Dias was the tenth hunting dog of Rohika.

As the one with the last number, Dias’s main mission was to hide and guard beside his master.

However, one day, his owner, Rohika, issued an unusual command.

“There’s a girl named Ivy in the underground. She’s a very noisy girl; go down and keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn’t disappear or die.”

Monitoring the girls trapped underground was the job of the attendants, but without questioning or complaining, Dias went down as instructed.

There, he met her for the first time. A girl who wasn’t even aware of being a slave, with a fierce personality and a loud voice.

“Hey, did I convey what I said to that guy, the Marquis?”

“Where’s Marquis? Is he busy? When is he coming here?”

“I told you to wait until when, he promised me!”

Unlike other slave girls, the girl named Ivy was not bound. She didn’t seem to know where she was, even. So, whenever she found an opportunity, she grabbed the attendants and asked about the Marquis’s whereabouts.

It was quite different from the harsh oppression the other girls experienced when they arrived underground.

But Dias didn’t question this either. Considering his first lesson as a hunting dog was obedience, he just hid behind the shadows and followed orders.

Then came a day.

“Ugh, let go of this!”

Without fear, Ivy, who had gone down to the lowest floor of the underground, stared at a suspicious iron grate. Inside it, she got caught by something.

“Ugh… What…!”

Something growled and dragged the young girl inside the dark iron bars.

Ivy struggled not to be dragged, but she couldn’t resist the strange force of that thing.

It was about to strangle Ivy’s neck when it happened.

Crack!

Dias kicked the arm of that thing outside the iron bars, breaking it.

“Kyaak!”

With its arm broken, the thing screamed and fled to the corner of the iron bars. Ivy, who had been caught by it, was startled and slumped down in surprise.

Rohika’s words to observe contained meanings of not letting her escape and ensuring she doesn’t die.

So, Dias, who briefly stepped out of the shadows, completed his task and tried to hide again.

“Mister!”

However, Ivy suddenly hugged Dias’s waist tightly.

Normally, she would have dodged before being caught, but that girl was the target Rohika told him to watch.

So, with indifferent eyes, Dias looked down at the girl who was clinging to his waist.

Then, the desperate Ivy who had grabbed Dias suddenly let go, surprised.

“Ah…”

Then, with a disappointed face, she backed away.

It seemed like she had mistaken him for someone else. Dias was wearing a black hood at that time, so it wasn’t unreasonable for her to have such a misconception.
Dias silently watched as Ivy, walking backward with a gloomy expression, did not offer even minimal pleas like ‘be careful’ or ‘don’t come back here’ and concealed his appearance.

Not long ago, Ivy was just a task assigned by the master to Dias, and Dias was a stranger momentarily mistaken for someone else by Ivy.

So, naturally, it was expected to end there. They thought they would have no further interaction.

However, contrary to such expectations, the two became deeply entwined.

In the end, they became inseparable companions, sharing life and death together.

Five years later, Dias was struggling, trying to lift the overturned sofa where Ivy had collapsed.

“I don’t want to talk about it. There’s something I don’t want to tell you.”

“No, there’s something I’m hiding. Right. It’s about that person.”

“Don’t go anywhere! Just run away!”

Recalling Ivy’s words thrown at him, Dias narrowed his eyes in silence.

For the past two years, Ivy shared every aspect of her life with Dias.

There were two reasons for this. One was Dias’s position, following Ivy’s fate, and the other was Ivy’s nature, irritated by her own goodness, pretending to be good outside.

When she returned home, Ivy would grab her butler and talk endlessly about her day, so Dias couldn’t understand the hesitation she showed just now.

“What on earth is it?”

With an uncomfortable feeling, Dias contemplated Ivy’s unfamiliar appearance.

Ivy Ariatte has a self-aware and arrogant personality. Therefore, inevitably talkative, but there was only one situation where she refrained from talking.

That was when her weakness was exposed.

Ivy hated showing any sign of weakness, so she occasionally boasted about being strong. The more her heart was troubled, the more she pretended not to care, showing indifference and pretending not to be interested.

So, Dias only recently learned about the Marquis, meaning the astrologer. Even that information was forcibly acquired after Ivy was cursed.

Ivy, full of herself, didn’t want to reveal even the fact that she longed for someone. She considered her pride as a significant weakness.

Therefore, if Ivy suddenly avoided talking about the Marquis, Dias could only anticipate one thing.

“There were many things. We drank together, pretended to sleep while hugging, and even borrowed the bed for a few hours.”