Hey, when did the tea turn bitter? Weren’t we talking about heroes and villains?

The most innocent ideal mirrors a person’s core hunger, like a lake reflecting the moon. Every author stitches “beauty” into their hero, like silk in a robe—doesn’t that say enough?

He smiled at me and poured the martini down his throat, like rain slipping off eaves. He neither gulped nor savored; he just drank, flat as shade at noon.

No different from drinking plain water, like a stream with no ripples.

...

Further, even if a beautiful person can’t win a happy end, they can die beautifully, like a flower frost-bitten at dawn. That’s main-character treatment, no doubt. Boy, do you know the definition of tragedy?

To destroy what’s beautiful, like shattering a porcelain vase.

Right. Tragedy is beautiful, so it stands outside good and evil, like a bell tolling over fog. In the end there are only dead protagonists, and supporting roles still breathing.

When you strip it down, it’s about the spotlight, like moths to a flame.

Life isn’t a stage play, yet stage plays are carved from life; twins in different clothes. Their bones align in more places than not.

Hero and villain get cast at the start, names etched like seals in wax. The playwright sketches them for the crowd, yet the “good and evil” we pretend is fixed is decided by the majority, like a tide choosing the shore.

Who the crowd loves becomes the hero, brave and kind like a lantern on a dark road.

Who the crowd hates becomes the villain, cruel and cold like iron in winter.

If heroes and villains are poles like north and south, what about those who live in the in-between?

Between the poles isn’t pure dark or pure light; legends germinate there like seeds under frost. The one who does evil to birth a greater good and carries infamy. The one who kills one to save ten thousand and keeps a cold heart. The one who loves everyone and refuses to abandon anyone and turns foolish by choice.

Are they only supporting roles—supporting roles in life—like nameless trees along the path?

I feel… I’m close to the answer I want, like fingertips near a candle flame.

But it’s still a hair short, like a string just shy of tune.

I slid a silver coin to the bartender, the metal chiming like a drop in a bowl, and raised a hand to the man in the white coat beside me.

He upended the last of his martini onto the floor like a libation, then took a fresh glass, sipped once like tasting snow, and said:

We could score good and evil, quantify it like tally marks. Above a certain kindness, you’re a hero; below a certain line, you’re a villain; the rest are supporting roles. I could write the formula and the method to collect the data, but I’ve drunk enough, and it’s time to play. No need to con another drink to pad the tavern’s till.

This time he drained the glass in one motion, like a blade falling, then walked to the side of the stage and lifted his violin as if raising a wing.

Heroes and villains, at the root it’s whether you have something you want to protect, like cupping a flame in wind. It’s not the correct answer, but it’s the one you’re after.

He said it in the tone of someone who sees through the weave, like a mountain looking down on clouds.

Like a Divine Being, like a devil in velvet.

Not the correct answer—what do you mean by that?

It’s what you want to hear, but it’s a partial truth, like a crescent moon. Every heart is fragile, thin as ice, so those foolish ones hope to protect everything, and they labor without rest and make miracles—those are the heroes. The ones who see through it all know any effort will draw blood, so they reject love and beauty, name themselves ugly, keep nothing so they needn’t fear loss—those are the villains. Between them lie the ordinary, who lack the courage to abandon everything and also fear they can’t protect everyone—just plain, unremarkable supporting roles.

Yes… that’s the answer I wanted, the compass for where to place myself, like a star to steer by.

I can be satisfied with that, like a thirst finally quenched.

It’s an absurd doctrine, right. Many will scorn it, few will nod, like rain on a tin roof. But you only wanted the line. Truth means little to you now. You don’t want this answer to better yourself; you just want an answer.

From the start, you already had your answer and your ideal outcome, like a script in your sleeve. You only wanted me to speak it aloud.

So this is enough. He wore a thin smile, like a brushstroke, and named it so.

Why do you think I wanted this answer?

He didn’t answer straight, slipping aside like a fish.

Even mortal wisdom hits the mark sometimes, like an arrow in a gust. Well? Did I guess right?

...You’re too clever for your own good.

Only mortal wit, nothing grand. He waved it off like dust.

Why not go to the Council of Sages? You’d make waves there, and your proofs would finish faster, like fire catching dry leaves.

If I did that, I’d become the protagonist, wouldn’t I? He laughed and declined. I’m a supporting role.

True enough… I’m heading out. Won’t you at least say, Thanks for your patronage?

My real job’s to play music, not be a hostess, he said, voice light as smoke. You showing up doesn’t raise my pay. If anything, a hero barging into a supporting role’s life kicks up trouble like mud.

Yeah, yeah, my bad. Next time buy your own drink, will you… and see you next time.

I told you, maybe I won’t be here next time.

As I pushed the door and stepped into the night, he nodded to me, that faint smile still there like a crescent over water.

———

Then came waiting, like holding breath before thunder.

Qing probably hasn’t gone to Skyward City Atlante to report yet. There’s not a whisper about the peace conference. It feels off to just say, You’ve worked hard lately, how about a trip to SkywardCity?

Hmm… thinking on it now, maybe we can. Going early isn’t bad, like catching the dawn train.

Anyway, “Shadow Sorcerer, Andor Mephy” is a rich-man setting. I could treat it like a class outing. But it’s too late to say anything now, like an arrow already loosed.

Andor, stop spacing out! Even if goblins are easy meat, don’t daydream!

Stini cut down a goblin with her longsword like slicing reed, and two more sprang at her like stones from a sling.

I raised my arm; the scant armor on me, the left elbow vambrace, lifted the fresh corpse to block the left goblin’s slash like a door. Then I made a fist and smashed, corpse and all, into its skull.

Her emerald ponytail snapped up like a banner, and a few drops of monster blood dotted the girl’s flawless cheek like plum petals in snow.

The left goblin’s skull crunched and crackled, a sound that turned the stomach like chewing bone; at the same time, Stini drove her sword through the right goblin’s throat like a needle through cloth.

I kicked aside the goblin I’d felled earlier. The body flew with my boot’s force like a battering log, slammed into the goblin mass, and stalled their surge for a breath.

Snap out of it, snap out of it.

Stini slashed at my crotch in a blur, the blade a silver fish, and I woke with a jolt and hopped aside.

Damn it, Stini, where are you aiming?

A man’s weak point, obviously.

She laughed like a bell and dove back into the swarm, a sparrow hawk among crows.

A Greatsword beats a longsword for this kind of work, like an axe versus a razor. With applied magic buffs, Stini’s body can shove foes back even with a longsword, but a longsword’s built to cut clean, not to face a sea of bodies.

So for me, I just need to keep sweeping the Greatsword, like mowing wheat.

We were fighting in mountain forest, trees crowded like spears. Places thick with plants hate big weapons, but monsters love them; that’s why they breed fast here, like mushrooms after rain.

But for a Hero-tier fighter, the enemies they cut are usually tougher than trees, like ironwood under frost.

I swung the Greatsword wide. The lead goblin braced with a wooden club like a thin branch, but Valor split the club clean and kept the same speed, crushing its ribs and organs like cracking a chestnut. It let out an ugly death-cry, and the body flew and bowled into its comrades like a rolling boulder.

Strike after strike stacked like waves. With a longsword the effect is small, but with a Greatsword it turns the field into a meat grinder.

No goblin could close. All of them were knocked down and hurled away, and their lines frayed further, like cloth ripping at the seam.

My setting—Andor Mephy—is a Shadow Sorcerer born in the Western frontier. Whether it’s the monster tides out west or the dark uprisings back in the Demon Realm, they both beg for this sweeping, open-and-shut style.

The only difference is whether I use a Long Halberd or a Greatsword, like choosing spear or axe.

In the Eastern Mountains, adventurer commissions are many and high-tier, like stars thick as sand. The Hero Academy’s finals are usually held here.

For the record, finals aren’t about writing a paper; they’re about finishing specific commissions to prove you can rank up, like stamping a pass.

Maybe because Augustus often runs off alone to slay Demonfolk, the Hero Academy’s pretty kind to solo players—or rather, they don’t force you to form a team.

Any headcount works. Complete the task, and the Academy signs off, like a seal in wax.

But because they give us freedom, most students delay for a thousand petty reasons and only head to the Eastern Mountains when the deadline breathes down their neck, like leaves piling before the gate closes.

Stini and I took the exam early to avoid the peak rush, like traveling off-season.

If we competed with classmates desperate not to repeat a year, we’d likely get commissions that rot the spirit, like mold in bread.

For example: enter a toxic marsh to slay a marsh fiend; or tackle tentacle vines that already claimed multiple victims; or storm a goblin nest to rescue a captured girl.

Tasks nastier than repeating a grade—I don’t want to gamble on even a slim chance of drawing those lots. Exams are stifling enough; I want a little joy, like sunlight through shutters.

Also, the peace conference starts soon. If we get chewed up there and can’t take exams, then what? I’m not begging that bastard Augustus for clemency beyond the rules, like a dog at his heel.

Raven’s in the Magitech Department and doesn’t need to trudge with us; she’s busy lately with a “Godslaying Weapons Series,” like forging thunder. Elina, as a Mythology Department student, went to the Grand Temple to resonate with a Divine Being as her exam. They didn’t come.

So it’s just me and Stini on a two-person date…

…and Princess Golia tagging along like a moon that won’t leave the window.

Three more clusters. Commission complete.

Her Highness stepped out of the trees, split a blocking goblin with a hand blade like a guillotine. Her lead-gray eyes fixed on me, cold as slate.

She’s had so few entrances and lines that I almost forgot Her Highness is also in the Combat Department, like a blade kept sheathed.

I keep wary of Princess Golia and avoid meeting her. If my true self gets exposed and Golia chooses to self-detonate, I could get blasted straight back to the Demon Realm by an artifact’s wrath, like a leaf in a gale.

After all, in a human world where gods and demons won’t descend, the only one who can wield “infinite” or “all” authority is Golia’s true self—the coronation gift from the Creator to the human Sorcerer Emperor: the Demon Slaying Sword.

She’s one of the rare few who could kill me, send me home to the Demon Realm, like snuffing a candle.

She attacks with a hand-chop that tears bodies in two, like cloth under a ripper. She never blocks; she eats the goblins’ hits and counters at once. Under Golia’s hand there are no wounded monsters, only corpses, like felled timber.

Counting travel time… we’re short. Let’s clear one more cluster, then head back to town to rest.

I glanced at the sinking sun bleeding into the trees, then turned back, cut down a goblin Stini had missed like pruning a stray branch, and put it to the team.