Morning slid in like rice-paper light. Eli sat up from the bed and stretched like a lazy cat, told the attendant to set breakfast, then jogged off to knock on the two girls’ door.

“Edlyn. Angela. Rise and shine.” His knuckles tapped the wood like soft rain.

The wooden door eased open like a slow eyelid. Edlyn poked out a drowsy little head, mumbled something like a fogged spell, then shut the door with a thud like a dropped log.

Eli sighed, wind through reeds. Fine—he’d bring breakfast over later.

In the dining room, Eli held a newspaper, skimming for anything on the Miter Empire. On the table sat five fist-sized loaves, warm as small stones, two tall glasses of milk pale as moonlight, and a cup of red tea the color of amber.

He folded the paper like a tired bird and put it aside. He asked the attendant for a plate, then took the extra bread and the two milks to the kids, food balanced like offerings on a tray.

Right then, Edlyn sat cross-legged on the bed like a tiny monk. Beside her, Angela sprawled over a pillow, drool trailing like a silver thread.

Their money was thin as a cicada’s wing. Since their parents passed, every meal had been lean as winter gruel. The authorities had returned the Brulyar family’s income to Edlyn, but what actually reached her was a puddle in a drought.

Edlyn had burned some coin tinkering with refining golden flowers—gold dust to ash in a blink—so life had to be trimmed like a frayed hem.

She would wait until her power was strong as iron, then go earn coin under an open sky.

Usually, Edlyn could help neighbor farmwives do chores and get paid a handful of seeds—Edlyn: ahem, survival!—but traveling with Eli meant her purse was a hollow gourd. She didn’t dare spend like autumn leaves in a gale.

Bottom line: first find money to feed herself and Angela, like firewood before nightfall.

Knock, knock, knock.

Another gentle rapping. Edlyn frowned, a crease like a small canyon. What now, that guy?

Was he here to collect the inn fee?

Tch! Figures—the damn Hero, miser to the bone, a dried plum with teeth!

She set her jaw like a blade. From now on, she’d wreck whatever the Hero loved, salt his fields, and find every bend in the road to drain his coin.

Honestly, that had been the plan from the start, a seed already sprouted.

Her face twisted with dilemma. Excuses fluttered through her head like moths, and one shadowy notion slithered up—quickly strangled, a weed pulled at the root. Too lewd, too shameless; it would stain the Demonic Lord’s face like soot.

She opened the door, reluctant as a cat to leave a warm patch of sun, ready to sell a little cuteness. Then she saw the food cradled in Eli’s hands, steam curling like white snakes.

Damn you, Hero! Using food as bait, a hook gilded with butter!

Edlyn grit her teeth. Her stomach drummed like a hungry boar. She’d planned to skip breakfast because the purse was empty—but the belly rebelled like spring thunder.

“You’re so shameless!” she blurted, swallowing hard. “Fine, I’ll pay!”

Eli tilted his head, a question mark floating like a kite. “Huh?”

Edlyn, ready to fish out a coin, froze with wide eyes, a sparrow caught in sunlight. “Eh?”

“Oh. Don’t worry about it,” Eli said, smiling like a warm lamp. “You’re young, and your home’s threadbare. I can support you till you grow up.”

He had money like a pond after rain.

“Really?!” Edlyn launched herself at Eli, joy sparking in her eyes like fireworks.

Eli lifted the plate with gravity magic, food rising like a moon so her pounce wouldn’t spill it. He laughed and, without thinking, rubbed Edlyn’s hair like smoothing a small sparrow. “Of course. I promised you two. Call it a good deed. I grew up in a welfare home, too. This is just the right thing.”

When the journey ended, he’d donate what was left to the welfare home. The old director would smile like winter sun breaking fog.

Eli chuckled to himself.

Edlyn caught her own slip, set her feet back on earth, then stepped away two paces, composure stitched back in place.

Don’t overthink it. This is free meals, steady as a temple bell. The Demonic Lord is pleased—this is joy, joy, joy—say it thrice like drums.

She nodded, face grave as a judge. “Mm! Hero, I’ve slightly revised my opinion of you!”

“Huh?” Eli scratched his head, baffled as a farmer staring at a puzzle. Half the time he couldn’t parse what this little brat was saying.

“Ahem. Nothing. Anyway, that’s for me, right?” Edlyn pointed at the hovering bread and milk, bobbing like gentle clouds.

Eli nodded, beckoned, and passed them over. “Eat slowly. Stay at the inn for a bit. I’m heading out to buy supplies for the road.”

“Oh. Okay.” Edlyn nodded, indifferent as a cat to his errands.

Their gear from before had been ditched when they rushed to rescue Edlyn from kidnappers. After they returned, all that remained was a carriage without a horse, a shell on an empty beach. Eli winced; pain pricked like thorns.

Headache city.

After she shooed the Hero out like a broom sweeping a leaf, Edlyn woke the still-drowsy Angela. Angela rubbed her eyes, foggy as dawn. “Mmh? Why, sis? If there’s no food, can’t I sleep longer?”

Edlyn arched a brow like a drawn bow, then flicked Angela’s forehead, a crisp tap like knocking a gourd. “What nonsense! You make it sound like I starve you!”

“...Isn’t that true?”

“Hm? What did you say?”

“Nothing...” Under her sister’s ‘authority’ heavy as a mountain, Angela hugged her pillow and stared with wounded doe eyes. But soon, the warm wheat scent hooked her gaze like a fishing line.

“Sis! This is—” She sprang from the bed, shock bright as lightning.

Edlyn sighed, hands on hips like twin anchors. “Yes. That guy named Eli brought us food.”

“Ah! That uncle’s a good man!” Angela scooped up a still-warm loaf, a small sun in her hands, ready to swallow it whole. Edlyn snatched it mid-arc and tapped her head again.

“Ow—”

“Brush. Your. Teeth.”

“Mmh.”

Unaware that he’d been branded “uncle,” Eli was, at that moment, haggling with a fridge seller like winter wind carving stone.

It was a magic ice-insulated box, a layered thing that held cold like a trapped lake. Eli could make one himself, but it would eat time like termites.

Its inner structure demanded patience, needlework for mages. He was, frankly, lazy as a well-fed cat—buying was smarter.

“Fifty silver! Not a coin more! For crying out loud—one gold? You may as well rob me!” Eli slapped fifty-silver notes on the counter, the sound like cards snapping.

The shopkeeper eyed his silver mage robe, sheen like moonlit water, and didn’t push his luck. Fifty silver would do. The box cost thirty at the source; hauling it from the capital to this border town added grit and coin, price rising like a hill.

Eli tucked the fridge into his pocket space, a hollow gourd that swallowed things whole. He rubbed his temples, planning fruit and vegetables like small planets, and spices sharp as stars. Meat would be easy—wild game along the road like antlers in thickets. His grilling was decent; as a kid he’d slip out of the welfare home and ‘borrow’ neighbors’ chickens, roasting them under starlight—cough, cough.

As a Hero, he’d awakened purification spells like clean rain. Food sickness didn’t worry him.

Magic was convenient—spring water through a bamboo tube.

“Hey! Assemble!” A soldier in silver armor gleaming like fish scales and a cloak like storm-cloud shadow barked, long spear leveled like a lightning rod, impatience sharp as pepper.

“The City Lord commands: for half a month, no one enters or leaves Tir Town!” He strode to the square’s center and tapped his magic spear on the stones, sound ringing like a bell.

Behind him, soldiers posted notices, white sheets flapping like leaves.

The captain pointed and spoke, voice cutting like a hawk’s cry. “A large beast tide is coming. Stay inside the walls. We Draco soldiers will keep you safe! Also, anyone capable of helping—adventurers, talents from other lands—report to the City Lord’s manor. Rewards will be generous. We beg your aid.”

He finished and bowed, back bending like a reed. A soldier hurried up, signaling the posters were done. “Please spread the word!” the captain added.

They formed ranks and flowed away, an iron river turning a corner.

“Beast tide?” Eli frowned, a crease like dark water. Big cities had archmages who wove warding arrays to drive beasts like shepherds. Had Tir Town’s archmage run into trouble?

He frowned deeper, shadow on a still pond.

Forget it. When the time came, he’d see whether to lend a hand, help like a lantern in fog.

He shook his head and went on shopping, steps steady as a drum.

In a few corners of the city, shoulders bore a mark: a red cross, lower arm drawn long, caged in a white square, bright as blood on snow.

Members of the New Era Sect.

A cloak hid one man’s face, shadow poured like ink. He glanced at his partner and frowned. “Not cleared yet?”

“Uh... no,” the girl muttered, squatting over a patch of glowing soil that pulsed like embers. “It’s not that easy. This array is a top-quality piece from the Mage Guild. Breaking it without alerting the city mages? Dream on.”

The back of her hand flashed the same icon, twin thorns under skin.

“Are you sure there’s a relic of the Hero here?” she said after fiddling in the dirt, voice wilting like a cut flower. “Feels like HQ is playing games.”

“Impossible. Anything tied to the Hero isn’t handled sloppily,” the man said, tone flat as slate. “Make haste. Only chaos opens the gate for us to slip in.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she grumbled, annoyance like a buzzing fly. “You’re so naggy.”