Translator: Nox

My Husband Was Clearly a Paladin

Chapter 26

Was it because the seating arrangement had changed?

Naturally, the atmosphere of the gathering was shifting in a completely different direction than in the past.

Before, no one would have even spared Irene a glance, let alone spoken to her, until the moment she left.

But now, everyone was focused on her so intently that she felt as if their gazes might bore holes into her face.

Princess Cecilia seemed displeased with this atmosphere, but she couldn’t say a word.

After all, she was staring at Irene just as intently.

“So that is the rumored ring. If you wouldn’t mind, would you grant me the honor of taking a closer look?”

“Of course, Princess.”

Irene answered politely and extended her hand toward her.

The ring looked no different from when it was first discovered in the dungeon. It was rugged and simple in form.

But now, this was the ring that would forever leave its mark as the artifact with the most unique supernatural ability discovered since the dungeons first appeared.

At first, Irene had been saddened, thinking that its value was lost because such a precious item had become soulbound to her.

But now, seeing the greedy eyes fixed upon her finger, she thought for the first time that it was a relief it was soulbound.

‘If it weren’t a soulbound artifact, it might have been stolen already.’

In fact, such things happened often.

Artifacts that weren’t soulbound exerted the same power no matter whose hand they were in.

In other words, they were frequently stolen.

However, artifacts with soulbound properties were different. If one were to kill the owner and take it, the item would immediately lose its power.

‘They might have even cut off my finger to take it.’

Looking at the stares she was receiving now, it didn’t seem like an exaggeration.

Perhaps thinking it unrefined to linger for too long, Princess Cecilia thanked her for showing it, though she couldn’t hide the desire in her eyes to inspect it further.

As soon as the conversation with the Princess ended, the other purifiers nearby scrambled to speak to her as if it were finally their turn.

While Irene was responding with appropriate courtesy, someone asked:

“Your pair is Sir Michael, the Holy Knight, isn’t he? Does he also ask you for purification? Since he spends all day inside dungeons, he must be more severely corrupted by demonic energy. Isn’t the purification difficult?”

At that question, the purifiers standing nearby let out awkward laughs. It was a rather rude and pointed question.

Irene looked at the woman for a moment before answering.

“He asks me to hold his hand. So I hold it for him often.”

It wasn’t a lie. Other than the night he had visited her, he had not yet asked for a formal purification.

However, he frequently reached out his hand to Irene.

Even if it wasn’t a proper purification ritual, their bare skin touched, so there must have been at least a slight purifying effect.

“……!”

The surrounding purifiers flinched at Irene’s answer.

They had all been thinking to themselves that Sir Michael had only grabbed Irene during the Night of the Contract because he was desperate, and that he wouldn’t have sought her out afterward.

But to hear that they held hands often…

Realizing that Irene was closer to Michael than they had imagined, the purifiers fell into deep thought about how they should treat her.

‘I thought she just got lucky being paired with Sir Michael… but what if she stays his pair next year too?’

If Michael finished this subjugation period on reasonably good terms with Irene, there was a high possibility he would continue to ask her rather than look for a new purifier.

After all, a pair was a temporary marital relationship. Even if he had been forced into the contract as a Holy Knight, it would certainly cause bad rumors if he kept changing partners.

In that case, should they try to get on Irene’s good side? But what if Michael thought more calmly next year and paired with a different purifier?

While the purifiers were calculating, Irene was also lost in thought.

‘I wonder how Princess Cecilia will act from now on.’

Unlike in her past life, the Princess was behaving very civilly. It seemed she had judged Irene to be worth keeping close.

‘She’s acting like this because she plans to invite Michael to a raid.’

Until now, Michael had never participated in any raids.

But just as he asked Irene for purification, if Irene asked him to join a raid, he would likely participate at least once.

Irene imagined how much the prestige of this already renowned gathering would soar in that case.

A gathering joined by the strongest knight in history. Furthermore, Irene was now the owner of a rare ring that would go down in artifact history.

The one leading such a raid would, of course, be Princess Cecilia.

‘And while doing so, she will surely show off her purification power to Michael.’

She would show him how much more easily she could heal his wounds and purify demonic energy if he chose her as his next pair, rather than a mere 9th-rank purifier.

‘Then it would be good for both Michael and the Princess. It won’t be easy for my purification rank to rise anyway.’

In fact, when Irene first obtained the ring, she had hoped it might allow her to purify him more easily.

But the moment she checked the ring’s ability in detail, that hope was immediately shattered.

‘It required absorbing an impossibly large amount of demonic energy.’

As a test, Irene had tried to purify the blood of monsters kept at the fortress.

It was to see how much demonic energy she had to absorb for her purification power to increase.

She purified several large vats of blood, but her purification power showed no significant change.

When she was on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion, the priest who had been monitoring her power spoke regretfully.

“There is almost no change even with this much demonic energy. To raise your rank, it seems you would have to purify thousands of monsters by yourself.”

In short, it was virtually impossible to raise her rank.

Irene looked at the ring with a bitter heart.

How sorry she had felt toward Michael after learning the ring’s true nature.

“If I had known it would turn out like this, it would have been better if someone else had obtained it. If only I hadn’t put it on……”

Though she had put it on because he encouraged her to, she could hardly lift her head, feeling she had ruined something precious.

At that time, Michael had said:

“No. Objects have a way of finding their rightful owners. This is a ring you were destined to obtain eventually.”

He had spoken firmly, as if he had known from the start that such a thing would appear.

‘Well, he’s not the type of person to hold a grudge just because someone else took an item.’

He wasn’t praised for nothing. He was a man who lived a life of giving to everyone without a single trace of self-interest.

It was unthinkable that such a man would resent anyone.

Irene shook off her thoughts and looked at the Princess sitting next to her.

The ill feelings from her past life remained vivid within her. The problem was that those events had not happened in this life.

’Of course, it’s hard to accept that she gave me wrong information…’

But no matter how much she thought about it, there was no reason for her to have intentionally given Irene wrong information to make her die in the dungeon in her past life.

‘If she wanted to kill me, she had thousands of opportunities before then.’

Furthermore, while the Princess didn’t have the best personality, she wasn’t the type to try and kill someone. With the power she held, there were plenty of ways to make someone miserable without going that far.

So there was no need for her to do such a thing that day. Perhaps she really had been mistaken as well.

But there was no longer any way to confirm. She couldn’t go back to the past again.

‘Fine. Let’s set that incident aside and think based only on everything else.’

Then, honestly, there was no need to stand in opposition to Princess Cecilia right now.

No, rather, it was more beneficial to be on friendly terms.

Unlike in her past life, the Princess wasn’t ignoring or looking down on Irene. So, if she played along, the Princess might include her in raids and share a generous portion of the rewards.

‘If she does that……’

Maybe she would just give her 100,000 gold.

Should she prioritize her emotions, or take the practical benefit?

It was while Irene was deep in deliberation.

“Ah, th-thank you so much for inviting me.”

Someone appeared at the entrance late.

It was a person Irene vaguely remembered.

‘She was a 7th-rank purifier.’

She was higher-ranked than Irene, but since she was low-ranked compared to the purifiers as a whole, she was someone who had stayed in the same building and narrow rooms as Irene.

She had shared rewards fairly with her pair, but because the knight she was with wasn’t very strong, she hadn’t earned much money.

‘I remember she struggled because she sent all the money she earned to her family…’

She entered hesitantly and bowed deeply toward Princess Cecilia.

The Princess gave her a brief glance and accepted her greeting half-heartedly.

“Thank you for inviting me. This is nothing much, but as a small token of my sincerity……”

“It certainly is nothing much.”

At that moment, one of the 1st-rank purifiers sitting near the Princess sighed as she looked at the wrapped gift box.

At her attitude, those nearby snickered and covered their mouths.

The moment Irene saw that, she froze.

Because someone else was experiencing the exact same thing she had once endured.