“That means you’re my hero—won’t you be my queen, Miss Alicia, bright as a spring bloom?”

Heat surged through Alicia like wildfire; her fingers itched to raise the Demonblade and pin it through his skull like a nail through ice.

When was she last this furious? A memory cracked open like thunder: a leering creep from childhood, toes nearly ground to powder beneath her heel.

Was Gill the same kind of rot? If so, grinding him to dust would be as clean as rain after a storm.

“Sure, I know you’ll refuse,” Gill said, voice lilting like a feather tossed by wind, “and by a gentleman’s code, I won’t force you.

But you appeared at the breath-before-death, a coincidence staged like theater; so I let the play take me, and I fell in love.”

Tch—gentleman’s code? Alicia tasted iron like old blood; there was no way this fool even owned such a thing.

She didn’t bother to doubt; she filed his words as reverse-speak and let them sink like stones in a cold lake.

“Then what do you want?” Her tone cut like frost. “Give me an answer, or you know what comes next.”

The mischief drained from Gill’s face like dusk swallowing light; a sober shadow settled, stern as winter bark.

“I just want to know why you did it, Miss Alicia.”

“What do you mean?”

“I said it already—your entrance hit the beat before my death, a coincidence staged like theater.

From the Daemon invasion on, it was your stage; everything moved like clockwork in your and the Demon King’s plan, a play the two of you performed.

Only… why choose that path?”

Alicia’s heart jerked like a bird in a snare; the black-haired, red-eyed boy blurred, child-soft one breath, old-sage clear the next, a jarring flip like sun to moon.

“No… no… no, why would you think that?” Panic crawled like ants under her skin. “The play’s built on reality—did you never think I just happened to help?”

Her words stuttered like a broken flute; her carefully shelled plan felt cracked, light leaking through seams she hadn’t foreseen.

“Granted, nothing in this world is absolute,” Gill said, calm as a lake under fog, “but the moment you stood before me, I knew I was on your stage.”

He bowed his head like a reed in wind and lifted a finger to his eye, picking at something with surgical care.

In a breath, he looked up; a tiny clear disc gleamed on his fingertip, a moon-pale circle, like a ghostly contact lens.

“When tech blooms, you can do almost anything,” he said, a smile thin as a blade. “This lens detects a kind of energy inside living things—still under study.

What matters is, different races glow with different colors, while the same species share a hue like kin under one sun.

Humans burn red, pigs shine white, and you… you’re a prism, a rainbow cut from glass.”

He stopped there and crushed the lens; the crackle snapped like frost splintering underfoot.

“What you are, and why you shine unlike any race—I won’t ask,” he said, voice low as night tide. “I can feel the boundary here.

If I’m right, what’s inside this touches far beyond human reach. So I’ll ask only this: why do it?”

Alicia’s mouth opened like a door in wind, then closed; the words tangled like vines and died on her tongue.

“Tch. From what I know, you lived in the Moser Empire for a while,” Gill pressed, his tone steady but eyes storm-dark. “Human or not then, you had ties there.

So why let Daemons butcher the humans of that land?”

His hands seized her shoulders; his shake was a squall, anger rattling bones like dice in a cup.

Smack! She knocked his hand away; two steps slid back like retreating tide, the Demonblade lifted across her chest like a silver bridge.

Tears glazed her eyes like dew at dawn. “What do you know? You’re just a human! My matters aren’t yours to command!”

Why was she doing this?

For Ling, of course—her name a bell in snow, her face a lantern in fog.

Why doubt? Why panic? The goal stood clear as a mountain: build a Mystic Realm where all races share one sky and one hearth.

For the great cause, the small self must burn like incense; she knew this, set her jaw, braced to carry that weight like iron on her back.

She repeated the creed until it rang like temple bells; a wall named Duty rose inside her—an iron rampart that shielded her heart, and locked it.

Gill watched her stance settle like a fortress; one more word, he knew, and he’d earn a perfect death wrapped in a silk shroud.

“Alright… I’ll stop,” he said, turning like a shadow peeling from a wall. “I hope your grand cause proves right.

The Beastfolk slaves were delivered while we talked; you’ve got what you wanted. Leave my promised Demon Elite at the door. I’m heading back.”

He turned his back, open as an unguarded throat; a light stroke would split him, and his secrets would sleep forever in a mute grave.

But Alicia’s heart was tangled like fishing line; she didn’t move, blade humming like a restless cicada, then falling quiet.

She’d won, got the thing she needed, yet victory tasted like ash; her thoughts felt tugged by his fingers, every step predicted like stones laid in advance.

So annoying… maybe she should learn that trick too?

She thought it idly, not seeing the path beneath her feet—an old road, walked by countless red‑haired girls, glowing like embers under a winter sky.