“Then what, I must blind myself to keep living?”

Edgar laughed bitterly. He needed his eyes to do what he must do.

How could he draw blueprints and do experiments without his sight? Of course, it wouldn’t be impossible after lots of practice, but still…

He was lost in deep thoughts. Then, he looked up to Rubica. More than anything, he feared he might never be able to see her face again. His future self must have wished to see her even just once.

“However, as you have spent some time with Ios already, there’s no guarantee you will be able to live even after you become blind.”

“Oh, that lizard’s never helpful.”

Edgar angrily ruffled his hair again. What was he supposed to do from now on? Even not meeting Ios again alone wasn’t easy. Minos gulped, glanced at him, and carefully said, “Iber’s underlings said they know a way to break your curse and let you live on in peace.”

Silence filled the room for some time. Edgar jumped to his feet, which surprised Rubica a lot. For a moment, she thought his curse had already been broken.

However, she then saw it was already dark outside and realized it was time for his legs to function again. She sighed, “You should have told us that first! Why did you wait for so long?”

“Your Grace!”

Minos was quite scared to see Edgar confront him and come to him as the man was many times bigger than himself. He still clearly remembered how he had been thrown to the ground by Blanco.

He had hoped he would be treated nicely at Claymore, but it seemed like even a human was no different from the underlings when controlled by anger.

He wasn’t surprised when Edgar grabbed him. It was quite pitiful, but he just decided to accept his sad fate. When Edgar threw him to the floor with all his might, he braced himself for the impact of hitting the floor.

However, as he fell, Edgar steadily grabbed him and threw him up again.

“Haha!”

The duke was smiling so broadly that he could see his teeth. It was a bit late, but Minos realized Edgar was tossing him in celebration.

He didn’t stop until the goblin said he felt so dizzy and was about to throw up.

“Thank you, Minos.”

Minos held on a chair to steady himself. Rubica thanked him, and he felt like he was already the couple’s savior.

He wished he could have his moment, but he was a realist. He proceeded with his explanation, “It’s a bit early to celebrate. The underlings said you must go to Iber’s territory yourself if you want to break your curse.”

“Can’t they just tell me how to do it?”

“You see, if the cursed finds out how to break his curse not by learning it himself but by being told about it, that curse will never be broken. They said they’ll just help to break your curse.”

Edgar’s smile faded instantly, and the office was now as cold as Iber’s territory.

“Then it could be a trap.”

“Yes.”

The anger Iber’s underlings had for House Claymore wasn’t something that could easily be undone.

Minos hadn’t missed how uncomfortable Blanco had looked when Snow said, ‘We’ll help him break the curse, so bring that bastard Claymore here.’

What she said about the cursed had to learn the way to break it himself could entirely be a lie. However, it wasn’t like they had any other option.

For now, he just thought he had to explain everything he had heard and guessed to Edgar. To be honest, he wanted to rely on his genius brain.

‘Was that why the nurse didn’t tell me specifically but said it was also a blessing?’

But Edgar was having a totally different thought. If Iber’s underlings had told the truth, it all explained why his nurse had spoken in riddles instead of teaching him how to break his curse. Of course, it could be a trap, but it was a risk worth taking.

“I must prepare for the journey right now.”

He stood up, deciding to use Ios to get him to Iber’s territory. Of course, his way of moving through the ground was horrible, but it was much faster than mana stone carriages.

Considering that and other things the dragon could do, taking him to Iber’s territory wasn’t going to be a bad choice.

“Carl, hasn’t Ios come back yet?”

“No.”

However, Ios, who had left minutes ago to get peanuts, was not coming back.

“Is he growing peanuts or something?”

Edgar went down to the kitchen with Rubica, but Ios wasn’t there.

“Your Graces, are you looking for Mr. Isaac? Well, he dropped a plate full of peanuts and then he just ran out.”

Because Ios kept calling Rubica ‘my cousin Rubica’, the maids in the mansion at the capital just thought he was Isaac Berner.

Of course, the real Isaac Berner had been hospitalized because of his addiction to gambling by Edgar’s order, but he just thought it would be better than them finding out who Ios really was, so he didn’t correct them.

“He just ran out?”

“Yes.”

It was just like him, to stick around when he wasn’t needed and to be gone when he was needed.

Edgar sighed, but then he spotted Gabriel come into the kitchen with a plate. She had already devoured her second plate of dessert and ice cream and was planning to take a plateful of chocolate this time.

“Is his name Isaac?”

Gabriel’s curios eyes let Rubica realized why Ios had run away.

‘Oh, this isn’t good.’

Once Gabriel became interested, it was only a matter of time before she found out where the real Isaac Berner was and who Ios really was. She tried to think of a way to distract her from it, but then she heard a dangerous voice from behind.

“Gabriel, I don’t think it’s time for you to wonder such a thing.”

“Hup!”

Too late, Gabriel realized she had walked straight to her death. Edgar’s eyes were glaring with rage. She dismissed her idea of getting chocolate. Instead, she put a really big piece of castella in her mouth as her last bit of treat. Of course, it was more than enough to anger Edgar even more.

“Gabriel!”

Actually, Edgar had planned to give her a speech on how dangerous it was to sneak into the king’s palace like that and then compliment her for not running away and helping Rubica to take down Christopher.

But now, he was putting his rage about Ios disappearance at the important moment on the poor girl.

“Your Grace, I’m sorry. From now on, I will think once more when doing a dangerous thing.”

“So, you plan to do more dangerous things?”

“One cannot live without doing something dangerous from time to time.”

“Gabriel!”

Surprisingly, although it looked like Edgar’s cold rage was about to freeze the entire building, Gabriel shed some tears, but said everything she had to say.

Edgar didn’t know that getting her portion was a habit she had gotten while growing up with several siblings, so it maddened him even more. Still, he couldn’t threaten the girl to tell the king about what she had done.

“Rubica, send a message to Khanna’s shop and tell them not to take any order from Gabriel during this society season.”

“What?”

Instead, he decided to take measures this girl will hate the most. She turned pale, just as he had expected.

“No, no. Madam, please talk to him. This is too much. Madam Khanna has her right to take orders as she wants.”

She hadn’t known Edgar would be this mean. She had made a mistake of forgetting the fact that he was way too smart and memorized habits, hobbies, and interests of all people, even those of the people he absolutely didn’t care about. This was even worse than getting no dessert for a whole year.

“Gabriel, Claymore Family is Khanna’s supporter. Of course, she has her right to take orders from customers as she wants, but she also has the right to do as her supporter asks, if she feels like it.”

But this time, even Rubica was firm about it. There wasn’t a single person who didn’t know Madam Khanna valued Rubica above anyone else. In the end, Gabriel had to surrender.

“I won’t… do anything like what I did today ever again.”

Nevertheless, Edgar didn’t let her use Khanna’s shop immediately. She wasn’t the one she had endangered. Forgiving her right away was going to stop her from learning what kind of consequences her actions could bring.

Instead, he shortened the ban to a month instead of the whole season.

And then, Minos said something that made Edgar immediately cancel his plan of using Ios to get to Iber’s territory in a day.

“Blanco said you must bring your wife with you.”

“Rubica? No, it’s too dangerous.”