My Husband Was Clearly a Paladin
Chapter 10
“……!”
If only she had stopped at being surprised; instead, she jolted up from her chair so abruptly that she stumbled.
Just as she was about to fall ungracefully, her arms flailing instinctively, a firm arm caught her by the waist.
“Oh, I apologize.”
Realizing that Irene had been startled because he spoke to her, he had quickly moved to catch her.
“……!”
Startled by Michael’s touch, Irene instinctively shook off his arm and took a step back.
‘Why?’
In the past, Michael had never tried to touch her, not even in the slightest.
Except for the unavoidable moments when he received purification, he had avoided even being in the same space as Irene, let alone touching her.
For him to not only approach her but to be the first to reach out and touch her was unthinkable.
“Irene?”
Michael called her name as he approached her again.
He spoke her name so naturally. That fact made Irene even more aghast.
In the past, right up until the final moment, he had addressed her as ‘Miss Irene’ or ‘Purifier-nim.’
The only time he had ever called her by her name alone was during that one week they had shared their bodies, when he hadn’t been in his right mind.
So why was he calling her by her name now, as if they were already in an incredibly close and deep relationship from the start?
Faced with this impossible turn of events, Irene remained tensed and took another step away from him.
‘What is going on?’
She had to find out why he was acting differently than in her previous life.
As Irene withdrew with her guard fully up, Michael looked at her with a puzzled expression.
“Is there a problem?”
“A problem……?”
There were so many that she didn’t even know where to start.
“You called me by my name just now……”
At those words, Michael looked slightly embarrassed before he spoke.
“……I asked around, and people told me it is common to use only names once a pair is formed. If I have caused you discomfort, I apologize.”
With that, he bowed his head politely.
He was right.
Forming a pair was essentially the same as a marriage.
Because of that, unless there was a massive disparity in their original status, it was standard practice for a pair to call each other affectionately by their names.
‘He asked around.’
If so, his using her name made sense.
Instead, a more bitter feeling washed over her.
‘Then it means in the past, he never once bothered to ask about pairs.’
That must have been why he remained so formally polite until the very end.
Perhaps noticing Irene’s stiff expression, Michael continued to speak, still appearing somewhat at a loss.
“I also apologize for touching you without permission. I thought you might get hurt if you fell……”
“No, I’m the one who should apologize for being so startled.”
Irene quickly pushed aside her troubled thoughts and replied even more politely than Michael had.
What was the point of being hurt by his changed attitude now?
‘We won’t be seeing each other much longer anyway. Let’s just focus on what lies ahead.’
She muttered the phrase she repeated to herself several times a day like a mantra, then offered a bright smile as if nothing had happened.
Michael seemed to give up on saying anything more and turned his gaze toward the fruit plate on the table.
“I only spoke up because I noticed you staring at them as if you wanted to eat, yet you were just standing still. I was curious as to why.”
“Ah, as a matter of fact, I have something to tell you regarding these things, Michael-nim.”
“Please, just call me Michael.”
“No. How could I address the Holy Knight Commander so casually? I am more comfortable this way, so please understand.”
Irene immediately and politely declined his request.
In her previous life, she had called him Michael in front of others exactly once.
She had become accustomed to calling him that because she had repeated his name constantly during the week they spent together while she purified him. But that had been the problem.
“Michael, wait! Please, let’s talk for a moment!”
As soon as she had regained her senses, Irene had run after him, shouting desperately to catch him as he headed toward the Temple.
But he had simply stepped back several paces from her as she tried to grab him.
She still vividly remembered the sound of the people watching, snickering and mocking her for looking so pathetic.
Even though it had been a slip of the tongue that happened only once, she was met with nothing but a cold attitude and contempt.
However, thinking of her past life no longer made her depressed.
It only served to steel her resolve never to make such a mistake again.
Perhaps because she spoke so firmly, Michael conceded.
“……If that is what you wish.”
Fortunately, he accepted her words without further argument.
“First, I think there has been some kind of mistake that you need to check.”
“A mistake?”
Instead of answering, Irene pointed to the items piled up in front of her.
“These items arrived, and I was told you paid for them. You said you would donate all of your dungeon rewards to the Temple, so I don’t understand how this happened……. I tried to send them back, but the maids left, saying it wasn’t something they could handle. So, Michael-nim……”
“Do you not like them?”
He asked back as if he couldn’t understand her point.
“I found out that in this place, everything necessary must be ordered separately. If that is the case, you will need these things.”
“……It’s true that I need them, but they don’t need to be this luxurious. Nor do I need so many. Above all, they are very expensive……”
Then, Michael spoke with a voice just as firm as Irene’s had been moments ago.
“Just accept them.”
“But…… shouldn’t you be offering them to the Temple?”
The Holy Knights were not supposed to seek personal gain.
That was why in the past, he had never given her a single thing, hadn’t he?
“You need not worry about that. These…… were likely sent in my name by the kingdom’s envoy who provided this room.”
If that was the case, wasn’t it even more of a problem?
“It seems they sent them this way after I repeatedly refused their offers of a separate reward. If you are alright with it, Irene, I would like you to accept them as they are. If you don’t, they will try to send them directly to me, which would only make things more complicated.”
Michael called her by her name again, but she missed the timing to point it out.
He was a man who lived by principles.
Since he had recognized that calling her by her name was common practice, he wouldn’t call her anything else.
Thinking that this was also something she only had to endure for a few more days, she didn’t want to worry about it anymore.
Irene turned her gaze back to the piled-up goods.
‘He’s telling me to just take them.’
To think she would receive such an abundance now that she no longer wanted them, after being unable to obtain them when she actually needed them.
“Then…… I’ll accept them with gratitude.”
Irene thanked him in a voice that, even to her own ears, didn’t sound particularly grateful.
Michael simply watched her in silence.
* * *
Two days later, Irene was busy preparing herself from early morning.
‘It’s today.’
If her memory served her correctly, a scout would report a new dungeon that appeared overnight this morning and provide the number of the dungeon Irene was targeting.
‘The others will be aiming for the Mid-rank dungeon that appeared today.’
It was the first Mid-rank dungeon to appear inside the fortress during this subjugation period.
Naturally, every pair would surely be eyeing that dungeon.
‘They’ll want to make a name for themselves from the start with good rewards.’
Perhaps it would be different for rookie knights, but those who had been subjugating dungeons for years wouldn’t just stand by and watch a Mid-rank dungeon that might yield an artifact.
They would try to enter and claim the rewards before anyone else.
Since so many would want to enter, it would likely take a long time just to select the first ten pairs according to Continental Law.
‘In the meantime, I just need to ask Michael to enter Number 181.’
In fact, she had already finished discussing the dungeon rewards with Michael yesterday.
The distribution, which had been finalized in a document after summoning an official from the Kingdom Alliance, was as follows:
1. Once a month, the Purifier can choose the dungeon they desire.
2. All rewards obtained from that dungeon belong to the Purifier.
3. All rewards obtained from any other dungeons belong to the Knight.
There were a few other minor rules, but she didn’t particularly care about them.
Since today would be the last for Irene anyway, they were all meaningless.
Having completely finished her preparations to leave this place, Irene waited for the paper containing the dungeon information that arrived every morning.
Before long, the time came, and the fortress maids arrived to see Irene, carrying the paper sent from the Archive.
The paper listed the dungeons newly tallied over the past day, their ranks, and the general types of monsters identified within them.
“It’s here.”
Irene looked at a dungeon listed far down the page.
『No. 181 / Lowest-rank / Water-attribute monsters confirmed』
It was the same dungeon in the same location as before.
Without hesitation, Irene wrote her name and Michael’s next to it.
