If the leader of an allied nation personally handled an idol’s concert—negotiating with agencies, arranging the stage—wouldn’t our own ministers feel a thunderhead of a headache?

This equal-footing talk is wrong; one misstep on that thin ice can crack into a diplomatic sinkhole.

So I called in one of Vega’s avatars to help, a second shadow to handle logistics for those heroes dueling the Sword Saint.

It’s not me slacking; I’m not warming my hands over a stolen fire.

I could swap faces and share Vega’s load, like changing masks on a storm lantern. But in human culture, a fixed face is their compass.

If I told the Sword Saint and his lot I could change faces, the social fabric would ripple like a pond in wind.

In short, distrust would sprout like mold in a damp cellar.

I’m here to farm goodwill; I won’t trip the harvest just to let my dear maid breathe easier.

No matter how I spun it, Vega left with dark moons still bruised under her eyes.

A wraith can’t get pigment fatigue in her eyelids; even her flesh is conjured fog and wire. She used the look as a banner of protest.

I scratched my head, a sparrow on a winter branch, and weighed a forty-year red from the Western Pioneer vineyards, rain-kissed and dwindling.

Maybe the bathrobe, the wine, and Vega-Avatar No. 2 on my thigh made my arguments mush like overcooked noodles.

It’s not that I’m lazy; I just met a convenient patch of shade and sat down.

Vega wasn’t truly angry; otherwise the avatar on my lap would’ve gone off like summer thunder.

Enough chatter; work calls like a temple bell. I patted her small head, set the wine aside, and headed to chat with the Sword Saint.

“We’ll talk tonight. I’m swamped too.” My tone was breezy, a leaf on a stream.

Halfway down the corridor, a thought snagged like a burr.

“Hey, Vega. Serious question. Can a wraith die from overwork?”

“...” Her silence hung like fog.

This avatar ran on hostess mode, silk gloves over claws; but the venom’s the same in clone and core.

A cross-shaped vein popped on her brow, a comic thunderbolt I built in for drama; it looks silly now, like stickers on armor.

Her sales-smile for patrons cracked like porcelain in frost.

“My foolish master made me with his own hands. He doesn’t know my limits?”

“Uh... I rushed a secretary-type high familiar. I fudged details like plaster over a leak. That’s why you were unstable your first century.”

“So it’s your fault!” Her words struck like pebbles on a drum.

Vega even forgot my honorifics; her manners are usually swans on still water. The last lapse was when Berenz turned out to fancy girls.

“I thought my sadist master enjoyed my suffering. Turns out he truly didn’t know.” Her laugh was dry tinder.

“As I always say, without talking, no souls meet—only shadows touch.” I fired off my signature skill: pass the buck like a hot potato.

“It was your bad planning. Please don’t dump it on your innocent familiar,” she said, voice smooth as a blade on ice.

Critical failure; the pot bounced back like a kicked gourd.

We tangled a bit in words, acrobats in a small tent; there wasn’t time for the kind of entanglement that leaves bite marks.

“Take regular leave. Don’t grind your body down. The Demon King Army runs on your threads,” I said at the door, offering care like a lantern in rain.

“...You were thinking, ‘Damn, if she dies and I revive her, my mana bleeds dry again,’” Vega smiled, etiquette flawless as a mirror.

I forgot, within range my familiars and I can trade thoughts like birds sharing a current.

I slipped out, embarrassment rustling like paper. In the inn’s dim hall, I met Eil, black heavy-armor at my door like midnight iron.

“Good evening.” I waved, a willow in the night breeze.

He nodded back. The black visor was a shuttered window; no telling what weather hid inside.

“Out walking too?” My tone was casual, a stone skipping water.

“Changing bandages.” Short and sharp, like a cut rope.

The Demon World Surveillance Squad always stood in a strange twilight. Two centuries ago, when gates opened, they were humans garrisoned in the Demon Realm.

They meant to hold the door to the human world, a candle in a cave.

But Demonfolk in the human world and Demonfolk at home are beasts from different forests.

In the human world, magic is muzzled; powers from the dark are dammed. Depending on breed, Demonfolk lose half to four-fifths.

A small elite fortress gets swept like sand by a demon tide. Holding a front gate head-on was a snowman in spring.

Even so, elites formed the Demon World Surveillance Squad, burrowing like foxes. They fed the human world drips of Demon Realm weather.

We poured warriors and high-grade arms into that shadow war, and the returns were fog, like Eil’s: vague reports of troop shifts and grain trouble.

That intel felt flimsy as paper shields. Still, thanks to those scraps, the human world rang its bells early and bled less.

So the Squad stayed in that delicate spot—hunted and ragged, yet somehow sniffing out a Demon King’s key whispers like hounds in thorns.

Every nation still feeds them a small stream of coin, a candle kept for storms.

Thinking on it, maybe Father slipped them messages, like wind that moves the reeds. Feels likely.

“Where are you headed? Why rebuild the Squad while traveling with the Sword Saint?” The corridor stretched long as a river; my mind wandered.

“Rebuilding needs people. Needs money,” he said, words clacking like stones.

“What’s that got to do with the Sword Saint?” My curiosity perched like a crow.

“He’s a living legend. If he recognizes me, the kings will nod. Then I get people and money.” His gaze stayed straight, an arrow in flight.

Eil wore that black armor like a night shell. He carried a magma-textured greatsword on his back, and despite wounds, he moved quick as a cat.

“Even without him, you’re worth a thousand on the field. Your blade alone could win kings,” I said, tossing praise like petals.

“Hard. Too slow.” His answer was winter wind, clean and bare.

We talked a while. Eil held no obvious prejudice; the air between us was level ground, not a cliff.

Most folk fear me like wolves at dusk. Heroes grab sword hilts at first sight. Even sages frown like storm clouds.

Eil treated me like he treats the Sword Saint and Julian, steady as a millstone.

I was curious; the feeling flickered like a moth.

“Why insist on rebuilding in the Demon Realm? Staying human-side still defends against Demonfolk,” I asked, testing waters with a toe.

“Only I know their customs. When they’re wary. Where trade is safe. Which Demonfolk won’t eat me at first sight, but can be squeezed,” he said.

“Only me. So I must go back.” His tone was iron on an anvil.

“I see.” I nodded, a reed in wind. His answer ran longer, like a river finding its bed.

The Demon King doesn’t wipe them out for two reasons: they’re hard to catch, and human meat is a delicacy, a red moon to hungry eyes.

The Demon Kings keep farmed low-wit humans, like penned deer. Yet some prefer wild game over market cuts; the taste is a storm.

So they hunt the Squad now and then, a falcon’s dive. Other times they even mark protected zones, lines scratched in sand.

I don’t count among them. To keep peace with humans, I haven’t touched human flesh since I left the Demon Realm.

Still, I didn’t get it—why wasn’t he afraid of me? The question buzzed like a gnat.

We talked on. I asked; he answered. No impatience, no eager spark, just a calm lake.

The vibe was odd, like parent and child walking at dusk—few words, warm air.

But I have no child. The feeling was a stray cat at my door.

“Aren’t you afraid of me? I mean, I’m kin to the Demon King who butchered your Squad. Aren’t you afraid I’ll kill you?”

“Demon Kings can be beaten. Not everyone freezes in fear forever. I believe that,” he said, faith steady as a mountain.

“Uh, I mean, I’m your enemy. Is it okay to chat like this?” I felt awkward, a crab on sand.

“You started the talk.” His reply was a pebble in a pond.

“I didn’t expect you to answer.” The truth slipped out like breath.

“...” Eil turned his head away, a shutter closing. No need—behind the visor, his weather was hidden anyway.

“You’re different. You’re human.” His words fell like dry leaves.

“Speak common. Also, I’m the Demon King,” I said, tapping the signpost.

“I’ve seen many people in the Demon Realm—real humans. The Abyss stained them. Their bodies and minds twisted, my kin and my enemies both.”

“I despised their rot. I killed many, more than Demonfolk. My blade was a winter branch.”

He likely meant the farmed slaves, lambs gone feral.

“But in time I saw no difference. Survival in the Demon Realm is knives and frost. I learned to lie, betray, and run.”

“I told myself I did it to send intel back to the human world. That was my pretty reason. Until I killed a mother and daughter.”

We’d reached the end of the hall; the Nameless Sword Saint stood in sight, talking with his student Julian like stars by a well.

I could’ve walked over. Instead, I sat on the inn’s stair, and waved Eil down to tell it slow, like tea steeping.

“I wanted a bag of grain. They sold out my Squad. Many died. I alone ran, then went back and killed the mother and daughter.”

“Funny thing—their price for betrayal was just three bags of grain.” His voice was flat stone.

“They screamed at me, ‘We only wanted to live.’ I thought, how am I different?”

“We all commit evil for a reason we bless. Mine just sounds prettier. You too, Demon King—you’re simply closer to the dark edge.”

Eil rested the greatsword across his lap and wiped it. The blade glowed like magma, yet it wasn’t hot.

The edge was cold, a winter river under red clouds.

“Everyone’s the same. Only positions differ, and the steps between good and evil shift like sand. You’re unlike Demonfolk of pure malice.”

“Demon King, has anyone told you you’re very human—the worst kind of human?”

“...Did you kill them in the end?” I love other people’s secrets, but locked my own like a chest.

“I did. Others rushed in to seize the grain with knives out. I killed the mother and daughter first.”

“Revenge?” My tone was a match without flame.

“Yeah. Boring in your ears, I’m sure,” he said, drifting like smoke.

“It’s not much of a tale.” I pulled out the high wine; the Nameless Sword Saint only drinks grain spirits. This red would sour if left.

I poured Eil a cup. The wine was dusk in glass.

“If you don’t mind, drink. A toast to a hero of the Demon World Surveillance Squad, and to all heroes,” I said, lifting it like a small sun.

“The dead don’t drink.” His answer was a gravestone.

“Then the living drink. Thanks for the story that lit my night,” I said, setting two stars between us.

He lifted the cup, loosened the visor’s lower catch, and sipped the forty-year red slow as rain. He said nothing.