Next should be Qing, the Son of the Demon King who holds the Authority of Pain; a storm-walker with rain in his eyes. He’ll soon head for Skyward City Atlante, one of the Seven Human Nations, to ask the Council of Sages for peace, like a pilgrim climbing toward a cold, white summit.

Let me be clear: the twenty-four Sons of the Demon King who came down this time aren’t a single banner; we’re scattered crows on different winds. I learned that the hard way when those damned fellows ambushed me, like knives in fog.

Each of us schemes in our own shadow, like chess pieces carved from different woods. Anna, who holds Slaughter, wants to cull every soul in the mortal world, like a scythe through ripe grain. Daviya, who holds Dispute, wants a world where status is decided by words alone, like dueling blades forged from tongues.

We’re all faces of evil, black scales under moonlight; and just as Heroes carry different visions of justice, evil takes different shapes depending on the heart that wears it, like masks traded at night.

Anna’s the hawkish kind among us—she’d overturn the mortal world and yank Divine Beings from their thrones, like thunder grasping the crown of heaven. The hawks hold most of the seats in our flock, sharp wings cutting the wind.

I’m in the thinner wing—the doves. My sister, Miss Kadula, who holds Value, wants a world ruled by coin and balance sheets, like tides pulled by silver moons. We’re the sort who don’t desire a sweeping ruin, just a cleaner ledger in the dust.

Still, at the end of the night, we’re just different breeds of wickedness; we’re the enemy of justice, like wolves over a boundary fence.

On that point, Qing is an oddity among our odd flock; a lantern in a den of moths. He doesn’t want the mortal world destroyed; he’s not even truly wicked, like spring light refusing a blade’s gleam.

He’s kind, gentle—a Son of the Demon King who should’ve lived under open sunlight, a fool warmed by morning, not skulking in ash.

Half-baked villains don’t live long; and a Demon King's child who fights his own nature struggles like a fish against frozen current. He holds Pain, a fearsome Authority, yet he hates his leaning and loathes his power, like a healer afraid of his own herbs. With talent to match Anna, he’s still the weakest among us, a candle under a hurricane.

I remember: in my previous life, Anna asked me to help wreck the peace accord—right after Liebich’s theft of the Hero Academy’s Light Orb was exposed, which drew Anna and Augustus into a battle like lightning crossing steel. It was months after that storm.

Compared to that life, I’ve done plenty different here; yet such big tides rarely change course, like rivers carving the same canyon, and I’ve done nothing that would touch Qing’s steps.

So the big event lately is the Defense of the Council of Sages, a shield wall under pale banners. Aside from a Demon King’s hand idly culling a village now and then, or some giant beast shouldering into a town, things have stayed oddly calm, like clouds that refuse to break.

Which means I’m very idle, like a blade sheathed too long.

So I came back to the tavern, to drink like watching rain bead on the eaves, and to chat with that poseur of a musician, a peacock hiding in gray.

“Oh right—tell me: what’s the root difference between a villain and a protagonist?” My voice was a tossed pebble in a still pond.

“I don’t know; my thoughts dried up with my cup,” he said, lifting his hair like a curtain in wind, reciting like scripture, wearing a pale-smiled mask.

This guy…

I swallowed the itch to give him a fist, like knuckles itching for thunder, and had the barkeep mix him a martini, like glass catching chill.

Now you can answer, right?

I raised my fist, a rock above the table, warning that a bad answer would be paid back in muscle, like debt called at dusk.

“The question exists, but what answer do you want?” he asked; the air around him slowed like honey, and even a hurried passerby would falter like feet in mud.

He looked ordinary, a gray silhouette dissolving into the wall; yet that plain shape pressed against the room like a mountain, making everything feel off-kilter, like a note sharp in a choir.

“I want your take,” I said, a blade asking a mirror.

“To me it’s whatever; villains and protagonists are equals, two faces of one coin,” he said, a calm river at noon. “Both have light and shadow; they lean differently and know themselves differently, like trees bending to different winds. Overall, they differ; at their root, they’re similar, like twin stars in one night.”

“That sounds like you,” I said; no surprise, after long acquaintance with his drifting tone, like incense without flame.

“No grand spark, no tremor to shake hearts, no fairytale philosophy,” he continued, his voice a steady drum. “Just the expected result and a neutral view from the middle road, like footprints on packed earth. So you’re disappointed; you paid for the drink but didn’t get the ‘philosopher at your elbow’ premium, right?” His smile was a thin brushstroke.

He lifted the martini, nodded at me, then poured it onto the floor, like clear rain wasted on stone.

“What do you mean…” I asked, a thin chill coiling like smoke.

“That’s why I asked what answer you want,” he said. “Vague questions birth vaguer answers, like fog echoing fog. No mortal cracks heaven with one sentence; only lucky accidents—and luckier misreadings—produce dialogues that seem profound. Most of the time it’s two fools staging a play of half-truths, like shadows arguing with mirrors.”

“I’m no superhuman; I only walked to the mortal extremity,” he added, smile still faint as paper ash. “Your expectations of me are too high.” He ordered another martini and told the barkeep to put it on my tab, like a swallow stealing crumbs.

Such a baffling man, like knots tied in mist.

But faced with the barkeep’s troubled look, I paid his bill anyway, like tossing a coin into a quiet well.

The price of a drink is nothing; a philosopher’s one line is worth more, like a spark in winter straw.

He’s trying to prove something; I don’t see it. His every gesture means something; I don’t see that either, like stars behind cloud.

He said he lives just to show that people like him exist, not for any banner or throne, like a reed insisting on its own sway. He’s amusing; life is a fine performance, and I’ll buy a ticket to watch it unfurl, like curtains parting on a dark stage.

I want to see what twisted future he will play, like vines winding around a fallen column.

“Fine,” I said, clapping softly, handing my empty glass back to the barkeep like a shell to the shore. “What’s the difference between the righteous and the villainous? I don’t want your personal view; give me something… more entertaining.”

“Still vague, but if you want it, I’ll say it,” he replied, voice a warm knife. “First, one difference is whether the crowd supports you—like wind under wings.”

“That sounds like a plain yardstick,” I said, a sigh in the lantern smoke.

“Don’t belittle the ordinary,” he said. “Without those at the base, how could the heights exist, like mountains without foothills? If no one sings the Hero’s greatness, the Hero reverts to the starting definition—just ‘the strong one,’ like a sword without inscription. No, without someone weaker to compare him to, maybe not even ‘strong.’ If no one fears the Demon King’s cruelty, then the Demon King ceases to be the Demon King; same law, like night without someone calling it dark.”

“You mean it’s the weak serving as contrast that makes the strong shine?” I asked, a thought wrinkling like water.

“More or less,” he said. “If the world had only one person, that person would be nothing but ‘human,’ the bare outline, like a lone tree against blank sky. So, one who grants blessings and earns praise is the protagonist; one who strips others and earns curses is the villain, like sun versus frost.”

“Makes sense…” I murmured, a coin flipping in my palm.

“Others say the root difference is leaning toward good or toward evil—no, call it evil-ward and good-ward,” he continued, voice a steady thread. “Extremism is evil, while devotion is good; hatred is evil, while respect is good; lying is evil, while a kind lie is good, like thorns versus balm.”

“Just swapping adjectives decides who’s who?” I asked, a brow raised like a drawn bow.

“Everything has two faces; gods have wrathful visages, and demons have merciful ones,” he said, a lantern lit in fog. “Whether it’s god or demon depends on how you judge, like naming constellations on the same stars.”

“So is it other people’s judgment or your own?” I said, a compass drawn in dust.

“Coincidence,” he smiled. “I study language. They look the same, yet self-judgment and others’ judgment differ vastly in meaning, like river and canal under one sky. What you do, and what your act means, decides villain or protagonist. How’s that answer?” His gaze was a quiet well.

“You just overturned your first point,” I said, a wave against a stone.

“My first point was stated: there’s no difference between protagonist and villain,” he replied, calm as autumn. “But I think the answer you want hides inside my answers, like seeds tucked in fruit.”

Is it tied to what I’m really asking…

“…There’s always a right one,” I said, tasting the words like tea. “That it?”

“I hope you find the right one for you,” he said, lifting his glass like lifting dawn. “Good and evil aren’t absolute; neither is right and wrong, nor your satisfaction. I just hope your drink feels worth the coin, like rain worth the wait.”

“Maybe…” I said, a ripple cooling.

I want the difference clear; stated points feel too blunt, like chopping fog with an axe.

It’s not simply doing evil or doing good, nor just who judges; not only labels, like paint on a mask.

I feel the line dividing them should be something grander, more sacred, like a bell that names heaven and hell, not just a split of good and evil by a tidy blade.

“Looks like what I said isn’t your answer,” he sighed, hands open like empty nests. He upended the martini again, the spill like silver grass, and ordered another.

“That’s nonsense,” I snapped; my fingers pinched the silver coin for the barkeep, refusing to let go, like claws on prey.

“The barkeep might cry; let go,” he said, a chuckle like a low tide. “Everything carries Value, and Beauty sits at the top shelf of Value, like gold in a vault. Ugliness is ‘no value,’ even ‘negative value’; when both appear, contrast blooms like frost alongside fire.”

“And then?” I asked, a frown like storm-churned lake.

“Ah, you’re hard to talk to,” he said, shaking his head like a reed in rain. “Let’s use a simpler example: in novels, any character blessed with beauty, male or female, tends to belong to the protagonist’s side, like swans flocking to clear water.”

Think of it: Yakfarro, handsome—dead like a fallen statue.

Anna, beautiful—soon to be killed like a rose cut at dawn.

Liebich and Nan Lu, pretty—fit to die without regret, like moon moths to flame.

Daviya, dashing—won’t live past a few volumes, like a comet burning short.

Berenz, adorable—later to be killed for the banner, like a lamb led to scarlet altars.

“Lies; there’s no such good luck,” I said, heat rising like steam.

Slamming the table’s rude; so I didn’t, my knuckles tight like trapped thunder.

“Life isn’t a novel,” he said, eyes lidded like winter ponds. “Readers can mail razor blades to authors in a fit, but complaining to reality does nothing, like shouting at mountains.”

“So what you said is meaningless?” I asked, the coin’s edge biting my skin like cold teeth.

“No,” he said, voice smooth as a river stone. “Novels bear the symbols of mortal ideals, so they stand representative, like banners over crowds. Because novels can run wild without chains, mortals pour their fantasies into them; from those fantasies, we glimpse how mortals judge right and wrong, like reading weather from cloud shapes.”

That sounds plausible, a lantern in a long corridor.

“Most audiences react this way,” he continued, words steady as drumbeats. “A handsome man at his entrance must be a future friend, even if he’s an enemy tonight, like ice thawing to water. A beautiful woman must be the protagonist’s lover; even if she starts as a villain, she’ll later join the harem, like a star crossing constellations. Beauty is power; beauty is justice.” His tone stayed flat, no blaze, like a candle that refuses to flicker.