Chapter 158
“It’s the same this time as well. By the way, did you bring anything else back from the distortion dungeon?”
“No, nothing like that. But please hand me that paper.”
Irene took the paper written by the Hand of Appraisal. She figured she should take it with her and compare it with the previous inscription to see if anything had changed.
Then, she noticed a pile of items on the table behind the fortress staff member, waiting to be appraised by the Hand of Appraisal.
“Are all these artifacts?”
“No, these are fragments of unregistered monsters and plant samples from the recent distortion dungeon.”
“The Hand of Appraisal appraises things like that too?”
“Yes. When examining unknown species for the first time, we often use its power. Not always, but sometimes it writes something down. You know the cerulean grass that grows in dungeons? The blue grass? It was the Hand of Appraisal that noted that chewing and swallowing it temporarily improves eyesight.”
At this, Irene looked at the Hand of Appraisal in a new light. She’d thought it only appraised artifacts, but it seemed to have other abilities as well.
“So if it appraises monsters…”
“We don’t always get clear results, but sometimes it can tell us things like how large a monster will grow or what kind of poison it uses. Occasionally, it will even mention what the monster recently ate…”
Leaving behind the unusually friendly and detailed explanations from the staff, Irene exited the appraisal room.
She still felt slightly uncomfortable even outside, as many people kept approaching her, eager to speak.
Of course, everyone treated her far more kindly and graciously than before.
‘It’s not a bad thing…’
But she couldn’t shake the feeling of discomfort.
After a moment’s thought, Irene found her answer.
The way people were treating her now was very similar to how they used to treat Princess Cecilia.
‘The princess’s influence has truly weakened.’
Although she knew Cecilia had suffered a series of misfortunes, she hadn’t expected people to turn on her so quickly.
Irene glanced toward Princess Cecilia’s quarters in the distance.
In the past, the windows would have been open, and people would have been coming and going, but now the windows were shut tightly.
* * *
The next place Irene visited was the temple. It wasn’t much different from the fortress in atmosphere.
“Lady Irene!”
Familiar faces, who had grown used to her presence from her visits to learn swordsmanship before entering the distortion dungeon, warmly greeted her.
“Are you here to see Sir Michael? He hasn’t returned yet. We’ll be contacting the fortress soon…”
“No, I’m not here to see Michael. I just wanted to have my purification level measured.”
“Your purification level?”
Irene nodded, glancing at the Infinite Healing Ring on her finger.
The scratches on the ring had noticeably faded since before she’d entered the distortion dungeon.
‘Which means my purification level has increased again.’
In fact, it would have been strange if it hadn’t.
Before entering the dungeon, her level had risen from Tenth-grade to Eighth-grade simply by sharing kisses and brief touches with Michael.
‘And this time, we made much deeper contact…’
Thinking this, Irene couldn’t help but chuckle.
To call what they did in the dungeon ‘deeper contact’—she wasn’t much different from Michael, who had written it off as purification and rest.
“Lady Irene!”
At that moment, Variel approached her—the priest who had measured her purification level at Michael’s request last time.
“You want to measure your purification level again?”
“Yes. In the dungeon, I… encountered monsters frequently and had to purify a lot, so I thought my level might have gone up a bit…”
They couldn’t possibly know what she and Michael had done, but she felt embarrassed anyway, giving the explanation as if to make excuses.
“Understood. Please have a seat here for a moment.”
Variel gestured for Irene to sit, then stood behind her.
“Then, let’s begin the measurement.”
Soon, a warm energy enveloped Irene.
‘It might be easier to reach Ninth or Eighth-grade, but anything beyond that would be difficult… If I’m really lucky, maybe Sixth-grade? Otherwise, probably just Seventh-grade…’
As Irene pondered this, Variel’s voice came out in a shaky whisper.
“Fourth-grade…?”
