‘I have to stop him from making that terrible weapon.’

Before, she thought she couldn’t interfere with what he did. However, the more she got to know him, the more she started to think maybe he also didn’t want to see the tragedy Stella would bring.

She wanted to stop him. She knew she would look like a foolish and naïve girl who didn’t know what she was insisting in his eyes, but that was fine. If she could only stop him from making Stella and stop the war, she didn’t mind if he ended up hating her or blaming her.

“Do… you really have to know?”

In the end, he asked between clenched teeth. He could see that she would never look at him again if he didn’t let her get what she wanted now. Moreover, that was one thing he couldn’t overcome.

“Yes.”

“But you cannot go to the lab. You were so surprised… I cannot let that happen to you ever again.”

“Okay, I won’t go to the lab.”

What she wanted to know was whether he was working on Stella or not. She didn’t want to see the bombs and war chariots they were making at the lab.

“And I cannot show you all the documents.”

“Okay, just tell me what you are making.”

Even though Edgar would stop her from seeing all the documents, Rubica didn’t care as she wasn’t sure she would understand all those complicated documents.

“Do you just want to know what I am working on? Or also what the scholars at the lab are making?”

“Umm…”

She pressed her cheeks with her fingers and thought about that for a moment. As Stella was a great weapon, it was probably going to be invented by Edgar himself, but she wanted to take the safe route.

“All of it.”

“Okay then, I will have Carl arrange it. There are many things and it will take some time.”

“It’s fine. I can wait.”

Edgar looked at her, a little troubled. He had been mad at her for trying to see an aspect of him he didn’t want to show her. But thinking about it calmly now, he could see she wasn’t just insisting on it for no good reason.

She had asked him to move his money to Jackal Bank, and now she wanted to know what kind of weapon he was making.

‘It must be war.’

He reached a simple conclusion.

That easily explained how he was blinded and met her as a man who had nothing.

‘But how?’

On the west side of the Seritos Kingdom you could find the sea, on the north, you had the dangerous Seritos Mountains, and its east south was the dragon Ios’s territory. The kingdom was practically an island. That was why it had been able to maintain peace while it exported weapons that shook many kingdoms.

Even if the dragon’s territory made it hard for people of Seritos to get enough food, it was also the fence that defended the kingdom. The fire of war couldn’t engulf the kingdom easily.

Stella.

Edgar thought about the bomber to which he decided to dedicate everything he had. It had to be Stella. Nothing else could bring the kingdom down to ruins and destroy Claymore.

But who did it? The king? Or the crown prince? But neither of them had any lust for conquest. The crown prince didn’t even want the crown.

‘Or… maybe a spy.’

Maybe a spy from another kingdom was going to steal his blueprint. Such a thing had happened more than once in Claymore’s history. He immediately decided to delay the development of Stella. Then, he started to work on how to sort out the spy.

***

A cool breeze came and filled the entire garden with the scent of roses. The rose made by Sesar was not only beautiful, but it also had a strong scent. This was all thanks to the wild roses he had found at Mount Flenus. A man breathed in the scent in the middle of the garden.

“Hmm.”

His golden hair glittered under the moonlight. His eyes were golden, just like his hair. He looked around the garden full of roses.

“It’s just as he promised. I like it. It’s all pretty.”

He found an old man trying to steal his roses at Mount Flenus, so he thought about killing him. But now, he thought he made a good decision when sparing him. As the old man had promised, he had brought an unbelievably beautiful rose to the world.

“And now it’s all mine.”

His golden eyes glistened dangerously. Ios the Greedy. That was how they called him. Like any other dragon, he liked beautiful things, and he had an extremely strong lust for plants. He decided to make this new kind of rose bloom only in his territory.

He cast a spell and gathered wind with his left hand. Small lights that looked like golden power floated around ready to engulf the roses.

Ios snapped his finger. The golden lights were supposed to disappear with what he wanted.

“Huh?”

But to his surprise, nothing happened. Ios looked around, quite confused. The golden luster he had summoned had vanished.

“What is going on?”

He cast the spell once again, but it didn’t work. It seemed like his magic didn’t work in this place. He narrowed his eyes and looked at the building across the garden.

Dragons were superior to all creatures. Every creature that came into his territory obeyed him, except for some humans with a strong will. Even outside his territory, his power scarcely didn’t work.

“Is this the territory of another entity?”

Ios ruffled his hair. Golden luster floated around each time his golden hair moved.

“Master, are you finished?”

The ground moved and a wrinkled goblin popped out. It drank the scent of the roses that filled the garden and smiled happily. Giving precious liquor to that troublemaking botanist had paid off. Thinking about watering the roses made it already happy.

“We should go.”

“No, I cannot take these roses.”

Ios said, biting his lips hard. The goblin stared at him. The dragon should own all the roses in the garden by now.

“My magic isn’t working.”

“What? That’s not right. Unless this is the territory of another dragon…”

“Yes.”

Ios frowned. This had never happened before. His magic was not working… there were few creatures stronger than him, except for his fellow dragons. However, he couldn’t smell his kind right now.

“Oh!”

“Oh?”

“If it’s not a dragon, maybe it’s a nymph.”

“A nymph?”

Nymphs were one of the few beings stronger than dragons. Ios frowned. Assuming the mansion belonged to a nymph made everything clear.

“But why would a nymph be here? They’re all clean freaks.”

“How would I know what a nymph is doing here?”

“Well, I don’t know what’s up with them either.”

Ios angrily pulled his hair while the goblin carefully gathered golden particles that fell from him.

Even though the dragon was greedy about the flowers and trees, it didn’t care even a bit about the gold that fell from his body all the time. The goblin silently complained, thinking Ios was the one who didn’t know what was up with him.

“Oh, nymphs are supposed to live on their island in peace. What is one of them doing here?”

“I think you don’t deserve to say that. You came to steal these roses.”

“Shut up, Minos.”

The goblin, Minos, shrugged. Ios crossed his arms and looked around the garden. The roses were too beautiful to be given up so easily. Plus, that mad botanist had promised him to make even prettier flowers in the future.

“As he belongs to a nymph, kidnapping him will only lead to an even bigger problem.”

“How about getting permission?”

“Permission?”

“Nymphs are all kind and love peace. They usually grant requests when asked politely.”

“Politely?”

Ios glared at Minos. His fiery golden eyes let the goblin know it made a mistake. Ios was not just greedy. He was also vicious. He could set the pretty garden on fire, saying no one else could have what he couldn’t have.

‘And when nymphs get mad, there’s no stopping to their wrath.’

A seriously mad nymph could do far more than setting fire on a garden, and Minos really wanted to stop that from happening.

“That’s what I meant, master. I meant we should trick the nymph by pretending to be polite and get these roses.”

“Trick the nymph?”

Ios asked back. The idea sounded pretty good to him. Thankfully, he wasn’t that smart but simple.

“The owner of this mansion has just entrusted us a huge sum of money in the goblins’ bank. We can pretend to work for the bank and smuggle out these roses.”

And to pretend to be the bank employers, they had to be polite. However, Ios couldn’t think that far ahead. He was just glad to trick someone.

‘It’s good that he’s so simple.’

Minos looked around the giant mansion as it gathered Ios’s golden luster again. It was also interested in the mansion’s owner who suddenly entrusted so much money to the Jackal Bank.

Minos wanted to know why he had done that. He was worried the man might have noticed Jackal Bank didn’t take only the humans’ money but also managed the dragons’ and monsters’ money as well. The truth was that it was planning to pretend to help Ios while finding out about Claymore.