He then let out rough words filled with regret.

“I wish I could hold you right now.”

Seeing him with the eyes of an angry beast that looked ready to devour her, she instinctively felt afraid, knowing how roughly he held her.

For the first time in her life, she felt grateful that her soul was in a dog’s body. If he held her now, her body wouldn’t survive intact.

“You’re not thinking it’s fortunate that you’re in a dog’s body right now, are you?”

He asked with a displeased expression, seemingly reading her thoughts.

“Even if you’re in the form of a dog, I might pounce on you if I lose my reason, so put away that look.”

She thought it would be better to avoid his gaze and turned her head, but he grabbed her chin and turned her head back.

“Your eyes are the same, so at least let me keep looking at those eyes.”

“…”

Perhaps because her inner thoughts were exposed, Klein’s actions became bold.

This is a bit overwhelming…

She tapped his leg with her paw to express her refusal, but he rejected it. She had to roll her eyes to the side to avoid his burdensome gaze.

After feeling each other’s hearts sufficiently for a while, they had to have a difficult conversation to find a way to return Ciella’s body.

Before that, they first tied up the woman who had possessed Ciella’s body with rope and locked her in the underground dungeon.

If the Duke of Roxburrow knew about this, he would rush over immediately, so Klein sent a letter saying he would keep her for a while because she was being stubborn about not returning home.

The Duke sent back a resigned response asking him to persuade her well and send her home.

“Do you know the identity of that woman?”

Looking together at the woman locked unconscious in the prison, Ciella shook her head. She was curious too.

“Oh dear. To get your body back, we’ll need to find that woman first.”

He made a troubled expression.

“Could the dog’s soul be inside her body?”

She couldn’t be certain, but it was highly likely.

“Then the problem is how to find her…”

Klein roughly suspected the identity of the dark mage. That it was the man who had visited him then. Most likely, he was keeping the woman with the dog’s soul inside her.

The problem was that finding him wouldn’t be easy since he had disappeared without a trace at some point. Mages lived by erasing their traces with magic, making them difficult to find. However, he had to find him somehow for now.

“I’ll handle it myself, so don’t worry.”

Though it seemed he would have quite a hard time searching, Klein hugged Ciella warmly to reassure her. His dependable appearance allowed her to calm the anxiety in her heart, at least for a moment.

* * *

That night, a mysterious woman came to the Selkirk estate. Seeing her barefoot and covered in dirt, wearing a dust-covered dress, it seemed she had escaped from somewhere.

The woman was making “woo-woo” sounds while desperately searching for something inside the Selkirk estate.

“Should I drive her away?”

The butler, thinking she was a crazy woman, was about to drive her away immediately but felt uneasy and reported to the Count.

“Won’t she say what she’s looking for?”

“No, she seemed unable to speak.”

The fact that she couldn’t speak bothered Klein.

“Bring her inside for now. Check if she’s also under a dark magic spell.”

Since so many absurd things had been happening lately, Klein couldn’t just send the woman away. He had to investigate first before sending her out.

Shortly after, the butler brought the woman to the reception room.

As the butler had said, the woman could only make “woo-woo” sounds and couldn’t say anything else.

Looking at her, she couldn’t live a normal life without a family to care for her, to the point where she couldn’t properly survive alone. It was amazing how she knew to come find the Selkirk estate.

The woman, who had been twisting her body and resisting because she disliked being held by the attendant, suddenly became docile, perhaps because she was tired.

One of Klein’s eyebrows twitched as he looked at her.

No matter how he looked, she was a woman he had never seen before, so there seemed to be nothing she could possibly be looking for here. He asked if any of the servants working at the mansion had family members like her, but there was no one.

“Just watch what she’s looking for.”

Normally he would have told them to send her away immediately, but he kept feeling uneasy, so he felt he should watch what kind of actions the woman took.

If she had nothing to look for here, it wouldn’t be too late to send her away then.

“Understood.”

When the butler gestured, the attendants released their grip, and the woman ran toward his office among all those many rooms.

Why is she going to the office?

If someone didn’t have a normal mind, they would likely act on instinct. That’s why Klein expected her to go straight to the kitchen. He thought she would go there to look for something to eat, but the woman’s actions shattered his expectations.

The office, filled almost entirely with books and papers, had nothing she would covet, so Klein’s doubts grew as she approached the office.

Then his doubts were resolved the moment the office door opened. When the door opened, the woman ran toward Ciella with joy and began licking her fur. She was like a puppy greeting its owner.

Ciella also realized the moment she saw the woman rushing toward her. That this was the possessor’s true form.

‘So it was you. You’ve been hiding all this time and only now appeared!’

Even though their bodies had switched, realizing that Cookie also recognized her made her heart heavy.

“Woof!”

Ciella wagged her tail and welcomed her friend. Though they hadn’t been separated for very long, she couldn’t express how happy she was to see her.

‘Did you do well while I was gone?’

She examined Cookie’s body to check if there were any injuries. Fortunately, only her clothes were dirty, and not a single wound was visible.

Cookie whimpered and rubbed her face against Ciella’s body to express affection.

Klein and the butler nearby watched their appearance silently. Even seeing it with their own eyes, they couldn’t believe it, so their faces couldn’t hide their bewilderment.

* * *

“Where is this?”

Bianca, who woke up lying on the cold floor with her body tied up, looked around.

Realizing it was a space with stone floors, iron bars, and not a single window, she finally understood she was locked in a prison.

“Why am I here?”

Her last memory was definitely the Count’s office. She only remembered the snake approaching her and touching her body.

There was no reason to be imprisoned. She was a lady of the Roxburrow family. So no one could carelessly harm even a fingertip of hers.

“This is a dream. There’s no way I could be locked in prison, right?”

Even if he was the son of Duke Selkirk, he couldn’t treat her so carelessly, so she kept blinking her eyes and denying reality.

“Let me out, let me out right now!”

She was shaking the iron bars and shouting when it happened.

“You’re awake.”

She saw the butler walking from outside the bars and two knights behind him.

When the butler unlocked the prison and gestured, the knights opened the door and entered. Then they each grabbed her arms and forcibly made her stand up.

“Let go of this. I’m the lady of the Roxburrow family! Do you think my father, the Duke of Roxburrow, will stand still if you treat me like this?”

Even though she struggled and tried to push the knights away, she couldn’t overcome their strength.

“We’ve also called the Duke of Roxburrow, so don’t worry.”

At the mention that the Duke had also been called, Bianca stopped resisting.

Her father won’t let them get away with this!