She had been controlling the duke and making Stephen’s plans fail. Should I put a sword to her neck? He put a hand on his sword, but then his brother shook his head.

“Stephen, we don’t have time for that.”

“Ha, I guess I have no choice. Hey, you’re not the duchess to me anymore. You’re just a hostage, so behave. If you do anything again, I will kill you right away.”

It seemed like resisting again would end up with a really, really bad result, so Rubica climbed the horse. She hoped for Ios to use the spell that froze time he used before, but nothing happened.

‘You foolish dragon, without me, you will not be getting any new roses!’

She wanted to yell so, but she couldn’t as her mouth was covered. Clearly, Ios wasn’t thinking that far.

Her last hope was Minos. There was no way he would let the dragon roam around the Claymore’s garden alone.

At least he was a goblin who knew what was good for him. Rubica betted all her hope on that fact.

And, she was right. Minos was at a corner of the garden, far from where she was. He sniffed around for some time, then he took out a trowel and started to dig.

He dug until he started to see tree roots. Then, he took out something like a pearl, threw it in, and started to mend the hole again. His forehead was beaded with sweat.

“Hey, Minos.”

He was working on making that escape passage for when the nymph got enraged, but then Ios called him.

Minos gritted his teeth at seeing the dragon. Oh, he tried so hard to get rid of that troublemaker, what was he doing here now?

However, he insisted he wanted more things from Rubica.

‘That greedy dragon who can never be satisfied. He will give the duchess some headaches.’

But he was a goblin, and Ios was a dragon. What choice did he have? So, he had come with the troublemaker, and now he put down his trowel and replied with a broad smile.

“What is it, my master? You said you were going to look around the garden. Have you found anything you like? I’m sure the duchess will gladly let you take it.”

In a nymph’s territory, his or her spouse had similar rights to the nymph. They had been able to take the roses the other day thanks to Rubica’s permission.

And thanks to that, Ios still didn’t know Rubica wasn’t the nymph.

“She’s playing some kind of weird game… I think she has some strange hobbies.”

“A weird game?”

“Yes, she was being carried by someone, with her hands and feet bound with ropes.”

“What?”

“Well, I didn’t know nymphs had such hobbies.”

“What on earth are you talking about? Tell me more.”

Ios explained what he had just seen, not seeing why the goblin was so shocked.

“And you just left her there?”

“I told you, they were on some kind of game. I didn’t want to break the fun.”

Minos put his head on his hands. Ios thought Rubica was the nymph, so he just shrugged, not knowing what the problem was.

“And Duke Claymore wasn’t around?”

“The duke? Of course, she wouldn’t let her husband find out about such a secretive hobby.”

Minos felt a great headache that almost shattered his skull. Didn’t most married couples sleep in one bed? As nymphs were extremely sensitive, it was almost impossible to smuggle out Rubica so late at night.

How did this happen? Was Ios right? Did the duchess really have that kind of weird hobby and the duke was pretending to not know about it?

“Master, please transform me into a human.”

Minos decided to let the duke know about it first. If the two men were really abducting the duchess, he would be severely punished if he ignored it.

“A human? But doing what you are doing will be hard in human form.”

“I’ll just do it later. I must meet the duke and tell him about it first. What if she is really being kidnapped? It’s serious!”

However, Ios just shrugged.

“But she’s a nymph. You don’t have to worry about her.”

According to Io’s thinking, humans were like ants to nymphs. He just thought Rubica would come home after having fun for some time. He put his hands in his pockets, clearly showing he was going to do nothing.

Minos wanted to pound on his chest because of the frustration, but he hid it and made his small brain work hard.

“The duchess must not want her husband to find out about her hobby. How about using it to blackmail her?”

“Oh, we can blackmail her with it?”

Ios smiled like a naughty boy. He was biting the bait so easily that Minos thought he couldn’t be a land dragon but was actually a water dragon, no, a fish that forgot everything in less than three seconds.

“That strange fabric we saw in the market, you said you wanted it, a lot of it, right?”

“Yes. I think it would be great to decorate my trees with it.”

“We can demand the machine that makes the fabric, and you can have as much as you want.”

Ios had taken a ribbon from Rubica and put it around the branch he liked the most. It looked quite nice on a tree, and Ios wanted more ribbons.

So, he decided to announce he would go with Minos to Claymore Mansion, and of course, the goblin’s opinion was not heard.

Ios even found a ship full of ribbon fabrics at a harbor they dropped by on their way to the mansion, and it had been very hard for Minos.

Moreover, the ship’s owner turned them down flatly, saying, ‘These are all to be exported. I cannot sell them,’ and made the dragon lose its temper. He was ready to destroy the entire port, and Minos was only able to barely stop him by saying they would be able to get even more ribbons for free when they got to the mansion.

“That nymph isn’t that smart, so I think it would be easy to blackmail her.”

Minos became a small human as soon as he finished saying that. Ios naturally grabbed him by the back of his neck and raised him.

“Then let’s go. We should go to where that duke is, right?”

“Yes. He’s probably…”

Minos narrowed his eyes and looked at the mansion. He recalled the building’s blueprint, counted the windows, and then pointed at one of them. It was the duchess’s chamber.

“There.”

Then, he blinked. When he opened his eyes, they were in the middle of the room.

“But he’s not here.”

“That can’t be right.”

“Maybe he’s locked somewhere.”

Ios thought Rubica was a crazy lady, so he opened all the closets, but of course, Edgar wasn’t in one of them.

‘They don’t sleep together? Hmm, what’s going on?’

Before Minos could finish thinking, Ios ran out of the room.

“Hey, you.”

Then, he went down and touched a maid who was dozing.

“Where’s the duke?”

“Master!”

Minos called him, but it was too late. The maid opened her eyes and saw a huge man with golden eyes and golden hair. She screamed so loudly that the building almost trembled.

The sound woke up everyone, including the guards and the butler.

‘Oh, no.’

Minos felt a great impulse to leave Ios there and run away alone. However, judging from Ios’s troubled personality, that would destroy the entire dukedom.

Claymore was a VIP of Jackal Bank, after all.

Minos rubbed his hands and tried to speak to the butler as politely as possible.

“I’m so sorry that we surprised you, but we have to see the duke, it’s urgent.”

Carl, who was still in his nightgown, looked at him and Ios in shock. He had seen Minos, but not the man with golden hair.

Everyone was looking at him, but he didn’t care and just wiped some dirt on his pants. He didn’t appear to be human. Moreover, his hair kept shedding glittering particles that looked like gold. A knight tried to take out his sword, but Carl stopped him and asked.

“Why do you want to meet the duke?”

“I’m afraid something has happened to his precious one.”

“His precious one? You, go and check if the duchess is fine.”

The maid came back in less than a minute and shouted, “She’s not in the room. The window is open and there’s a rope leading to the ground!”

“What?”

The duchess had disappeared in the middle of the night. Carl fell to the floor and knelt down.

Rubica and Edgar had become very close lately, and it seemed like they had decided to become a married couple for real. The duke was even full of hopes, believing she would tell him everything tomorrow.

However, what if she ran away?

“We saw who took her. We have something to ask the duke, so please.”

Minos’s explanation gave both relief and regret to Carl.

He had been putting all of his efforts in keeping the duke’s secret that he hadn’t cared much about the duchess’s safety. He had been so careless even though he knew there was a spy among them.