Sand started gathering on Ios’s palm until it became a giant sphere. He cast a spell, and soon a huge sandstorm swept through the cornfield Stephen was hiding in. Fortunately, it missed Edgar by just a meter or so.

“Huh? There’s no one there!”

The sandstorm left nothing but a bunch of fallen corns.

Edgar could only curse at the dragon in his mind by saying, ‘You idiot. You can’t see Stephen because he’s lying flatly on the ground between the corns. Can’t you even think of that?’

Edgar decided to stop thinking about that helpless dragon and focus on saving Rubica by looking around.

He had seen Stephen’s twin hide near him, but it wasn’t easy to locate him.

“I think we can’t see them because of these fallen corns.”

Thankfully, Minos wasn’t a fool, and Ios tended to accept things the goblin said as he was a substitute to his dumb drain.

“Aha, then I can just get rid of these corns.”

“You shouldn’t use too much magic like that, you will soon lack power!”

However, he was only good at accepting. As always, Ios’s body worked first before his head could even think about it.

Minos sighed as the corns were all blown away by a strong wind. The dragon had nothing to fear in his own territory, but outside, his power was not unlimited.

They had planted magical items to amplify and recharge magic at the Claymore Mansion, so Ios had been able to use his powers without many worries in there, but they didn’t have such a thing right now.

Ios had used his transportation magic, then he summoned a sandstorm and a whirlwind. Minos was worried he might soon run out of magic.

“Why do I have to worry so much? They’re only humans. Hey, where are you, you rats?”

Stephen calmly stood up from where he was. Ios’s magic was remarkable, but he had faced many monsters in the north.

Moreover, judging from what the goblin was saying, Ios seemed to have some kind of limitation on magic usage. Plus, this wasn’t a fight that involved facing the enemy head-on and winning.

‘I must buy him time.’

He had to distract them as much as possible so that his brother would be able to run away with Rubica.

Even though the field he was standing on was currently empty, there were some corns left slightly far away, and he thought even Ios wouldn’t be able to do much if his brother took Rubica to the mountains.

“Where’s Rubica?”

Ios asked, but Stephen fired a flare instead of answering the question. Ios was directly hit by the blindingly bright light, and it angered him even more.

“You!”

Ios meant to be merciful. He was planning to demand Rubica to tell her rude underling about what a great creature he was, but this was what he was getting in return?

Enraged, he started to pick up stones and throwing them. They changed into huge boulders in the air and flew to Stephen, but he quickly dodged all of them.

“Master, you shouldn’t just throw rocks like this. Just please think…”

“You, shut your mouth. Oh, this is making me truly angry!”

Stephen kept running between the boulders like a rat. Ios, completely lost in his anger, tried to use the spell that stopped time, but it didn’t activate as he had used too much power already.

“Oh, but why is this not working?”

“I told you not to use too much magic like that. Please, just listen to me.”

“Huh, do you think I’ll lose to a human just because I cannot use time magic?”

It was hard to know whether Ios was fighting Stephen or Minos. But then, Edgar heard a whistle. It sounded like a signal between Stephen and his brother.

‘He’s trying to run away while Stephen is distracting Ios.’

Then, he would surely come for the horses, so Edgar went as close as possible to the horses and waited.

After a short silence, the corns shook from the east and Stephen’s twin came out.

He looked around and then pulled a rope in his right hand. Then Rubica, whose head was still in a sack, was dragged out by it.

Even though her hands and feet had been untied, he was holding the rope bound around her waist so that she wouldn’t be able to run away.

She was still in her nightdress and her feet were bare. Edgar’s heart ached at seeing that. The moment Stephen’s twin turned around to put Rubica on one of the horses, Edgar took out a knife and stabbed toward his neck.

“Ugh!”

However, the man was good enough to be Stephen’s shadow. In fact, he sensed the strike before it came and turned. This resulted in Edgar stabbing the horse’s thigh instead of the man’s neck.

“Neeeigh!”

The horse neighed in surprise and raised its front hooves. Rubica, in the meantime, held its mane to avoid falling.

As she couldn’t see, she didn’t know why the horse was doing that, but she followed her instincts to survive.

“What the, there’s another rat over there!”

While Ios was distracted by Stephen’s twin, Stephen fired a poisoned needle. However, it turned black and scattered the moment it touched Ios’s arm.

“You!”

A human’s attack had touched Ios, and it outraged him. The land reacted to his anger and started to quake.

“Ios, calm down! You might hurt Rubica!”

Edgar, who had been trying hard to calm down the panicked horse, yelled on top of his voice.

But now, Ios was really mad and couldn’t hear him. With the ground shaking, the horse was even more agitated.

Edgar could see Rubica’s hands letting go of its mane little by little. She was about to fall.

“Rubica, I’m here!”

Edgar yelled to her, but she couldn’t listen.

She couldn’t see and she couldn’t hear, so falling off the horse could kill her.

Edgar, therefore, decided to get on the horse and calm it down to save her.

‘If I grab its reins down here, it might drop Rubica.’

He had to mount it, using the boulders created by Ios. Thankfully, the dragon was now fiercely attacking Stephen and his twin, so they couldn’t stop him.

“Dingo!”

He climbed a boulder and called the name of the horse that was carrying Rubica. He didn’t go to the stables often, but he knew how the horses were trained and what their names were.

He couldn’t mimic their trainers’ complicated whistles to give the horse a complicated order, but it came running to Edgar when its name was called.

Horseback riding was one of the skills noblemen had to learn. Plus, he was the heir of the most powerful family in the kingdom, so he had been trained for emergencies such as abduction since his childhood.

He calculated the horse’s speed and angle and jumped when it was about ten feet away. He managed to sit on it, but only barely.

Rubica was greatly surprised when sensing a man suddenly hugging her from behind.

She thought she was finally running away from Stephen, but had she just been captured again? She tried to hit the man with her elbow, but then she stopped.

He had huge hands that were colder than other people’s hands. His hands that put the rein in her hands, his thigh pressing the horse’s back, his broad chest that supported her, they all felt so familiar.

‘Edgar?’

She was in doubt. Although she hoped Ios would find her, the dragon was just impossible to predict.

Moreover, even if Edgar found out about the news of her being missing, she thought he would send trackers after her instead of directly coming to her. After all, she didn’t want him to come himself.

However, when he removed the sack on her head, she saw a pair of hands holding the rein. They were clearly Edgar’s.

Tears formed in her eyes. She then wanted to turn and look at his face.

She had been thinking about him all night. Everything she had blamed him about, it all had been a mistake.

If fate had unfolded as her previous life, he would have been abducted instead of her.

That was why Rubica thought it was all the better. She even decided to sacrifice her own life if they were keeping her alive to control Edgar.

“Edgar, you shouldn’t be here. It’s dangerous.”

He held her even tighter. Her warmth filled his heart that had been burdened by the feeling of loss that woke him up in the middle of the night.

His heart had been frozen, but now it was beating again. He could even feel the blood surging through it.

He breathed in her scent deeply, and it gave him strong joy and desire.

He realized now he would never be able to go back to the times he hadn’t known her.

“I know.”

“You know? And, and you still came? You are an important man, you shouldn’t be doing this for someone like me…”

She was almost blaming herself and he didn’t like it. After a small silence, she realized he was very irritated.

It was strange. She wasn’t even looking at his face, but she could tell how he was feeling…