Day Four.
The fourth day since the Demon King was born.
Nightfall held no moon.
“No—!”
A silver blade slid true, a cold crescent moon stabbing into a soldier’s left heart.
Squelch—
The blade slid free. Blood fountained like a cut spring.
Crimson rain painted the golden-haired girl from throat to heel.
Only then did the body fold like wet cloth and fall.
Her face twisted in pain; her body moved like lightning.
She flashed past the collapsing corpse, pivoted mid-step, and the sword brushed the dark like a winter reed across ice.
Swish—
Blood sprayed from empty air. The hidden killer unraveled from the night, clutching a throat with a gaping hole. He died wearing the surprise of a broken dream.
“Why—”
Clang-clatter—
The silver longsword hit the floor.
The girl fell to her knees, terror glazing her face.
She was soaked in blood. None of it hers.
Bodies ringed her like felled timber after a storm. All imperial knights. All one-strike kills.
All by her hand, in the span of a single breath. Clean. Efficient. An entire squad erased.
“Why—”
“Why did it become like this?!”
“Master Bai—”
“Why?!!”
A boy in black hair, black eyes, and a black long coat stepped out of the dark like a walking shadow.
He watched the golden-haired girl who questioned him through tears.
He spoke, voice slow as falling ash. “This is the road you chose, Aerin.”
“No— I— I never wanted to kill them! No— it wasn’t me!” Blood streaked Aerin’s cheeks like war paint.
“You didn’t want to,” Ye Weibai murmured. “But your [Fear] did.”
“If you don’t kill them, then you die. Your [Fear] knows that better than you, and it picked the simplest move.”
He paused. A corner of his mouth lifted like a knife. “This is the [grow strong fast] you asked for.”
“You’ve always known that, haven’t you, my… [Hero King].”
...
...
Day Three.
“Your Majesty.”
“Mm? Aofaan? What is it?”
Aofaan faced the emperor, who sat cross-legged on the throne like a mischievous child, spinning a bamboo dragonfly toy with both hands, delighted as if it were treasure.
He was an emperor, yet his hair hung wild and unkempt. The grand robes draped his thin frame like a curtain on a stick, inner whites showing, ridiculous as a stage prop.
Like a monkey in a crown.
Aofaan let only one glance betray his thought, then pulled his eyes back as if from a precipice.
“The report from yesterday. About Mars rising.”
“Ah, I know. Isn’t that the [Demon—”
“Your Majesty!” Aofaan’s bark cracked the air like a whip.
The emperor jolted, thumped his chest a few times. “Ah, oh! Sorry, sorry— I forgot we can’t say that name. But Aofaan, you don’t have to yell like that. Nearly scared me to death.”
“My apologies, Your Majesty.” Aofaan bowed a fraction.
“It’s fine. I won’t actually blame you.” The emperor giggled and twirled the toy. “So? What is it now? Didn’t I say yesterday? Leave it to the [Hero King]. Isn’t that how we always do it?”
“Yes, wise as ever, Your Majesty. But the Elves sent a new message.”
“Oh? What is it?” He asked without looking up, the toy a hovering dragonfly between his fingers.
“They sensed [Its] trace. Inside the capital. Southwest, at the Mercury coordinate.”
“Oh.” Hearing the [Demon King] was in the city, the emperor showed no fear. Just an “oh.” “Then hurry and let the [Hero King] handle it.”
“That coordinate—” Aofaan enunciated each word. “Is inside the [Hero King]’s own manor.”
“—The [Demon King] is inside the Hero King’s manor!”
“Oh! That’s perfect, isn’t it? Get the [Hero King] to defeat [It] right away.”
“Your Majesty. It isn’t that simple.”
The emperor looked at Aofaan and chuckled, like a cat with cream. “Isn’t it?”
“I need your command sigil to mobilize the knight orders.”
“Oh, that? If you want it, take it.”
...
...
Day Two.
“I lost.”
“I lost…”
“I… lost…”
Clack—
The longsword hit the floor.
“I…”
The girl was soaked through, sweat like rain. Her hands trembled like leaves, her face bone white.
Her dry lips worked open. For the who-knows-how-many-th time today she whispered, “I… lost.”
Ye Weibai stood across from her without a single bead of sweat.
He watched her, twin pupils holding a strange light, like stars under ice.
No need to say it. Aerin’s skill was truly poor. Even with Ye Weibai suppressing his body’s edge, she fell with ease.
Clumsy footwork. Sluggish reactions. Awful strikes. Forget a [Hero King]; even an average person might do better.
Honestly, Ye Weibai didn’t care. To him, whether it was one Aerin or ten thousand Aerins, it was a matter of one move, or a move and a half.
What puzzled him lay elsewhere.
The body remembers. Even the clumsy, if trained right, day after day, year on year, carve slow lines of progress into muscle and nerve.
Talentless? Then it’s slower. But it’s still growth.
But—Aerin didn’t.
Not a sliver of growth.
Not in awareness, not in reaction. Not even in muscle, the most honest ledger—during all that, it didn’t record a single stroke.
As [Demon King], Ye Weibai’s perception was a hawk’s eye over snow. The slightest shift, he saw.
The girl felt like a “template” with her stats locked. No change allowed.
This wasn’t about talent anymore.
This begged a question—was the girl [cursed]?
At that thought, Ye Weibai’s heart moved. Ash-gray sparks lit in his eyes, and he looked into her.
Boom—!
His sight went gray, a world wintered over.
As before, gray fireworks blossomed across the [World], countless flares streaking down like a meteor swarm and pouring into the girl.
Her body was a bottomless well. Every ounce of [Misfortune] fell in and vanished.
He thought of last night’s silver-haired woman, and the faceless hound on her back, five stories high, a nightmare carved in smoke. A question stirred.
“Aerin’s [Misfortune] is a hundred, a thousand times denser than that woman’s. Then the [monster] condensed from her [Misfortune]… how huge? How terrible?” He watched the downcast girl, thoughtful. “And yet it seems absent. Also, if [Misfortune] grants its bearer an odd gift—like that woman’s [Undying]—if greater [Misfortune] forges greater gifts… then how terrifying is the power in Aerin? Don’t tell me her special ability is… being a [Dumbass]?”
“Aerin,” Ye Weibai said suddenly.
“Yes, Master Bai…” She was still mired in gloom, slow to react, then choked on his question.
“Do you have a special ability called… [Turn Into A Dumbass]?” Ye Weibai asked with utter seriousness.
“…” The girl, mid-gloom, almost fell over.
She’d thought Master Bai would comfort her. Instead, the first thing he called her was a dumbass.
But the jab scattered her cloud. Complaint tugged a small smile loose.
“Master Bai…” she said with a wry curve, looking at him.
Truly a sharp tongue.
“No.” Ye Weibai cut through her thought. Poisonous his tongue might be, he wasn’t teasing. He wasn’t joking.
He was very serious.
His face tightened. “Aerin, you can’t go on like this.”
She never expected those words from Master Bai. Her mind reeled. Memory and now overlapped like two sheets of rain.
Not okay.
Not okay.
You can’t go on like this.
Her smile went out. She drew a thin breath and dipped her head. “No… Master Bai… please don’t say things like that.”
“What things?”
“Things about… what’s okay, what isn’t.” Head down, eyes on her toes, her fists slowly clenched. “Didn’t you say you’d teach me to be the [Hero King]? Are you taking it back now?”
“Yes. And where in this world is anything absolute?” Ye Weibai sighed, a wind through bare branches. “If you don’t put in the work—”
“I—” Her voice spiked, then shrank. “I did… I really… tried.”
“Aerin. That’s not the work I meant. Do you know, the strength I actually used just now—”
He spoke her name softly. She raised her head, eyes trembling, looking to him. Then she heard—
A thunderclap split the sky. A blue day cracked. Sound rolled like war wagons over the firmament, charging in from distant cloudbanks and into the training hall, swallowing his words whole.
“…”
“…”
“…”
“Eh? That was loud.” Aerin stared, baffled, at Ye Weibai’s moving mouth. “Master Bai… what did you say?”
“I said—”
Boom—!
Purple light washed the room, a storm-lantern flood that devoured the black-haired boy’s voice again.
“Huh?” Aerin flinched, then frowned at the window. “The thunder’s weird today.”
She pulled her gaze back. “Master Bai, what did you just say?”
“…”
He stilled, then lowered his lashes.
“Ah. So that’s how it is. Of course that’s how it is.”
In that instant, he thought of Philia, the little girl who had [Shielded] her pain. And of Mu Ling, the girl who stood in the world by leaning on [Rules]…
Aerin was likely the braid of both.
Ye Weibai’s eyes slid over the silver longsword at her waist-knot.
“Aerin, do you have an older brother?”
“Mm?” It was odd he changed the subject, but she was glad he’d left the painful one behind. Her face lightened, and she pretended nothing had happened. She shook her head. “No. The [Hero King] line always has a single heir.”
“Then—” Ye Weibai held her gaze. “What if you could have an older brother? How would that feel?”
“An older brother?” She tilted her head. “I’d rather have a little sister.”
“A sister?” Ye Weibai blinked.
“Yes. A sister.” Aerin smiled, bright with yearning, a window opening to spring. “A little sister who doesn’t live as tired as I do. She doesn’t need talent for battle. No one has to pin their hopes on her. No blades, no guns. She gets to do what she truly loves, like—”
“Planting flowers?” Ye Weibai cut in. His eyes drifted past the window to the garden, a quilt of blooms stitched with care, color upon color, full of a girl’s dream-light.
Aerin paused, then smiled wider. “Flowers? That does sound nice.”
“Of course.” Ye Weibai turned back and studied her, voice soft as rain. “You’d love it.”
—You already do.
...
...
“Ah, I’m done.”
“Huh?”
“I’m not playing anymore.”
“‘Not playing’—what does that even mean?”
“Not playing means exactly that. I’m out.”
“Hey, hey, is that something a [Hero King] should say?”
“No. It’s something I say when my ceiling’s nailed down, and no matter how strong I get, I still can’t kill [It]. This crap game isn’t fun. So I’m done.”
“What about the [Demon King]?”
“Hm? What’s that got to do with me?”
“Eh?”
—A conversation with the 8,300th [Hero King], ranked No. 3 among all [Hero Kings].
