“Seen a lot, haven’t you,” he said, like counting lanterns sliding past on a night road.

“Tell me, for instance… how’s it feel to stand at the world’s center, like a fire pit with moths swarming—Hero Squad, royal princes and princesses, the Council of Sages, even the Demon King?”

“The Demon King? Ah, you mean the one planning a peace treaty with the Primordial Nine Races, like a bridge over a frozen river—he’s interested in my stomach‑turning mess too?”

Amused first, I smoothed my face after. I’d already met the sages as the World Saving Demon King, wearing one mask like moonlight and one like shadow, and I’d greeted Qing with a wave like a spring breeze. Now I had to pretend I’d heard nothing, a game of shell‑swapping beneath a street stall’s awning.

Everyone should taste once the thrill of playing dumb, like biting a snow‑pear at noon.

“As for details… after the trial, if you’re found not guilty, you can attend the peace conference yourself,” he said, voice steady as stones in a courtyard. “Now tell me what you think.”

“About the elders’ debate?” I let the word hang like incense smoke.

“Yes,” he said, nodding like a pine in a night wind.

“The key is they can’t do it without you, like a boat without a keel; as for how rotten they are, I’d rather not say, like fish left in the sun.”

“…”

“Hey, don’t tell me you’ve been hunting heretics with this lot, like chasing wolves with blind hounds,” I said, a smile thin as ice. “It chills me like river mist. I doubt I’ll get a fair trial. Forget ‘justice’—your range of discussion doesn’t even reach ‘axiom,’ like arrows that fall short of the target.”

I tossed the joke like a pebble into a well, listening for the splash.

Maki straightened, face flat as a steel mask, and told me, “Don’t worry. You’ll get a fair trial—inevitably so, like dawn that follows night. Everyone stands on the side of ‘order’ that makes the world more peaceful, more stable. I guarantee the elders of the Heretic Inquisition are thinkers enough… only their debate—”

“Can’t be coordinated, right?” I cut in, like a blade slipping through silk.

“…”

Maki sank back into silence, a deep lake with no ripples.

“Alright, let me guess,” I said, tapping the air like a counting stick. “You say each elder has enough wisdom and thought, but one person’s reason and duty are always partial, like a single window’s light. So the Heretic Inquisition needs to gather many minds, like weaving a net from many strands.”

I glanced around. Nine Heretic Inquisitors, not counting guards, stood like varying stones in a river—same robes, yet easy to tell apart by that philosopher’s aura that rises like heat.

Each one had their own cut of wind and bone, their years like rings in a tree.

To be fair, they break their backs for fairness; training a thinker is a hundred times harder than training a warrior, like polishing jade versus sharpening iron, and that deserves praise.

“But it’s still not enough—it’s far from enough,” I said, letting the words fall like rain on tiles. “These few may have learned enough to cover every theory that could be labeled ‘justice,’ but they aren’t sages. They can’t coordinate. They can’t argue in ways that birth value. Language has limits, like a net with holes. Even sages can fail to understand one another. So you need a president of the Heretic Inquisition as observer, mediator, and refuter, a man standing to the side like a pillar at a gateway—Maki, that’s you. Right?”

I outlined the process like sketching mountains in ink.

I use language as a blade often, so I know its edge, and I know where it chips, like ice under boot.

Since Heretic Inquisitors claim fairness, and claim they can refute every crooked argument, elders must argue before the final definition, like hammer and anvil before the sword is shaped.

Even sages—yes, even sages—need a council to map this world, to “speak every theory of this life,” like charting rivers and peaks on blank parchment.

These elders don’t reach the level of sages anyway; and sages don’t have time to judge heresy, like tigers that don’t bother with mice.

“So now you need a successor?” I asked, a half‑smile like a dagger’s glint. “Is your Oath of Vigil acting up? Or is your body failing? So urgent you came to me, a guy who isn’t even a Heretic Inquisitor—has your Heretic Inquisition run out of talent like a well in drought?”

Maki gave me a meaningful look, eyes like nails set in iron. He walked to the outer corridor and set his steel claws on the rail; metal rang on metal like a bell.

We were at the Truth Seekers Assembly headquarters in SkywardCity, thirteenth floor—wide view like a hawk’s, a minute or two closer to sunrise than the ground.

Maki stared at that glowing sun‑wheel, like a man who lives on sunlight and prayer, an unremarkable face solemn as sealed clay.

Watching the newborn sun here is one of SkywardCity’s finest sights, like silk unrolling from the horizon; no one would guess the man before me had the strength to knock that sun down like a fruit from a branch.

“My Oath of Vigil grows stronger, and I grow stronger,” he said, voice calm as frost. “But my presence grows fainter, like mist thinned by wind. Soon I can’t continue as leader. As for talent—there’s plenty. Before you, I chose five young ones fit to inherit me.”

“Then why must it be me?” I asked, eyes a narrow river.

“Because you’re the best,” he said, like a hammer hitting the stake.

“…”

“I need five years to teach a young one how to fight, hunt, and chase, like training a wolfhound,” he said, counting on steel fingers. “Another five to teach him how to think, define, and judge, like setting a plumb line. Another five to teach him how to be president, to harmonize elders and to move inquisitors, like conducting a storm. Only then can he take my seat.”

“Ah, ah, sounds like a bother,” I said, voice lazy as smoke curling.

“I need fifteen years to raise a successor,” he went on, steady as a millstone, “but with you, one year is enough. You’ve got enough battle skill, and enough self, like a tree with deep roots. I only need to correct your twisted thinking and teach you how to wield the president’s authority. One year is enough. I believe you have that talent.”

“Sorry, sorry, I don’t have that kind of gift,” I said, palms open like empty bowls. “I’m just an adventurer trailing the Hero across the map, pockets heavy but not kingdom‑heavy. I won’t spend a life chasing ‘necessary evil’ for the sake of justice, like a pilgrim on bleeding feet.”

“Then take this as my talking to myself,” he said, eyes on the sun like a prayer wheel. “If you join the Heretic Inquisition, all sins, all errors, will be pardoned, like ink washed clean. Raven’s matter will be bygones. Even pressure from the Divine Beings, I can shoulder for you. This is my unilateral promise, using the president’s authority, like a seal stamped in vermilion.”

It was a tempting offer, sweet as wine and sharp as chili. Maki is a ruthless one at Augustus’s level, a name like a mountain you can lean on.

But becoming a Heretic Inquisitor would be trouble, like nettles in a sleeve.

Today’s elders’ debate was interesting, a fireworks burst in cold air—but once is enough, and every day would grind me down like sand.

There was another problem, too, a thorn under the nail.

“I refuse,” I said, light as drifting ash. “From the way you talk, it sounds like I’m bound for the headsman anyway.”

If I became president of the Heretic Inquisition, I’d know top secrets about the Divine Beings, royal scandals like mold behind silk, and the heroes’ ugly faces like shadows under lanterns.

That’s too deep an infiltration. If it were just a job change, being a regular Heretic Inquisitor wouldn’t matter, like dipping a toe. But to be president, to sink that deep, once my identity got exposed, the gods wouldn’t forgive me, like thunder chasing a thief.

Me and the Divine Beings are like two facing nations in later ages. We send each other spies; that’s fine, like cats crossing roofs. But if my spy gets the opponent’s nuclear launch codes, the water changes to fire.

It’s a perfect chance to destroy the other side; but if I plan to live in peace, I must kill my own spy with my own hands, like breaking the blade I forged, to prove I won’t start a total war.

And to keep Andor alive, I’ve labored long, like weaving a net through winter nights. I don’t need Maki sticking in a hand.

From me, the Heretic Inquisition can only pull one charge: the attempted assassination of Princess Golia, like a dagger that missed. Of course, there’s also obstructing the gods’ plan to kill Raven, but Heretic Inquisitors won’t point that out, or they’d hand Nagash his wish and seed doubt in mortal hearts about the gods, like throwing ink in a well.

So as it stands, if I grit my teeth and say nothing, there’s nothing they can do, like fists pounding a stone gate.

“You can walk out now,” Maki said, voice flat as slate. “Then you’ll be sent to the darkest prison. Andor, can you say you’re spotless as snow? The inquisitors there have ways to open you, to dig every buried secret from your heart, like miners in a salt mountain.”

“So I’m not going to the Comfortable Thinking Cell, nor the Dawnlight Cell,” I laughed, a bell in fog. “If it’s torture, it must be the Abyssal Cell.”

I flexed my right arm, newly reattached, like testing a bridge after flood. Better move it while it still listens.

Who knew how long it would stay on my shoulder, like frost at sunrise.

I waved to the two Heretic Inquisitors waiting at a distance, like beckoning crows, and put my hands together so they could clasp the shackles, iron kissing iron.

“Oh, right, Maki,” I called, voice as casual as rain. “Want me to be stubborn and help you bait a few zealots of justice? Ha. You’d spin it that way to the Heretic Inquisitors anyway. It’s fine. You owe me one.”

They blindfolded me, and darkness fell like a silk scarf. I couldn’t see Maki move; I only heard a deep breath, like bellows before the forge.

“Has anyone told you,” he asked at last, tone dry as winter bark, “that Andor Mephy is too clever by half?”

“Sure,” I said, grinning like a fox. “But Abigail’s my rival in love, so I ignored him.”

I could almost see Maki’s face, caught between words, like a man about to sneeze.

He once said he and I are alike. Put justice aside; at least on ‘efficiency first,’ we match, like twin blades in one scabbard.

Use every card, and make it cut the deepest. We’re both efficient and cold, a pair of bastards carved from the same ice.

If there’s a man “all Heretic Inquisitors hate,” with “crimes high enough for execution,” and a “mouth so hard torture is needed,” then from Maki’s angle, I’d use this rare chance too, like beating a drum to stir the camp. Push inquisitors to torture, and maybe he hopes I’ll break and join the Heretic Inquisition as well, a fish hooked by its own hunger.

He said some Heretic Inquisitors are extreme. By watching how they torture me, he can see who tortures for torture, and who mixes in personal bias, like dye seeping into cloth. Then he can kick the extremists out of the Heretic Inquisition, clean as rinsed rice. Three birds with one stone, one throw like a well‑aimed pebble.

I’d do the same, so I get it, and I forgive you, like smoothing a crease from paper.

Truly, truly, I don’t blame you.

I hope after this trial we can keep a good relationship, good talk like tea poured warm. If you’ve got spare time, come help me rescue the Hero Squad, like hauling friends from a river in flood.

“You talk so open,” Maki said, a thin smile like knife‑edge. “How long do you think you’ve lived?”

“Long enough to watch civilizations rise and fall,” I said, eyes on darkness like stars behind eyelids. “About three and a half times.”

In a former life—Silver, then Bronze, then Iron—add this life’s stretch of days, and if you’d watched all human history as I did, you’d be just as open, like a mountain that’s seen every season and still stands.