"Please Come In!"
“Please come in!”
Irene could never have imagined that voice belonged to her husband. The words startled her so badly she shot upright from her seat. Wilhelmina did the same.
Almost at once the door swung open and Michael stepped inside. His short golden hair lay perfectly combed with not a single strand out of place. Below it his face remained calm, almost expressionless. Beneath the crisp folds of his formal robe the strong, well-muscled body he always kept hidden was impossible to ignore.
The man who had slipped into this room late last night without a single soul knowing he came to beg her for purification left no trace now. Irene’s heart tightened as she lowered her gaze to the neat paladin she still remembered so clearly.
“Um… what brings you here?”
She almost asked “Are you all right?” but caught herself just in time. The words felt foolish the moment they left her mouth. She snapped her lips shut. This room was offered in repayment, yet Michael was the owner. Besides, they were not even paired. Paired knights did not need an excuse to find their partners.
Irene stole a quick glance at Wilhelmina. The maid had clearly lost herself in thoughts of Michael; she did not seem to notice Irene’s awkwardness. Irene steadied her breathing, offered a gentle smile, and stepped closer.
“Sir Michael… you’ve come again.”
She deliberately stressed the word “again” and watched Wilhelmina’s face. Sure enough, the maid’s lips tightened into a hard bite. She had been seething with envy the moment Michael walked in. Irene had no doubt she would run straight to Princess Cecilia to spill every detail. Even if she had lived quietly, Cecilia had always ignored and mocked her openly. The same would happen today.
“Then perhaps there is no need to bend at all.”
The moment she had formed a pair with Michael, Cecilia had clearly begun to hate her. Irene saw no reason to read the princess’s mind.
The instant she finished speaking, Michael gave a faint smile and answered. “Yes, I came again.” __GT
He placed extra weight on “again,” as if he already knew exactly why she had said it, then turned his gaze to Wilhelmina. “Please leave now. I have urgent words for my pair.”
His tone was polite, yet the message was clear: leave. Wilhelmina, however, did not pick up on the coldness. She simply bowed her head deeply. “Y-yes! Of course!”
Hurrying out, she still remembered the princess’s orders and called back to Irene. “I’ll send the invitation letter to the maid! Don’t forget—definitely come!”
She slammed the door shut the moment she met Michael’s icy stare. The moment the door clicked shut, Irene exhaled. “Sorry to interrupt your conversation. It seems you were invited.”
Conversation? Irene had no idea what that meant. She had no desire to show Michael that she disliked Wilhelmina and the princess. So she simply nodded in reply and asked, “Then… what brought you here?”
“There is something I wish to discuss with my pair.”
His calm tone should have been reassuring. Instead Irene’s cheeks suddenly burned. The memory of last night flooded back—how desperately she had been lost in desire and could barely endure the purification. Even now, waking up this morning, she still felt dazed. If he did this in broad daylight…
Embarrassed, Irene unconsciously took a step back. “Does Michael not know?”
In the past she had never found the courage to ask how he truly felt about the purification. “But… he seems to feel differently.”
If he felt the same way, a paladin like him would never come to her in broad daylight just to request purification. Then a new worry struck her. The hallway was filled with maids returning from their duties. What if the purification triggered the same cries as before…
The thought made her face even hotter. Besides, “I was distracted, but Michael saw everything!”
Heart pounding with shame, Irene could not lift her eyes. “Um… if it’s about purification…” she stammered. “Purification is fine. Thanks to you, I can barely sense demonic energy anymore.”
Michael’s answer let out a sigh of relief. “He still feels differently.” Irene let out a breath. “Besides, he looked quite different from now. Like he was restless, searching for something.”
“Could the demonic energy have scattered his reason?” Then perhaps he had not remembered how ridiculous she had acted. “If not purification, then what other reason could have brought you here?”
“I would like you to accompany me into the dungeon.”
“!!” Irene’s eyes widened. Of course a normal pair would enter the dungeon together, but she and Michael were not normal. His overwhelming strength meant he never got hurt and demonic energy seeped in at an agonizingly slow rate. In the previous life he had said exactly those words and taken her into the dungeon. “Wait at the fortress.”
So Irene had assumed he would go alone. Since moving into the fortress a week ago, he had entered the dungeon with her only once—the one she had begged to try. “Please wait at the fortress. An unstable dungeon is waiting outside.”
He bowed and left. Irene hurried toward the wardrobe, heart racing. “What in the world…?”
She was going with him. The feeling was strange. In the previous life she had longed for this moment. Every pair entered the dungeon together, prepared for danger. Yet he had refused, saying it was dangerous and left her behind. “Protection from danger”? It sounded noble, but Irene knew it simply meant “stay put in the fortress where I don’t have to worry about you.”
“If that’s how it is, why suggest coming together?”
There had to be an especially dangerous dungeon whose entry she, with her weak purification, needed to prepare for. Irene quickly packed her clothes and basic armor, every movement tense.
* * *
An hour later. “This… is…”
She did not need to ask the Kingdom Alliance staff member standing far away. She already knew. This was…
“An unstable dungeon.”
Unlike ordinary entrances, this one was not a neat circle. Every few moments it twisted and changed shape before her eyes. Newcomers to unstable dungeons usually screamed and backed away in shock. The entrance itself was not the only difference. While normal dungeon entrances were pitch-black, unstable ones sometimes glowed with strange colors. Yet beyond them was always darkness.
“Do you know much about unstable dungeons?”
“Just a little.”
Even in the previous life unstable dungeons had appeared several times. The ones that had shown up in Tirenia Kingdom were all unstable. Their structure differed from normal dungeons, and the monsters that emerged were often new. That was why they were so difficult to clear. What chilled Irene’s spine most, however, were the entrance’s size and ominous aura. “Is this… a mid-tier unstable dungeon?”
“That’s right.”
Michael answered as if it were nothing, but Irene felt her bones turn to ice. She had never entered a mid-tier dungeon before—neither in this life nor the previous one. “Even a low-tier dungeon close to the lowest grade was terrifying…” If such a place waited inside, she would freeze from fear. Still, she had no choice. She asked, “If it’s a mid-tier unstable dungeon… will you go with a few other pairs?”
Normal dungeons could be cleared alone. Unstable ones were far too dangerous. “In the past, I never entered such a dungeon alone.”
She had watched him enter with others while leaving her behind. After the dungeon was cleared, she had seen his name listed in the official record. How many times had she swallowed bitterness while reading that empty name? This time, however, she could finally put his name in the record. She asked again, “Then it’s just the two of us?”
“…Yes.”
The answer she had not expected at all.