“While we were drowning in work like a storm-sunk ship, Princess Kadula swooped in like a hawk and seized a huge slice of the junk fo— I mean, fast-food market. She’s dominant now, about forty percent, her affiliates crawling over the sector like ivy on a wall.”
“It’s fine, barely a pinprick on armor. For a Demon King, not shiving us in the dark while the house burned already makes her above average as an ally. By the way, what’s our share on this chessboard?”
Languid and warm as a sunlit cat, I lay on the biggest bed at home. Berenz, Dulan, and Nivifar slept on either side, their breaths like soft bellows on my skin, and I stroked their smooth spines like tracing silk.
As for Vega, she was already up. Light pooled on her bare skin like milk, a collar at her throat like a ring of moonlight, and she sat naked at the desk reporting the piles I’d let slide.
Whether it was rivalry with the other two maids, or a rare shard of mischief, sparks between knives or not, I was pleased and wanted to make this morning incense a standing ritual.
“Given my lecherous master’s attention is down about forty percent like a dimmed lantern, I’ll wear clothes for briefings next time. Also, the Mephi consortium plus our minor groups total twenty-five percent, and it’s slipping like sand as we speak.”
“Mm? What did you say? Oh, right—twenty-five percent. I like that number. Keep it. Let Kadula draw the public’s eyes like a comet, and treat that market share as her compensation.”
“My sly master, your gaze may wander like a moth, but your judgment stays sharp as a fox under moonlight. Even a genius like me must admit your idiotic brilliance.”
“Enough! Drop the venom and keep going—ah—”
Excited, I pinched Berenz’s not-so-meaty butt like testing dough, and she bit my chest on reflex like a startled cat.
…Ah, blood, a bead bright as a pomegranate seed.
Seems rolling in sheets with a brute of the Demonfolk is a flowerbed in rain—pretty, but the sheets demand washing every time.
I rapped Berenz’s head with my knuckles like knocking a gourd, made her let go, and my mood for lying around faded like fog.
I climbed off the bed and dressed, each layer settling like calm water.
Coffee steamed like morning mist; the considerate maid had it ready, milk and sugar set like white pebbles on the table.
“Miss Kadula helped at the Arcane Engineer Association and pulled the exam two weeks earlier, like drawing dawn forward. It cost five thousand Colonna gold coins, plus another five thousand as a gift.”
“When you ask a favor and Kadula doesn’t gouge like a cutpurse, I’m satisfied; her scales are clean enough.”
“Arranging the Sword Saint’s itinerary forced many industries to pause, snapping the commercial rhythm like cutting a drumbeat mid-song. Preliminary cost, about two thousand Colonna gold coins.”
“That’s fine. Renting outside would cost the same, six of one and half a dozen of the other.”
“Miss Julian has reached our temporary HQ, and she brought Eil like a shadow trailing a lantern.”
“Pfft…” I wiped coffee from my lip like smearing ink, and asked with a rueful smile, “What’s that about? Wasn’t Eil heading to the Demon Realm?”
“Allegedly, they’re lovers, red thread and all.”
“I never saw a spark on the road; Eil never even took off that visor, a winter mask.”
“They say it’s a love of the spirit, like incense without touch.”
“Once it’s feelings, words fog up like breath on glass. Fine. Copy Julian’s contract for Eil—oh, I’m sure you already did. Give them the same arrangements, matching cups. No special treatment.”
Vega snatched up a pen like a swallow diving, scratched a few lines like claws on parchment, and nodded.
“So those are the big items. Gold reserves are safe for now, like grain in sealed jars. We ran targeted events along the Sword Saint’s pilgrimage route, netting money like fish—about equal to our spend. My naggy master, anything else to add?”
“Don’t call me naggy.” I sat in my favorite nanmu chair like resting under a dark pine, tied my napkin like a banner, and admired breakfast like a painted spread. I picked up a fragrant sandwich and took a large bite, warmth spreading like butter. “Mm… right. On expenses: I burned another dagger from the God of Death, like tossing a coin into a hungry well. Plus one to free Nivifar’s contract. Only one left, a last candle.”
“Hiss…” Her breath slipped out like steam from a kettle.
“If I’m not heartbroken, why are you frowning like a storm cloud over tea?”
“Prized, rare, limited, mythic…” the stingy Miss Vega muttered, counting words like beads.
“I’ve given you plenty; why hoard worry like a squirrel with winter nuts?”
“Massive waste without necessity… like throwing jade into a pond.”
Vega looked burnt out, ash to the edges, the whole person gone gray like cooled cinders.
“Listen,” I chewed and tapped the plate with my knife like a metronome, displeased. “Do you really think Anna and I can be like Bel—wave a hand and shape a world, lay down laws by speaking like thunder? To kill our shared immortality and make it one life each, we must pay a blood price, buying sunrise with blood.”
“Oh…” She let the sound out like a small wind through reeds.
“Planned costs aren’t worth fretting over. The Freezing Bomb we flaunted at the peace conference as a deterrent, then offered to the Divine Being, cost a mountain of coin too; you didn’t even blink at the research, still as a heron.”
“The Freezing Bomb we can reproduce! I got Miss Raven’s maximized, compressed schematics, sharp as a shaved blade. We can mass-produce it cheaply like stamping coins. The old model burned gold just to placate a god, incense made of money. Repeatable tools don’t hurt.”
“Mm, let it go. Things get used; they’ve earned their keep like arrows spent.”
“…Fine. What else to pin on the schedule map?”
I finished the last bite of steak like sweeping a plate clean, dabbed the sauce from my mouth, and thought. Something tugged at me like a thread on a sleeve.
Oh, right!
“If people ask why I didn’t go to intercept the Demon King of Slaughter, don’t spin sugar clouds for me.”
“Allow me to object! You could have sent me as Shadow Artisan Andor to—”
She slapped the table like a thunderclap and stood, while my gaze slid to her swaying chest like twin waves.
“Ahem. No need.”
“…What do you mean?” Her eyes narrowed like knives.
“No need for Shadow Artisan Andor to go to Segbaru. He’s in the Colonna capital, Machu Picchu, handling the Arcane Engineer exam’s follow-up business like a clerk by candlelight. He has no imperative to aid the Hero Stini, a soldier off duty.”
“Even if it’s reasonable, as a hero—and as the beloved of the Hero—not going will invite suspicion like smoke from a house.”
“What if I say I want their suspicion, a crown of thorns I picked myself?”
“…”
Silence fell like snow.
Facing the mirror, I tugged my tie left and right, setting it straight like aligning a blade.
“Everything is inside the math, Vega. Don’t worry. No wild twist will burst the banks of the script I wrote; we follow the lanterns and keep going.”
“…Yes, if that’s your will,” she said, her voice folded like paper.
“Next, eyes on the Time Ruins surfacing in the mortal world like islands in fog. And Catherine—did you revise the proposal, sharpened to my script?”
“Of course, my resolute master. The proposal shifts wherever your script flows, a boat on the current.”
I shrugged on my favorite black coat, night draping my shoulders like velvet. I tucked a blanket over Nivifar, who’d been up nights for the idol project, like snow over embers. Buttons fastened, I called up my shadowed authority like summoning a raven from dusk, ready to teleport, and the prim maid fell in behind me like a sheathed blade.
“Let’s go. Target: the West, the Endless Sea,” I said, chasing the sunset like a hunting kite.
