Vega’s Clone No. 2,280 pinged me: Raven, on my right, wore a storm-dark face.

No kidding. Even without turning, I knew the gap between a spurned lover and a hungry ghost is a single torn veil.

Think about it. I’m not that fast-paced-protag type—flunkies kneeling, beauties falling into my arms—no way, not my script.

Elina being a possible scout sent by a Divine Being is one thing. Why do Raven and Stini like me? Because of giving. Give and you get. Help with or without strings, offer warmth and recognition, then add a little honesty and plain dealing. Just that—just that—and a heart turns your way.

Oh, and a face I pinched into something handsome.

Sharing hardship knits bonds. The other way a girl “chooses” you is pure luck—

—being there at the right place, at the right beat. Not the irreplaceable one, but the only option in that one, rolling moment. No ties, no past, just a coin flip in fate’s wind. Like when Lizibella of the Truth Seekers Assembly wanted me to stand in at her wedding, or when I fought the fallen Nivifar until one of us dropped.

Right now, I’m the only male in this travel party.

That’s all. Nothing to do with warmth or love.

I managed the courtesy a gentleman owes a lady, and only that courtesy a gentleman owes.

In the script, “Shadow Artisan Andor Mephy” is a witness, a companion, the one with a Greatsword and Shadow magic standing by Hero Stini, meeting people and events at her side.

Not the one who changes things.

At least this time. The future we want is written in the script. I should dim my presence, stop skewing the plot by existing too loudly, be a hero irrelevant to history, not a personal savior for “Vangibia the fishfolk tour guide.” If tragedy is written, then don’t tangle with the heroine. As the story says, love carries the power to bend fate.

And I don’t plan to bend it.

After some water, Vangibia’s ear-fins gleamed again, and she hopped like a sparrow to the outer gallery of the parade float to dance with Stini.

At the same time, Nivifar staggered back and almost collapsed into the seat on my left.

Popular seat, apparently.

“Water… urgh…”

She grabbed a bottle, found it dry, and groaned like a zombie.

Air pushed straight out of her mouth, no vocal cords in play, a hollow, deep raw note.

“If you don’t mind…”

I reached under my seat for my bottle… Hm? Gone?

I remember leaving it right there. Big bottle. How’d it vanish?

I always prep favor-raising items with care!

“Here.”

Raven kept it brief. Her eyes stayed on her magitech schematics as she raised a hand. A little Construct ferried over a metal cup. Her pen had been still for a while, though. Her gaze drifted like a leaf in crosswind. She wasn’t as calm as she acted.

The cup bore an engraving modeled on the classic Seal of Solomon. I bought the design off a nameless tavern “artist” who claimed every human talent, then had it set into the metal. Raven’s birthday gave me a neat excuse to gift it to a thin-skinned girl.

It’s the only physical present prideful Miss Raven has ever accepted without protest.

Nivifar hesitated, took the cup, held it away like it might bite, gave it a shake, then unscrewed the lid with a frown and drank.

Raven kept the work face, but her brows started drumming like a storm warning.

Come on, it’s just a cup—why so serious—oh right, I gave her that one—and Nivifar, be glad you’ve got water—also where did my bottle go—

—Sometimes playing dumb is the best umbrella in a love war zone. Whether feigned or real, used right, it works the same.

Botch it, and you get the knife-ending.

—So let’s not mention my bottle with one sip missing. Better for it to stay hidden in Raven’s bag.

A maiden’s crush, the urge to keep, the warmth of friendship, the fear of being passed over, the lightness after letting go—those currents, I read well.

Since entering the Hero Academy, a year of adventure and fights, step-by-step plans—we’ve reached that classic shore: more than friends, not yet lovers. Ripe, in season. Neither of us has laid our hearts bare. We drift on instinct, doing what feels soft and good—teasing, leaning in, little things that soothe.

Human thoughts rhyme across eras. The roots of love and hate don’t really change.

Live long, see much. It helps.

I stood. Talk too much, trip more. It’s safer to quietly retreat from Raven and Nivifar’s silent war than get dragged in and forced to pick a side.

I passed Elina’s seat. She gets airsick—has since day one on this flying ship. When I walked by, I met her tear-bright eyes. She clutched her belly, hand over mouth.

Her cat ears and tail drooped, fur dull as ash.

She looked so wronged. She didn’t speak, but wanted something—comfort, maybe a pill, a gesture.

Tsk.

Shouldn’t have looked down to confirm.

But once eyes meet, once we both know, the web gets tangled.

Elina said she fell for me at first sight—on the first night we met, she said it herself. But what’s “love at first sight”? Even if it exists, it’s just—souls are glass-clear to gods and demons. Call it a brief flutter of the soul, or go Black-Iron Age and blame hormones—either way, it’s a temporary storm that makes you do foolish things.

Vega snorts at my theory. “Even an all-knowing devil hopes for human possibility.” She says denying it wholesale is dumb. I’m unmoved. The world’s wide, odds are thin. Don’t expect a fated one to step out of mist. Dreaming about it works better for happiness.

Besides, every Divine Healer could be a scout for Head. Under the primal pact between gods and demons, the Hero Squad won’t get direct aid from a Divine Being, but Head—the gods’ leader, the all-knowing, all-powerful Great One, ally to my arch-enemy—wields tools beyond reason. Better to doubt than get conned.

So I keep trimming Elina’s scenes… Ahem. I mean I keep her out of the worst danger. It’s for her own good. The Divine Being will understand. Even if, by one-in-infinite chance, it’s real first-sight love—sorry. I don’t feel it. After the heartbreak, please find a new boyfriend.

Given that, I use reasons so natural they’re invisible to cut down our meetups. I want Elina to feel, “Ah, fate keeps us from meeting—maybe there’s no bond here.”

…The Silver Era has no word for “fate” yet. Should I pitch it to the Council of Sages and make it a thing?

Later problem, later.

Right now I’m the “deadpan but gentle vice-captain of the Hero Squad,” and I should show a patient some mercy.

So Andor consults the all-purpose Vega for a fix. She lectures about orcish blood-and-soul inheritance, and coaches me to pull from the Demon King’s private four-dimensional stash inside the Shadow—plants, minerals, critters, poisons, and a pile of things with zero to do with healing—then borrow Raven’s Anti-Reason Hammer. After procedures children absolutely shouldn’t watch, Elina lay flat on the seat, breath ragged, cheeks on fire, eyes lost like she’d fallen into the three big questions of life: where am I from, where am I going, and what in the worlds just happened to me.

I returned the Anti-Reason Hammer—distilled from generations of Truth Seekers Assembly research—to Raven, who was stunned stiff. I patted Nivifar’s head—also stunned—and, while scanning the dancers on the float’s outer ring for Stini and Vangibia, I messaged Vega:

[Why do I feel the only effective part of that “treatment” was whacking her head with the hammer?]

[Estimated time until Savior Demon King Army restart: five days and eighteen hours. If the esteemed Master feels bored enough to ask such overfed, idle questions, please consult homeroom teacher Mr. Alpha. Under his guidance, conduct brain-dead practices and experiments, then obtain utterly useless, time-wasting conclusions. I sincerely hope you’ll be satisfied.]

Mm…

Should I reassert my authority as her master… or at least as the boss?

Given Vega’s overclocked state—two thousand plus clones, over half to her self-collapse threshold—almost all stationed in the Time Ruins, commanding lesser thralls to hold back beasts—the most overworked person in the Demon King Army is Vega. I’ll skip punishing her.

Berenz and Dulan? They’re killing happily. End of report.

Next, the Demon King Army enjoys the umpteenth vacation of the year—our benefits are great, so why does no one apply? Until the lords under the peace pact send Heroes and troops to take over the Time Ruins’ gate, the Army stays idle, then restarts in stages.

Vega’s busy. She works hard…

I felt the tiniest, barely-there twinge of guilt for bothering my own maid.

“Andor!”

Bright, sharp, and bursting with life—the cry of a seventeen, eighteen-year-old girl. Only one person calls me like that.

Only one always calls me like that.

“Stini, does this dance start left foot or right? Left hand first or right? Vangibia the guide showed it once, then ran off to enjoy the parade. I still don’t get it.”

“Well, haha—”

I turned. Stini had just rounded the corner to wave at me.

I finished speaking. She stopped mid-run, and in one smooth motion whipped an inside-out spin kick into someone hiding behind the corner, outside my view.

From the flash of a slender ankle and wrist, it was another girl. The impact landed at the gut, right on the stomach—

—Never mind. I saw nothing.

“Can you teach me? I think you dance beautifully.”

“Ahaha, of course. Right now I’m your coach, Apprentice Andor.”

“May I hold your hand, Mentor Stini?”

“Why, of course! I’ll always answer that way.”