The Romance Fantasy Novel MC is Only Into Me

A sharp metallic scent lingered at the tip of the nose.
A dead man and Merigold.
“Master, I, I...”
“You did nothing wrong.”

Lancel took out a handkerchief and quickly wiped the blood off Merigold.
“That man... he’s a noble, Master.”
He knew.

He was one of the Royal Knights, always sticking close to the Sixth Prince. Definitely a man of the court knight rank. Dead from just one slash by Merigold’s sword.
Lancel gritted his teeth as he looked at the powdered aconite clenched in the man’s hand.
If he had hesitated even a moment, Merigold might have become someone who could never see again. Thinking that deeply, something rising from deep within Lancel’s chest became impossible to suppress any longer.

—Just kill him.
It felt like something whispered.
Kill? Whom? The Sixth Prince?

‘Maybe.’
From the moment he realized the one leading the royal reinforcements was the Sixth Prince, hadn’t he inwardly expected this might happen?
—What exactly am I hesitating about? Just kill him. Isn’t killing once hard, but twice even harder?

Right. Burning fiercely in the flames wasn’t something so unbearable.
This was also for Merigold.
For a commoner who killed a noble, the only punishment was beheading. If unlucky, summary execution.

—I have to kill him, right?
A resolve slowly settled in Lancel’s heart.
For him, this life was just one moment repeated dozens of times.

‘The one who wiped out the command in the train, culprit: Lancel Dante. Merigold leaves this place to hide far away... neat.’
As soon as he finished calculating everything in his head, Lancel moved.
Clack.
He picked up the fallen sword from the floor and muttered quietly:

“Stay in this room. I’ll make it as if nothing happened within thirty minutes.”
Well thought out.
Honestly, it sucks.
Still, this guy was one who called knives.
‘Come to think of it, I have nothing to lose.’

Right.
Let’s kill him.
Burning at the stake? Just let it happen.
He could just start over again anyway.
That’s what he thought.
“Master!”
Until Merigold’s arms wrapped around Lancel from behind.

“No, Master!”
“What?”
“I, I don’t know, but please, don’t do that.”
Lancel heard fear in her trembling voice. He suddenly felt the cheap necklace clinking at her nape. She wore it until she fell asleep.
“Let go of this, Meri.”
“No! I don’t want anything bad to happen to Master, no!”
“What nonsense are you talking? You’re not guessing weird things all alone, are you?”
“I... I wish this were just a guess too.”

A standoff continuing over a corpse on the floor.
Lancel couldn’t hide his bewilderment at Merigold’s stubborn side he had never seen before.
‘I’m just saying if I die, that’s it.’

But he couldn’t say it aloud. She might think he was truly insane. Calm and sane as he was.
“Please don’t, Master. Whatever you’re about to do, please don’t.”
Merigold’s grip was weak today. Her arms desperately wrapped around Lancel’s waist trembled nonstop.

He could have easily shaken her off with a little strength. But he didn’t.
Lancel was silent for a moment. After a long while, he spoke again.
“Then will you die?”

Honestly? Yes.
He said it out of frustration.
“If the train stops now, it’s the western continent. Follow the river down and you’ll reach a port city. From there, take a ship to an island, then an archipelago.”
Lancel recited the continent map he had already clearly pictured from the last cycle.

“If you go with a bundle of gold coins, you could live a life no one envies. The island has fish, shellfish, crustaceans that taste absolutely amazing.”
Originally, he wanted to say all this after tidying things up.
He had laid out this plan just to convince Merigold.

“Anyway, you’re a commoner—at best, a mercenary—and that’s a successful life, right? Accept it gracefully. There’s no other choice.”
“I don’t want that. The happiness I got by using Master means nothing.”
“...There’s no other way. Why are you so hard to understand today?”
“Some day...”
Merigold’s muffled voice resonated through Lancel’s back.
“Some day, the last day I was with Master in the guild. Another day... the last time I walked the market street.”

What was she saying?
Lancel lost his words for a moment.
“Some day, the last time we walked through the square together. Some day, the last time I bought and ate snacks on the road.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Master, all the moments I saw and heard while I was with you are my last moments.”
Lancel understood she was recalling a distant past.

A girl who lost her entire family at age ten and was cast out.
A fallen noble who suddenly wandered the streets, stripped of her status.
It was a feeling from living such a life. Someone who had lost many precious things.
Lancel vaguely felt it through their touching skin.

“Don’t think I’ll be happy just because I survive by using Master. Please let me decide at least my own end.”
Merigold’s voice trembled fiercely but was full of will.
“It’s Master who should be safe here.”

Lancel rubbed his tired eyelids. Honestly, it was unexpected.
“No. There’s no need for that.”
He put down the sword he was holding.

Then he found a dagger at the waist of the corpse lying on the floor. It was ornamental but had a sharpened blade.
“Meri. Don’t misunderstand this. I have no intention of dying either.”
“Huh? Master?”
Lancel plunged that blade deeply into his own limbs all at once.

“Ma, Master!”
“Be quiet.”
“Master... why, why are you doing this! Master!”
Now that he looked, Merigold’s face was soaked with tears.
In her eyes, it must have looked like her guild master had gone mad and was self-harming.

‘This much is still okay. My resilience is amazing.’
He steadied his breath.
If he was going to do it, he had to do it properly. If he did it weakly, someone would find a flaw.

Lancel drove the blade into his belly in one strike. The solid blade avoided vital organs, piercing through the peritoneum. To an outsider, it would look like a serious injury.
“Ughhh!”
The feeling of blood rapidly coursing through his whole body. Teeth clenched tightly. He barely stopped his eyes from rolling back.

Breath caught in his throat.
“Why, why like this...!”
“Get... get someone! Quick!”
“Huh? Yes?”
Merigold was at a loss.

Lancel groaned in pain, squeezing out a voice.
“Wake everyone up! Some crazy bastard came in and stabbed me—hurry!”
 
“...What?”
“P-Prince, you should hurry!”

A commotion broke out in the middle of the night.
The Sixth Prince seemed wide awake now.
When he entered the command room that was used as the party hall, a loud ruckus was heard.
“Where did all the guards go? Report properly immediately!”
“We, we weren’t...”
“How dare you use the Prince’s name?”

First to appear were guards trembling from the scolding. The prince had moved them all to a different place the previous night.
He intended to sneak Merigold away while no one was watching.
But now the situation was going strangely.

“Sir Lancel’s condition is bad, Your Highness.”
“Lancel’s condition? Suddenly? What is it?”
“You should check it yourself.”
As they approached where the soldiers gathered, they saw Lancel wrapped in bandages.
His wounds on arms, legs, and torso were clearly severe.

“He was stabbed while blocking someone trying to kidnap Miss Meri last night...”
The Sixth Prince’s expression hardened.
He didn’t notice wounded Lancel. Only the corpse collapsed nearby.

“He was holding powdered aconite. Where on earth did he get such a rare poison? We need to investigate this suspicious matter.”
“Don’t do unnecessary things!”
The Sixth Prince sensed the situation was going awry.
“Lancel’s injuries are serious. We should send him back to the island for treatment as soon as possible.”

When he heard Lancel and Meri urgently returning to the island for treatment,
the Sixth Prince finally surveyed the remaining troops around him.
The First Royal Reinforcements were about to face the battlefield, but the mood was disorderly like a defeated army. They did not look like soldiers ready for war.

Only a demoralized army lay before his eyes.
“Your Highness, shouldn’t we request additional reinforcements now...?”
“Silence.”
The Sixth Prince also came here wanting military achievements.

No commander wanted to return empty-handed.
 
“Tell me, what exactly happened here?”
When Lancel was loaded into a carriage and arrived ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) on the island, familiar faces were already waiting.

The Court Count who had received news by letter rushed out first.
He surely didn’t expect his son-in-law to almost die before even arriving at the battlefield.
“The capable knight, what is this before he even reaches the battlefield?”

The Court Count anxiously paced all the way while escorting Lancel. Imagining his daughter becoming a widow was a nightmare.
Supported by Merigold, Lancel limped down from the carriage.
“Please take me to His Majesty. I have much to say.”
“What will you do?”
“Go back. To the battlefield.”
“With that body?”

His face was long devoid of any color after forced marches with a body full of holes.
But his eyes still shone brightly.
“The Sixth Prince’s army will soon be annihilated. We must raise new reinforcements and depart.”
“...Choose your words carefully. Are you serious?”

Lancel had grounds for his words.
Why?
Because he had already seen it on the way here.

===========
—Event lost! The Sixth Prince ‘Karin Craig Freesia’ route lost.
—Event lost! The Fifth Prince ‘Erwin Cole Freesia’ route lost.
Ah, so it had come to this.
A lost route meant one of three things: dead, captured, or disappeared.

The royal reinforcements headed to a fierce battle, but the chance they died was lower than the chance they were taken hostage. The huge ransom on the princes’ heads meant negotiations could drag on for years or even decades. Naturally, they were out of the route.
‘Damn. This cycle’s ruined.’
The Sixth Prince could be dead or captured, didn’t matter to him. But the Fifth Prince was different. Wasn’t this the very cycle he ran toward for that man alone? To end without even seeing his face once.

Lancel sighed bitterly as he received news of the Fifth Prince.
Well, still.
“Have to do what I must.”

He looked at Merigold’s worried profile supporting him. Their eyes met.
For him, this world was infinite time, a prison of moments where death was always possible. If things went wrong, he killed and reset without hesitation. Because it was allowed. Because he could just open his eyes again after dying.
But Merigold was different.

—For her, every moment was the last.
Today.
Tomorrow.

Before.
For some reason, Lancel felt comforted by that fact.
It seemed to remind him of something forgotten.

Hmm.
‘I don’t know.’
After reporting everything so far to the (fake) Emperor, Lancel was given modest command over the Second Royal Reinforcements, a force totaling eight hundred soldiers.

Wandering the continent torn by war, Lancel devoted all his days solely to fighting. There was nothing else to do now. Maybe as filial piety to his father-in-law, the Court Count, and his parents.
The empire’s war hero was his own child and son-in-law, so naturally their spirits rose. Compared to the third cycle where his statue could be seen everywhere in the empire, this was not as great, but still a fine success.
However, he never got to properly see his fiancée, Lady Iceford. There were countless battlefields for his activity, and she did not welcome him much either, so there was no reason for them to meet.

She was probably busy with some strange man, enjoying herself by now. Whatever. Lancel didn’t care.
Only one person.
“Master.”

Only the warrior Merigold stayed by his side.
Ten years passed like that.
.
.
.

[Playtime: 10 years 0 days]
—Merigold has turned 25.
—No marriage partner.
—Achievements acquired.
▶ First royal palace wedding +300 points
▷ Advanced swordsmanship master +10 points
▶ Knight rank achieved +10 points
▷ Goddess of the battlefield +30 points

—Total score: 350 points.
[Bad Ending 3. Cheap Jewel Necklace and Dark Knight Merigold]
—Ending recorded in the ‘Memory Album.’
—Opening album.

.
.
.
Merigold followed her lord for five years, achieving many military merits.
She received the title of Honorary Knight from the royal court, and bright days surely awaited her.

But the sudden death of her lord led her once again into loneliness.
This world had no meaning without him.
‘Don’t cry, we will meet again someday.’

The first lie her lord left her, Merigold remembered all her life.
There is no way to meet the dead again in this world.
Loneliness.

Solitude.
Loss.
You sink into sorrow like quicksand and live your days.

Avenging ‘everything’ that caused his death.
Tonight too, the dark knight with the cheap jewel necklace roams the streets.
[Cheap Jewel Necklace and Dark Knight Merigold — fin]

—Would you like to restart the game?
※ Massacre penalty: Karma +200 points accrued.
.
.
.

What was that?
“Wasn’t this supposed to end smoothly this time?”
Lancel wiped sweat from his brow at the sorrowful ending. A bad ending—literally a bad ending.

‘What exactly went wrong?’
Not connecting with the prince was certainly his fault. But this didn’t seem like a ten-year drenched and soggy ending. Wasn’t the mood kind of alright?
‘Why did I die in the first place?’

It wasn’t without reason. So why?
Hmm.
At this point, Lancel wanted to finish her ending cleanly somehow.

If only this time she could connect with the prince, that would be best. At least he wanted to see her have a proper marriage partner once. Someone other than himself.
What could he do?
Their marriage hadn’t ended well anyway.

“What should I do with this mentally unstable protagonist?”
And so came the next cycle.
Right from the start, Lancel had to face a shocking message.

===========
—Permanent damage: Merigold has lost sight in both eyes.
※ Merigold’s karma has reached 200 points.
※ Permanent damage will continuously occur until karma is resolved.
“Is this for real?”

[Warrior Merigold — End]
[Next — Saint Merigold]