He was grateful that he could see her. He then tried to see and remember every detail of her face.

However, he couldn’t look at her for long. His breath weakened and rest soon came to him.

A long, long rest.

The death that finally came presented a silence that was deep enough to satisfy even him.

“Edgar, Edgar.”

At the end of a deep silence, he could hear her voice. For a second, he thought he couldn’t be the one she was calling. He had never told his real name to her.

Was she calling another man named Edgar? She sounded so earnest that it made him jealous. Who was she calling? He had to see the man’s face.

He moved his heavy eyelids to look. Then, he could see a young and healthy woman.

She seemed quite happy when he opened his eyes.

Why was that? Somehow, she looked familiar. And her eyes were auburn, just like Rubica had said about her eyes.

“I’m glad that you woke up.”

Moreover, it was her voice. It was her lips, it was her eyes. What was happening? Was he having a dream? But then, he felt a severe pain. The past, present, and future got all mixed up in his mind.

“Ugh.”

The headache made him moan. He didn’t know if he was regaining the memories from the past or the future, but he could be sure of one thing.

“Stupid, filthy idiot.”

He hadn’t known he would behave like that. It had happened because of a mistake from the messenger, but coming up with marriage to keep a maiden with him? He couldn’t forgive that.

He had proceeded with the marriage, after finding out it had been a mistake, and he didn’t like that either. Well, they say you should trust yourself the least for a good reason…

“What are you talking about?”

“No, no.”

Old Arman had been weak. Had his sense of judgment been weakened after growing old? He thought too highly of his younger self. He was really mad at himself, mad at Arman who had greeted eternal rest, thinking he had made the right choice.

“We thought you were dying! I feared I might really have to use the mouth-to-mouth breathing on you!”

“Don’t you ever say that word ever again.”

Hearing Ios’s voice irritated him even more. Arman’s memories had been strong when he woke up, but they faded soon, and his original self became stronger.

Rubica helped him to get up. All ice around them had melted and now they could see the high plains.

What had happened to that ice cube and the diamond-like heart that had been beating in it? He looked around, and then he saw a lady. More accurately, it was a white ice sculpture in the shape of a lady.

There were hammers and chisels at its feet. The three underlings took their turn to pour transparent liquid on it. When the liquid touched the ice, it bubbled and started to slowly change into a human.

She had white hair and clear sky-blue eyes. Her skin had a gloss like a reptiles’ scale. She resembled a human, but she wasn’t a human at all.

“Who is it?”

Blanco opened her mouth to answer the question, but the sculpture spoke for herself.

“Iber.”

It wasn’t shocking, as everyone had guessed so by now. Very slowly, Iber turned to Ios. She blinked, and then she suddenly smiled, remembering.

“A lot of time must have gone by, now that you are this big.”

“Five hundred years, roughly,” Ios murmured.

Edgar and Rubica had almost lost their lives because of Iber’s underlings trying to wake her up. Ios had missed her so much, but now he was so angry that he wasn’t glad to see her at all.

“Have I slumbered for so long…”

Iber looked a bit confused as she should have woken up after about a hundred years. What had happened?

“We did our best to collect mana quartz to wake you up.”

“But Claymore sent adventurers every year to take it away from us.”

Iber closed her eyes at her underlings’ plea. Memories of her past went through her. However, all of them felt so foggy, probably because of slumbering for so long.

“Who are you?”

She asked to the creature who had asked who she was. He decided it wouldn’t be wise to introduce himself as Duke Claymore right after the underlings spoke ill of his family.

“Edgar.”

So, he just said his name, but it made the dragon smile faintly.

“Oh.”

Hearing his name returned the memories her heart had witnessed. The couple who trusted and relied on each other had moved her heart, literally.

“Your love melted my tear and my heart.”

Iber could now talk at a normal speed, and Edgar realized she had a habit of drawing her tongue when finishing a sentence. It was a habit his nurse had had. They looked nothing like each other, but her behavior reminded him of his nurse.

“What are you? And what is that ring that made so many things occur?”

“The tear in the ring was my soul’s essence that had my rage toward myself who lost my precious one for foolish love, and my wish to turn back time.”

The moment she shed the tear, her heart started to freeze. Hue gathered the tear to make the ring. The ring, that had a dragon’s power and a god’s working, became a holy relic and a medium.

“Edgar.”

Iber had had a few dreams while sleeping, and there was the most vivid and the saddest one of them.

“If your mother had succeeded in having a loyal love with her husband till death, both you and your father would have become nymphs.”

The nymph put Iber’s soul in a woman and kept her with her, thinking witnessing love that was loyal to the very end would melt her tear frozen with betrayal and loss.

Unfortunately, the nymph failed, and she happened to be Hue’s nymph. The nymphs who overlooked love and easily dazed others and made them fall for them.

However, love is an emotion that is easy to start but difficult to keep.

“Edgar, you are an imperfect nymph. For you to use our powers, you need a dragon’s power, including my tear. That is why my underlings brought you here. If you had sacrificed your life for love, you would have become a nymph and live an eternal life. And, if your love had sacrificed her life for you, you would have lost all of your powers and worth for making your loved one sacrifice herself for you, but you would have been able to live on as a human instead.”

However, would that make him happy? Was the love that required at least one sacrifice noble? Once, Iber had thought giving up her everything, even her life, was true love. That was why she made a foolish choice.

“That is also a beautiful kind of love. However, the love Hue considers being the best is the love in which you don’t sacrifice yourselves for each other.”

Iber hadn’t been able to accept it when the god told her so. True love is not to sacrifice for love? It was only a play of words. Choosing not to sacrifice had to be the easiest thing to do. True love had to be abandoning everything for it.

Countless legends sang of it. Chastity and courage to sacrifice one’s life for love, and gods’ blessing that always came down at that moment.

Now, she realized it hadn’t been love but her stubbornness. She had been lost in her own feelings and failed to think of the one who would be left alone. Not sacrificing also required courage. You cannot love when you are alone. You must do it together. It is an emotion you must work on and cherish together.

“Edgar, if you had been a complete nymph, Rubica would have become Hue’s nymph the moment you melt my tear with true love, and you would be on your way to the gods’ world. However, you’re an imperfect nymph.”

Iber’s voice started to change. It was the voice of Hue, which Edgar heard before his death.

“That is why I will give you a chance to choose. Will you become nymphs and live eternally in the gods’ world, or will you choose to live on as humans?”

“Of course, they’ll be nymphs!”

That was Ios. He was a fool, but even he could now see Edgar was the nymph. He didn’t like it that he had been fooled for so long, but if Rubica herself became a nymph, he would have never been fooled. So, he welcomed the offer, not knowing he had reached a stupid conclusion.

“What do you want?”

But of course, Edgar didn’t care even a bit about what the noisy dragon thought and calmly asked Rubica. She wasn’t delighted by the great offer and rather looked worried.

“Tell me if there’s anything bothering you.”

However, could she really ask such a thing to a god? Iber read her hesitation and smiled quietly. In the end, Rubica found the courage to ask.