On that day, the small faith in love Edgar had was shattered with that carriage.

“The difference between a curse and a blessing is very small.”

That was how his life was. Everyone said he was blessed. High rank, immense wealth, perfect brain and beautiful appearance. However, those things were a curse to Edgar.

He was always surrounded by people attracted to the sweet smell of what he had.

They wanted him. They craved him. However, he couldn’t find himself in their greedy eyes. What they truly wanted was what he had. They were not interested in Edgar himself. They just wanted themselves with Edgar in hand.

-You are my proud son. Your very existence gives me joy.

Oh, Edgar had been relieved so much by that promise of his father. He even said Edgar didn’t have to be perfect. He said he loved him for who he was.

-Eddie, do not hate those who temporarily lose reason because of your excessive beauty too much.

Moreover, his mother with unworldly beauty was the only one who could understand his suffering. Who else could understand that he was in pain and troubled because of people who loved him?

Until now, Edgar’s mother, father, and a few servants who had served him since his childhood had supported him through the greed that surrounded him.

At least he had believed in their affection and love. But today, everything was being destroyed like a tower made of sand.

He wanted to turn back time and ask his father if he had truly loved his mother.

He couldn’t find any difference in his father and that knight who had ignored his mother’s opinion and tried to flirt with her. Now the only person left to him was the butler with a mad love toward the Claymore Family.

No, could it be called love?

Edgar wanted to ask that to Carl. If he had truly cared about his father, he should have stopped him and asked for others’ help. Carl was just drunk with himself putting the Claymore Family in front of everything else.

Edgar was sick of it.

So twisted. Only twisted affection now remained around him. His mother had been right, too much beauty was poison. The world was full of people who couldn’t tell love apart from desire. They pouted out unwanted affection and blamed him when it was not rewarded.

‘You are too harsh. Don’t you know Ellie likes you? You can at least smile to her once.’

‘You are way too cold.’

‘Felix was just trying to be friends with you, did you have to treat him that way?’

They all said he was wrong. They said he was cold for not giving any affection in return.

That was what men would say when he dropped by shortly at a coffee house or cigar storage after late night’s conferences.

How hard it is to reward a woman’s love? Just put down your morals for a short time, give pleasure to each other and part ways.

They advised he would lose nothing.

Each time that happened, Edgar recalled his father. The man who said he had no choice because the woman begged. According to their logic, his father was more generous and more humane than him.

Was it love?

Was it affection?

Affection literally surrounded him, but his heart was hollow. His outside shined like sweet honey, but his inside was like a vast desert.

‘Too much beauty is poison.’

The difference between curse and beauty was very small. Edgar hated his own face that others couldn’t praise more.

He couldn’t stand all the affection imposed on him in the name of love.

He wanted to yell stop, stop liking me.

He didn’t blame his mother. No, thinking about the affection she had given to him, he was rather hurt while thinking about her emotionless eyes that had looked at him for the last time. How hurt she must have been, how painful she must have been that she put such a curse on him?

He prayed for the numbness to reach his heart soon and end this miserable life.

However, at the same time, he couldn’t give up life and couldn’t throw away the ring.

He kept staring at it so many times.

-Break the curse. It is for the princess.

It was because of the nurse’s last words.

Edgar wasn’t giving up everything and throwing himself to the joy called death only because of those words.

What did she mean by that?

Why she hadn’t answered when he asked if his mother was dead as she put the foam that once had been her in that pendulum? Also, Caren had stopped in the midst of talking and shook her head. It troubled him. She had said he could have had eternal life.

What on earth could have made that possible for her to say that?

And maybe… maybe his mother will be brought back to life if he broke the curse.

It was a hope he couldn’t bring himself to give up. He used his spare time to find records and researches about nymphs. Some of them were meaningful, unfortunately, nymphs scarcely came to the continent and most stories had been altered in time.

What kind of nymph his mother had been? He was half-nymph but had no power except for his too beautiful looks. He was now floating alone in the vast ocean.

Three years passed like that.

The numbness came up to his knees. It looked like it would take less than a decade for it to reach his heart. The king was worried it might be the end of the Claymore Family. Then, the ring disappeared and a piece of paper with ‘Rubica Berner’ written on it appeared in the box.

Edgar started to find out about her right away. He thought she might have some kind of connection with the nymphs. However, there was nothing like that in the reports he got. But she was 22 years old, just like he had been when that tragedy occurred.

He thought maybe.

Maybe, maybe…

But he shook his head. No matter how hard he thought, it was hard to assume he loved someone and gave her the chance to live again instead of taking it himself.

I am going to love someone? It was impossible even in the distant future. He despised even thinking of words like love and affection.

She had to be a lead sent by the himself of the far future. Edgar proposed to Rubica even though he had no affection toward her. And on his way to meet her, he hoped she would talk about his future-self first.

However, she didn’t want to marry him. More than that, she tried to run away. There was no longing in her eyes as she looked at him.

He could read an emotion called ‘hatred’, but those were not at all the eyes looking at someone she knew. Moreover, she said she was in love with a man called ‘Arman’, and the blue ring wasn’t among the few things she had.

Why on earth had the himself from the future left a note with ‘Rubica Berner’ to him? Was she even the lead? But Edgar couldn’t let her go.

Rubica was the only straw he could grab in that vast ocean, and that straw was refusing him even when her face reddened at his beauty.

Everyone he knew, even those who had lovers, would often abandon that love when they got to know him, but Rubica wasn’t like that.

He felt envy for the first time in his life. On the other hand, he wondered how long she was going to resist him. So, he tried to tempt her.

-I will not ignore your wish if you ever want me to sleep with you.

He was confident. No one had been able to resist his beauty until now. He expected Rubica to redden her face and be shaken. There had been plenty of people who abandoned love at a single smile of his.

But Rubica wasn’t tempted. Rather…

-You cannot do it even if the woman wants it as long as you are not in love with each other!

She yelled that and slapped him.

Edgar was shocked. It wasn’t just because he had been slapped nor she was refusing his temptation.

Until now, people around him had called him cold for refusing love. They said he had to be just a little kinder.

The hollow wind blew in his heart each time he heard that. They knew nothing, but he wanted to yell if what his father had done had been right.

But Rubica scolded him, saying he couldn’t do that even if the woman wanted it as long as they were not in love with each other.

A ray of light finally reached him through the long darkness.

***

“Oh my, everybody overslept at the same time?”

“Even the servant on guard duty dozed off. It would have been a huge problem if it hadn’t been for Carl.”

“We have no time to waste! Let us go to Her Grace quickly. We cannot let her down on the first day!”

The maids nodded to Ann and started to move around busily.

They were worried Rubica might be already up and waiting for them.

However, they couldn’t neglect the preparation.

“Jennie, she used olive soap in the carriage, right?”

“Yes. I’ve prepared it.”

“And the water?”

“It is just a little hot, I think it will reach the right temperature when we arrive at her chamber.”

“Good.”

Five maids with Ann in the front went to the duchess’s chamber.