arena gradually become soaked in blood.
Marigold clasped her hands anxiously.
“W-what is happening? Is Brother Lancel all right?”
“What do we do, Miss Mary? Lancel is losing!”
“What?”
“At this rate, he’ll lose. No...”
Baron Evil Shen’s voice trembled.
“He might even die here.”
“...”
Marigold froze with her mouth slightly open. Die?
“Why is Beth Wayne, who was said to be missing, suddenly here...? Even Lancel can’t handle a monster like that... That crazy bastard kills people in practice matches...”
Fear and despair colored Baron Evil Shen’s voice. Instinctively, Marigold knew his concern was not unfounded.
Lancel Dante would die?
For a moment, Marigold felt as though every sound in the world had grown distant. Silence came over her dark world.
He would die.
Lancel Dante.
He would die before her eyes.
“Haah... Haah...”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Her breathing quickened.
Her heart pounded without pause.
Lancel Dante’s death. Within those few words, Marigold felt a massive trauma rushing toward her, even though she had clearly never experienced it before.
‘He’ll die. Brother Lancel will die. Lancel...’
Thump.
“Sir Lancel.”
Thump.
“Master.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Fragments of memory swept through her mind at once.
“My... st...ory... Marigold... We, again...”
“I’ll definitely... find you...”
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
That was all the memory she had. One part of her head felt as though it were boiling, with lightning crackling through it. The fragments of memory crumbled away like sand.
She did not know why Lancel existed in her memories. They were too disjointed to connect into one whole. The Lancel in those memories was always in the same place, yet he always looked different.
But she knew one thing.
Marigold did not want to lose him.
‘Don’t die.’
She clasped her hands so tightly the blood drained from them.
Light slowly began to flow from Marigold’s body.
“M-Miss Mary?”
* * *
“Hmm.”
He could feel the fatigue accumulated throughout his body gradually receding. His trembling limbs had regained their strength before he knew it.
“This is absolutely incredible.”
Lancel felt an overwhelming sense of liberation, as though he had reached bliss. It felt as though he were rising into the sky.
It seemed as though the entire world had been dyed in light.
“...You...?”
Only then did Lancel see the shock on Beth Wayne’s face as he stared at him.
=============
Promotion Event! Marigold has awakened divine power. She has mastered Beginner White Magic.
※Beginner White Magic: Blessing: Wing of Angel has been activated. All abilities of the target will increase by 1.5 times for 5 minutes.
=============
Only after seeing those words did Lancel understand his condition.
A huge wing-shaped light rose from behind his back, displaying its majesty all the way to the top of the sky.
For the few seconds the effect continued, no one even made a sound.
‘You’ve done something incredible, Marigold.’
Before the fully restored Lancel, only Beth Wayne remained, opening and closing his mouth.
“So there’s another one besides me who’s boiling over?”
It seemed as though immense heat were radiating from Lancel.
“My body runs a little hot.”
Lancel raised his sword and muttered.
“Come on. I can still fight. Not for long, but for about five minutes.”
“Five minutes... Is it over if I wait that long?”
“Are you going to wait?”
“Of course not!”
The two clashed once again.
Boom!
A roar erupted that was hard to believe had come from two swords colliding.
A chain of impacts too powerful to believe that sword had met sword. Invisible shockwaves swept over the ground, spreading through dust clouds like ripples.
Beth Wayne’s face twitched as he saw bluish light gathering around Lancel’s sword.
“You, that...”
“It’s all the Saintess’s grace.”
Lancel walked toward him.
Brilliant radiance bloomed from his entire body, adorning the path he crossed.
Beth Wayne felt pressure from that sight. It felt as though something enormous were closing in on him.
Step by step. Each time Lancel approached, it felt as though the air compressed and crashed down on him.
It was an emotion he had never felt before.
“...Maybe I should have gone to church.”
“Welcome, brother.”
Their swords collided.
Clang!
Beth Wayne’s sword flew from his hand and embedded itself far away.
“...”
When he came to his senses, Lancel’s blade was pointed at his Adam’s apple.
A single moment of shaken resolve had led Beth Wayne to defeat. He wore an expression of disbelief.
With his weapon gone, the victor had already been decided.
“The winner... Lancel Dan...te...”
=============
※The effect of White Magic, Wing of Angel, has ended.
=============
Lancel felt something that had been holding his mind together snap, and he collapsed to the ground.
That day, Lancel’s name erupted throughout the Empire.
The newly born greatest swordsman of the Empire. The Saintess’s knight. One blessed by God.
“Lancel Dante of the Saintess Church!”
Every spectator who had witnessed the miracle could not contain their excitement.
19.
After that day.
Lancel lay bedridden, watching the system notifications blocking his vision.
==========
[Emergency Alert!!!]
• 1 of Marigold’s churches has been dismantled.
• 2 of Marigold’s churches have been dismantled.
• 3 of Marigold’s churches have been dismantled.
.
.
.
• 16 of Marigold’s churches have been dismantled.
※Karma will rise again by the number of dismantled churches.
==========
The churches were disappearing.
The churches that were supposed to grow to two hundred had instead fallen to one hundred and thirty. It had happened in just one day.
‘That was faster than I expected.’
It seemed the pilgrimage party’s anger had reached its peak.
But it was all right. It was not as though he had not known this would happen.
As the Fourth Prince had said.
The Church of Martyrdom was indispensable to this Empire and the Imperial Household, and the new wave known as the Saintess Church did not have what it took to replace it.
Lancel thought of the one person behind all this and bitterly clicked his tongue.
‘Your Highness. Have you chosen the path of domination again?’
He understood why she had supported the pilgrimage party, why she had brought Beth Wayne to stop Lancel from winning.
But that was that, and this was this.
Lancel intended to restore Marigold’s sight. He had to lift the veil obscuring her vision before he, too, could move forward. This was no time to care about an old connection.
“Deliver these to each of the designated locations.”
“What are these?”
“These?”
Lancel considered the question from the Thieves’ Guild master.
“Hmm.”
What would be the best way to put it?
In the end, Lancel settled on one word.
“A will.”
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
