Back in the hospital—no, back in the Goddess of Life Shrine, white corridors like winter fields. Our whole crew’s laid up, like felled reeds under linen.

Elina’s high-tier Divine Art, Aspect of the Proxy, swelled our healing like spring rain. Most wounds knitted, like frost melting off bark.

But battle healing and recovery healing aren’t the same stream; one’s a flash flood, one’s a slow river.

In battle, you burn life like dry kindling to spark combat strength back fast, smoke in your lungs and fire in your limbs.

In recovery, you raise life like sap rising, steady and green.

Emergency versus rehab—that’s the fork in the path, like a crossroads at dusk with two winds.

We’re “confined”—no, undergoing rehab in the Shrine, incense curling like mist over a pond. No obvious cuts left, skin smooth as quiet water.

But the concept of Slaughter brushed us like a cold shadow. The ideas that shape our bodies shivered, like a mirror rippling.

It’s not dire; Stini’s Immunity Privilege stood in front like a sturdy shield. Leave it too long, though, and old scars stack like silt; one day the river slips its banks.

“So bored I could sprout moss.” The mood first, dull as overcast sky. Then the motion: I peeled an apple for Vega at her bedside, knife whispering like a silver fin.

By our cover story, she was mauled by the wraith Liebich on the way back, injuries flirting with death like a candle in wind. She clawed home to the Hero Academy to beg the returning Augustus for help.

“My master, who asks too much, I already hoodwinked both sides,” she said, voice cool as night water. “That’s fruit enough for any tree. What more do you want?”

Her eyes were bandaged like moth cocoons, but I knew she still rolled them like a tossed stone.

Ugh. When Stini and the others were around, Vega played comatose, brows knotted like tangled grass, fragile enough to cup like a sparrow. Soon as outsiders left, her poison tongue bloomed like a thorn.

“Don’t preen, Vega. This time Anna believes she unsealed Beozwuf, and believes Berenz was my plant to sabotage her; Augustus and the girls believe Anna orchestrated it all. That was luck, like a coin landing on edge. We can’t live on luck; because that one…”

I pointed upward, past the ceiling, past the clouds, toward a cold star.

“…that one isn’t just watching. They’re stirring the water with a stick.”

When we realized Anna had slipped a hand into my deal with Head, Vega and I stitched our plans together in a heartbeat, like weavers at a loom under thunder.

We penciled in her “injured-move speed” at the setting level, time to beat Sorek like sand through a glass, how long we could stall Anna like two wrestlers in mud, and the time for the Hero Augustus to sprint on hearing the call, feet smacking the road like drumbeats.

Then we mapped numbers to reality, so Augustus would arrive like a final bell, right as Anna’s last strike fell.

Vega, aside from the duel with Liebich, had few keystones to place; my burden was heavier, like a pack full of wet stones. I had to dam the “route progression,” pace our fight with Anna, and leave no footprints.

Being the villain is hard work, like climbing scree in the rain. Heroes think they just get unlucky because Fate snarls at them; most of the time it’s because they won’t think, they drift like leaves, and their wits are blunt as a spoon.

“My sly and patient master,” Vega said, voice a silk cord. “Every plan has a success rate, like weather chances. Win or lose, there’s a reason. Don’t force the river.”

“Fair.” I fed her a slice. It shone like a crescent moon; she swallowed without changing her face, a lake under ice.

“But why am I feeding you? You’re not hurt, not even a cracked twig.”

“My cold-blooded master, your maid hauled a dying body to beg for aid for you, dragging a shadow like a broken kite tail. Now you won’t share an apple?”

“Quit it. I know you fireman-carried Nan Lu home. Not a scratch on you, fox.”

“All toil and no laurels,” she sighed, like wind through chimes. “My master who grabs a nap when the sun’s soft won’t know a maid’s grind.”

That did tug a string. I thought back. I do toss her half the world, like a juggler with one audience. Without her, my Demon King Army’s resources would be half a harvest, if that.

I should thank Vega. Gratitude like warm tea.

“So, reward? Say it. A day off or a raise?” I said, words light as dandelion fluff.

I’ve never paid them a coin or stamped a leave slip. Our bond is root-deep, like two trees grafted. I treat them as hands, as a piece of me. Money’s a shallow river beside that.

So I’m a black-hearted boss, a coal under the snow?

“Ahem. Name it. Anything’s fine. Even a reward in bed,” I said, a wicked grin like a cat’s curl.

“Kidding, my black-hearted master.” She smiled, a thin blade catching light, like she’d read my mind and found crumbs.

“If I vanished, the Demon King Army would jam like gears full of sand. I handle the ledger, so wage isn’t a need; if I want something, I buy it, like plucking fruit in my own orchard. As for the bed, my heat-muddled master, that’s your hunger talking.”

Oof. Bull’s-eye, like an arrow humming.

“So let’s skip rewards,” she said, voice like cool shade. “My dense master.”

“Even so, I want to give you something for all the seasons you carried me,” I said. Feeling like rain overdue.

She lifted a strand of black hair with the outside of her cast, slow as a heron. Chin tipped, she pondered, a small moon above a quiet lake.

“Then, master, peel me an apple,” she said, simple as bread.

“That’s enough?”

“Yes. Being with you is enough,” she said, words like coals glowing.

I took knife and apple. No magic, no flourish. Just a visitor at a bedside, paring skin like a red ribbon curling to the plate.

My hands are deft; I don’t butcher the fruit to a stub. I’m no scatterbrained cute act.

“Open,” I said, the word a soft tap.

“Please say ‘Ah~~’ gently,” she answered, face straight as a rule.

“Do you want it or not?” My patience a drum-skin, thrum-thrum.

“Since my master hides tenderness beneath a bark of temper, I won’t tease further,” she said, and then, quick as a fox, she bit. Her grin was a stolen berry.

Fine. You’re cute; I’ll swallow my grumble like a stone.

“Call it your medal—for bleeding and not breaking,” I said, a laurel woven from red thread.

“Exactly. I left a trail like a butcher’s floor to shake Liebich. Among Demonfolk, ‘heroic’ isn’t praise, more like a rash… Oh, that reminds me.”

She knocked her cast-wrapped forearms together. Plaster thumped plaster, a clumsy clap like two logs. Comedy bloomed like a sunflower.

“My generous master, I burned through all our lower familiars while fleeing,” she said, tone light as drifting ash.

So now I’m “generous”? Fine. I’ll let it go like a feather.

“It couldn’t be helped. Liebich tried to stall for Anna’s strike; some losses are the tide taking shells. How many lower familiars left?” I kept my voice even, a pond at dawn.

“Sorry. I said ‘all.’ All is none,” she said, guillotine-clean.

“…”

Don’t think your bandages make you un-punchable, you little arsonist. My temper sparked like flint.

You prodigal.

“…Fine. As long as the mid-tier familiars remain,” I said, breathing deep, a bellows calming the coal.

All the beasts I hunted and converted to lower familiars, gone like smoke. Bad mood drifted like storm clouds; I pushed them off the horizon.

“Looks like we’ll be without the handy lower ranks. I also burned the mana to resurrect Berenz, and we’ve got Catherine with upper-familiar potential off the board. What’s our income?” My mind flipped ledgers like autumn leaves.

“The ledger’s here…” Vega leaned to the drawer, then remembered her hands were trussed like water drops. “My leisurely master, please wait a heartbeat,” she said, moving to unwrap.

“Don’t. Leave it. Rewrapping’s a nightmare. I’ll get it,” I said, stepping in like a breeze.

I took Vega’s side-job masterpiece, the neat income-expense sheet, lines straight as furrows. I checked the figures, each coin a bead on a string.

“Including HolyWater and MP potions, the spend totals three hundred forty-two Colonna gold coins. As for income… mage-tech sells like meteor iron. Tsk. We’ve got cash flow now, a river with banks,” I said, lips curling.

“And Nan Lu, my here-then-gone master. Thanks to your black magic—”

“Call it black tech. That rope has no name. The Creator forged it to lasso and seal an anti-concept field around the Ocean of Darkness, a noose braided from negation. It hardly binds a Demon King, let alone that negative root, the moonless sea,” I said, flicking a crumb of pride like dust.

“Then snaring Nan Lu by your black tech is the main catch. In the Demon Realm we’ve never captured an enemy Demon King’s upper familiar; even killing them, they slip away like eels,” she said, eyes bright under gauze.

“Mm. Feels useless, like a sword in a lock,” I said, eyes on columns.

“Maybe we can pry out key intel on Princess Anna’s weakness?” she asked, voice a thin hook.

“Unlikely,” I said, closing the ledger with a soft clap, like a bookbird. “Becoming an upper familiar means Nan Lu’s loyalty is bedrock. Harsh torture’s a hammer on granite. But try if you like—no, let Berenz do it after revival. You take the heavy labor; she takes the dirty ditch.”

“As you will,” she said, bowing like a reed. “But if Nan Lu’s useless, we could trade her back for Catherine. She’s a mortal with apotheosis on the horizon; maybe she’d cross the river to you…”

“No.” I curled my lip, then patted Vega’s small head, a hand on velvet dusk.

“Your master isn’t ruled by spring-thaw feelings. Don’t fret over my heart. I admire Catherine, sure, but I won’t burn a card for her. A complete combat unit, an upper familiar who knows our wild card, outweighs a would-be god who won’t kneel. I know which stone to place,” I said, voice like a hammer steady on the nail.

She lowered her head, shadow like a falling leaf.

“Don’t bow at ghosts. You’re not wrong. You chose what you thought was truest, for me, for us. Don’t hide it in riddles or blame yourself like rain blaming the sea.”

Her short black hair felt fine under my fingers, silk over steel. I ruffled it twice for “punishment,” then stood, door in sight like a bright slit.

“One more not-quite gain,” I said, hand on the frame like a branch. “When a girl’s heart shifts, that’s the easiest time to lift favor, and the easiest to drop it—like a tightrope in wind.”

Vega pulled the quilt up, half her body retreating like a fox into brush. “Then tell me, my twisted master,” she said, a smile in the dark. “How do you know your moves will raise it?”

I stretched. My joints went crack-crack, like twigs in a hearth. I rolled my neck; no stiffness, no rust.

State: excellent. The moon’s a silver coin; the night’s a stage.

This old man read the stars; tonight’s good for flirting, like plum blossoms after snow.

“Because temptation, deceit, and honeyed words are Demonfolk gifts,” I said, smile like a secret.

I just know what girls are thinking and where to press to step closer. It’s talent; it’s instinct, like a wolf finding a path in fresh snow.