“Hey, did you know—the World ended on the seventh day of the [Demon King]’s birth.”

“Of course I know. It’s an old poem, like moss on a stone. Why bring it up?”

“No reason. I was wondering if it means something else.”

“Mm?”

“Not ‘the Demon King will spend seven days destroying the World,’ but ‘on the seventh day after the Demon King’s birth, the World will be destroyed.’”

“Ha. What’s the difference?”

“A lot. If it’s the latter, then the [Demon King]’s almost innocent. It’s not the [Demon King] wanting to crush the [World]. It’s the [World] forcing its ruin onto the [Demon King].”

“Ha.”

“Hey, what’s so funny?”

“Even if that’s true, nothing changes. The [Demon King] still gets killed, like a storm-felled tree.”

—A dialogue recorded from the 999th [Hero King] and her companion.

…

—click.

A white porcelain saucer kissed an ash-gray wooden table, the sound clear as a bell in cool air.

The little thirty-square-meter courtyard bloomed like a tapestry, flowers clustered, green leaves casting dappled shade that rippled with the breeze.

Thick hedges two meters high wove a living wall, sealing out the street like a sea-wall holding back waves of eyes.

On the east side, ranks of potted plants stood like soldiers, mixed in color and height, yet aligned by an unseen rhythm like wind through reeds.

On the west side, a single giant tree rose like a pillar of sky, its umbrella crown ten meters high, its leaves a deep, breathing green.

Soft shadow poured beneath that crown like spilled ink, pooling around a gray table and two white chairs.

“Aerin.”

“Mm?”

“The tea you brewed doesn’t taste great.”

“...S-sorry, Master Bai.”

This everyday murmur fell between the [Demon King] and the future [Hero King], like rain between two eaves.

In the cool shade, they sat across a table, steam curling from cups like pale ghosts.

A white tea set rested on the table, and Aerin bowed as she poured, her movements careful as placing petals.

She sat back and stole a glance at Master Bai sipping black tea, her heart a fog bank drifting without a shore.

In a single lift of the arm and fall of a blade, he had pinned the fleeing silver-haired woman from midair to earth, like lightning striking a bird from a storm.

He showed no ripple on his face, as if swatting a fly, then took her from the arena like a wind leaving the field bare.

They didn’t vanish by magic, nor slip through a back door; they walked straight out the main gate like a river cutting to the sea.

As the gate creaked open, the crowd outside rose like a tide, noisy as gulls, and she braced herself like a ship reefing sails.

At the first crack of daylight, she still held her breath; a black mass of people surged, necks craned, faces hot with hunger like wolves at a fence.

Strangely, countless eyes were fixed on the gate, yet they looked through them like glass; they rushed in and then froze, struck dumb by the scene inside like deer in sudden snow.

The pressing tide split before Master Bai without a word, parting on instinct like cream cleaved by a sharp blade.

He led her straight ahead, clean and sure, like a spearpoint parting fog.

It wasn’t magic. It felt as natural as thunder after lightning—

[When the Demon King walks], all things step aside like grass before wind.

Aerin didn’t know the truth; she guessed it was some mind spell, her own thoughts fluttering like sparrows behind his back.

She peeked at him again, curiosity blooming into worship, like a lantern catching and brightening with oil.

She hadn’t fully seen it yet, but that fingertip snap that unraveled everything had etched itself on her heart like a seal.

She began to accept what Master Bai had named—the [Arrogant Heart], a flame beating against the cage like a caged hawk against bars.

In her imagined future, the [Hero King] should carry that kind of edge—fearless as a bare cliff, strong as bedrock, unbound as mountain wind, frank as daylight.

Not like she was now—weak as wet paper, bound as a tied reed, smothered as a candle in rain, aching as a bruise.

That wasn’t the [Hero King].

Aerin’s golden eyes trembled, and in their clear depths the black-haired boy’s back stood tall as a mountain ridge.

This is it.

The heir of the [Hero King] watched the [Demon King]’s back, and the thought rose like dawn over water.

“Aerin.” Ye Weibai’s gentle voice cut her wandering like a bell across fog.

Jolted, she clapped warm hands to burning cheeks, afraid he’d seen her heart as if it were a lantern held up in the dark. “Wh-what, Master Bai?”

“Look.”

“At what?” She followed his gaze like a needle drawn by a magnet.

“Look at their faces. Tell me what you see.”

Her heart jolted like a bird in a snare. She didn’t need to look; she knew the shape like ruts in a road.

Anger. Disappointment. Sadness. Those were common clouds. The worst was something else—concern and hope, a soft rope that chilled like wet cloth on skin.

Whenever that look rose, her hands went cold as winter water, her head light as if standing too fast.

She lowered her head and kept quiet, like a leaf turning its pale side to wind.

“Anger? Grief? Frustration?” Ye Weibai spoke as if reading a worn map.

She pressed her lips and nodded, a slow drop falling into still water.

“You’re right, but not all the way.” Ye Weibai shook his head, a quiet ripple across a pond. “There’s a more crucial look you didn’t see. That’s the root, the first spring, the real current. If one day you can see it—”

He paused, then reached out and patted her head, his touch light as a passing cloud. She looked up at him, and he smiled like a lantern lit at dusk.

“—then maybe you’ll be qualified. A [Hero King] who can kill the [Demon King], as sure as frost follows autumn.”

Aerin stared at Master Bai, blank as snow before a footprint.

In the human sea, the black-haired [Demon King] stood against the light, robe and hair flying like banners, his fine face marked by a lone, clear smile.

His dark eyes seemed to bloom ink-black flowers, petals swirling with emotions she couldn’t read, like currents under a frozen lake.

Facing that look, a sudden pain struck her chest like a string plucked too hard.

She reached out without thinking, fingers seeking his sleeve like a child catching a kite string, but his hand was already withdrawn, and her grasp closed on air.

“Aerin.”

She lifted her head like a flower to sun, and she heard a string of words she would revisit a thousand times, like a pilgrim returning to a shrine.

She would one day think—if she had understood them earlier, the ending would have bent like a young branch in wind.

But now, not yet truly a [Hero King], not yet grown from bud to blade, she could only listen, dazed, as Master Bai’s voice flowed like a slow river.

“Interest isn’t the best teacher. Fear is.”

“But fear only drives a creature down the straightest, bluntest, most violent path, like water rushing to the lowest ground. That path only lets you survive.”

“To merely survive brings no good things,” Ye Weibai said, his gaze sweeping the crowd like a shadow of a hawk over a field.

They moved as if pulled by invisible threads, faces copied like stamped clay, steps aligned like soldiers on a road.

“We should chase something else—living.”

“Humans are odd. They’re bold, yet timid. They refuse the flat plain, yet cling to the familiar shore, afraid of crossing.”

“Those who only ‘stay alive’ draw a line of safety like a moat, and hide inside it like mice in walls.”

“But they still yearn to see past that line, like eyes peeking through a crack. The conflict fattens with Time, with change, with the slow turn of seasons.”

“And then a word appears—[the Sacrificed].”

The word made Aerin’s skin go cold, like falling into deep water; she held her breath as if a black fin cut the surface.

It felt like hearing a thing too dark to name, as foul in taste as the word [Demon King] on the tongue.

Ye Weibai spoke slowly, each word a stone dropping into a deep well. “‘Sacrifice’ is a dangerous word.”

“Compared to ‘death,’ ‘sacrifice’ glitters with light and honor, like gold leaf on a coffin.”

“It tries to gift death a special shine, to stamp meaning on a stopped heart like a seal in wax.”

“But truth is—death has no meaning. If it has any, it is only itself. When a person dies, they’re dead, like a lamp going out.”

“But—” Her voice rose, thin as a reed.

“But some do go willingly, for those who still breathe,” Ye Weibai said, catching her words like a falling cup, and she closed her mouth like a door.

“Except—” He paused, and a crooked smile cut across his face like a knife glinting in low light. “That meaning shouldn’t be bestowed by others.”

…

“Aerin.”

“Here, Master Bai.”

“Your family’s way too poor, huh?”

“Huh?”

They were still at Aerin’s home, under the towering tree, the afternoon light slanting like warm honey at four.

Aerin had brought Ye Weibai home, like leading a guest through a small gate into quiet shade.

To be honest, the place wasn’t poor; a five-story villa stood like a white cliff, with a separate training hall and its own garden like a hidden grove.

This was the Capital, where land weighed like gold, and a small manor inside the walls was already luxury, like a spring in a desert.

But Aerin was the heir of the [Hero King], the house of a savior who’d saved the World again and again, a name like a banner in the wind.

For that, this scale felt small, like a river in a too-narrow bed.

And—

“Why do you have only one old servant? And besides you, I haven’t seen anyone else under this roof.”

“B-because… we’re poor,” Aerin said, careful as walking on ice. “We can’t afford servants. And I don’t treat Uncle John as a servant. He chose to live here and take care of me.”

She pointed at an old man gathering fallen leaves, his hair white as frost, his smile warm as a hearth when he met her eyes.

“Where’s your family’s money?” Ye Weibai asked, brows pinched like a crease in paper.

“There isn’t any… We’ve always been poor.” Her face dimmed like a cloud over sun. “And to strengthen my body, we bought rare herbs, costly as stars… it burned through our savings.”

“I see…” Ye Weibai shook his head, like a tree shedding a few leaves.

He looked at the doe-eyed Aerin and thought the truth ran deeper, like water under ice; a centuries-old house doesn’t hollow by one girl’s hands.

She was sixteen and bright-eyed; she probably didn’t know, like a chick unaware of the fox’s shadow.

He sipped black tea, bitter and warm as smoke, set the cup down, and looked at Aerin’s faintly blank face.

“New question. Aerin, what do you do for fun?”

“Practice the sword.”

“Are you dumb?” He almost reached for a ruler, a schoolmaster’s reflex like thunder’s rumble. “I asked about hobbies.”

“I usually just practice the sword…” Aerin said, dazed as a fish blinking in sunlight. “Nothing else…”

“Tch.” Ye Weibai shook his head, a small wave against a piling.

Aerin panicked, her voice thin as a thread. “Master Bai, did I mess up?”

“Boring. It’s a boring life.” His fingertip tapped the table like rain on eaves, and he sighed like wind through pines. “Aerin, like this you’ll never be a proper [Hero King].”

“Eh? Eh?!” She jolted like a startled cat. “J-just because I don’t have daily hobbies?!”

“Exactly because of that.” His expression went serious, steady as a drawn bow. “Listen up, Aerin. I’m going to teach you the second trait a [Hero King] must have.”

“The second?” Her ears perked like leaves to rain.

“[Squander Your Life].”