Level Sixteen of the Tower of Final Stars.

Yeah—we’ve fought our way up to here, knuckles raw, like climbing a frost-rimed ladder.

Feels like a ranked ladder, right? Not every floor has a boss, like stars blinking on and off. One, two, three did; four and five were traps, teeth under sand. Six was all water, a subspace trick, piranha like silver knives in a broken mirror.

Stuff like that. If there’s no mind-scrape or terrain-control monster, we finish it in a minute, clean as a guillotine. Then we sweep loot for an hour, like harvesting rice after a storm.

In theory, a Shadow Sorcerer’s shadow capacity depends on resonance with the Shadow Realm, like a drumskin to a beat. Stuff too much in, and it presses on the mind, a mountain on a chest. I hold the Authority Domain, so my storage is basically infinite, like a night sky that won’t fill—but it’s hard to show.

So around the eighth floor I told them the shadow was “full,” and we’d pick the good pieces, like picking jade out of gravel. Only Raven could price this alchem-tech. When she kept black, ugly machines and tossed gold-bright ornaments, the other girls clicked their tongues like geese in winter.

“Come on, be generous. We’re a Hero-led squad—call us the Hero Squad. We’re supposed to save the world. Don’t look that greedy, like cats at a fish stall.”

“Easy for you, you’re rich! I owe over three thousand Colonna gold coins, like a millstone on my neck.”

I gently reminded Stini, voice soft as silk. “Minus your maid-contract fee, you still owe me more than four thousand.”

“Don’t think you can make me default.”

“That’s why I’m hunting treasure and scouring loot,” she said, eyes bright like lanterns. “It’s a frontier bursting with chances. If I don’t earn, I’ll be a maid for life.”

That’s not so bad, honestly, like falling into a warm bath you swore you’d avoid.

“Sorry, Vice-Captain,” Catherine raised a hand, calm as a pond. “Are we planning to survive nine-deaths-to-one battles and then save the world?”

“This humble self didn’t picture that,” Elina murmured, like a flower speaking. “Wasn’t this just a temporary party?”

“You joined without knowing anything?” I sighed, wind through bamboo.

Didn’t you see the guild posting marked “Hero-led team, take note,” big as a red seal? The Adventurers’ Guild insists Heroes disclose, to cut strange casualties like weeds in spring.

Hero-led parties don’t have high death rates, but they take wild risks, like walking cliff edges. It’s not like the novels; plenty quit because facing a world crisis daily frays the mind like rope on stone.

“I saw a recruitment notice,” Catherine shrugged, wings tucked like folded fans. “I’m earning travel money in the wingfolk’s study-journey tradition. They said we’d explore the Sorcerer Emperor’s lab, so I joined.”

“This humble self is also on a study tour,” Elina added, like rain on paper. “I joined a random squad to broaden my sights. Wait—the ditzy captain is a Hero?”

Elina covered her mouth, eyes wide as moons. You’re only realizing that now?

“Andor, I don’t have the ambition to save the world,” someone said, cool as autumn.

“Indeed. Saving the world isn’t on my schedule,” another chimed in, dry as dust.

Raven and Gloria, our old hands, undercut me with a surgeon’s smile. A moment ago we were tight-knit; now I could hear seams popping, like cloth under strain.

“Ah, don’t worry, Andor,” Stini laughed, sunshine through clouds. “My dad’s in his prime. I can coast ten or twenty more years.”

Stini flashed a bright grin and gave me a thumbs-up, like a flag on a hill. Even the captain isn’t planning to keep this team together.

So it’s all for money, huh? My chest ached like a drum.

Can’t anyone reach for something higher? I know not every Hero is ready to die at breakfast. But your goals are too ordinary, like bread without salt. If you’re future Heroes, show it in your girlhood—be a different kind of flame.

I think back to the Yakfarro raid. Everyone fought brave, faces like blades. Why the merchant tongues now?

Heroes often have sorrowful pasts and shadowed histories, night stitched into day. They don’t thank those years; but pain tempers them, like steel over coals. That’s how they become Heroes.

If given choice, they’d rather those black chapters never happened, to live quietly, happy and plain, like water flowing home.

The brightest flowers bloom out of hell, petals opening in ash.

When Heaven lays a heavy charge on someone, it first grinds the heart, wears the bones, starves the flesh, empties the purse, and trips the steps, like wind against a lone lamp.

Pain is the strength that feeds me; battle after battle, I grow, like a tree clawing stone.

When enough blood flows, you either molt into new life, or die, like a moon swallowed by cloud.

Sometimes I ask: if Augustus hadn’t been turned into a Headless Knight; if Stini hadn’t killed her father; if Raven hadn’t been assaulted, and her moods didn’t swing like a storm; if Gloria hadn’t won human hearts and then watched friends and kin fade like smoke—would they still become the monsters of talent history remembers?

In the Silver Era, power comes easy, but spirit is hard to forge, like jade under a dull blade. Most minds can’t bear their own strength; that’s the true cap on mortal power.

Vega has almost shed her “malice,” like a snake leaving skin, so in baseline she’s the weakest maid.

Across countless years, I’ve seen too much. My senses grew numb, like snow over stones. I’m a Demon King who no longer longs for carnage, so the Ocean of Darkness returns less power to me, a tide pulling away.

Joy is good. We chase future joy like sailors chasing a lighthouse. Because we’re not joyful now, we move forward, wind in our backs.

Andor’s selling point isn’t fairness. It’s ruthless and black-bellied, ink in the veins. I’ll arrange their futures. Yes, I know how detestable that is. But for the future I want, I hope they grow in my chosen direction, like vines guided along a trellis.

They say contact between people is growth itself, hearts knocking and stirring, as normal as rain. I act in certainties, shaping their minds by facts, not using Head’s favorite mental tampering. So what I do isn’t wrong, just a shadow cast by a lantern.

I admit I’m a villain, a proper antagonist. I won’t excuse myself, won’t sugarcoat my heart. Because I’m base, I face myself clearly, like staring into a dark well. I court girls the long way only because the gods are all-knowing and all-powerful; if I used filthy tricks, they’d expose me like lightning stripping bark.

I’ll trample others for myself, and feel no regret, no shame, like a blade that refuses rust.

“Do you believe that yourself, my pseudo-evil and pseudo-good master?” a voice whispered, cool as glass.

“Of course. It’s my creed…” I paused. “Wait—you read my mind? You have that skill?”

Vega appeared ghostlike, as if she’d always been there, a shadow pinned to a wall. She fussed twice with her hair; shoulder-length and neat as a page’s cut, it needed no fixing, but she smoothed it like a ritual.

“We’re close,” she murmured, tapping her temple, a small bell. “You drifted while thinking, so the thoughts carried over, like warmth through cloth.”

“Head maid… Miss Vega, you came too?” Stini wiped blood from her cheek, bright as paint. She leaned on the Holy Sword with an elbow and paused her cutting.

“Yes, Miss Stini. Good. Our squad now has the Assassin class joining us, like moon and blade together.”

“Sorry to disappoint. I’m only here to resupply.” Vega’s tone was neutral, steam over tea. “Miss Stini, want megavore fish over rice, or char-grilled Baloa man-eating rabbit chow mein?”

“Fiine,” Stini sang, patting her cheeks, reviving like a sprinter. She resumed slicing the corpse, red threads on stone. “So Stini goes back first? Bring some of the Sorcerer Emperor’s alchem-tech home. Andor’s shadow is full, can’t fit more. Also, chow mein.”

“Right, I forgot my armor,” she added, sheepish as a pup. “Bought it just days ago and left it behind. Vega, grab it when you go back, okay? The nearby elven township has a portal to the City of Heroes.”

First breadcrumb laid. I said it loud, so all could hear, a pebble hitting a pond.

“By the way, I’ve wondered—Andor, you don’t wear armor?” Raven asked, a wrench in her hand like a scepter.

Raven tuned her Construct at the side, bolts singing like crickets. She’d shed the academy uniform for a sleeveless shirt and suspenders, straight-up mechanic vibes, oil-striped and focused.

Constructs are delicate machines, a heart of gears. You must adjust often; if the central control unit gets damaged, it doesn’t limp like in novels—it hard-crashes, lights out.

In the Silver Era we protect control units completely, not run in degraded mode with broken cores. If you can hit the core, you can crush the core, a hammer on egg. You don’t get that “hit-but-not-destroyed, so hit again” nonsense.

Later, Raven will invent an “auto-repair factor,” a little black miracle that boosts Construct endurance. But that’s tomorrow’s wind, not today’s.

“In my homeland’s frontier gardens, armor means little,” I said, memory crackling like dry leaves. “Monsters strike in waves, one tide after another. If armor kills your agility and you get pinned, armored or not, you’re dead. The difference is a tomb color.”

“Mm-hmm, frontier gardens are rough.” Raven nodded, dawn under cloud. “But don’t Holy Knight armors have weight-reduction enchantments? Why not wear those?”

“Because they’re expensive,” I said, like closing a ledger. “A full set at the same tier costs ten times a weapon.”

“…Then there’s no fixing that,” she sighed, a reed bending.

“Everything in this world fits three reasons,” I said, flicking a smile like a coin. “Because you’re poor, because you love, because fate insists. Kidding. Vega, we’re camping here tonight. Please shuttle tomorrow’s meals too.”

I raised my voice again, a bell across halls. Everyone heard it.

This is a breadcrumb. Remember it.

Vega bowed deep, night folding. She turned to leave. Before she slipped away, she sneaked me a thumbs-up, like a candle wink. I answered with my ring finger, a weird little oath.

Now I can breathe easier—though I don’t even know what the ring finger is supposed to mean, like using a charm without its story.

I just sent the plan through my Shadow Authority Domain. She can access the Authority as well, so she got it, like two birds hearing the same drum.

Good, good. We can probably avoid battle losses, or at least some, like pulling a child from a river. It’s only “maybe,” but better than the full-wipe future I saw.

Will Head foresee this? Likely, like thunder on a humid day. But every scheme has limits, like chess with edges. Even if Head tricked me into clashing with Anna, I’ve made the best plan I can carve.

How many will die, and which names will dim, will depend on how hard I’m willing to burn, like a lantern fed with oil.

“I really don’t like hot-blooded arcs…” I muttered, breath fogging.

I looked up at the black ceiling, night pressed close. I meant to smoke to boost my cool, like a noir hero in rain. But I never buy cigarettes; I try to leave girls a good impression, clean as spring. So I bit the guardian beast’s thin bone instead, a sad substitute for swagger.

The blood tang was heavy as iron. I spat it out at once, choking like a cat on a thorn, and the girls roasted me good, laughter ringing like bells.