0.
Lancel had a feeling that Marigold would come looking for him.
That was why he hadn’t bothered to track her down himself over the past three years.
He simply believed she would find him eventually.
Thanks to this conviction, Lancel had spent the last three years living a life of leisure.
In the first year, he clung to Baron Ibil Shen’s estate, indulging in endless idleness.
In the second year, he squandered money that he borrowed traveling across the continent.
By the third year, he had returned penniless to his beloved father, Viscount Dante.
He passed the time watching the wheat ripen into a lush green.
‘It’s so peaceful.’
Lancel swore he hadn’t felt a moment of unease or anxiety about Marigold’s absence, not even for a single day.
He had a feeling she would come.
“Hello. Is Sir Lancel Dante residing at this mansion?”
And she did come, a dignified figure with a longsword at her hip.
“Sir, I would like to borrow your knight.”
The guard at the gate blinked in confusion.
“Borrow? What do you mean? Are you saying you want to borrow the Young Master Lancel?”
“Ah, my apologies. I supposed I worded that quite strangely.”
Marigold hesitated for a moment, then smiled brightly.
“Please tell him this.”
.
.
.
“Young Master! Young Master!”
Lancel pulled on the reins of his horse, spotting a family servant rushing toward him from afar.
As the horse came to a halt, the servant, with a shoe missing and panting heavily, stumbled closer, gasping for breath.
“Hee-eek! Hieee-eek!”
“What’s all this commotion in broad daylight?”
“Just now, at the mansion… at the mansion… Hieee-eek!”
“What?”
“Hieee-eek! Hee-eek!”
“…Why are you making such a fuss? You’re driving me crazy.”
The servant, still disoriented, frantically pointed at Lancel’s waist—the water bottle he’d brought when he led the horse out.
“Go ahead and drink your fill.”
Glug, glug.
The man who had drained the bottle in one gulp looked up, his face noticeably brighter.
“Young Master! Uh… what was it again?”
“Do I have to beat it out of you?”
“C-calm down! This is serious, Young Master! Viscount Dante is demanding your presence immediately!”
A bad feeling settled in.
“Ah, damn it. Did he find out about me taking money?”
“No, not that.”
“Did he find out I broke his precious glass bottle?”
“No!”
“Wait! Don’t tell me he found out I took the family sword from the vault and pawned it to pay off gambling debts?”
“What on earth have you been up to, Young Master?!”
“Then what is it?”
The servant finally spoke.
“Someone’s here to see you!”
“Who?”
“Your fiancée!”
“…?”
.
.
.
“Please let Sir Lancel Dante know that his fiancée has come to see him.”
As Marigold finished speaking, her hands cupped her flushed cheeks.
It was a declaration that could turn the Dante viscounty upside down.
1.
“What on earth have you been gallivanting around outside for?!”
Madam Nirvia Dante’s voice lashed out the moment Lancel returned to the mansion.
“If you’re courting a woman, you should tell your mother right away and ask for her opinion! Why are you letting your groin dictate your reckless, debauched behavior? You’re not some commoner—marriage isn’t something you can just do on a whim!”
‘Ugh. Music to my ears.’
“A knight should stick to swinging his sword! Why is he swinging that thing around recklessly and causing trouble instead?!”
“Mother, there seems to be some misunderstanding…”
“How did I end up with such a rascal for a son? If that woman weren’t a noble but some commoner instead, I’d have thrown you into the pigsty. Consider yourself lucky. Hmph.”
“Huh?”
Lancel’s mind raced as the Viscountess turned sharply away, her finger still pointed towards Lancel accusingly.
‘A noble?’
Until this moment, he had naturally assumed Marigold had come for him.
‘But a noble?’
Marigold had fallen into ruin, erased from the Empire’s records. She couldn’t possibly be a noble.
“Come along now! Your brothers, Leo and Kyle, are waiting for you too.”
“What brings the busy Commander of Knights of the Duchy’s Order all the way here…?”
“You must have sensed that a beating was coming your way! Enough with the backtalk and just follow me!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lancel followed quietly behind, covering his ears against Madam Dante’s ear-splitting screams that threatened to shake the mansion to its foundations.
As they approached the banquet hall, servants hastily flung the doors open. The sizzling aroma of roasting meat wafted out, hitting him full in the face.
“You’re here! Your husband has arrived, Lady Mary! Hahaha!”
Viscount Dante’s booming laughter soon followed. He was the complete opposite of his wife, whose face twisted into a furious scowl.
“Hahahaha!”
Lancel’s father seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, almost to the point of ecstasy.
‘When did they prepare all this?’
The banquet hall was already overflowing with delicacies from land and sea, and aged fruit wines, as if it had been prepared in an instant. Servants were still rushing in and out, sweating profusely as they brought in even more dishes to fill the tables.
“Sir Lancel,” Marigold greeted him, her cheeks flushed with a rosy hue, clearly already a little tipsy.
* * *
One thing was clear:
In this iteration, Marigold—the regressor—and Lancel were meeting for the first time.
Even though they were both regressors, the “setting” dictated that neither knew the other’s true nature.
At least, to Marigold, Lancel was merely the son of Viscount Dante and a knight.
This was only natural, as she had never revealed her secret.
But then…
“We spent our days together in the Empire’s remote borderlands, exchanging vows of love day and night. That’s how our promise of marriage was made.”
The air around them instantly grew warmer. The maids attending them blushed and exclaimed, “Oh my! Oh my!” in a flurry of excitement.
For these village maids, Marigold’s story was far too stimulating.
“No, I don’t remember any of that…”
“Hmph, you don’t remember?”
Marigold immediately burst into tears.
“Did you think of it as just a one-night fling? I gave you everything… all that I had from beginning to end…”
“……”
‘Are you just going to keep insisting on that and cry, Marigold?’
In truth, it wasn’t entirely a lie.
Lancel had, at one point, promised to marry her.
Given that Marigold inherited those memories, her words weren’t entirely unreasonable.
‘This is quite scary, Marigold!’
Or perhaps she knew beforehand that Lancel was the kind of person who would easily give in to such tactics.
After all, Lancel had even accepted Marigold’s impulsive marriage proposal once before.
“This is too much.”
“The Young Master is trying to abandon his fiancée.”
The maids’ gazes grew increasingly sharp.
“Rogue.”
“Gambler.”
“Womanizer.”
“He’s trash.”
“Just die, Young Master.”
“Father, are you just going to let those insolent servants get away with this?”
“Hmm… After all that I’ve heard, it seems you really are a bastard. Lady Mary must be suffering terribly.”
Normally, Marigold’s absurd claims would have fallen on deaf ears, but under Viscount Dante’s gaze, they were working like a charm.
There was only one reason for this…
“A girl who walks the path of a knight? Seeing a child grow up so splendidly is a first for me.”
Viscount Dante couldn’t tear his eyes away from Marigold, his gaze filled with admiration.
“Even when I order my own daughter to do something, she just runs away and never listens! How could a child grow up so upright and virtuous?”
“Your praise is too generous, Viscount Dante. Chivalry… it’s the only creed I live by.”
“How magnificent! To think such a remarkable child exists in the Empire!”
‘Hey, don’t lie…
You’ve never even been a knight before.’
“Damn it, Lady Mary! I like you!”
Viscount Dante’s enthusiasm was so overwhelming that even Madam Dante, who was listening nearby, threw up her hands in exasperation.
“He’s not just saying that,” a voice suddenly interjected from the side.
“Father isn’t just saying that because Lady Mary is a knight.”
It was Lancel’s eldest brother, Leo Dante, heir to the Dante family, his long hair tied back.
“Lady Mary… I don’t know what she used to do, but she’s clearly a highly trained swordsman. Don’t judge her by her appearance or age.”
“Is she really that good?” another man chimed in. It was Kyle Dante, the second brother, with his hair swept up on one side.
“Brother, aren’t you overestimating her? I don’t sense any particular knightly spirit. She’s tall for a woman, but petite compared to men.”
“Sharpen your eye for talent, Kyle. I’ve been in the Knight Order, observing knights and their squires every day. Even compared to them, Lady Mary is no ordinary woman.”
Leo Dante, despite his tendency to cause trouble due to his pride as the successor, was an exceptionally skilled knight.
That’s why he was able to recognize it.
“This Lady Mary—even though I sense no magical power, her movements are unwavering. It’s as if she lacks the unnecessary flourishes that ordinary humans naturally possess.”
“Hmm, I’m not quite sure I understand.”
Kyle Dante tilted his head in confusion.
“I’ll pour you a drink, father.”
“Father! Yes, I will be your father, Lady Mary! Repeat after me!”
Leo Dante held his breath and began to observe Marigold as she raised the wine bottle with a spirited voice.
“The way she lifts the glass, the way she moves the dishes, the way she pulls out the chair and sits—everything about her movements feels extraordinary. To have such control over her body at just barely adulthood… If it were possible, I’d want to bring her into my Knight Order.”
“You’re exaggerating again, brother. How can you judge her skill from such trivial actions?” Kyle Dante, the second son, chuckled dismissively.
But at least three people in the room—Lancel, Leo, and Viscount Dante—were certain of one thing:
Marigold.
There was something unsettling about her.
“Your name… is Mary, was it?”
“Yes, I am Mary, Mary.”
It was the way in which she responded that made her name sound even more peculiar.
It seemed like she was Mary of the “Mary family.”
‘Is she impersonating a noble?’
No, strictly speaking, Marigold claiming to be a commoner was also a form of impersonation.
She was still a noble, albeit from a fallen house. While she couldn’t publicly reveal her lineage, her noble bloodline remained a fact.
‘Come to think of it, Marigold’s name is also Marigold. Does that mean her full name is Marigold Marigold?’
Lancel broke into a cold sweat.
In the game, there was only one name: Marigold. The family name was also Marigold.
Therefore, it had to be true: her full name was indeed Marigold Marigold.
“I am merely a nameless noble raised in a nameless knight family. I lost my parents at a young age and wandered aimlessly until Sir Lancel took me in.”
“Ah!”
“Though you seem to find me unfamiliar now… I have never forgotten you, Sir Lancel, not for a single moment.”
“How heartbreaking…”
“It’s a tragedy.”
“How pitiful.”
The maids clasped hands, their eyes glistening with tears.
“I have devoted my life to the sword, all for the sake of standing by your side, Sir Lancel. If I displease you, Viscount Dante, I will quietly leave. But if you accept me as a member of the family… I will serve you as my father and live my life in your service!”
Viscount Dante shot to his feet.
“Rise, Lancel Dante!”
“Huh?”
The veins on Viscount Dante’s neck and forehead bulged. His face flushed crimson with wine.
“Stand up! Lancel Dante!”
Lancel stood up.
“You arrogant knight! Your disrespect towards Lady Mary Mary has tarnished the honor of the Dante family. To pretend not to recognize the knight you shared a night with!”
‘It’s because we’re supposed to be meeting for the first time,’ Lancel thought.
“If such an incident repeats itself, I will hold you severely accountable in the name of the Dante family! Do you understand?!”
“Yes, Sir.”
Lancel caught a glimpse of it:
“Heh heh.” The smile playing at the corner of Marigold’s lips.
‘So you’ve decided to target my father, haven’t you, Marigold!’
She might even have inherited the knowledge that Viscount Dante is much more soft-hearted than he appears.
As the only daughter of a man who had become little more than a shell of his former self, a well-bred woman—especially one raised as a knight—was undoubtedly his greatest weakness.
‘How terrifying, Marigold.’
“From today onward, you two will share a room as husband and wife!”
“Thank you, Viscount Dante!”
“Call me father!”
“Yes, father!”
Lancel Dante.
Mary Mary.
Engagement established.
* * *
—————————
<Acquired Endings:>
- Chancellor of Pleasure Marigold.
- The Noble House’s Freeloader, Marigold. -S-Rank-
- The Bold Maid Marigold.
<Acquired Endings:>
- Warrior Marigold.
- Barbarian of the Hut Marigold.
- The Cheap Jewel Necklace and Dark Knight Marigold. -A-Rank
- Advanced Swordsmanship (500 points).
※ There are currently 6 inherited endings.
※ There is 1 ending with an A-Rank influence.
※ There is 1 ending with an S-Rank influence.
Points Used: 1700
Points Remaining: 300
—————————
Does she still remember the endings from the previous succession cycle?
If i remember correctly, it was stated that memories stack, but the abilities bought dissapear after the regression run.