Succession Round 2, Lord Ransel. (9)

17.

Cola.

Ah, cola.

Lancel, who had suddenly remembered that invention of civilization he had forgotten for hundreds of years, was now unable to bear his thirst.

In any case, the only carbonated drinks in this world were bottled Fruit Wine or beer.

When chilled, they were bearable, but they still fell short of cola in terms of the sharp taste and lightness. Water with carbonation was out of the question.

Yes.

Come to think of it, his memories of the battlefield were just longings for two things.

One was the desire for salty meat, and the other was the thirst for something to quench his parched throat.

These were the things that always filled his mind as he struggled through the sinking mud while fighting.

A desire for glory and honor? A wish to end the regression? Loyalty to the First Princess?

He wasn’t enough of a great man to think of such things on a battlefield where blind blades flew.

Salt and thirst.

It was paradoxical that the two always stayed together while making each other even more desired.

Yes.

Perhaps Lancel’s feelings for Marigold were like that too. The desire to make her happy, the desire to end this long regression.

Filling one side tilted the other, and filling the other side tilted the first again. Balance between the two seemed nonexistent.

Fill the salt, and there’s thirst.

Fill the thirst, and there’s salt.

As if endlessly pursuing each other.

“…Mary.”

The Stable was filled with the smell of straw.

Light and shadow split and seeped into Lancel’s face.

Behind him, countless Mercenarys were collapsed and unconscious. At least thirty of them.

The scattered straw filling the air revealed what had just happened.

“Monster… Mo, monster…”

Several terrified men sat down and slowly backed away.

Lancel didn’t pay much attention to those who had lost their will to fight and collapsed.

“So that’s what you were writing.”

Lancel’s long bangs drooped over his eyelids as he looked at the old notebook.

“Mary, you really are Mary.”

A bitter smile.

‘My throat is dry.’

Today, the thought of cola was especially strong in his mind. He wanted to drink the black, sweet stuff endlessly by the bucket.

18.

“Get on quickly! Don’t you want to go see Your Highness the Sixth Prince!”

Blonde women were climbing onto the carriage.

There was even a woman with hair that was almost brown, but they were loading them on anyway.

“What the hell is that?”

Lancel felt like he was seeing all sorts of ridiculous things after living for so long.

Even if they wanted to find someone, to gather women in such a crude way.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m just here to find someone, so don’t mind me.”

Lancel ignored the Mercenary’s shout and looked at each of the women who had climbed into the carriage’s cargo area.

He checked each face, even grabbing the chin of a woman who was looking down and lifting it up.

“She’s not here.”

“Hey, you!”

Lancel grabbed the Mercenary’s arm as he raised his fist. He twisted it down with force.

“Ugh!”

“You gathered the women here like this? Where are you taking them?”

“Wh, what are you doing? Hey! There’s a weirdo here!”

The Mercenarys scattered around rushed in unison.

“What’s going on? Who is it?”

“Who are you to keep drooling over the women we gathered? Get out of here right now!”

“Leave him alone. He said he’s here to find someone. He’s probably just a guy whose woman ran away and he’s poking around everywhere.”

“Again?”

It was a sharp analysis for a Mercenary. It seemed like there had been quite a few people similar to Lancel.

“Hey, if you’re looking for a runaway woman, you should just go to the Imperial Capital. Haven’t you heard that all the returned women are sent there?”

The Mercenary grumbled, brushing off Lancel’s arm.

“How many women go to see the Prince of their own free will? There’s no guarantee your woman wouldn’t do the same, right?”

Lancel watched the Mercenarys’ carriage move away.

‘Marigold wouldn’t have gone to the First Prince…’

Not just anyone, but Marigold, the Regressor. She would clearly remember being killed by the First Prince.

Yet, the reason Lancel was stirring up trouble among the women going to the Prince was.

‘She wouldn’t have…’

The scene of Marigold drawing her sword and rushing towards the First Prince kept replaying in his mind.

Lancel wanted to believe that his thoughts were excessive.

‘She wouldn’t, but if she’s gone crazy like me and thinks nothing of slashing at the Prince… what should I do then?’

Revenge from a previous life?

Lancel’s head throbbed.

No way. He wanted to believe it wasn’t true.

He didn’t want to see Marigold burning at the stake.

‘She couldn’t have gone far yet.’

Marigold was a noticeable person in many ways.

In this region where blonde hair and green eyes already attracted attention, it wouldn’t be difficult to find news of someone who had seen her.

“I did see a woman with a sword loitering around and arguing with the Militia.”

“That woman’s swordsmanship was amazing. She knocked down that big Mercenary in one blow!”

“Where did she go? I don’t know.”

Rather, she was famous in the village as a woman who was good with a sword.

After wandering around villages and cities for about a week, following the news of Marigold that seemed to be just out of reach.

“Lancel?”

In a tavern he found by chance, Lancel encountered his eldest brother, Rio Dante.

19.

“Are you also looking for a woman, brother?”

“I have to. It’s what His Highness the Sixth Prince ordered.”

In a quiet tavern, Lancel heard Rio Dante’s story.

The story of settling in this region under the First Prince’s orders, looking for a woman, the knights fighting each other, and the battles with bandits and traitors along the way.

Quite a lot had happened while they hadn’t seen each other.

“Lancel, you should leave this region before it’s too late. Go far away to a safe place.”

“……?”

“The situation in the Empire is not good. A war will break out in this region soon.”

He frowned at the strong liquor and continued.

“At first, I thought it was just about finding a woman, but that’s not it.”

“If it’s not that, what is it?”

“The Marigold Family.”

Lancel’s body stiffened.

Rio Dante poured wine into an empty glass, mentioning the name as if it were nothing.

“I heard that the seeds of a traitor remain in this region. The woman we’re looking for is that woman. No wonder His Highness the Sixth Prince is looking for her with such fervor.”

“How did you……?”

It was strange that Rio Dante knew. It was information that was kept top secret even within the Imperial Family.

Information that had never been rumored, nor could have been.

“Everyone who needs to know already knows. Who that woman is. Even in the Imperial Capital, rumors are starting to spread.”

Rio Dante leaned back in his chair.

“So the First Princess, the Fifth Prince, and the Sixth Prince are all rushing to this region with their armies, aren’t they?”

“……”

“I guarantee it, this is war, Lancel. A war that could determine the fate of the Empire… Don’t get involved rashly and quietly return to your hometown. This brother will take care of it.”

The rumor that Marigold was alive.

Lancel had been wondering about it from the beginning.

Why?

Because there were only two people in this world who knew that Marigold was alive.

Lancel Dante.

And Marigold.

Only two people.

Lancel couldn’t have spread the rumor, so that meant only Marigold herself was left……

It was hard to believe that she would spread rumors that would harm herself.

“At first, I thought it was just a rumor. But the Imperial Family doesn’t seem to think so? They probably know more than me, who’s just running a knight order in the countryside, so I guess I have to accept it.”

Rio Dante chuckled.

“The surviving daughter of the fallen Marigold Family, to think she was the only bloodline of the old Empire…… The princess of the fallen Empire.”

Suddenly, he turned his head.

“But where’s your fiancée? Why are you wandering around alone? Did you fight?”

Lancel heard that and got up from his seat.

Without answering where he was going, he went straight outside.

Soon, as he said, the area became a battlefield.

Mercenarys and Mercenarys, knights and knights, exchanged swords frequently, and small and large battles broke out everywhere.

A silent civil war to find the ‘princess of the old Empire’, and a somewhat rough war of nerves between the royals.

The era of civil war was coming.

Marigold’s existence, the rumors about her, were rapidly accelerating the discord in this Empire.

It was around that time that Lancel found her trail.

Bang!

He smashed the door of the Stable and went inside.

“Kkyaak!”

“Mo, monster……!”

From a Mercenary group that was said to be attacking passersby like bandits, Lancel found the last thing she had.

.

.

.

“Mary, you really are Mary.”

Lancel smiled bitterly as he looked at the familiar notebook.

He already knew it wouldn’t be anything great. But the contents of the notebook were even more trivial than he thought.

It was truly Marigold-like content.

==========

1.Marriage!

=> Success.

2.One night at Lancel’s mansion!

=> Success!

3.One night at the Porland Festival!

=> Success!

4.One night in Firefly Village!

=> Success!

5.One night in the desert oasis village!

=> Success!

6.One night in Lizard Valley!

=> Unfortunately failed due to a sandstorm……!

7.A festival ball together!

=> Somehow succeeded!

8.One night watching the sunset at the Dotrin Estuary!

=> Failed because it kept raining!

9.Camping in the Dragon Mountains!

=> Almost froze to death, but succeeded anyway!

10.Visiting the rumored hot spring!

=> It was the best.

11.The Anemone Flower Field of the Ricrill Plains that I’ve only heard about!

=> I should have come sooner!!

.

.

.

68.

The rumored cruise ship in the Meiran Region!

69.

A proper wedding!

70.

To repay Lancel!

==========

“It’s all about one night.”

No wonder she kept rushing at me all the time.

Even Lancel, who was full of energy, sometimes complained of fatigue, so how much more would she?

Most of the 70 items had failed or were not recorded from the middle.

‘Can’t we raise it?’

‘No. How can you take such a young puppy on a trip?’

‘Please……!’

‘No.’

‘Please, please, please please please……!’

‘No means no.’

For example, item 31, ‘Raising a pet!’, was also canceled due to Lancel’s strong refusal.

‘We have a long way to go, how can we take a pet……’

The schedule was supposed to be about finding the Demon King, how could they take a puppy that hadn’t even been weaned yet?

But if it was going to be like this, he wondered if he should have just given in. Lancel was filled with belated regret.

“……Why do you have so many things you want to do in your short life?”

A laugh escaped.

Now Lancel felt like he understood everything. A little late, though.

If he had been in the position of Marigold, the Regressor, he might have realized it sooner.

If he had looked at Lancel through her eyes, he might have realized it sooner.

Anyway, her feelings for him were too heavy.

Whether it was attachment, obsession, or love, it was so heavy that it was sometimes hard to bear.

==========

—Please don’t look for me.

—To my Lancel.

—From ‘Marigold Curtain Marigold’.

==========

The reason Marigold left her real name to him.

She had been preparing to part with Lancel Dante from the beginning.

Whatever the reason, that must have been her intention from the start of this life.

‘Like hell I’ll let you.’

Lancel’s bangs fluttered in the wind as he looked at the notebook.

His cold, calm eyes were fixed on Marigold’s many wishes. Her last travel list, which she hadn’t even completed half of yet.

‘My throat is dry.’

Today, the thought of cola was especially strong in his mind.