Succession Round 2, Lord Ransel.

27.

“You’re just the person I was looking for.”

“Kyeang!”

The delayed head-knock finally found its destination.

Several flower ornaments embroidered on her updo scattered and fell.

“Lancel… Your Highness? Why… are you here…”

Marigold clutched her head, tears welling up in her eyes.

Lancel savored the feeling of the indigestion that had been festering in his chest disappearing at once.

No. It wasn’t enough. Lancel squeezed Marigold’s cheeks together with his hands.

“Uboob!”

The face that had been so seriously cold just a moment ago was now grotesquely squashed, all features converging towards the center.

A smile finally spread across Lancel’s face, where blood vessels were bulging. It was a rather eerie smile.

“Running away?”

“Ugh!”

“Abandoning someone and running away?”

“Ughhh!”

“‘Please don’t look for me,’ what do you mean, ‘Please don’t look for me’? Should I just do as you say when you tell me not to come?”

“That was… a tearful letter I wrote after agonizing over it for years…”

“Thanks to that, I’ve been racking my brains for months.”

Marigold stepped back, escaping from Lancel’s grasp.

She raised her hand to cover her face.

“…You’ve mistaken me for someone else, sir. I’m not Mary Marigold.”

“Then where did you get that ring, lady?”

The cheap gemstone ring was still on her finger. The same shape as the ring Lancel was wearing.

Marigold, lost for words, moved her lips.

“I… I found it.”

She threw out an excuse that no one would believe.

“……”

Just as blood vessels were about to bulge on Lancel’s forehead again, Marigold suddenly glanced up at him.

“…Your Highness Lancel, you were getting along quite well with another noble lady. Sticking close…”

“What are you talking about?”

“…As soon as I disappeared, you were already taking another woman around… Even so, my heart is a little… I know I shouldn’t be saying this since I ran away…!”

Lancel then realized that she had been watching him.

It was true that he had been sticking close to the First Princess since he came here.

Even his brother had misunderstood, so if Marigold had seen that, she wouldn’t have felt any differently.

Of course, he had no intention of explaining. She would soon find out that it wasn’t like that.

“Hoo.”

Rather, Lancel raised one corner of his mouth. He gave a well-honed executioner’s sneer, as if to show off to Marigold, who was watching him carefully.

“If you run away twice, I’ll live with two women.”

“Your Highness Lancel?!”

“Three times means three women, four times means four.”

“Hiiiik!”

“I have to pay back what I receive to feel better. It’s the life of luxury you created. If you’re confident you can handle it, try running away again.”

Marigold’s expression turned pale.

The fantasy of Lancel living with many women seemed to overwhelm her imagination for a moment.

Lancel took a step towards her as she bit her nails, her face drained of color.

“Now that that’s settled, shall we go home? The third-rate tragedy that would be scrapped at the script stage even at the Imperial Capital Theater ends today, lady.”

“I…”

Marigold took a step back.

“Your Highness Lancel, I… I…!”

Lancel followed, and this time she took two steps back again.

He closed the distance in three steps at once. Eventually, Marigold turned her back.

“Eek!”

“Running?”

Marigold even threw off her shoes and ran towards the corridor of the Imperial ballroom.

Lancel, who had been momentarily stunned, immediately chased after her.

“You’re asking for it, Marigold!”

28.

“Hehe, please call me an abandoned woman.”

Rio Dante was sweating as he looked at the woman in the veil.

She had been like this ever since Lancel had left her alone and disappeared somewhere.

“Let’s get up and walk around for a bit.”

There was no response to the hand he extended towards the woman.

“Shhh.”

She put her finger to her lips and looked around the ballroom.

The ballroom where the music had stopped.

Rio Dante could clearly hear the surroundings gradually becoming noisy.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you know who I am! Hey! Are you deaf!”

“Uh oh! Won’t you move?”

The commotion was coming from the entrance of the ballroom.

He could see knights in armor suddenly blocking the entrance.

“His Highness the Prince has ordered us to temporarily control movement. If you have any complaints, take it up with His Highness.”

“What? What is this in the middle of a heated ballroom… There’s a limit to how much you can pour cold water on things.”

“From now on, anyone who tries to leave will be considered insubordinate. Please sit down and rest for a while.”

The atmosphere was ominous.

“That impatient idiot finally made the first move.”

The woman in the veil muttered.

Rio Dante did not know what it meant.

“Brother?”

A familiar face appeared in front of him.

“Kyle!”

His younger brother, Kyle Dante, in armor.

To run into his two younger brothers one after another at the Imperial Capital ballroom, Rio Dante couldn’t help but feel bewildered.

Kyle Dante was sweating so much that the heat trapped inside his armor was rising like a haze.

“Kyle. What are you doing here again? And why are you sweating so much?”

“His Highness the Prince told me to look for someone… Weren’t you here for that too, brother?”

“What?”

“A woman with blonde hair and green eyes, named Marigold. His Highness is making a fuss about finding her, so that’s what I’m doing.”

Kyle Dante took off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“He said to capture her and bring her here, even if it means using force. Weren’t you here for that too, brother?”

“How did you know…”

The two exchanged bewildered glances.

It was then that the woman in the veil stood up.

“Rio Dante, Kyle Dante.”

The two turned their heads at the same time.

“You two will have to help me. In place of Lancel Dante, who heartlessly abandoned this body and ran away.”

There was a slight resentment in her voice as she threw off her veil.

“……!”

The two men froze at the same time as they confirmed the woman’s face.

What was hidden behind the veil was perhaps the most famous person in this Imperial Capital.

One of the people whose portraits hung in the Imperial Palace and throughout the Empire.

“Y-Your…!”

She drew a soft curve at the corner of her mouth as she watched the two men react in horror.

“Escort me to the Imperial Palace. We need to find Marigold quickly before my foolish brothers take drastic measures.”

29.

“Kyaaak!”

“Watch out!”

“Who is it!”

Marigold nimbly ran through the narrow corridor.

The maids who were going up and down the stairs where two people could barely pass screamed and stepped back, and the guards and knights shouted, but Marigold’s movements were always one step faster.

“Ugh! Don’t follow me, Your Highness Lancel!”

“You’re incredibly fast at running away, Mary!”

Lancel chased after her from a distance that was almost within reach.

“Oh my!”

“How dangerous!”

“Don’t run on the stairs!”

The maids carrying laundry fell over, and pieces of cloth scattered on the stairs.

Lancel avoided the cloth pouring down on his face and jumped over two or three steps at a time.

Marigold’s back was close enough to touch.

“Hiyak!”

“Got you.”

He grabbed her arm and turned her around, cheering. Watery eyes looked back at Lancel.

Whoosh-!

The top of the bell tower.

It was the top floor of the eight-story tower, where the brightly lit festival streets of the Imperial Capital could be seen at a glance.

Lancel barely grabbed and stopped Marigold’s arm and back as she staggered and was about to fall off the cliff.

“It’s dangerous.”

“If I jump from here… then you won’t chase me?”

Lancel narrowed his brow as he looked at her tearful expression.

“Why are you trying so hard to shake me off? Do you hate me?”

“That’s…!”

Marigold was startled and shouted loudly.

“That’s not possible. You’re the only person left in my life, Your Highness Lancel.”

“Then why do you keep running away from the only person left in your life? That’s what I’m asking.”

Marigold avoided his gaze.

“It’s not because I hate Your Highness Lancel.”

“Then what is it? Is being with me a loss for you?”

“No!”

“Did you get married and find it more boring than you thought?”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Did you get a little tired of seeing me up close?”

“N-No! That can’t be, Your Highness Lancel!”

“Then why the hell?”

When Lancel grabbed her shoulders and asked, Marigold’s eyes were finally filled with tears.

Looking back, her strength was that she was always honest with her feelings. But now she was trying to hide her true feelings.

Lancel didn’t like that. He had no intention of not hearing her answer like this.

He deliberately pressed her.

“If it’s not that you hate me, or that you’re tired of me, or that it’s a loss, then why?”

It was then.

Lancel’s eyes wavered at Marigold’s reaction.

“Hng.”

Marigold was.

The Regressor in front of him was.

Crying like a child.

Hiccuping sporadically, unable to control her tears, sniffing.

The words that were about to come out were blocked by her breath and returned back several times.

She couldn’t control the emotions that were bursting out.

An unexpected answer flowed from Marigold’s mouth, who had barely opened her mouth.

“Because if you’re with me, Your Highness Lancel will be unhappy.”

Lancel was puzzled.

His expression went blank.

“Unhappy?”

Marigold put her arm over her eyes and gasped for breath.

Miss Marigold Family.

The princess of the old Empire.

Regressor.

No, she was just a crybaby.

“If I’m not there, Your Highness Lancel, who would live happily, will always be unhappy if you’re only with me.”

“That’s speculation. Who’s going to be unhappy?”

“I’m telling you, you’ll be unhappy.”

That couldn’t be.

He was just a little busy.

It was just that Marigold was such an unpredictable person that he was a little out of his mind. Unhappy.

“You die because of me, you lose because of me, you get hurt if you’re only with me, you’re dragged around by me, who’s hopeless, and there’s only bad things happening while you’re always by my side…!”

“That’s nonsense.”

“It’s… true.”

Marigold shouted in a suppressed voice.

“It’s true… In my memory, Your Highness Lancel is always…”

Lancel was speechless.

All the memories he had with Marigold flashed through his mind in an instant.

“If I’m not by your side, Your Highness Lancel is…”

Lancel once again looked at himself from Marigold’s point of view.

“……”

The young nobleman, Lancel Dante.

The person who always exists in her memory.

He lived for her, he died for her, he took up the sword for her.

The person who moved that heavy body, which was lazy by nature, for her.

That was Lancel Dante in Marigold’s memory.

“I’m all…”

He was speechless.

Before he knew it, he was about to say, ‘I did it all for you?’

But even that didn’t answer Marigold.

Rather, it was closer to self-inflicted harm.

‘Could it be.’

In front of Marigold, who was crying like a child, Lancel finally realized his biggest mistake.

‘Was it because of me?’

Yes.

Could it be that all his actions to make Marigold happy had actually made her unhappy?

Could it be that all his actions, which seemed like a loss, had weighed down on Marigold more and more with each regression?

The regression ends.

It starts again.

The regression ends.

It starts again.

What was accumulating in her endlessly repeating memory was perhaps Lancel’s own tragedy.

It may have accumulated and accumulated and repeated until only that was left.

And the Regressor Marigold opened her eyes.

She was finally going to remember all of it.

What was she thinking in the flood of memories? What was she thinking when she recalled the countless tragedies of Lancel?

Guilt? Sorry? Maybe self-blame?

Honestly, he didn’t know.

It wouldn’t have been a positive feeling.

Marigold was that kind of person.

“…You can’t be with me, Your Highness Lancel…”

She was begging. It was closer to begging outright.

“…I can’t be by Your Highness Lancel’s side… You’ll be unhappy. Hng…”

It was all Lancel’s own fault.

“……”

The top of the bell tower overlooking the Imperial Capital festival.

Marigold cried in the scenery filled with lights.

‘Mary.’

Lancel finally realized what he had been doing wrong.

It was no wonder Marigold’s happiness wasn’t coming.