I felt played. The talk left a sour taste, like watered wine. It wasn’t that he’d run out of words.

That feeling had been there from the start, faint as mist clinging to dawn.

I stepped out of the tavern and replayed the talk. Holes opened everywhere, like moth-eaten cloth.

How to say it…

I rubbed my chin, head down, not watching my feet. I walked straight into a passerby.

Shoulder hit shoulder. His robe flared as he caught his balance, like a curtain kicked by wind.

“Ah—sorry…”

Chainmail whispered under the robe. In that brief lift, I glimpsed a spiked mace at his hip and steel claws.

Under the hood was a plain face. Strictly speaking, the eyes and brow were handsome, yet somehow forgettable, like a pebble in a riverbed.

He shot me a hard glare and walked off, shadow cutting through sun.

I shrugged and kept moving, loose as a leaf on stream.

Yeah, I did it on purpose.

My beloved friends, dear Heretic Inquisitors—I know you’re here, lurking like crows on a fence.

Maybe that musician was reacting to these Heretic Inquisitors—no. Wrong.

He was deliberately saying empty things, gray as ash.

He always speaks half, hides half, lets others do the digging.

Like he said, “From countless possible tongues, he cuts out biased snippets.” So this time, he picked dull snippets to stonewall.

Even I, a muscle-head, can spin lively topics—“a life that dies gloriously is satisfying” or “so long as you live, life is satisfying.” We could cut in from all angles and play with it.

He said none of that. He stayed with a commoner’s lens and gave a bland answer, a lukewarm soup.

I’m curious what those eyes are actually seeing, like stars behind smoke.

I stopped, ready to go back and chat more. But I’d already reached my destination, as if the street had carried me.

I’ll find him for a drink next time.

The building matched Hero Academy dorm specs. The plaque bore the Colonna royal crest, bright as a coin. A floral wreath hung by the door, all colors in bloom; if I hadn’t spotted a few exclusive imports from the Western Expansion conservatory, I wouldn’t have guessed how pricey it was.

Subtle luxury. Princess Golia’s single-occupancy dorm.

I climbed the steps and lifted a hand to knock. The door flew open—almost broke my nose. The flower-scent rolled out thick as honey; these costly blossoms were cut less than a day ago.

“Princess Golia doesn’t see guests!”

The maid behind the door looked eighteen or nineteen, face set in a heavy-grown shadow that didn’t fit her age. She moved to slam the door—good thing I’d already wedged my foot.

“I’m a friend of Her Highness…”

“Princess Golia received an urgent summons from the Colonna royals. She leaves tonight. We’re packing, busy—please go.”

She kicked my foot and fought the door shut. That hurts—cut it out!

I remembered where I knew this maid.

Back when Raven disguised herself as me and did certain unspeakable things to the girls, the Colonna Empire sent elite squads to cause trouble.

I forget if this one’s an Arcane Engineer or an alchemist, but she’s an expert who can hold her own. She’s probably disguised as a maid to handle Gloria’s daily maintenance.

Best to pretend I don’t know her.

“Hey. Did you return all your servant-class coursework to the teachers? Since when does a maid decide for a princess?”

“Uh…”

“Her Highness and we just finished striking down heresy. We don’t even get a victory dinner?”

“Maybe you could wait till Princess Golia returns from home…”

“Will Her Highness even come back?”

“…”

Her face sharpened, a mask cut from iron.

“This is your fault! If not for you—Princess Golia wouldn’t be like this!”

“Whatever the case, let us see her once more. A meal together, at least.”

We glared through the crack of the door, silence tight as wire.

She finally sighed, long and beaten, like wind leaving a lung.

“…Fine. Tonight. I’ll arrange it.”

“Thanks. I didn’t even get your name…”

I drew my foot, and bang—the door slammed.

“Julia Melansa. Casio’s sister.” Her voice came through the wood, flat and dull.

There’s a thread of fate there. I should bring her a small gift next time, a token like a sprig of rosemary.

With that in mind, I headed to my second stop today.

Stini had driven a car through the arcane workshop, punched a few holes, and smashed plenty of machinery next door besides.

Yesterday, when we got back, Raven saw her workshop’s wreckage, drew her sword, and went berserk. She howled—a sound language can’t carry.

Stini bolted home to hide—yes, in the secret basement I built to roll in bed with Vega. Nivifar and Anna raised both hands, claimed innocence, and fled.

I can’t let Vega live out alone. If the Heretic Inquisitors snatch her, everything gets messy. I need Raven within sight of “Hero Stini,” the face of this incident.

So I invited Raven to stay at my place too.

I thought she couldn’t afford repairs. Instead she finished the workshop by noon, quick as a summer storm. That surprised me.

I knocked.

“Welcome, but the master here’s got no tea, no snacks, and no time to chat.”

Stini’s lazy drawl drifted out, half nap, half cat.

“I’m here to commission work. That deserves time, right?”

“Ah, Andor!”

She’d been draped across the sofa like melting candle wax. The moment she heard my voice, she sprang like a puppy and hugged my waist.

Her green hair still shone, but it was a tangled river—untouched for too long.

“Snuggle snuggle!”

“Not cute. Let the narrator do the sound effects.”

“Eh, so cold!”

Closing doors is a good habit. It cuts the gaze outside; if only it cut off malice with it.

She clung to me like a charm and drifted into the room. Has she always been this light?

Right, that mana ripple—applied magic “Float.”

How to put it… the selling point of a natural-type loli should be innocent, clumsy sweetness. Stini lunges, yet kindly reduces her weight…

A bit calculating. That kind of thoughtfulness kills the cute.

“How’d it go today? Did Heretic Inquisitors come to mess with you?”

“No—of course they did. Three times, each with a different excuse. I can’t imagine what Raven would do if I weren’t here.”

“It is what it is for now. So stick with Raven. Don’t leave her side.”

“Got it.” Our eyes met by accident. Stini blushed for no reason, backed off a step, and returned to the sofa to work in her practice book—even though her answers were wrong.

“I failed three subjects? Impossible. The teachers must’ve misgraded me!”

Her words came out stiff, like she’d swallowed a ruler. This keeps happening after Stini and I kissed.

I don’t get her shame triggers. She can burst into my bath while I’m in it and wash with me, but a kiss makes her crimson?

She’s built her brand on being cool. Maybe because she’s so small-bodied, her shame line drops?

“…Uh, I feel like you’re badmouthing me.”

“Nope. I think lolis are adorable. Love lolis the most.”

“Oh! Really?”

Her face went fully red. Even her ears flushed under that green hair—

—like a tomato in a summer garden.

I couldn’t help laughing.

“Hey! Andor!” The girl shouted, temper flaring like a match.

“Alright, alright. I need a word with Raven. Do me a favor and head out—no, let me rephrase.”

I pulled a gold coin from my pocket.

Thought about it. Two, then.

I used the throwing-knife technique our combat instructor drilled, and flicked them past the window at a Heretic Inquisitor outside.

Perfect. Headshot confirmed. The coins pinged off his hood.

“Stini, whoops, I fumbled and dropped two gold coins. Ah, they rolled too far. I can’t find them. Whoever grabs them, keeps them.”

“Mine!”

Stini sprang off the sofa and sprinted out like prey escaping a trap.

Good habit—you even closed the door.

I walked deeper into the workshop.

“Raven? You here?”

“Where else would I dare to be?”

The girl in work gear climbed down from the lift platform, pulled off her goggles, and tossed her golden hair.

Those sapphire eyes held both irritation and a spark of joy, lightning inside glass.

“I’ve got a job to commission.”

“Come back in three months. I’ve got a spark—yeah, this. Pretty great, right? I’m calling it the Valkyrie Series.”

She pointed at the iron giant in the center of the workshop, ten meters tall like a cliff of steel.

The “Valkyrie Series,” huh… In my past life, it boosted both Hero Stini and Demon King Andor in battle. It gave me real trouble. Raven poured her talent and genius into it—unique arcane armor.

Looks like she’s refitting the wreck of the Hundred-Handed Giant Prototype she piloted when Anna invaded Hero Academy.

You can feel time’s gear clicking forward, a slow, relentless turn.

“You heard Her Highness is going back? Back to her country.”

“Yeah, I heard. So what?” Raven lifted a cup and gulped water, throat working like a river in moonlight.

“She’s… not like us. You know?”

“Ha. I’m an Arcane Engineer. If you can tell, how could I not?”

“Now the Colonna royals have urgently recalled her…”

“And we can’t do a thing. Gloria belongs to Colonna. She’s a Construct. There’s no way we protect her.”

Raven sounded cool. She looked cool. But the chill had heat under it.

“Leave it, Andor. We can’t do anything. Heroes don’t beat the tide. Your words.”

Her clenched fist told me her heart was far from calm, tight as hoarded wire.

“Here. This.”

I took a Soul Component from inside my coat and set it on the table.

“What’s this?”

“The Sorcerer Emperor’s legacy. I’m commissioning you to process it.”

Her eyes lit at once. She lifted the component, fed it mana, and traced the circuits, joy like sparks on iron. New tech wakes Arcane Engineers up by instinct.

“Fair warning: parsing last generation tech is hard. You’ll leave it with me at least three weeks… Heh. High-grade stuff. I’ll clone one first, then study it slow.”

“Hey, hey, your inside voice slipped out! Straight talk then—this is a Soul Component…”

“Wait. You mean—a Soul Component?”

“You’ve heard of it? Great. I need you to bind this arcane component so the Colonna royals can’t take it off—”

Raven didn’t let me finish. She shouted, voice sharp as metal on glass.

“A Soul Component! You actually got one! You mean… You want to mount this on Gloria? That’s, that’s—”

What counts as truly human—if we had leisure, I’d love that talk, the kind that runs like rain over stones.

But not now.

“It’s the only plan I can see.”

“Will the Colonna royals agree?”

“No way. Put controls on a living person, and controversy explodes. This time we’re the villains. Even if we wave the flag of saving a friend, we’re stealing Colonna royal property.”

Now comes the long speech to convince Raven that “evil” can be reasonable. That it’s the most efficient path.

What a hassle. But I can’t skip it if I plan to win over the girls.

But for us, saving Gloria is true north; that’s the road I chose. Your turn now. Whether you help or not, I still—

Maybe.

Huh?

To my surprise, Raven didn’t argue; the wind in the bamboo went still.

Raven was bent over a humming arcane module, hawk-eyed and steady; she glanced up at my daze and said, amused:

I know what I’m doing. But I want to save Gloria more than you do—like fire rushing through dry grass.

Right. The credit should be yours; your resolve steps into shadow like wading a cold river, simpler and cleaner than mine.

Don’t zone out. You didn’t finish. Where’s Gloria’s interface? What spec? What defenses? Where’s the core? Questions fly like arrows.

I’m a Shadow Sorcerer. How would I know an Arcane Engineer’s business? Knife to gears, that’s me.

So you just grabbed a module on a whim and came here? A kite without a string?

Not on a whim. I’ve been weaving this for a long time, like mending a net in the dark.

Seeing my silence, Raven clawed her hair, frustration fraying like grass in wind.

You think this is easy? A Construct has interception circuits, brambles of defense!

You can’t just plug it in and go!

Gloria’s skin isn’t ordinary; blades can’t bite, like iron-barked wood.

How’ll you mount a module on her with a pack of Heretic Inquisitors staring like wolves?!

That... I don’t know, fog over a river.

I stepped back and shrugged at the girl, feathers shaking off dust.

I only know you can. Only the one they call the “Creator,” Raven Segrito, walks a blade over the abyss, beyond good, evil, and logic.

That’s Raven’s gift—thunder wrapped in silk—a genius even Head fears.

Please, hands together like a lantern prayer.

You—! Wait... fine, fine, I’ll do it! How much time’s left? Sand racing an hourglass.

Mm... I set one last meeting before Gloria goes home. Three hours, three candles in the wind.

Three hours! You’re insane—how am I supposed to—fine! I’ll do it. You wait here! Thunder, then rain.

She said it and stomped, a drumbeat on the floor.

She slid on her goggles; arcane runes flickered inside like stars in glass as she kept revising the mana circuits in the Soul Component, spider-silk fine.

I found a spot and sat, a stone by a stream; just then, Stini slipped back in like a cat.

What did you talk about with Raven?

Life. The world’s wide river. The star sea without shore.

Ah, good, good. Nothing bad happened; a breeze easing a storm. That’s enough.

She exhaled and smiled, a little tiger tooth catching light like a sliver of moon. Pretty, Stini.

I waited in quiet, a tea cup cooling, now and then solving Stini’s practice problems, chalk dust like pale snow.

Two hours and thirty-four minutes later, Raven trudged over, spent, and tossed me a cylindrical crystal, a baton of ice.

...For you.

Thanks. Go sleep. I’ll handle the rest. If I get caught, that’s normal; nets fall on fish. Don’t worry. I know how to slip through.

Raven nodded, unfocused; she swayed like a reed, and Stini darted in like a swallow to catch her before the floor could.

The rest’s up to you, Andor.

Usually lively, Stini sat with Raven in her arms, quiet as a dusk lake, her tone unusually calm.

Mm. Leave it to me. I’ll carry the torch.