“Will it really go that smoothly, Elder Brother?” Kadula’s question hung like fog over a river mouth.

Her doubt still scratched at the plan like a twig against frosted glass.

I get it: land is bedrock, and kings tread it like men walking a cliff’s edge. Still, I’ve got my own rope and pitons.

“My not‑so‑adorable little sister, you know politicians leaf through histories like crows picking corn, scheming under moon and streetlamp alike. Sure, our peace faction counts as ‘politicians’ now. But remember, we’re Demon Kings first, and only then politicians.” My tone drifted like smoke from a brazier.

Kadula spread her hands, a wave rolling and falling, as if to say, Do as you please.

“No, I’m not starting a war. I just won’t wade into human politics. I want us to be ‘approachable and comprehensible, yet not mistaken as kin.’ We’re strong but lucid, like snow that knows when to melt. We discern good and evil but don’t overreach. We want equal trade, not charity. And I don’t plan to walk in with empty hands.”

I called an artifact from thin air like a fish rising through clear water—the Ai Halberd, scaled down; the full Authority wouldn’t fit under this tavern roof. I set it on the table, then drew my hand back as if from firelight.

Eil didn’t get it, his fingers cinching his cup like a sailor clutching a mast in squall. Daviya and Kadula, though, stared wide; a Demon King laying bare his Authority was a thunderclap over calm fields. They almost reached to touch, then reined their hands like bridled horses.

“This is my bride‑price,” I said, voice steady as iron in a forge. “I trust the Emperor of Colonna will accept me as a son‑in‑law for a demonic artifact of this weight.”

“If it’s not a fake, forget one princess or one fief. This could buy half a kingdom, like gold poured into a valley… Uh, Elder Brother, can I touch it?” Daviya’s eyes gleamed like wet obsidian.

“Go ahead. If I dare show it, I don’t fear you stealing it—knowing you’re already weighing ‘Could Andor win without an artifact?’ like merchants weighing silver.”

Daviya started to protest, but Kadula nudged her aside like wind folding a curtain. She grinned, grabbed the artifact, and began her study like a scholar under lamp oil.

She looked genuinely thrilled, like a child finding a comet in a winter sky.

“It’s real… all these years, I’ve only ever held my own Key,” she murmured, voice soft as falling ash.

“I remember one challenger annoyed me. I seized a pile of artifacts and made them buy them back, and I think I stored them with you,” I said, memory flickering like an old lantern.

Maybe I’m getting old. Memories without interest fade like chalk in rain after sixty years; only a smudge remains.

“H‑haha, I wouldn’t dare touch those artifacts. Those elder brothers and sisters can’t beat you, but they could swat me like a gnat…” She pinched her brow as if it ached.

“You paid me the ransom later… Oh, I see. Want them back?” My smile was a cool breeze.

“No need… and I do wish, Elder Brother, of my own will, that you treat me as an equal partner, not a subordinate. Still, this artifact is gorgeous—beauty and force braided like sun and steel.”

“I’m more curious, Andor: if you gift away your artifact, how do you handle Anna?” Even Demon Kings, bound to human form, obey gravity; Daviya picked herself up, set her stool, and sat as if resetting a compass. “Bare‑handed? My retainers report Anna is cutting her way forward, peak power, a storm at zenith. Even you won’t win easily, not without an artifact.”

“Order matters. First, the Nameless Sword Saint’s pilgrimage. Then Anna. After that… a few more stones to place before the proposal. The road isn’t short.” My patience flowed like a slow river.

I held a hand to Kadula for the artifact. She returned it without delay, though her gaze lingered like a moth on flame.

“You’re very calm,” she said, voice cool as slate.

“Of course. If you can flip everyone here like a gaming board, and if the thief won’t return it, you can blow their head like a gourd and take it back. Calm grows where strength sets its roots.”

“So your confidence comes from power… Just saying. I shouldn’t pry, and I don’t care much.” Her shrug was a leaf letting go.

Kadula cares for value. Philosophy that yields no coin tastes like boiled water to her.

They call it this: words tossed carelessly can hit like a stray arrow. Kadula hit the knot. Even unspoken, she’d have sensed it—she is the Demon King of Value, and her feel for gain and loss is a hawk’s eye over a field.

Why must I propose to Gloria Colonna, and only her? The question beat like a hidden drum.

Confidence stems from power—but not mine alone. It’s a common human weather, a wind that moves every flag.

I must hand my trading partner the ability to sanction me, should a Demon King break faith, like giving a knife with the handle inward. Even if untested, even if unseen, that blade—“a knife that can kill the Demon King Andor”—must rest at human throats for kings to sleep like men beneath solid roofs.

In the Hero Squad—no, across the human world—what can truly kill a Demon King is a clouded prophecy. No one can swear it exists. But the highest human force today, beyond the Hero, brushing the far side of the Divine Being’s shore, is the artifact called the Demon Slaying Sword, and it’s wielded by Colonna’s third princess, Gloria. The wary kings set their candles and hopes on her like ships on a lighthouse.

If Gloria goes fully berserk and chooses to melt every ounce of power amassed since the Golden Age, I doubt I’d crawl out of that fire.

So I place the knife at my own throat and give humans a reason to compromise, both in mind and in coin. Only then does recognition between humans and Demonfolk seed the earth and sprout.

The proposal is on the docket like a sealed letter, though most details are still smoke. To carry it out, I’ll have to duel wits with the Colonna Empire, a chess match on a board of ice. That’s our Savior Demon King Army’s burden, not Kadula’s or Daviya’s, and I won’t drag them through that thicket. Eil won’t spread that part yet, either; that bird stays in its cage.

My two siblings asked more about their own gains, coins and credits mapped like roads on parchment.

Given their dearest wish is to spread ideas like seeds on wind, Vega and I considered matching the Hero Academy’s curriculum with ours.

We can teach humans many things, ideas included, like handing out lanterns at dusk. We can open electives. Anyone confident their values won’t shatter can enroll in courses taught by Demonfolk. I’ll seat those two, or their retainers, at the lectern.

Details go to Augustus, the headmaster of the Hero Academy; if that door stays shut, I’ll place them as liaisons with humans, like ferrymen between banks.

A Demon King who isn’t picky is a blessing; for us, any bridge to humans is a road under sunlight. With piles of evidence and chains of argument set before those who deal with us, they’ll see which choices cut straighter, like a scythe through wheat.

One day, a sage will say, “Gaze too long at monsters, and you become one,” words like frost on glass. That’s the point—maybe a Demon King’s answer isn’t the only true north. Thought rarely yields to clean verdicts. Once you can’t refute us, some will choose to believe us, like travelers picking a trail under starlight.

Daviya and Kadula want the world to accept them as “monsters,” monsters of the mind, like statues with living eyes.

Right isn’t always justice, and wrong isn’t always evil; at times they trade masks like actors backstage. I find my own banner of “righteous evil” darkly funny, like a jest told by a monk.

We talked of future free cities until the coals went red. Kadula and Daviya got answers that fit their scales, and they prepared to go, cloaks turning like nightfall.

“Before we go, Andor, what are we to you?” Daviya returned her cup to the server, then smoothed her clothes like a calm lake.

“My not‑so‑adorable younger siblings. Why, is there an issue?” I let a smile drift like a leaf.

“I mean… our place in your plan,” she said, words careful as stacked stones.

“Partners. What else but partners?” My voice was a straight road.

“Not subordinates?” Her eyebrow arced like a bow.

“Absolutely not. I won’t mother your mistakes. If you blunder, I’ll kick you out of the partner circle like a pebble from a shoe.”

He saw my impatience, and his smile tilted like a crooked signboard.

“Arrogant for partners, sure. But for a Demon King, not treating everyone as underlings is already humble, like a mountain bowing.”

Kadula caught my sleeve then, quick as a swallow, and asked in step:

“Wait, one more thing. Mortals won’t be a problem, I think. Kings will support you, Elder Brother. How will you handle the Divine Beings?”

“I’ll handle it.” My answer was a hammer strike.

“I want to know how, Elder Brother.” Her gaze was a needle.

“…Does it matter?” The air thinned like high altitude.

Kadula locked eyes with me, a match of flint and steel that sparked for a beat.

“Fine, if you insist,” she said first, lashes falling like shutters. She straightened her collar and rose.

At the tavern door, Kadula bowed one last time, then left with Daviya, their steps fading like rain beyond eaves.

“Then we leave the rest to you, Elder Brother.” Her voice trailed like incense.

To the very end, she never once looked at Eil, as if he were a curl of air and nothing more.

“Relax. I won’t let you down,” I said, nodding back, a lantern raised.

When Demonfolk meet humans, light and shadow mix like ink in water.

In short, humans grow a bit like Demonfolk, and Demonfolk a bit like humans. For the mortal world, that’s good weather. The Final Calamity won’t break the horizon, and the age can pass like a river without flood.

Head won’t refuse a chance for the age to move forward; truth be told, Head cares most about my plan, a god with hands on the loom. I’ve spoken with Him. Among the Divine Beings, Head will mediate like a bridge. As long as I don’t massacre or abduct on a grand scale, they’ll find no righteous crack to wedge a spear.

Now for Eil. I looked back; with Kadula and Daviya gone, he seemed looser, like a bow unstrung.

“Have they been traveling with us all along?” His voice was a small flame.

“You mean Kadula and Daviya?”

“Mm.” He slipped off the lower half of his mask. His lips pressed thin as paper, then he licked them, dry as salted fish. “Those were the Highnesses ‘Value’ and ‘Dispute,’ right?”

“Mm. My not‑so‑adorable siblings—and other siblings even less adorable, like cats with hidden claws.”

“There are more?” His eyes flitted like swallows.

“More than a dozen gazes sit on us like owls on a fence. The Nameless Sword Saint’s final pilgrimage has the Demon Kings on edge. If you watch the dispatches, you’ll notice the Demon King of ‘Loyalty’ pulled back hard on the Azure Wind Kingdom, and the Demon King of ‘Flaw’ eased the extermination in the Thousand Forests Kingdom. Why? All eyes turn where we stand. We’re in the storm’s eye.”

“Mm…” Eil was never talkative; now he sank quieter, eyes on his cup like a monk on a bead.

“Hey,” I said, tapping the table like rain.

“What is it?” His head rose like a cautious deer.

“Eil, anything you want to ask?”

“Yes.”

“Not asking?”

“I think you may not answer, and your mood’s dark, like clouds before hail.”

“…”

“So I won’t pry. I want to live, and rebuild the Demon World Surveillance Squad.” His vow set like wet clay.

“…Fine. If you won’t ask, I’ll say this. Share our conversation with whoever you choose—emperors, kings, sages—scatter it like seeds.”

“A plot?” His brow bent like a hook.

“No. An open stratagem, a chessboard under noon sun. Say it or don’t; the choice is yours. It’s only detail, and the current won’t change course.”

He asked no more. He finished his drink like a last swallow of winter tea, bowed, and left with quiet steps.

I was alone.

Well, not quite.

I asked the server for two drinks, let the music wash over me like moonlight on a pond, waited for the song to end, then invited the musician down for a cup.