My Husband Was Clearly a Paladin
Chapter 28
“Reina?”
“I don’t know what would have happened if it weren’t for you…. *Sob*….”
In the end, Reina burst into tears. Even so, she didn’t let go of Irene’s hands, which she was clutching tightly.
“Wait, just a moment. Please calm down.”
Looking closely, Reina was a mess.
Her combat suit was caked in mud and stained with blood in several places, and her hair was completely disheveled.
The moment Irene saw her, the blood seemed to drain from her face. However, she quickly regained her composure.
Hadn’t Reina just thanked her?
Irene turned to Cynthia, who was standing behind her, looking unsure of what to do.
“Cynthia, I’m sorry, but could you close the door?”
“I think we’ll need some towels, too. I’ll go get them.”
Cynthia was quick-witted. Realizing Irene didn’t want others to see this scene, she quickly closed the door and ran to the bathroom.
In the meantime, Irene tried to soothe the sobbing Reina.
“Here, come sit down. Stop crying now. What happened? Did you actually go into that advanced dungeon?”
“No, it wasn’t that. What happened was….”
Reina began to explain everything that had transpired.
*
*
*
“……So I came straight to find you, Irene-nim.”
Reina wiped away her remaining tears with the towel Cynthia had brought.
The story Reina told was as follows:
After much hesitation, the two had ultimately decided to follow Irene’s advice and not enter the advanced dungeon.
Instead, they participated in a small-scale raid on a different intermediate dungeon and successfully cleared it.
Felix hadn’t played a major role, nor were the rewards particularly generous, so they hadn’t gained much.
But they comforted each other, saying it was just the beginning and there was no need to rush. It was as they were preparing to return to the fortress that it happened.
Several people who had entered the advanced dungeon they had originally considered emerged in a horrific state, screaming.
“Request backup from the fortress! This isn’t a normal advanced dungeon! The Ice Bees are…!”
As if to prove those words, Ice Bees began crawling out of the dungeon entrance.
The knights in the vicinity immediately rushed to engage the monsters.
“Felix managed to block an attack just in time. He said that after you spoke to us, he couldn't stop thinking about it, so he looked up the attack patterns of Ice Bees and practiced a lot on his own.”
Thanks to that, Felix was not only able to protect Reina but even succeeded in killing a few of them.
In the meantime, reinforcements arrived from the fortress and the situation was brought under control.
“Fortunately, Sir Michael was among them, so that advanced dungeon was cleared quickly. And then they brought out the dead and injured from inside….”
As if the memory was too much, Reina’s eyes welled up again.
“If Irene-nim hadn’t warned us, Felix and I would have died in there.”
“…….”
“Truly, thank you again. I don’t know how to repay this debt. If there is anything you want, please just say it.”
“Repay me? I only gave you a piece of advice. You two are the amazing ones for believing and following the words of someone you’d just met. Besides, Sir Felix even went out of his way to research the Ice Bees.”
“But still….”
“It’s really alright. More importantly, have another cup of tea. You’re still shivering.”
As if in agreement, Cynthia quickly refilled Reina’s teacup.
“Thank you. By the way, who is this? Your name is…?”
“Ah, I’m Cynthia Myers. A rank 7… purifier.”
“I am Reina Ortega. A rank 2 purifier.”
Cynthia seemed worried that Reina might look down on her after hearing her rank.
However, when Reina smiled and took her hand as if she didn’t care about such things at all, Cynthia finally relaxed.
“I’m sorry for barging in like this while you two were talking and making a mess of the place.”
“Not at all. I was also just catching my breath here thanks to Irene-nim’s help.”
“Help? Don't tell me you had trouble in a dungeon as well?”
“Ah, it wasn’t that….”
When Cynthia stole a glance at her, Irene shrugged as if to say it was fine to talk about it.
Cynthia, perhaps still harboring ill feelings toward Princess Cecilia, described the way the Princess had ignored her, while painting Irene’s help as something incredibly grand and gracious.
“No, I don’t think I provided such ‘grand’ help….”
“How can you say it wasn't grand? If it weren't for you, Irene, I’d still be sitting there just staring at the floor.”
“She’s right. Irene-nim, you need to realize just how significant your help is!”
Hearing the two of them speak in unison, Irene felt a flush of embarrassment.
She had only acted to put her own mind at ease, yet they were so deeply grateful.
“More than that, I’m worried about what will happen now that Irene can’t join the Princess’s Faction because of me. It’s quite inconvenient in the fortress if you don’t belong to a group.”
As Cynthia spoke again in a discouraged voice, Reina, who had been listening, spoke up cautiously.
“Um, about that group. It’s true that it’s more convenient to belong to one, just as Cynthia-nim said. So… what if we started our own group?”
“What?”
Irene’s eyes widened at the unexpected proposal.
“Actually, I was invited to the Princess’s Faction too, but I ended up not joining. I had a bit of a problem with one of the other rank 1 purifiers besides the Princess. It seems she opposed me joining. So, I haven’t bothered with the Princess’s Faction since then either.”
Saying so, Reina looked down at the blood on her clothes.
“But seeing what happened with the advanced dungeon today, I realized it’s not something to be ignored. That dungeon was a place where people who had conflicts with the Princess’s Faction had entered, and not a single knight from that faction came to help.”
Come to think of it, while the advanced dungeon was being cleared, all the powerful purifiers, including the Princess, had been attending their gathering.
That meant their paired knights had also stayed at the fortress instead of going to the dungeon.
‘Only someone like Michael could move on his own.’
Other knights would never dream of going near a dungeon without a purifier.
As it was a gathering of powerful purifiers, their paired knights were also among the most capable in the fortress.
To think they had entered an advanced dungeon without them.
No matter how many people they gathered, the subjugation could never have been easy.
“Furthermore, even when help was requested, everyone made various excuses and refused to move. If it weren't for a few knights and Sir Michael, this raid would have truly ended in a total massacre.”
Cynthia chimed in after Reina’s words.
“The faction probably chose not to move on purpose. They likely wanted to make it clear that without them, no one should even dream of attempting an advanced dungeon.”
Irene agreed with both of them.
The Princess had done the same thing in the past.
In the beginning, she would never help when people outside the Princess’s Faction went to clear a dungeon.
She knew that once a major disaster occurred, the survivors would ultimately bow their heads to join her group.
‘Is that why she was so obsessed with Michael?’
Since Michael was the only knight who could ignore the Princess’s Faction, she might have been all the more determined to bring him in.
While Irene was lost in thought, Reina watched her closely before speaking tentatively.
“Everyone needs a group, but it doesn’t seem like everyone can join the Princess’s Faction. So, doesn't the conclusion have to be starting a new one?”
Cynthia immediately backed Reina up.
“That’s right. Reina-nim is a rank 2 purifier, and Irene-nim, you’re Sir Michael’s pair and the owner of ‘Limitless Healing.’”
As the two of them became excited with shining eyes, Irene found herself in a difficult position.
“Um, I should tell you in advance, Sir Michael isn’t exactly someone who needs my purification very much.”
“But didn’t he urgently ask you to be his pair during the Night of the Contract?”
“That was a very unusual situation, and normally I barely even see him. Look. He went to the advanced dungeon today, but I’m here.”
“Still, if you say you’re forming a group, wouldn’t he help at least once?”
Reina, who had such a solid relationship with Felix, asked with a face that seemed to say, ‘How could a pair not do that?’
“He’s someone who would help in a difficult situation, but I don’t know if he would grant a personal favor.”
Irene thought of Michael.
He seemed to talk to her more comfortably and see her more often than in the past.
But the fact that he still roamed the dungeons alone remained unchanged.
Besides, she was thinking of ways to break their pair contract and leave; wouldn’t it be shameless to ask him for help?
Just then, a voice accompanied by another knock on the door was heard.
“Irene, your pair, Michael, requests to see you.”
