The Romance Fantasy Novel MC is Only Into Me

“……!”

The moment the soft, wet sensation poured into his mouth, Ransell was engulfed by a strange feeling.
He could see, right before his eyes, Marigold’s slender emerald eyes quietly gazing at him.
A fog crept into his mind.

His thoughts stopped, and his bodily sensations gradually blurred. It wasn’t a hallucination. His vision was truly growing hazy.
—Ransell.
A voice transmitted directly into his head.

His body felt paralyzed, refusing to obey.
—Ransell.
Marigold not only pushed him against the wall but also wrapped her whole body tightly around him. For some reason, he couldn’t resist.

His mind grew more and more faint. He felt like he was about to lose consciousness.
—My Ransell.
.

.
.
“Lord Ransell!”

“Ah…!”
Ransell suddenly sat up.
In front of him was the sixteen-year-old, small Marigold holding a broom.

She was the usual Marigold, just barely over 150 cm tall, with a flat figure, her long hair tightly tied back, and wearing her apron.
The body of the one who had chosen the mage route maintained the shortest height across nearly all iterations.
“You should eat. How long do you plan on sleeping?”
“Mary.”

Marigold tilted her head slightly, sending a puzzled look.
“Why are you sweating so much? Wait a moment.”
Only then did Ransell realize his entire body was soaked in cold sweat.

He let himself be cared for by Marigold, who wiped his sweat with a handkerchief. He didn’t even have the strength to snatch it away.
“Mary.”
“Yes?”

“Did you happen to come into my room yesterday?”
“You told me not to come in.”
“Did I?”
“I did.”

“Make sure you don’t come in again.”
“...I came in because I was told to wake you up... But why would I want to enter a knight’s room in the first place...”
Marigold muttered complaints under her breath.

The sure thing was that she hadn’t entered his room last night.
He had rarely seen Marigold lie, so those words were probably true.
‘But it was Marigold.’

Yes. The spirit, presence, mana, atmosphere, voice, even appearance flowing from the body were all different, but it was Marigold.
‘A dream?’
No way.

A dream?
That?
It was hard to accept. There was no way such a vivid dream could exist.

It had been so realistic that the sensation left by the “One-Horned Marigold” still seemed imprinted all over his skin.
The arms that firmly wrapped him, the soft sensation that covered his lips, and every corner of her body pressing tightly without a gap.
When he closed his eyes, everything vividly recalled.

‘I’m tired.’
He felt like he had his energy completely drained by a demon. What on earth had that been?
“......”

“What are you doing?”
“Huh?!”
Ransell slightly opened his eyes.

Marigold, who had been fixing her gaze close to his face, suddenly startled and sat up. She had been so quiet that he wondered what she was doing.
“Th-the meal’s ready, so hurry up and come! Y-you’re sweating a lot, so I’ll prepare bathwater too! Well, I’ll be going now...!”
Marigold spoke rapidly like a machine gun and rushed out the door.

“Ugh.”
Ransell barely got his drooping body upright.
—My Ransell.

Startled.
He turned his head toward the window frame.
The wide-open window showed nothing unusual. Only a few sparrows flew in, chirping hungrily.

‘I’m going crazy.’
His emotions were a complete mess.
 
Regardless of the One-Horned Marigold who had wrecked Ransell’s emotions the previous night,

the sixteen-year-old Marigold’s day was wholly dedicated to magic training.
“Breathe out calmly.”
Jenise, who had set aside her own research, stayed close to him.

“Gather your mana. Then slowly guide it where you want. Keep drawing it in until it moves according to your hand.”
Marigold’s hands, eyes closed, began to make signs as if sensing the mana gathering.
The tangled mana shifted directions little by little following her hand movements like threads in a skein.

This process repeated until a round shape was formed in the palm.
“Well done. Firmly gather the mana mass.”
“Yes.”

The orb-shaped mana gradually shrank. Soon it became visible to the naked eye.
‘First-tier magic. Mana Orb.’
Ransell silently marveled. Though it looked simple, it was an incredible sight.

For average mages, it could take weeks or months. Marigold was doing it all at once. How could he not admire that?
“Excellent.”
Jenise’s eyes blazed. She was sure her student was a genius.

‘As expected of the protagonist.’
Knight and mage.
Both dealt with mana, but their methods were totally different.

If knights specialized in concentrating the mana stored inside into blades and armor to increase attack and defense power,
mages specialized in delicately moving mana to craft spells.
Naturally, magic was harder.

It was the unprecedented power of transforming invisible force into physical energy, requiring much more sensitive senses and complex calculations.
But Marigold instinctively accomplished it. On her first try.
Whooosh—!

The glowing mana ball in Marigold’s hands began spinning rapidly.
The air in the lab swirled, and objects rattled.
Candles went out, pages flipped, and shelves creaked as if things would topple.

“Mary, stop, that’s enough now.”
“Uuuuuu…”
“Mary?”

Jenise hurried to stop her, but Marigold’s complexion was bad.
“G-gr-gr-gr!”
Uh oh, something was wrong.

“Damn! Mary!”
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s losing control of her mana. The mana she captured far exceeded what she can handle. She’s lost control!”

In short, it was a problem caused by her talent surpassing her skill.
The mana mass in Marigold’s palm looked dangerously close to bursting for the same reason.
It was already too late even for Jenise to intervene.

“Mary.”
Ransell hurried to the window and pointed to the garden outside.
“Throw it!”

“Y-yes...!”
“What? No, that’s my garden...!”
Jenise was flustered, but Marigold acted first, spreading her hands with the mana orb out the window.

“Whoa!”
Bang—!
The mana orb flew out with a roar, tracing a parabolic arc like a shell, and landed straight on the garden lawn.

Kuuuuuung—!
Explosion.
The ground was lifted fan-shaped, soil and gravel raining down like a storm. If there had been a person there, they’d have been minced meat.

“Haaa...”
Exhausted, Marigold collapsed to the floor. Heat radiated fully from her face as if she’d used all her strength at once.
“No different from a bomb.”

“W-what happened to my garden?”
Ransell and Jenise gathered by the window, leaving her condition aside.
A large scorch mark from the mana orb explosion remained in the middle of the garden.

“How about it? Do you, Lady Jenise, think that really was a first-tier spell in power?”
“No way. That’s probably around second or third tier. Not a power a novice apprentice mage could handle. Actually, she couldn’t.”
“Roughly one or two tiers higher power... You must be happy to have such a talented student.”

“Could it be noticeable? It’s the first time I’m happy seeing a ruined garden, Lord Ransell. Honestly, I suspected from the start she wasn’t average with mana, but I didn’t expect this.”
“Could Mary graduate top of the academy?”
“That seems unlikely. This batch has many prodigies. Compared to them, Mary is just taking her first steps... So the top spot is hard.”

‘Definitely.’
Just as Jenise said.
It was exactly that time.

The academy was filling with the “Golden Batch.”
Included were the young seventh prince, foreign princes, dukes’ heirs, knightly family brothers, magical prodigies... many famous game strategy characters.
Sometimes, students quickly found matches inside the academy and ended up married.

‘The academy is the easiest place to pick noble offspring...’
Of course, Ransell had no intention of pushing Marigold directly like before.
If a decent guy in the academy took a liking to Marigold, and if she also liked him... then he wouldn’t bother stopping them. Just that much.

There were some good guys at the academy after all. Maybe she’d find a good ending.
“......”
Anyway.

“Mary.”
Ransell approached the exhausted Marigold. He ruffled her hair lightly and left the mansion.
“Lord Ransell?”

“See you at the academy.”
“Huh? What’s that...?”
Only Marigold’s puzzled face blinked blankly, watching Ransell’s receding figure.

Without delay, Ransell headed straight for his homeland, the Dante estate.
 
“You want to be a professor in the knight department?”
“I thought maybe for about three years.”

“You? A professor? Suddenly?”
“Yes. So please write me a recommendation.”
“......”

Ransell’s father, the Duke Dante, was momentarily baffled but then burst out laughing.
“Ha ha ha! You crazy fool, you want to be an academy professor at your age? Does that even make sense?”
“Why not?”

Originally, Ransell intended to be an instructor.
But when he saw that an instructor required being an academy graduate, he immediately changed his goal to becoming a professor, which was a higher status.
“You stupid boy. You think they’d accept you if you suddenly show up and say you want to be a professor? The number of professors is fixed. There’s no vacancy for you at all.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry [N O V E L I G H T] about that.”
“...Why?”
“A spot’s going to open.”

“What?”
The Duke blinked.
“The baron Onis, who was originally a professor, recently severely injured his leg. He’ll need time to recover, so the professor seat will be vacant for a few years. I’m going in temporarily.”

“How do you know that?”
“Rumors. Just rumors.”
Ransell shrugged as if he knew nothing.

“I just heard rumors that some scoundrel broke into Baron Onis’ mansion and shattered his ankle bone.”
“Suspicious.”
The Duke gave a suspicious glare.

“Well, if that’s so, I’ll write you the recommendation. But if you embarrass yourself in the exam or tarnish the Dante family’s reputation, I won’t forgive you. Understood?”
“Of course.”
.

.
.
After gathering recommendations from his father and other nobles, Ransell returned to the capital.

The academy’s entrance exams were already over.
===========
—Marigold has been accepted into the academy’s magic department! Until the day she becomes a great mage, it’s all about steady effort and more effort!

※ Hope she makes lots of good friends!
===========
“Good friends, huh.”

Ransell broke into a sweat the moment he entered the academy.
He had come to submit his application to become a temporary professor when he caught sight of a familiar face outside the building’s window.
‘Marigold.’

No doubt about it.
That blonde woman, picking up scattered things in the garden pond, was definitely Marigold.
Books, pillows, outerwear, underwear, shoes, handkerchiefs, writing tools, hair ribbons, lunch boxes, and so on.

Clearly, these weren’t things she had deliberately thrown into the water. She was carefully collecting them one by one while standing knee-deep in the pond, her skirt completely soaked.
‘Good... friends...?’
The semester hadn’t even started yet.

To already be in this state right after just being assigned a dormitory.
Watching Marigold sneeze loudly, Ransell sighed.