CH 01

Ssssh.

Irene bit her lip at the sound of water trickling from the bathroom. Strewn across the basket outside the bathroom door were clothes soaked in blood. From the look of it, whoever was washing inside had stripped down pretty quickly.

‘That’s strange.’

This was just not like him.

Like everything in the world had a place, he never changed it, and if he saw a mess, he’d quietly clean it up himself. Even if it was a blood-soaked mess of clothes.

‘But why…’

It wasn’t just the clothes scattered around. Beside the basket was a sword engraved with the emblem of the Holy Knights lay on the floor.

That sword meant more to him than his own life. As a paladin, he always prioritized securing that sword before anything else. People often joked that the sword was his true body, given how much he cherished it, living up to his nickname, the “Sword of God.”

But now, the sword was rolling across the floor, in a worse state than his tattered clothes.

Hssh.

With a twist of the valve, the sound of water ceased. He had finished his shower.

Irene looked nervously toward the bathroom.

He had surely gone in, a mess from the demonic blood, so she had expected for him to take quite a while longer…

‘So soon?’

Any moment now, he would open the door and come out. Irene’s heart beat faster at the thought of him. After all, the man in the bathroom was her husband. He was her legitimate spouse, so it shouldn’t be any issue that they were spending the night together.

‘Even if it is only temporary.’

He and Irene had entered into a temporary conjugal relationship known as a “pair.” Pair — a term used to describe a knight who enters a dungeon and fights demons and a purifier who tends to the knight’s wounds and cleanses them.

It was not uncommon for knights to receive wounds, large and small, while battling demons in dungeons. Wounds themselves were troublesome, but a bigger issue lay in the magic emitted by the monsters.

Magic gradually gnawed at the human mind, causing torment, hallucinations, and delusions. Once the threshold was crossed, a person would go berserk. Those who went berserk turned into monsters themselves. Hence, purifiers devoted all their efforts to cleansing the magic within their pairs.

The problem lay in the method of purification. The method itself was quite simple. They needed maximum physical contact with their partner. Even a simple touch, holding hands, could heal minor wounds. However, for more severe wounds or to purify the miasma, a closer, intimate contact was required. Embracing each other, kissing, but above all, mixing their bodies was the surest and quickest method. In fact, the knights preferred the latter method.

After merging with a purifier, all wounds healed completely, any accumulated miasma vanished entirely, and temporarily, their physical abilities were enhanced. That’s why before entering dungeons, even without any injury or affliction, many opted to merge their bodies.

‘But… he loathed even the slightest touch.’

Irene recalled their first contact. Any other pair would have headed straight for the bedroom. However, he stubbornly refused Irene’s touch, insisting that a brief rest would suffice.

Witnessing this, other pairs muttered among themselves.

“With her purifying abilities being so poor, it’s unlikely that mere contact will heal his wounds. Even if they merge, can they be able to treat a single injury?”

“There’s no way he’d accept a purification from a woman like that, let alone another high-ranking purifier.”

Amidst the taunts she had heard so many times that she had grown accustomed to them, Irene took his hand as he drew in a ragged breath.

Holding hands was the most fundamental form of purification for a pair and was as natural as breathing.

However, the moment Irene grasped his hand, his body trembled slightly, then stiffened. He turned away entirely, not once meeting her gaze until she released his hand.

‘He wouldn’t be this horrified even if facing a monster.’

Irene swallowed her frustration and embarrassment, exerting her power to its limit for his purification. Feeble as it was, her effort did heal him if only slightly.

Upon feeling the relief, he abruptly rose and left without a word, departing like a fleeing shadow, devoid of his usual courtesy. Irene could only hang her head in response.

‘He must have truly detested it.’

She had only wished to offer some assistance, yet she ended up repulsing him instead of aiding. More than the mockery of others, Irene’s heart wrenched at the sight of his retreating figure.

Since then, Irene dared not approach him. It was clear that no matter what she did, it would only disgust and offend him.

‘It’s to be expected.’

He was a paladin of the temple, a divine blade honed through austere discipline and a chaste life, grounded in unwavering faith—a warrior near ascetic perfection. Hence, like any devout priest of the temple, he was averse to emotions, shunning them in his rigorous pursuit. To him, women were merely objects to be avoided and guarded against.

‘And yet I held his hand.’

As it was, being a weak purifier and offering no real assistance, the fact that he didn’t outright recoil from her prolonged touch was, in itself, something to be grateful for.

Click.

The sound of the door opening snapped Irene out of her reverie. She looked up, and there he was, already out of the bathroom.

“…!”

The moment she laid eyes on him, Irene instinctively held her breath, unaware of her own reaction.

Brilliant blonde hair that looked like it was made from a mixture of sunshine and honey. Eyebrows as pronounced and meticulous as his disposition, sitting below the most pristine azure eyes, mirroring the clearest autumn sky. And his features—so flawlessly chiseled, almost questionable in their perfection. It was a face that she couldn’t help but admire.

But it wasn’t just his face that was perfect. Droplets of water that hadn’t been brushed out of his still-damp hair fell over his broad shoulders and trickled down the muscles of his well-defined chest. Following the lines of his taut body, the water droplets flowed freely until they met an obstacle, disappearing from sight.

Irene’s eyes followed the drops until she realized the nature of the obstruction, causing her to startle and panic.

“S–Sir Michael! Your clothes…!”

Michael was wearing nothing but a large towel draped roughly over his lower half.

Irene’s face instantly flushed red.

His physique was just as, if not more, exquisite than his face. If a deity of war manifested in this world, she might envision a body like his. Tight, well-defined, perfect muscles, never too much, never too little.

His flawlessly refined physique exuded a sense of beauty in itself. She wondered if he realized she was staring at him.

He opened his mouth.

“Irene.” He spoke her name in a low, husky voice that made her tremble just to hear it. “Didn’t we agree that you wouldn’t call me ‘Sir’ anymore?”

“Well, that’s true but…!”

Before Irene could finish, he took a step closer, now near the edge of the bed where she sat. And as the distance closed, the outline of his body, wrapped in a white towel, became more sharply defined.

‘Oh my god, heavens above.’

Irene desperately called out to god. There he was, the Sword of God.

Surely, he earned that nickname due to possessing strength unparalleled by anyone else. Although, she had her suspicions that maybe it might be for something else now that she was seeing his lower half.

Moving closer, Michael stood in front of Irene and pointed to the small cuts that dotted his body.

“These are the wounds I received in the dungeon today.”

Wounds? They were scratches, at best. To a knight, these were nothing.

“Also, I’ve been staying in the dungeon for long enough that I’ve accumulated a lot of magic, so…”

A body that still retained the heat of battle leaned closer to Irene. The next moment, her vision spun. When she came to her senses, Michael’s body was already on top of her.

“So, Irene. My pair. My wife.”

His knee dug into Irene’s long, slender legs and spread them apart.

The heat of battle remained intact on his body. It was too much for her, and she was unable to do anything but open her legs helplessly as he pressed himself against her.

His knee came up between her legs, rubbing her gently through the thin fabric. That alone made her flinch and she couldn’t help but let out an audible moan.

It was a place he visited several times. Just yesterday, he’d dug into her tight flesh and spread her open to his shape.

A dizzying smile appeared on his beautiful face. Slowly, he leaned down.

Tkk–

Irene felt the towel he was wearing fall on her body. And then his incredibly contoured body was pressed against her leg.

When she couldn’t breathe from his mass and size, Michael whispered in her ear, “Tonight, I want to be cleansed by you.”

His knee pressed hard against her intimate place. He whispered again with a low chuckle as Irene shuddered at the l*scivious action.

“Long and slow.”

Irene swallowed her breath at his l*stful words.

That’s strange. Something wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be…

‘You were definitely a paladin in a previous life who wouldn’t even lay a finger on me, right?’

It was definitely like that.

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