Since that brawl with Anna at the Hero Academy’s martial festival, our tally was a grim mercy—only two hundred dead, like blood-beads on a cold string.

Yes, only two hundred. Those stories where Heroes shield everyone are paper lanterns in fiction, bright and false.

Remember when I was about to kill Catherine? Liebich blew himself up, and the space of the Academy flipped into the concept field of Slaughter, like an iron storm.

Slaughter is a fatal idea, a blade that cuts by existing. Even Anna never aimed malice; the spreading concept alone mowed through almost everyone inside the Academy.

Later, Saint Mire cast an expanded Soul Return Prayer, and dragged the fallen back, like fish hooked from a black river.

But a Divine Art isn’t omnipotent. The old already thinned to ash, the sick whose souls were threadbare—no prayer could stitch death back to life.

Driving back the Demon King at the price of two hundred was a bleak blessing. I’d braced for the worst: two thirds dead, tens of thousands, if Augustus hadn’t arrived in time.

The Hero Squad smiled bright as banners. We met the Demon King head-on, stood proud in the square of eyes, and took praise like warm rain.

We can face Catherine’s death. We did enough. We did well. We did what most will never do, a hill climbed in knives.

But the smiles were masks. Inside, the beat was guilt. We kept thinking: we should’ve done more for the friend now gone.

That’s the ache reserved for prodigies. They believe they can, so failure becomes “I didn’t push hard enough,” like whipping your own shadow.

Personally, I think that creed is a blade turned inward, too harsh for a human heart.

After discharge, I went drinking with Stini and the girls. Of course, we didn’t call Abigail. The night was a spilled ink, and we kept pouring.

Everyone got plastered. I paid, whistled for Vega, and hauled a tangle of sleepy girls home, like kittens scooped from rain.

The dorm locks at night. If I went home alone, they’d nap on park benches, skulls pounding. Elina and Golia can afford a hotel; the other two are broke as dry cups.

Maybe I could cover their rooms?

I dumped the two snoring on my shoulder onto the bed Vega and I usually roll in, then it hit me, soft as a guilty breeze.

Forget it. I brought them home. That’s a considerate move, a neat stack of goodwill points.

I did think about faking drunk and tumbling with them. That kind of fire only breeds smoke; better to douse it. It’s the Silver Era—no one believes one night means marry.

They might even bill me after. Also… last time Vega pretended to be me, did things that made cheeks burn. Every power behind those girls sent me their carved warning.

It was a knife-on-bone kind of warning. Vega, I’m itching to teach you a lesson.

So tonight, I’ll be a gentleman. Four girls on one bed, tucked in neat as folded paper. I turned to the living room, a familiar stage.

We’ve played in the living room, sure. Finding a place to roll with Vega is easy as flicking a match.

My Hero family’s ancestral house sprawled after I bought out the neighbors. Stini’s a gremlin of surprises; nothing she does shocks me anymore.

Once, to dodge Stini—the maid at my place—Vega and I set a bed in the basement. Next day, the bed was a nest of bird eggs Stini had “found.”

I’d warded the room with high-order magic, fitted Demon Realm locks and doors. We opened up and found Stini sprawled, brooding like a mother bird, humming something like a blood-rite lullaby.

The lock and door were untouched. The only key sat in my palm. How did she slip in?

Think too long, and it chills. I shrugged it off with “she’s a Hero,” closed the door, and backed away with Vega, no questions asked.

Stini’s dead drunk now. She shouldn’t crawl out of a corner chest and ruin my night again.

I was stepping out when Raven mumbled, dream-thin. “Catherine, don’t go…”

“We’re… still not strong enough. We can’t beat the Demon King…”

Tears sliding like cold rain, brows knotted. More guilt than sorrow. She kept whispering it:

“…I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

She looped it like a cracked record. All I could do was wipe the tear at her lash, my thumb a quiet apology.

I don’t want to help her. I won’t. But the scene knocks anyway. I caused this shape of grief.

Everyone’s climbing. Only Raven seems to weaken, not for lack of stride, but because I keep laying stones in her path.

Her black-tech hits hard, but it’s all red-lined, sealed behind “do not use.”

Annihilation cannon that erases matter to nothing. A planar lockdown trap that sealed Anna for nearly ten seconds. A freeze bomb aiming to frost time and space forever.

Brilliant. Untouchable.

I stroked her smooth hair. When Raven’s breathing levelled like a lake at dusk, I slipped out. Vega waited, patient as a cat.

“Vega, what about the perpetual motion thing?”

“I’ve hinted to Miss Raven,” she said, bowing slightly, “never use it again. Or the Heretic Inquisition will come sniffing.”

In our fight with Anna, Raven piloted a giant Construct—the Godslayer, Hundred-Handed Giant prototype. The Truth Seekers Assembly’s apex topic, and she made it breathe.

I don’t doubt her gift. I wanted the how, the gears behind the miracle.

She solved the great giant’s famine: the energy deficit.

With her first-type perpetual motion machine.

Yes—the machine that runs forever, feeds energy without fuel. The perpetual motion the later ages proved a myth, a mirage on hot stone.

Yet Raven grounded it in science, alchemy within world-law. A blueprint you could manufacture, not a lightning-flash one-off.

She even drew the sheets. It could be mass-produced. That kind of talent is terrifying, a comet headed for the sea.

“So she won’t use it again, right?”

“Miss Raven looked scared. She burned the blueprints in front of me. But my greedy master,” Vega’s voice softened, “her talent is too far beyond. People will call her monster, heretic.”

“Monsters and Demon Kings make a tidy pair.”

“With respect, you’ve the stomach to ride a monster, but not the reins.”

“If I, the Demon King’s firstborn, can’t rein Raven in, then who can?”

“No one.”

Vega shook her head, fear flickering like a candle’s tremor. “No one, my master. We can only slow Miss Raven from cracking the world.”

If there’s one person who must never gain immortality, it’s Raven Segrito, that gold-haired, gemstone-eyed girl.

With her genius, world-ending inventions are likely. Give it time, the “likely” will turn to “certain,” as sunrise to noon.

Even if she stayed as she is—an innocent heart making gifts for the world—it fails. Light births shadow; the brighter the blaze, the deeper the dark.

The more civilization’s fire roars, the thicker its rabid face congeals.

Raven’s use of perpetual motion in battle scraped my skull raw. Not illness—my body’s too fine. The darkness howled too loud, and my thoughts spun into storm.

That’s why I didn’t manifest my true body. Against Anna, I only pulled on my artifact’s extension. I feared the Ocean of Darkness would flood my mind, and Andreas would descend early.

In the last life, Raven married Abigail, kept like a canary in a gilded cage.

She loved magitech. Abigail kept his promise, fed her every material she asked, a river of ore and ink.

But he treated her work as toys, little wonders. He never saw the teeth behind the shine. Their bond always had a pane of glass.

That unhappy marriage stunted Raven’s growth. Her beyond-era inventions never became mainstream. The Ocean of Darkness never raged, and the world did not break.

This time, I’m the dam. For now, Vega nudges her as a friend. “This can’t be used.” “That’s not allowed.” A string of quiet bells.

“It’s a headache. And we should plan how to usher Anna off the stage.”

I slumped onto the sofa, scratching my hair, and pulled paper and pen. From memory of the last life’s Hero Squad, I wrote what it takes to kill the Demon King.

Raven hasn’t built the Valkyrie-series armors. She can’t front-line yet. The freeze bomb’s still a sketch. The Godslayer series is only a frame.

Stini can’t cast the legendary magic “Flow Past Wind and Smoke.” The Hero family’s ancestral secret sword isn’t fully learned. Her stance-work is rough; she fights on instinct.

We haven’t passed a Divine Being’s trial, no blessing of the gods on our backs.

Elina, against that other Divine Healer, can’t cast “Heroic Spirit Rebirth” outright. Her legendary “Guardian’s Fervor” hits soft, and control is loose.

She’s bad with barriers. Our squad’s defense has a hole wide as a gate.

And… Her Highness. She walked out of the bedroom.

The door creaked, a nail-scratch I usually hate.

When I’m sneaking onto Vega’s bed, palming her chest for a cute squeal, that “creeeak” kills the mood. Vega gives me dead-fish eyes and a bored sigh—“So troublesome. Again. If you’re coming, hurry.”

It puts ice on the flame.

But right now, I want to thank that sound.

My Shadow field blankets the bedroom. I catch the girls’ movements, so I can prepare. Only Princess Golia is immune to magic; I can’t sense her, like a blank star.

Princess Golia’s core is the artifact the Creator gifted the Sorcerer Emperor. A divine sword of twin concept fields—Sharp and Steadfast—like winter edge and granite spine.

The Emperor dreamed of a weapon that could meet enemies head-on, forged from that blade. The Golden Age ended before he finished.

The Iron Kingdom Colonna’s royal line carried the research. They expanded the sword’s idea, and thus came Gloria Colonna—Princess Golia.

“Andor, where is the toilet?” The triple-blank girl stood at the door, voice stiff as a new hinge.

“Oh. Left turn.”

“Thanks.” She turned, then turned back, staring at Vega. “Why is Vega not wearing clothes?”

“Because… adults have needs.” In the seconds between the creak and the doorway, Vega had peeled off her maid outfit and crawled onto me.

She’d rubbed a slick layer of lotion on, like a seal glistening on sand.

I flicked her forehead. We’ll settle this later.

“Mm…” Princess Golia paused, like a slow Construct booting. “Understood. You two are performing mating. It is not shameful. Sorry. I will leave now.”

She hurried into the bathroom, legs a quick metronome.

“Happy now? Up. Your lotion’s staining the sofa.”

“No need to stir the water, Master—I’ll wash it anyway.”

Even out of her uniform, my maid moves with clockwork grace.

I shrug, letting it slide off me like rain off an eave.

Then I set my pen to paper, the last line falling like dew:

From a combat standpoint, Princess Golia is strong as tempered steel.

She already holds Magic Immunity and Concept Solidification, a shield and a seal.

But she still lacks a human heart, like a lantern without a flame.

Otherwise she remains a man-made thing, a tool, a weapon that only mimics people.

She’d be a clockwork puppet, never able to become a true Hero.