14.
“The winner is Lancel Dante!”
This had been the outcome for the first, second, and third rounds of the main tournament.
Having witnessed Lancel Dante’s unstoppable momentum with their own eyes, the people of the Empire no longer doubted him.
Lancel Dante dominated every match. It was only natural that rumors spread like wildfire.
“Bet on Lancel Dante, and your silver coins will multiply!”
Around this time, the pilgrimage group began to feel snubbed in the streets of the capital.
These individuals, who had never been ignored before, now found themselves scrambling to avoid people. They had to tread carefully in the face of the fury of nobles who had lost their fortunes.
Even Duke Meryll Dunn’s voice boomed with rage daily.
“You couldn’t even defeat him in that one simple match, and you’ve let things reach this point? You have the nerve to call yourselves knights who serve the gods?!”
“Bring down Lancel Dante immediately!”
The knights of the pilgrimage group, who had initially eagerly followed these orders, were now beginning to realize that defeating him through legitimate means might be impossible.
“Win at all costs! By any means necessary!”
The knights actively carried out Duke Dunn’s instructions. “So, it shouldn’t matter how we get things done, right?”
A dishonorable victory was better than an honorable defeat. That was the prevailing sentiment among the knights.
Small acts of sabotage became commonplace: tampering with Lancel Dante’s equipment to make it faulty, deliberately blocking the carriage carrying him to the arena to delay his arrival, and so on.
Of course, such petty schemes had no effect on him.
Lancel, who had lived for centuries and grown calloused to such matters, remained indifferent to these trivial attempts.
Eventually, they resorted to more direct threats.
In the capital, there were plenty of people willing to shoot a crossbow bolt into a noble’s knee for the right price. The Thieves’ Guild was inundated with commissions to ensure Lancel Dante couldn’t wield a sword or even walk for a while.
Yet, even these efforts proved to be futile.
Lancel Dante always reappeared unscathed, effortlessly toying with the knights of the pilgrimage group like children before departing.
“Today’s victor is once again Lancel Dante!”
==========
—Fame Event: The eightieth church has been built!
※Marigold’s Karma has decreased by 1 point.
==========
The number of statues of the Saintess that were erected throughout the kingdom had finally surpassed eighty.
While this was undoubtedly a positive development, Lancel couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss.
‘The trend has spread more quickly than I expect.’
Building the statues themselves wasn’t particularly difficult, provided one had the resources and will. However, ensuring that devotees flocked to each statue daily to offer prayers was a far more challenging task.
This was precisely why Lancel had struggled to reduce Marigold’s karma by even fifty points over a decade in his previous life.
But now, eighty statues have already been erected in just two years.
No matter how he looked at it, the pace was unnervingly swift.
It was too swift.
‘Why are things going so smoothly?’
Lancel soon discovered that the answer to his question lay with Marigold herself.
* * *
“Take aim at Lancel Dante!”
“Hurry up and take that bastard down!”
It was the day of the fifth round of the finals of the Imperial knights’ tournament.
The arena, designed by creative geniuses, resembled the deck of a ship. Knights clashed wildly within it, engaging in brutal melee combat until only one remained standing.
Even though they fought with blunted swords, a solid hit could still draw blood and shatter bones.
“Ugh!”
“My… my fingers!”
As cries of pain erupted from all directions, Lancel sensed that something was different.
Amidst the knights who clashed ceaselessly, one figure—a knight in a silver helmet that concealed his face—stood motionless, staring intently at Lancel.
“Lancel Dante, I hold no personal grudge against you.”
A familiar voice.
“Nerf?”
The knight wearing the silver helmet flinched in surprise.
“How do you know my name?”
“Well… there are ways of knowing things.”
“…?”
Lancel gave a vague, awkward answer. He couldn’t exactly tell Nerf that he knew him from a previous timeline.
‘Why has the guy who should be by the First Princess’s side crawled out here?’
The silver knight, Nerf.
A senior swordsman who had learned the way of the sword from the same master as Lancel. He was once considered a “death penalty.”
Of course, Lancel was the only one who remembered that.
“I didn’t think someone like you would attend such an event. What brings you here?”
“…I have been asked to have you withdraw from the tournament. Don’t hold it against me. It’s for the good of the Empire.”
“You are an honest man.”
Lancel quietly stroked his chin.
The First Princess couldn’t have ordered this herself. Someone must have asked her to do it—perhaps the Imperial Archbishop or the leader of the pilgrimage group. There were surprisingly few suspicious candidates, making Lancel wonder if someone else was behind it.
“Lancel Dante, I’ll do my best to break your bones painlessly before sending you back.”
A gleaming blade flashed from Nerf’s waist.
‘Time to see if I’ve still got it.’
The two men, who had been walking toward each other, vanished in an instant.
Clang!
A deafening crash echoed as sparks flew. The compressed air around the two blades colliding mid-air created a shockwave.
Lancel felt a tingling sensation in his grip. This was a power on a completely different level from any of the imposters he had faced before. This is how it should be. This is what a true knight is like.
“As I’ve heard, you’re not entirely a fake, Lancel Dante.”
“Neither are you.”
Nerf’s blade pierced toward Lancel like an awl.
Lancel deflected the snake-like, twisting blade with a wry smile.
‘Watching him still makes me feel sick to my stomach.’
Nerf was exactly as Lancel remembered—a man whose blade and temperament were utterly incompatible with his own. He was a natural-born killer, gifted in the art of cutting and stabbing.
Lancel doubted what Nerf would have become if not a knight.
In the past, Lancel had always struggled against Nerf’s swordsmanship. But now…
“……!”
Lancel charged straight ahead.
Nerf’s blade narrowly missed him.
He grabbed Nerf by the scruff of his neck and slammed him to the deck with all his might. The wooden planks splintered, sending shards flying.
“Ugh!”
Nerf, who had been thrown off his back, scrambled to his feet, but it was too late. Lancel’s blade was already pressed against his throat.
“You made me bleed. What are you going to do about this?” Lancel frowned and pointed to the long gash on his chest where Nerf’s blade had grazed him.
Nerf, his helmet knocked off, could only stare back in stunned disbelief.
* * *
“Are you feeling any better?”
“I think so.”
“How about now? And now?”
“Hmm.”
Marigold, who had come running upon hearing of Lancel’s injury, had been struggling to draw out healing magic for the past thirty minutes.
“Ugh… ugh… ugh… ugh!”
‘Will she be able to do it?’
While Marigold strained every fiber of her being to unleash her healing power, Baron Ibil Shen, seated on the driver’s bench, spoke up.
“No matter how I think about it, it’s truly remarkable.”
“…?”
“Miss Mary, I mean. She doesn’t seem like an ordinary person. You wouldn’t believe how many people are flocking to her morning prayers these days.”
‘Does that mean she’s become popular?’
Lancel had never been diligent enough to follow Marigold during her prayers at dawn, so he only half-listened.
It had already been several months since Baron Ibil Shen’s Marigold worship had begun.
“They say the sick feel a little better just by hearing Miss Mary’s prayers. I was skeptical at first, but the rumors keep spreading, so maybe it’s true? It’s not just me who’s noticed.”
“…What kind of a cult-like thing is that,” Lancel muttered to himself.
Marigold’s morning prayers were nothing special. She would simply enter the Holy Maiden Church at the center of the capital, mumble the prayers she knew by heart, and return. The variations were so limited that everyone noticed the same phrases repeating after listening a few times.
But could something so simple actually heal people?
If true, Marigold would be the saintess who had descended upon this era.
Lancel dismissed it as mere hype from the notoriously excitable Baron Ibil Shen.
“I twisted my ankle the other day, but after attending Miss Mary’s prayer, it felt a bit better. Seriously!”
“Who’s saying that?”
“You should visit when you have time. It truly is miraculous.”
Lancel quietly observed Marigold, who was straining with all her might to cast “healing magic” in front of him.
‘Only about one hundred and twenty left to go.’
* * *
Upon returning home, Lancel froze in the middle of undressing, suddenly realizing something.
“What’s this?”
He gently touched the scratch Nerf had inflicted on his chest. The stinging pain had almost completely subsided, leaving only a few bloodstains on his shirt.
While the wound wasn’t deep, it still shouldn’t have healed so quickly.
Lancel pulled a dagger from his pocket and quickly found Marigold. He shook her awake where she lay sleeping on the bed.
“Ugh?”
“What do you mean ‘ugh.’ Try healing this.”
Lancel pointed to a small cut on his palm, a fresh wound he’d just made with the dagger. Still half-asleep, Marigold reached out an arm in the direction Lancel was pointing.
“Urmmm…”
Marigold furrowed her brow, concentrating intently. She’d always thought healing magic was just about squeezing out every last bit of her strength.
Unsurprisingly, the wound showed no immediate change.
But after about three minutes…
“…!”
The bleeding gradually stopped, and the wound began to close. The healing process was excruciatingly slow, but it was undeniably happening.
‘This is healing magic.’
Of course, the effect was minimal.
It was nothing like the “healing” in the game, where even a nearly dead character could be fully restored with a single flash of light.
But it was still healing magic.
It was undeniably healing magic.
For the first time in two centuries, Lancel was witnessing the existence of white magic.
Able to heal but way too slow. You can see the finale from a mile away.