“Naïveté” means a heart unbound by rites, simple, free of guile. Yet the word itself is a sneer; when someone calls you naïve, they’re not praising you.

This isn’t what I want, I know; I’m not strong, I know; my Dispute with Stini is pointless, I know. But if I know the “right,” must I choose it? Must my life be a gear in a world, only a piece of a crowd?

She launched me skyward, then Nivifar flashed above me, faster still. She reversed her grip, fist clenched, and hammered down like a falling star.

Martial stance, “Warm Wine for the Days Ahead.”

I raised my Greatsword for a cross-block. It didn’t matter. Her force flooded the blade, ripples ringing out like a bell in rain.

The core of my false god-body felt punched into a hollow. For a heartbeat, every sense went dark.

Then I hit hard, supersonic, carving a man-shaped crater. Pain lifted like smoke, telling me I still had a body.

Strength, mind, soul. Martial stances, like legendary magic, carry near-obsessive ideas. No physical guard can truly stop thought.

Naïveté as a human flaw… not quite. It’s more a common trait of a species’ childhood, meant to fade with growth. If not, society calls such a person defective, unfit.

Some readers love leads with jagged faults, shouting “pure and naïve.” I think they use flawed heroes as mirrors—proof their own lacks aren’t shameful, even a ladder for pride.

“We’re all the Creator’s youngest children—so the Divine Being says. How’s that different from ‘we’re all the Creator’s rejects’? Can’t I… can’t I be willful just once?”

Nivifar, in a second-stage rampage, stopped using the weight of “world.” My false god-body lost its point; even my repair stuttered, tangled by the “thought” she seeped in.

Legendary magic is thought made real. Now she attacked with thought. Any side-effect might let Stini see my legendary magic is fake.

So I chose offense for offense. In the Godspeed Realm, I swung my Greatsword flat and swift.

The girl didn’t step into the Godspeed Realm, yet her hands hovered beside my blade. She pressed with a lover’s gentleness, and the blade halted.

Martial stance, “Merits and Faults Wear Away.”

My Greatsword sank as if into swamp and mountains, into earth thick as ages. It wouldn’t lift or fall, light yet crushing, ten inches from her chest.

Naïveté deserves the guard of adults or heroes, because it’s needed for a child’s joy. But once the child grows, the guard leaves. Sometimes they shove, to show reality’s cold.

In short, a slap wakes the dream. Let them lose before reality and evil, see justice pale and weary, then choose to do good by good or good by evil.

That’s our villain work. I’ve always embraced it, paycheck or none, glad to do the dirty blessing.

So today the same—I’ll tell Nivifar her naïveté should end.

“I am wrong. But is a world that allows no error absolute justice? Because of my weakness and my sins, I don’t expect rest after death; curse me with pain forever. Before I die, I only beg someone to answer—why is my life this tragic?”

Black demon-marks on her face split like dry clay. A crack ran from jaw to eye. Flesh tore; it looked like blood weeping.

Nivifar lowered her face, a tremor in her voice, and stepped close. Distance vanished; if I bowed my head, I could kiss her.

Her fair hand fell to my chest, soft as a spring breeze, lifting neither leaves nor clouds.

Martial stance, “Lotus Blooming through Lifetimes.”

Clang—the Greatsword dropped. The wind it raised stirred broken walls behind me; ruins powdered into drifting ash.

My whole body felt minced then reassembled. There was no true pain—only phantom spikes, flashing, whispering I once had a body.

I knelt. As I was about to topple backward, someone steadied my shoulders.

Nivifar pressed me down, supine, with the care one gives porcelain.

“I don’t want redemption anymore. Will you die with me?”

She asked with a dream-thin smile, then straddled my waist like dusk settling.

Bingo. I cheered inside, fist raised in the dark of my mind.

I’d been guessing what story the devil set me up for. Devils are tricksters; you can’t fully trust them, though they’re famed for keeping deals.

I’d been set to take Nivifar’s head when she burst into her second rampage and blind-sided me. I could’ve kept fighting—drugs, big words, two more rounds.

But it felt pointless. Banter didn’t bite. So I dropped the sword and let the story roll.

In the trade, the devil gave no “branch point,” only the “result”: I can save Nivifar, but I must think.

My thought: Nivifar’s contract with Biyag will crack, and I’ll seize the moment. Why? Her hands had broken free of the black demon-mark that bound the pact.

My brain wrote a new script in three seconds—the time it took Nivifar to pin me.

Damn. That means extra cost.

“You… you don’t actually want to die, right?”

I said it, and a mouthful of blood bloomed. Supine, it smeared my face like war paint. Damn. I should’ve waited till my body mended.

“Mm. I still have things to do. If I fell now, I’d die having done nothing…” She touched her cheek, tilted left, braced both hands on my chest. “Since you’re alive, let’s try it. I haven’t yet. If it’s you, Andor, my first time will be okay.”

You make sense! My room’s xx03—come tonight.

…Kidding.

“Hey, hey… you don’t mean…”

I played reluctant, but heat pooled despite me, like embers under ash.

Else she’d think a man pulped in battle can get aroused by force? Maiden’s tricks are clumsy—that’s the trope. Her patron isn’t Yakfarro, lord of the Lust domain; she can’t incite desire.

Her gaze went hazy, focus lost, anime spiraling into mosquito-coil eyes.

“So from here… I just sit down, hard, right?”

No, no, wrong angle!

“Ah! It hurts! It’s not comfortable at all!” Nivifar punched my chest. More blood sprayed, like leaves shaken from a branch.

I told you—that’s the wrong way.

Maybe I can help her adjust?

I should consider how my stance shapes the future—welcoming, hesitant, or strongly resisting. I need to keep balance between two girls.

Yes, two. Stini watches from the Shadow. That chill is thick with malice.

When we win and I go home to marry, remember to guard against Stini’s assassination.

If I refuse, Nivifar grieves. If I accept gladly, Stini’s impression curdles. Even a bedsheet turns into strategy.

As for Demonfolk research… I’ll drop the saint act. Girls often find the rhythm once they begin, but Nivifar’s in pain; instinct hasn’t woken.

“It must be right. Effort… not enough yet!”

Nivifar struggled through awkward motions, up and down, tears slipping like rain. With a farcical stance, who’s leading whom?

Whoa. That bleeding beats what we shed in battle.

She won’t die like this… will she?

I couldn’t bear it—also, it hurt. When she rose, I angled slightly forward. So when she lowered again—

“Ah—wrong!”

No. This time, it’s right.

Her first time left her hurting. She collapsed onto my chest, breath torn and uneven, like waves against stone.

I sighed quietly. At last, the path might be straight.