Succession Round 2, Lord Ransel. (1)

1.

Lancel had a feeling Marigold would come looking for him.

That was why Lancel hadn’t bothered to go out of his way to find the regressor Marigold for the past three years.

A belief that she would come someday.

Thanks to that, Lancel had been living a life of leisure for three years.

In the first year, he stuck to Baron Ibil Shen’s mansion and did nothing but eat and play.

In the second year, he squandered the money he borrowed traveling around the continent.

In the third year, he eventually returned to his beloved Dante Territory penniless.

He spent his days watching the wheat kernels ripen to a lush green.

‘Peaceful.’

Lancel swore he hadn’t felt impatient or anxious about Marigold’s absence for even a single day.

He just had a feeling she would come.

“Hello. Is Lancel Dante here, by any chance?”

And she came. With a longsword at her waist, in a dignified manner.

“I’d like to borrow a knight.”

The gatekeeper of the mansion blinked.

“Borrow? What do you mean by borrow? You want to borrow Master Lancel?”

“Ah, I apologize. My expression was strange.”

Marigold pondered for a moment, then smiled brightly.

“Please tell him this.”

.

.

.

“Master! Master!”

Lancel pulled on the reins when he saw the family servant running towards him from afar.

As he stopped the horse, the guy, who had even lost a shoe, approached him, gasping for breath.

“Hee… hee!”

“What’s all the commotion in broad daylight?”

“Now, at the mansion… at the mansion… hee!”

“What?”

“Hee! Hee!”

“…Why are you making the person waiting so impatient?”

The guy, who couldn’t come to his senses, hurriedly pointed to Lancel’s waist. It was the water bottle he had brought while leading the horse.

“Just drink it all.”

Gulp, gulp.

The guy, who emptied the bottle in an instant, raised his head with a much-improved expression.

“Master! Uh… what was it?”

“Are you trying to get hit?”

“C-calm down, something big has happened! Viscount Dante is telling you to come back right now, or your balls will drop off!”

An ominous feeling.

“Ah. Damn it. Did he find out I took the money?”

“It’s not that.”

“Did he find out I broke the precious glass bottle?”

“No!”

“Ah! Could it be that he found out I took the treasured sword from the vault and pawned it off to pay off gambling debts?”

“What have you been doing, anyway!”

“Then what is it?”

The servant then opened his mouth.

“Someone has come looking for you!”

“Who?”

“Your fiancée!”

“……?”

.

.

.

“Please tell him that Lancel Dante’s fiancée has come looking for him.”

Marigold. She finished speaking and covered her flushed cheeks.

It was a declaration that could turn the Dante Territory upside down.

1.

“What on earth have you been doing outside!”

As soon as he returned to the mansion, Lady Dante’s voice flew at him sharply.

“If there’s a woman you’re talking about marrying, you should tell your mother early and ask for her opinion! Why are you running around so dissolutely, doing whatever your crotch tells you to do? This isn’t some commoner’s affair; you can’t just do whatever you want with marriage!”

Ugh.

Sounds good.

“A knight should just be good at wielding a sword, but why is she swinging that around so recklessly and causing trouble!”

“First of all, Mother. I think there’s been a misunderstanding…”

“How did I end up giving birth to such a good-for-nothing son… If you had brought home some commoner instead of a noble, I would have thrown you into the pigsty, but you should be grateful. Hmph.”

“Pardon?”

Lancel raised an eyebrow at Lady Dante’s words as she turned away from her scolding.

‘Noble?’

Until he arrived here, he naturally thought that Marigold was the one who had come looking for him.

But a noble?

Marigold had fallen into ruin and been erased from the empire. There was no way she could be a noble.

“Hurry up and follow me! Your brothers are here waiting for you too. Rio and Kyle.”

“What brings the busy Duchy’s Knight Commander all the way here…”

“I guess they knew it was the day to give you a good beating! Don’t talk back and just follow me!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Lancel obediently followed behind, blocking his ears from Lady Dante’s screeching, which could have made the mansion tremble.

As they approached the banquet hall, the servants quickly opened the doors. The smell of sizzling meat wafted into his face.

“He’s here! Your husband has arrived, Miss Mary! Hahaha!”

Viscount Dante’s voice soon followed. His expression was the complete opposite of his wife’s, which was contorted with displeasure.

“Kuhahaha!”

He was closer to being overjoyed.

‘Since when?’

Inside the banquet hall, there was a feast of delicacies and aged Fruit Wine, prepared before he knew it.

The servants were still bringing in more food, sweating profusely.

“Lancel.”

And Marigold, her face flushed, greeted him. She seemed slightly tipsy.

One thing was clear.

This iteration of Marigold.

In other words, the regressor Marigold and Lancel were strangers for now.

Even if they were both regressors, they had no idea that the other was a regressor—that was the ‘setting.’

At least to Marigold, Lancel was just the son of a viscount family, the knight Lancel Dante.

Since he had never told her, this was only natural.

But…

“We spent time together in the outskirts of the empire, exchanging vows of love day and night. That’s how we made our promise of marriage.”

The air around them suddenly heated up. The maids who were serving blushed and exclaimed, “Oh my! Oh my!”

To the maids of this rural village, the story Marigold was telling was too stimulating.

“No, I don’t remember…”

“Sniff, you don’t remember?”

Marigold immediately burst into tears.

“Do you think of it as just a one-night stand? I gave you everything… I gave you my beginning and my end…”

“……”

Is she just going to insist, Marigold?

Actually, it wasn’t a lie.

It wasn’t like Lancel had never promised her marriage.

If Marigold had inherited that memory, it wasn’t unreasonable for her to say such things.

‘Scary, Marigold!’

Or maybe it was because she knew in advance that he was someone who would be easily swayed by her insistence.

After all, Lancel had even accepted Marigold’s proposal when she had just asked out of the blue.

“That’s too much.”

“Master is trying to abandon his fiancée.”

The maids’ eyes grew sharper.

“Good-for-nothing.”

“Gambler.”

“Playboy.”

“He’s trash.”

“Just die, Master.”

“Are you just going to let those guys get away with that insubordination, Father?”

“Well, after hearing that, it seems like you’re the son of a bitch. Miss Mary must be having a hard time.”

Marigold’s unreasonable demands, which would normally have no effect, were now working very well under Viscount Dante.

There was only one reason.

“To think that a girl is walking the path of a knight. It’s the first time in my life I’ve seen a child grow up so wonderfully.”

Viscount Dante couldn’t take his eyes off her, filled with emotion.

“Even if I tell my daughter to do that, she just runs away and doesn’t listen to me at all. How could such a well-behaved child exist!”

“You flatter me, Viscount. Chivalry… that’s my only belief, right?”

“Wonderful! To think there was such a wonderful child in the empire!”

Hey.

Don’t lie.

You’ve never been a knight.

“Damn it, Miss Mary! I like you!”

Lady Dante, who was listening from the side, was so moved that she threw up her hands in surrender.

“He’s not just saying that.”

Suddenly, a voice came from the side.

“What Father is saying. He’s not just saying that because Miss Mary is a knight.”

Lancel’s older brother, who had tied up his long hair.

It was Rio Dante, the heir to the Dante Family.

“Miss Mary… I don’t know what she used to do, but she’s quite skilled with a sword. You shouldn’t judge her by her appearance and age.”

“Is she that good?”

Another man joined in. It was the second older brother, Kyle Dante, who had swept his hair up to one side.

“Isn’t big brother just overestimating her? I don’t really feel any Aura of a knight. Her body is big for a woman, but she’s petite compared to a man.”

“Develop an eye for people, Kyle. I’m in the Knights Order, so I see knights and squires every day. Even compared to them, that Miss Mary is no ordinary person.”

Rio Dante was prone to causing problems because he was overflowing with the pride of an heir, but he was a skilled knight.

That’s why he recognized it.

“That Miss Mary, I don’t feel any Magic Power at all, but her movements don’t waver. It means she doesn’t have the unnecessary movements that ordinary humans would naturally have.”

“Hmm, I don’t know.”

Kyle Dante tilted his head.

“I’ll pour you a drink, Father.”

“Father! Yes, I am your father, Miss Mary! Pour me one!”

Rio Dante began to observe Marigold, who was holding up the bottle with a cheerful voice, holding his breath.

“The arm holding the glass, the hand moving the dish, the movement of pulling out the chair and sitting in it, everything feels unusual. To think that her sense of handling her body is already at that level. At the age of just becoming an adult… If it were possible, I would want to bring her to my Knights Order.”

“You’re exaggerating again, big brother. How can you tell her skills just by looking at that?”

The second son, Kyle Dante, laughed it off.

But at least three people in this space—Lancel, Rio, and even Viscount Dante—were definitely feeling it.

Marigold.

That she was somehow unusual.

“Her name is… Mary Mary, was it?”

“Yes, it’s Mary Mary.”

For reference, her name was even more unusual.

It seemed to be Mary of the Mary Family.

‘She’s impersonating a noble.’

No. Strictly speaking, Marigold calling herself a commoner was also impersonation.

She had fallen into ruin, but she was still a noble. She just couldn’t reveal it, but it was true that she had a noble bloodline.

‘Come to think of it, Marigold’s name is also Marigold, so is her name Marigold Marigold?’

Lancel sweated for a moment.

The name that appeared in the game was just Marigold, and the family name was also Marigold. In other words, it was true that her name was Marigold Marigold.

“I’m just a nameless noble from a nameless knight family. Lancel took me in when I was wandering around after losing my parents at a young age.”

“Ah!”

“You seem to be unfamiliar with me now… but I’ve never forgotten Lancel for a single moment.”

“So sad…”

“It’s a tragedy.”

“Pitiful.”

The maids held each other’s hands and teared up.

“I dedicated the past years to the sword just to stand by Lancel’s side. If you don’t like me like this, I’ll quietly leave, Viscount Dante. But if you accept me as a member of the family… I will serve Viscount Dante as my father and live my whole life!”

Viscount Dante jumped up from his seat.

“Stand up, Lancel Dante!”

“Pardon?”

His neck and forehead, full of alcohol, were bulging with veins.

“Stand up! Lancel Dante!”

He stood up.

“Your actions of ignoring the proud knight, Miss Mary Mary, have tarnished the honor of our Dante Family. Pretending not to know a knight you spent the night with!”

It’s because we’re strangers in this setting.

“If the same thing happens again, I will hold you strictly accountable in the name of my Dante Family. Do you understand!”

“Yes, sir.”

Lancel witnessed it for a moment.

-Hehe.

The smile on Marigold’s lips.

‘She’s decided to target Father, Marigold!’

She may have even inherited the information that Viscount Dante was more soft-hearted than he thought.

She clearly knew how much of a weakness a well-behaved woman—especially a ‘daughter who grew up as a knight’—was to him, who only had one daughter who had become something close to human.

Scary, Marigold.

“From today, the two of you will use the same room as husband and wife!”

“Thank you, Viscount Dante!”

“Call me Father!”

“Yes! Father!”

Lancel Dante.

Mary Mary.

Engagement established.

—————————

-Pleasure Minister Marigold.

-Aristocratic Family’s Burden Marigold.

-Spirited Maid Marigold.

-Musketeer Marigold.

-Hut’s Barbarian Marigold.

-Cheap Gem Necklace and Dark Knight Marigold.

-Swordsmanship Advanced (500 points).

※There are currently a total of 6 endings inherited.

※There is 1 ending with A-rank influence.

※There is 1 ending with S-rank influence.

Points Used: 1700 points.

Remaining Points: 300 points.

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