“You were unconscious?”
Rubica carefully chimed in their conversation. She looked very worried and it made Edgar’s heart sink.
Too late, he realized he had made a mistake. However, Ios didn’t notice what was wrong with it and started to tell on him.
“He even stopped breathing!”
“He stopped breathing?”
“Yes, he really should know how far I was willing to go to save him, and he won’t be able to call me a cheater!”
“Well, how far were you willing to go?”
The question immediately made the dragon shut up. Then, he started to glance at Minos who had been quietly sitting on the sofa for some time.
“Hmm, hmm.”
“Oh, I’ve been wanting to eat peanuts for some time, I’ll go and get some.”
As soon as Minos cleared his throat, Ios jumped to his feet. He usually yelled when he found himself in trouble, he had never tried to run away like this.
“Here are your peanuts.”
However, his desperate effort to run away was soon stopped by the butler who offered Ios a bowl full plate of peanuts.
“Huh? But these don’t have skin.”
“I prepared them for your convenience.”
Carl had realized Ios’s peanut skins were making Edgar suffer, so he unskinned the peanuts in advance. However, the dragon didn’t like his thoughtful help and stared at the bowl angrily.
“I like peanuts with skin!”
Then, he went down to the kitchen. Once he was gone, Rubica immediately asked Minos.
“What has he done that he ran away like that?”
“He was probably thinking of doing the mouth-to-mouth respiration, but when I arrived, it looked like he was about to kiss your husband while he was asleep. I think he’s embarrassed that I saw the scene.”
Edgar looked like he was about to vomit.
“Was that mouth-to-mouth that woke me up?”
“No, it was my drug.”
“Did our lips touch?”
“They would have if I had been a second late.”
Edgar let out a sigh of relief. If their lips had touched, he would have spent the rest of the day cleaning his mouth.
“Anyway, thank you, for saving my life.”
“But you just suddenly collapsed and stopped breathing? What caused it?”
“I don’t know. I was having an arm-wrestling match with Ios, but then my heart had a stroke.”
Rubica had been worried about him because of his curse, and now his heart was ill as well? Her face started to turn dark with worries.
Edgar wasn’t happy to see that. He wanted to see her smile every day, so why did things that worried her keep happening?
He could do anything according to his will, but there was one thing he couldn’t control, and that had to be his own body.
“From now on… you should not have any contact with Ios.”
“I wish I could! That stupid lizard keeps sticking to me!”
Edgar angrily ruffled his hair. He was being a bit emotional but, unlike him, Rubica didn’t miss a clue in Minos’s advice.
“Minos, you know why Edgar fell, right?”
“Yes.”
He gave a straightforward answer. He looked quite grave, so he must have found out something.
“Could you stand on watch and tell us if Ios comes back?”
He asked the butler. Actually, he had been thinking of how to make Ios leave the room for some time.
Carl was ready to listen to what he had to say, so he was very disappointed to leave the room, but he never refused to do his job.
“Don’t worry. I’ll knock on the door three times if he comes back.”
Rubica sat next to the goblin with mixed fear and hope. She hadn’t known she was going to be through so much today when she washed her face this morning.
“Hmm, where should I start? It’s quite complicated… well, to begin with, you fell so suddenly because your nymph blood and human blood collided within you.”
“I don’t understand. It has never happened before.”
“It’s because your nymph blood hasn’t been activated till now.”
“Activated?”
“Then, what activated it?”
“Ios. Nymphs and dragons are two species that are on a complementary relationship. The stimulation of meeting a dragon woke up the nymph blood within you, and it is now gaining power.”
Minos had almost died to find out this much. He had been locked up in a dark room for three days without anything to eat or drink, and he had been able to survive only because he was a goblin.
Snow had been even angrier than Blanco about this and was enraged that Minos was using what she had told about Iber.
At least they agreed to help when he begged to have pity for Madam Berry who married Duke Claymore without knowing about him. If it hadn’t been for her, they wouldn’t have even listened to him.
“And when your nymph power fully awakens, your human body won’t be able to contain it and you will die.”
“Then. I shouldn’t meet Ios from now on?”
Edgar didn’t know how to convince the dragon. He was a fool who thought Edgar not being able to walk in the daytime was an aftereffect of him daring to become a nymph’s spouse despite the fact that he was a mere human.
“I can’t guarantee it would work. Iber’s underlings didn’t tell me clearly if it would be possible to reverse what you’ve already received from Ios, or your current condition will last forever.”
Edgar had been thinking only about breaking his curse, but now he had a different problem. Of course, he was irritated, but he decided to solve them one by one, like solving a math problem.
“Then… let me ask straight. Do they know how to break my curse?”
“Yes, they said they do, although they wouldn’t tell me,” Minos said while giving Edgar a somewhat complicated look. “And they said you are still alive solely thanks to your curse.”
“I’m alive thanks to the curse?”
It was way too shocking for Edgar as he had been looking for a way to break his curse.
“Yes, a half-breed of nymph and human cannot exist.”
Edgar narrowed his eyes as he couldn’t easily buy Minos’s explanation.
“But I was born without any problem.”
Minos scratched his head. This was a story that was too long and complicated, so he didn’t know where to start it.
“You can take your time to explain.”
“I wish I could, but I don’t know when Ios will come back…”
Minos didn’t know Ios had already run away after running into Gabriel in the kitchen, so he was worried a lot. He thought he didn’t have time to explain all the details, so he decided to summarize it.
“Your mother was a nymph who used magic to transform into a human. I don’t know what kind of magic she used, but it must have been a spell that changed even her soul into a human soul, completely unlike the crude transformation spell Ios and I use. That was why she could give birth to you and raise you without a problem.”
“Then, was her spell broken on the day my father betrayed her love?”
“Yes, probably.”
Edgar went back to the memory he didn’t even want to think of. Till now, he thought his mother went back to her original self because of her rage toward his father.
However, now that he knew even her soul had been a human’s, he suspected it might not have been her decision.
“Then, she melted to foam right after that to go back to the nymphs’ island, just like Ios moves through the ground?”
“I do not know that much.”
Minos seemed like he didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe Edgar’s mother had turned into foam and died right on the spot. Edgar had to consider that possibility in his mind, and it made him sad.
“Anyway, the spell was broken, she became a nymph again, and I should have died on the spot?”
“Yes, but your mother cast a curse on you. It stopped your nymph power from awakening, letting you survive.”
Edgar recalled how his nurse had known curse and blessing were two very similar things. But why hadn’t she told him the truth back then?
If only she had hinted Edgar could survive thanks to his mother’s curse, he wouldn’t have felt so sad about it.
“I’m sorry, but I do not know everything. Very little is known about nymphs, and you are the first half-breed of a nymph and human. But in my narrow perspective, I think your nymph power and sunlight are somehow connected.”
“Rubica, you said I could walk without any problem when I was blind, right?”
“Yes.”
Rubica nodded to Edgar’s question. He had been tapping on his desk for some time.
“So, the curse only works when sunlight reaches my eyes.”
“Yes, your nymph power doesn’t work in the darkness, so you will be able to live on as an ordinary human.”
