HSHK 03

Episode 3

Clatter, clatter.

Inside the carriage that raced on without pause, Irenne gazed at the fortress of the Kingdom Alliance in the distance.

The place where Purifiers and knights gathered to form contracts.

A place she had thought she would never have a reason to visit again in her lifetime.

‘And yet, I’ve come back here again.’

Then Irenne gave a bitter smile.

“I haven’t come back.”

In this life, it was clearly her first visit.

After opening her eyes again, without knowing what had happened or how, Irenne had first done exactly what she had done in the past—begged the Count.

Asked him to give her six months. Promised that she would make a pair and earn money.

Just as she remembered, the Count had raged and fumed before giving her a first—and last—chance.

After that, Irenne locked herself in her room for an entire day and thought.

They say that before a person dies, they see their past again.

But this was far beyond merely seeing it.

She had spent the entire day waiting for the dream to end, waiting for this supposed hallucination that appeared before death to disappear.

Yet, just as in the past, the maids practically threw her meals at her and left, while the head butler tossed a bag at her and told her to prepare to leave.

Watching their vivid mockery and contempt, Irenne realized it.

This was not an illusion.

She had truly returned to the past.

‘How?’

She did not know the reason.

But there was one thing she could suspect.

‘Could it be because of this?’

Irenne took a pitch-black piece of metal from her pocket. It looked as though it had been broken in half.

It was undoubtedly the item she had obtained from the ‘Room of Rewards’ inside that dungeon before she died.

The place she had desperately fled into after being gravely wounded by a monster.

The ‘Room of Rewards’ at the very end of a dungeon was a place monsters could never enter.

There were also countless chests there, whose origins and creators were unknown. Inside those chests, along with gold and treasures, there were sometimes strange objects that did not seem to belong to this world.

Before she died, Irenne had opened the rotting wooden chest beside her.

It was obviously a chest containing the lowest-grade reward.

Such chests usually contained useless junk. Strange feathers. Bizarre pebbles and things like that.

So when this strange, half-broken piece of metal came out, Irenne had simply accepted it as another worthless item.

‘I died clutching this.’

And yet, after returning to the past, it was still clutched in her hand.

After staring at the fragment for a moment, Irenne put it back into her pocket.

Then she turned her gaze to the paper resting on her lap.

It was a sheet of paper on which she had written down every piece of information she remembered from the past.

From the moment she realized that she had truly returned to the past, Irenne had frantically recorded everything she could remember.

How many dungeons had appeared in dangerous areas in the past, which of them had contained astonishing rewards, what powers those rewards possessed…

‘There was no way I could afford to forget.’

Irenne, who had always been alone, had eventually grown tired of sitting alone in her room. So she had gone through the document archives and read everything she could find, from information about recently discovered dungeons to records of dungeons from the distant past.

She had been interested in the dungeons themselves, but Irenne was even more interested in what came out of them.

A necklace that prevented its wearer from receiving any wounds from monsters.

A jewel that emitted light even when left untouched.

A statue that remained unharmed even inside flames.

Those objects, called artifacts, possessed mysterious supernatural abilities and were the most valuable rewards that could be obtained from dungeons.

For example, the necklace worn by the King of the Heren Kingdom had the power to slow its wearer’s aging.

Thanks to it, despite being eighty years old, the king was said to still look like a man in his early thirties.

In any case, artifacts valuable enough to completely change a person’s life if they obtained even one of them were sold for astronomical prices.

‘Everyone had been turned upside down whenever something that incredible appeared in a lower-grade dungeon.’

People would lament that if they had known such an item was there, they would have done whatever it took to get their hands on it.

And now, Irenne knew what came out of which dungeon.

She did not merely remember the rewards.

She also clearly remembered what attributes the magical beasts in each dungeon possessed, as well as what they were strong against and what they were weak against.

‘So if everything still happens according to my memories…’

Even if she made an unfavorable contract, she could still turn the outcome in her favor.

Enough that the 100,000 gold she owed the Count would become nothing.

Irenne thought of the Count who had slapped her across the face.

In the past, he had seemed so enormous and frightening.

But this time, he did not.

Even when she saw him shouting that she had to repay the price of her own body, she felt nothing but contempt.

She was not afraid.

And it was not only the Count.

The maids and the butler who had mocked and ridiculed her in the Count’s household.

They had all frightened her before, but this time, they seemed nothing more than laughable.

‘After dying once, everything seems so ridiculous.’

At that moment, the coachman suddenly shouted.

“Hey! We’re at the fortress! Get ready to get off!”

In the past, even that shout would have startled her and made her shrink back.

But not anymore.

Irenne calmly put the paper into her bag and placed the luggage she had brought from the Count’s residence beside her.

As she calmly straightened her clothes, Irenne raised her head.

‘It was a life I had already failed once.’

And then a miracle had happened, giving her the chance to start again.

‘So I can’t live like the same fool I was before.’

There were things she had learned by observing everything for a week.

The major events she remembered happened exactly the same way.

But there were things that changed as well.

For example, when she demanded that the cook, who had only given her hard bread in her previous life, give her proper food because she now had to leave to make a contract, he had flinched before giving her well-cooked soup and soft bread.

In her previous life, she had received clothes that were practically rags.

This time, she had used the contract as an excuse and received proper clothes.

Depending on her choices, it was entirely possible to create results different from the past.

‘Then…’

As she gazed at the fortress growing closer, she made up her mind.

The first mistake she needed to correct in this life.

That was…

‘I’m not going to become a pair with Michael.’

Irenne still remembered the way he had looked at her with perfect clarity.

The shock and confusion that spread across his face when he realized that he had slept with her.

And the shame and despair that followed.

She thought his reaction was only natural.

She did not resent him for openly showing his contempt toward her.

Even if she had done it to save his life, his beliefs had been completely shattered.

‘If I had been a powerful Purifier, he wouldn’t have ended up like that.’

If Princess Cecilia, known as the strongest Purifier of this era, had been Michael’s pair, she might have been able to save him simply by holding his hand.

If that had happened, he probably would not have been excommunicated from the temple either.

Irenne remembered the wrong choice she had made in the past, a choice that had left nothing but wounds on everyone.

‘I can’t repeat my mistake.’

Therefore, in this life, she would find someone other than him to become her pair.

She would.

Absolutely.

The fortress built in front of a dangerous region where dungeons appeared was called a fortress, but in reality, it was hardly any different from a gigantic city.

‘With the amount of money earned from dungeons, of course it would be.’

The gold, treasures, and artifacts that could be obtained from the Room of Rewards at the end of a dungeon.

Every kingdom was desperate to obtain them.

That was why they provided the knights and Purifiers who entered dungeons with as much convenience and pleasure as possible.

‘Though none of that applies to a lowest-grade Purifier like me.’

Standing in a corner, Irenne watched the Purifiers and knights who were already greeting one another and searching for pairs.

A pair was the term used for a Purifier and a knight who had agreed to a contract with each other.

Once they became a pair, the Purifier would heal only that knight.

And the knight, in turn, would receive treatment only from the Purifier with whom he had formed a pair, rather than from another Purifier.

For some reason, when they dealt exclusively with their contracted pair, the efficiency of the healing increased.

Of course, that did not make it look particularly good for unmarried people to share a bed with each other every time.

So the Kingdom Alliance gave the relationship the name ‘pair’ and recognized it as a temporary marriage.

It was nothing more than wordplay, of course.

But apparently, they wanted to save face somehow.

Unlike in her previous life, Irenne calmly looked around the extravagant space before turning her gaze toward the knights.

‘It feels strange seeing people who died again.’

Then she let out a small laugh.

After all, she herself was someone who had already died once.

Irenne touched the piece of metal in her pocket.

In this life, she felt that she also needed to discover what exactly it was.

Then one knight caught Irenne’s eye.

A man laughing and chatting frivolously with his fellow knights.

‘Even though he looks like that, he was actually quite skilled.’

Moreover, he cared terribly about his own body, so he never entered dungeons that seemed too difficult.

He was also someone who survived until the very end.

In her previous life, he had approached Irenne several times.

“Honestly, I kind of regret it. Someone like you probably could have just given up dungeon raids for a year or so and enjoyed yourself instead.”

He had also expressed his regret that if she had not been Michael’s pair, he could have become her pair.

‘Someone who is lustful enough to accept even the lowest-grade Purifier. And someone who still has a certain level of skill.’

Those were the conditions Irenne wanted in a pair right now.

And the man in front of her fulfilled them.

‘Honestly… as long as it isn’t Michael.’

Irenne approached the knight.

He looked her up and down with his eyes, then licked his lips.

Rather than being offended by the man’s blatant behavior, Irenne actually felt relieved.

If someone’s desires were this obvious, she could feel more at ease.

They would simply calculate what they wanted to give and receive from each other without having any feelings involved.

“Would you be willing to make a contract with me?”

“You… if I remember correctly, you’re definitely a lowest-grade Purifier.”

“Yes. So I’m willing to make many concessions in the contract. You can have all the rewards from the dungeons. However, I only ask that you give me one reward from a lower-grade dungeon once a month.”

The knight’s eyes flashed at those words.

The proposal Irenne had made was truly outrageous.

Normally, Purifiers demanded a fifty-fifty split in their contracts.

The knights were not particularly pleased with those terms, but they had no choice.

Without a Purifier, they could not even gain permission to enter a dungeon.

And if they offended a Purifier, the Purifier might not treat their wounds properly.

Yet here was someone voluntarily offering nearly free terms.

‘Besides, lower-grade dungeons are easy to conquer, and their rewards are usually nothing but trash.’

No matter how he thought about it, the conditions were heavily in his favor.

“Really? Is that all you need?”

“Yes. However, I’ll be the one choosing the dungeon from which I receive my reward. Other than that, there are no conditions.”

“Hmm.”

The knight quickly calculated in his head as he looked at Irenne.

She had been standing in the corner, but she had caught his eye from earlier.

Tall and slender, with a body voluptuous only where it needed to be.

And a calm, neat face that made him feel the desire to hear her cry out.

If she were anything higher than the lowest grade, quite a few knights would probably have flocked to her.

“Fine.”

The knight held out his hand to Irenne.

“Then I’d like to receive purification right away.”

At the blatantly lustful gaze in his eyes, Irenne swallowed a small sigh.

Suddenly, she remembered the past.

Michael, who had never wanted anything from her.

And the past that had been even more miserable because of that.

‘This is better.’

If what they wanted from each other, as well as what they would give and receive, was clear, then at least she would not have to suffer from the guilt of having ruined someone.

Just as Irenne was about to take the knight’s hand—

Bang!

With a tremendous sound, the doors to the banquet hall were violently thrown open.

A man covered from head to toe in bright red blood entered the banquet hall.

Irenne’s eyes widened in shock.

The man who entered in that horrifying state was…

Michael.