Holy Night: My Husband is Definitely a Paladin - Chapter 153

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No matter how comfortably she was spending time here, this was still inside a dungeon.

A place filled with monsters, where humans should not be.

But to think she had wanted to stay here and become a monster herself…

Once she snapped out of it, memories of people she had momentarily forgotten came back to her—Reyna, Cynthia, and the other purifiers who had started to follow her, and the steadily growing group.

How could she have forgotten all of that? Even if there was no clear way out, she shouldn’t give up.

Why had she so easily assumed she would stay here forever?

“Irene?”

Michael quickly sensed the change in her.

The lust-filled tension between them from just moments ago dissipated.

“Are you alright? Why, all of a sudden…?”

Though he was still aroused, he looked at Irene as if such desires were trivial now.

“Michael, why have neither of us been thinking about leaving this place?”

“……”

“We used to explore different places and talk about old records, but when did that stop…?”

She thought that mentioning it would make him realize their change and be as surprised as she was.

But Michael’s reaction was different from what she expected.

“Is it wrong for us to stay here?”

“…Michael?”

“Why are you trying to leave this place?”

At his question, Irene was at a loss for how to respond.

Of course, it was natural to want to return to the world they came from. But how could she explain something so obvious?

“Well, all my friends are outside, and that’s the world we originally lived in…”

Realizing this explanation might not suffice, Irene changed her approach and asked him a question instead.

“Michael, do you not want to go back?”

She expected him to naturally say he did.

“I have no reason to return.”

“What?”

“All that I cherish is right here. So I don’t particularly feel a need to go back. But…”

As he continued, he wiped away the fluids that had run down her leg, looking up at her.

“If you wish to go back, I’ll follow you anytime.”

At that moment, as if responding to his words, the dungeon began to shake.

* * *

“Irene!”

The moment Reyna saw Irene, she ran to her, crying, and hugged her.

“Irene, are you alright?”

Reyna wasn’t the only one. Cynthia also embraced Irene, tears streaming down her face.

“You must have gone through so much in that dungeon! I’m so, so happy to see you again!”

Their intense reactions made Irene feel a bit embarrassed.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t suffered. She had initially run for her life after witnessing the massacre of the raid team, and was even attacked by monsters just before escaping.

But her hardships ended there. Since then, she hadn’t faced anything she’d truly call suffering while staying with Michael until their return.

The hardest thing she’d endured had only been the slow, drawn-out sessions she shared with him for hours on end.

‘Come to think of it…’

Irene touched her exposed neck.

Just hours before they’d left the dungeon, she had been entwined with him.

Each time, Michael had left marks all over her neck and body, almost as if to claim her.

“What’s wrong? Did you get hurt somewhere?”

When Irene, flustered, touched her neck, Reyna looked at her with concern and gently pulled her hand away to check.

“No, it’s just…!”

At a loss for how to explain the kiss and bite marks, Irene’s thoughts blurred as Reyna tilted her head in confusion.

“I don’t see anything. Does it hurt underneath the skin?”

“What…?”

That couldn’t be. When she’d looked in the water, she’d definitely seen the marks. Right before they left the dungeon, Michael had even worried that they were too red and rubbed them with his hand. But now, there was nothing.

Irene looked at her neck in a nearby glass pane.

Although it wasn’t very clear, there truly were no marks on her neck.

Not only her neck, but all the other places he had left marks.