Civil Servant Marigold

21.

Screams. Death. Flames. Smoke. Bloodshot eyes. Mud. Fire. Shouts. The sound of horses running, metal clashing, people rolling on the ground and others chasing them.

For Lancel, the battlefield was perhaps a more familiar space than his own home. At the very least, he had spent over 50 years here, dying here.

A time when he endlessly pursued strength. A time when he still had plenty of ambition left within him. A time when he wandered endlessly, searching for people he would never meet again.

Lancel encountered a man with eyes similar to his own from that era. The man was holding a sword, trudging through the wheat field with the burning battlefield behind him.

“Sir Lancel. I would like to ask for a bout.”

“Always so full of ambition.”

Lancel drew his sword at the approaching Adelhart’s momentum. The aura flowing from his body was noticeably different from before.

“Lower your stance. Step back.”

“Lancel!”

Marigold’s cry faded away. Lancel moved with quick steps.

Adelhart did the same.

The energy boiling within his entire body flowed out to the tip of his sword. The heat haze wrapped around the blade, faintly emitting a blue light.

“You’ve grown, Adelhart.”

“Thanks to Sir Lancel’s teachings. I am deeply grateful.”

“As expected, geniuses are fun to teach.”

“I was taught that surpassing one’s master is the disciple’s duty.”

“I wasn’t really your master.”

Their swords flew towards each other simultaneously.

Clang-!

Lancel’s blade flowed along the other blade as if sliding. It drew a picturesque trajectory, cutting through Adelhart’s body.

“……!”

Adelhart knelt in the wheat field with a thud. Wheat leaves, split by the blade, rained down on his head like flower petals.

“……How…….”

Just once.

There were no two exchanges.

The outcome was decided in a single exchange.

“I thought I had caught up…….”

His expression held dismay, awe, and bitterness.

Adelhart had grown step by step over the past few years, shedding blood and sweat, enduring frustration and tears.

But the match could not even last a single exchange. The more he thought about it, the more futile it seemed.

Lancel had experienced the same thing several times. The experience of having the past decades melt away into a single arrow, a single sword strike.

“…….”

In the end, Adelhart stared at his sword hilt, which had fallen to the ground, with a relieved expression.

“I am sorry to have shown you such a poor sword.”

“Just think of it as bad luck.”

Lancel replied, lifting the fallen Marigold.

“You might have become stronger than me. If you had enough time and a teacher.”

There were many geniuses on this continent, and Adelhart was one of the most outstanding, but he still lacked the time and opportunity to surpass Lancel.

“Your talent was far superior to mine, a man with a mediocre head and body. I mean that sincerely.”

“You flatter me.”

Leaving Adelhart, who collapsed to the ground after those words, Lancel crossed the wheat field again.

“Huff, huff!”

“Already tired?”

“N-No, I’m not, huff, huff, huff!”

He grabbed Marigold’s arm, who was out of breath, and ran for a while.

It was then.

“Lancel! Ahead!”

Hundreds of cavalrymen blocked Lancel’s path, turning away from the battlefield.

“Administrator Mary! So you were here! I have been looking for you for a long time!”

It was the Fifth Prince in armor and his knights.

Even Count Lunter, who had just lost his son, was present.

“There is nowhere for you to run in this vast plain. You can either die here or follow me, one of the two! Now! Choose, Administrator Mary……no.”

His expression, as he threw off his helmet, was swept over by a series of emotions. Anger, resentment, curse, possessiveness.

“Marigold.”

Lancel pulled Marigold, who was trembling, behind him once more.

“Men with strong obsessions aren’t popular, Your Highness.”

22.

“To waste your precious life on just one woman. You are a foolish man, Lancel Dante.”

“For Your Highness to risk the fate of tens of thousands of people on just one woman. Aren’t you going to fight the war? Don’t you feel sorry for the soldiers fighting far away without a commander?”

“You don’t understand.”

The Fifth Prince grinned, revealing his teeth.

“She is a woman worth that much to me.”

The smoke from the burning wheat field soared to the top of the sky.

The Fifth Prince’s finger pointed at Lancel.

“Capture Administrator Mary alive. Kill Lancel Dante on the spot and bring me his head. He is a man who will surely cause trouble if left alive.”

Marigold’s face turned pale.

“Sur, surrender……! I’ll surrender……!”

“Stay still.”

Lancel struck Marigold on the back of the neck with the sheath of his sword as she tried to step forward.

“Keuk!”

He gently laid the collapsed Marigold on the ground.

‘Did I hit her too hard?’

He put his finger to her nose and she was breathing. He could see Marigold’s face, sleeping soundly with a slight snore.

‘She’s fine.’

Lancel chuckled.

The cavalry was closing in from behind. Even Count Lunter, who had lost his son, was walking towards him.

“Lancel. Your presence here means my son is no longer in this world.”

“That’s how it turned out. I’m sorry to have taken your precious son to the afterlife, Count Lunter. I mean it.”

“No need to apologize. I am the one who is sorry. I have even abandoned my knightly beliefs to avenge my grudge.”

“A mob lynching doesn’t really suit chivalry.”

Lancel raised his sword.

There were roughly over 300 knights facing him. Count Lunter was among them.

Of course, there was no chance of winning. But this was a battlefield. He knew very well how to demoralize them.

“Die peacefully, Lancel Dante.”

Lancel immediately rushed towards the Fifth Prince, who was sneering.

“What……!”

“Y-Your Highness!”

The Fifth Prince’s face came closer in an instant as if space was compressed. He hastily drew his sword with a flustered expression, but it was already too late.

Lancel’s blade lightly pierced the Fifth Prince’s heart. He could see his face, pale and spitting out blood.

“……Lancel……Dan……!”

“I don’t know how fortunate it was that I didn’t send Marigold to you in the first place. I might even have to thank the Sixth Prince for this. When I think about it, he seems to have only done things that helped me.”

He scattered the blood on the sword into the wheat field. The Fifth Prince’s body slowly fell off the horse.

“Y-Your Highness……!”

The voices of the knights, belatedly in shock, followed.

“Lancel Dante!”

“He’s a traitor! Capture him immediately!”

“A traitor who killed a member of the Imperial Family! Kill him!”

A traitor, huh.

In this case, is he a traitor of a traitor?

‘Hmm.’

I don’t know.

“Die!”

“Traitor Lancel Dante!”

Blades rained down on him.

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“Here! He’s here!”

“……What……what on earth happened here?”

The imperial reinforcements, who had rushed to the wheat field at the urgent news, were dumbfounded. A section of the wheat field, far away from the battlefield, was filled with corpses.

It was an area they hadn’t even bothered to pay attention to. For some reason, dozens of armored knights were lying there.

“Hieeek!”

A man in golden armor soon came into their sight.

“The Fifth Prince……! It’s Prince Erwin.”

“Then all these men are…….”

All the bodies lying in the vast area were the Fifth Prince’s knights.

23.

“Peaceful.”

It was a quiet evening, so quiet that it was hard to believe it was a battlefield, with only the sounds of insects.

Lancel shifted his gaze downward. He was holding Marigold in his arms.

They were alone in a dark cave.

“Hoo.”

Since it was a battle he couldn’t win anyway, Lancel chose to flee.

He could see the morale of the knights, who had lost their lord, gradually declining as the number of casualties exceeded dozens.

Taking advantage of a moment of chaos, Lancel ran away as fast as he could.

Flattening his body in the wheat field that came up to his waist, dragging Marigold with one hand, very pathetically.

Now, if he crossed the valley, the road to the Imperial Capital would open up.

He could find a village to secure supplies, get a carriage, or just wait for the train to the Imperial Capital.

‘It’s been going well so far.’

But Lancel had quickly found a cave and entered it. There was a reason why he had to do so.

“Count Lunter, really throwing away chivalry was too much.”

Lancel clutched the deepest of the many wounds all over his body.

Something small was embedded in his chest. It was an arrow the size of his palm. It was a bolt shot from a crossbow.

What could he do?

With dozens of knights firing crossbows at the same time, it was impossible to avoid even this in the midst of the chaotic battle.

In the end, a bolt fired by Count Lunter penetrated his body, and now he had reached this point. Count Lunter had finally avenged his son.

If it were Lancel from the 3rd playthrough, he wouldn’t have been hit by this in the first place. No, even if he had been hit, he might have survived unscathed.

But for Lancel, who had become lazy like now, both were difficult.

‘Honestly, how can a person live diligently every time for hundreds of years?’

Lancel felt wronged.

Still, he trained whenever he had time as exercise, okay? He was lazy, but he wasn’t a complete bum.

That’s what he wanted to argue.

“Umm.”

As he licked his bitter lips, Marigold in Lancel’s arms moved.

“……Lancel……?”

He could feel her waking up from her sleep.

“Where is this……what happened?”

“Everything’s fine. We just need to cross one more mountain. The train will come next month, so let’s rest for a bit and take it.”

Lancel muttered as if making excuses.

It was an excuse that wouldn’t last long.

Marigold seemed to sense something was wrong and began to touch his body with her hands.

Her eyes immediately started to well up when she saw the blood soaking her palm.

“This, this, what happened…….”

“……Did I fall and roll over on the way?”

Lancel made a joke that no one would believe.

Finally, Marigold, who found the arrow embedded in his chest, began to shed thick tears.

“Lancel……!”

“Mary, people die.”

Even his best line didn’t work.

“Everything, everything…….”

Tears poured from Marigold’s eyes as if a faucet had been turned on.

“Everything……is because of me, Lancel.”

“No. It’s because I’m lazy. So…….”

“It’s because of me, everyone close to me disappears. Always, always…….”

Marigold’s voice trembled aimlessly.

“The people I like, my mom, dad, puppy, horse, butler, house, the wildflowers in the front yard, friends, even Lancel……it’s all because of me…….”

“Self-deprecation doesn’t suit Administrator Mary.”

“But, it’s true, isn’t it? It’s all true.”

Lancel’s eyes sank deeply.

‘……So that’s why you kept me away at first?’

Anyway, Marigold had a tragic fate.

Something ominous had been attached to her life, more than just losing her family, name, and status at the age of ten.

Lancel wondered if he might even be included in that.

Regret washed over him.

What if he had done better? If he had thought better. If he had worked harder.

-Next time, I’ll do……better…….

-Do what?

-……Just……any……thing…….

Lancel finally understood the heart of the regressor Marigold.

Marigold was different from humans like him, whose sense of time had become dull and death had become insignificant.

Even when she was somewhat lazy and like a freeloader, her feelings towards Lancel were genuine.

Perhaps that was the difference between Lancel and Marigold.

The difference between him, who had always treated her as a means or insurance, and her, who had always treated him as fate.

For some reason, his conscience seemed to prick him.

“Heu…….”

Just as Marigold’s crying was about to get louder, Lancel gently pinched her nose.

“Mary. Give me a chance.”

“……?”

Lancel looked at her with a more serious face than ever before.

“All the sadness and tragedy you’ve experienced……all the relationships and happiness you’ve lost……. I will prove that it was never your fault.”

He raised his hand and wiped away her tears. He carefully swept back her hair, which was like melted gold.

“I will prove that you are not bad……wait for me until then.”

His vision gradually blurred.

He seemed to have lost too much blood.

Yeah. It was amazing that he had lasted this long.

“Definitely……Marigold……your happiness…….”

His eyes slowly closed.

The strength gradually drained from his body.

‘Definitely.’

He could hear Marigold’s suppressed sobs coming from his ear.

That was Lancel’s last memory.

Ten years passed like that.

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[Playtime 10 years 0 days]

—Marigold is now 25 years old.

—No marriage partner.

—Achievements:

▶Senior Administrator of the Administrative Bureau +200 points.

▷Valedictorian of the Academy +50 points.

▶Owner of the Mechanical Workshop +50 points.

▷Firearms Technician +50 points.

—Total score: 350 points. (Remaining score for the 2nd Memory Inheritance: 650/1500 points)

[Normal Ending 66. Gunslinger Marigold]

—The ending has been recorded in the ‘Album of Memories’.

—Opening the album.

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Taang!

‘Fire.’

Taang!

‘Fire again.’

Taang!

‘One more time.’

The moment the iron ball, fired through the long pipe, pierced through the armor, joy filled Marigold’s heart.

‘We succeeded, Master! The malfunctions are completely gone!’

‘Yeah. We finally completed it.’

It was the result of her workshop, which she had been running for a long time, finally bearing fruit.

A cannon that can be fired by hand.

Hand cannon.

-Gun.

Marigold had no doubt that this would change the era.

‘Something that can kill a knight if even a child has the strength to pull the trigger.’

Magic that can be used without learning, a machine that shoots flames, the power to pierce armor.

-The nemesis of chivalry.

‘Watch. The era of knights will soon come to an end.’

Long memories are revived within Marigold, who is holding a gun.

The black burning wheat field, the sound of running hooves, the sound of swords clashing, the countless knights who attacked her fiancé.

‘The era of knights that made that person die.’

[Gunslinger Marigold – fin]

—Would you like to restart the game?

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“Technology.”

Quitting her job as a Senior Administrator and starting a workshop.

Lancel grabbed his head at her unpredictable nature, which he didn’t know where it would lead.

Of course, it would have been troublesome if the regression had ended at this point, as it was a playthrough where he had died midway.

Even this playthrough, which he thought would follow the standard ‘Senior Administrator route’, had been twisted so unexpectedly, which was enough to embarrass Lancel.

‘What should I do now.’

Lancel pondered.

He had to find a way.

A goal to replace the Empress Ending.

He also needed to refrain from dying unnecessarily.

‘Should I try to see a standard ending?’

A regular ending.

For example, something like ‘Senior Administrator Marigold’, which he couldn’t see this time, something that the game was pushing as a regular-grade ending.

The most standard was marriage, but there were quite a few other things that were considered regular endings.

‘What would be good.’

In the end, the key was what state Marigold would appear in.

No matter how much Lancel planned, it would all be in vain if she suddenly appeared as a natural Marigold.

‘Hmm.’

Well, I’ll know when I see it?

“I hate people who use swords.”

In the next playthrough that came like that.

“……I just hate knights.”

Lancel met Marigold, who had developed a hatred for knights.

“So, honestly, I don’t like you either.”

That’s how strong her hatred for knights was, even Lancel, who was always friendly, couldn’t escape from Marigold’s sharp gaze.

Because Lancel was a knight.

Because he was the son of a traditional knight family.

‘Beyond a wall of iron, it’s hatred……?’

Shock.

Impact.

Disappointment.

“Magic is the best! Magic is the best! I love magic!”

Like that.

Lancel met ‘Apprentice Wizard Marigold.’

“I love Magic! Love it! Love it!”

“……”

A little too obsessed with Magic.

[Civil Servant Marigold – End]

[Next – Wizard Marigold]