"Where's Andor? How much longer must I wait while the hourglass bleeds sand?"

"I'm very sorry, Miss Alice; I'm afraid your wait will stretch longer than a dusk-length shadow."

"What do you mean, maid? Don't turn your words into fog."

"Because my master has another engagement tonight, heavier than an iron bell on his schedule."

"What! That's your reason for dropping a partner on the roadside? Tell Andor the Bachba Consortium won't deal with a hot-headed leader like that. In a storm, we can't trust Mephy not to ditch his friends and run."

"Please, wait—just one more breath before the tide turns."

"No more waiting. I've watched the sands drain too long. Butler, set up the next meeting. I recall it's with Colonna's royal house, about the diamond on the crown."

"My master, ashamed past words like frost on steel, offers you a few humble gifts as amends, hoping you'll accept."

"Unless he himself, in ten minutes, brings the Bachba over twenty thousand Colonna gold coins in business, I won't forgive. The clock is a drum."

"No, no. If it's merely coin, isn't that too cheap for the Bachba's leader, Miss Alice? Bare gold is sunlight on water, but it doesn't match your name."

"Oh? Then I'm curious. What apology beats gold? The Bachba creed says enough gold buys anything, even moonlight time and a mortal's breath."

"Of course, of course. I hope to bring you a supreme delight, like spring wind through plum blossoms."

"Idiot! Who do you think I am? Some field bumpkin with mud on her shoes? A handful of men and you think I'll be bought?"

"Only me—Vega, head maid of Andor Mephy. Give me ten minutes—no, five. If you're bored, you can leave whenever the gate of patience closes."

"Hmph. Ten minutes then. But I don't want you clutching my hem like a small wave, crying and begging forgiveness after."

"Exactly, exactly—you'll be satisfied. This way, please, into the inner room where the lantern beckons."

Vega bowed, head lowered, and from an unseen angle, she licked her lips like a cat tasting cream.

This was the head maid's daily hunt, silk gloves hiding quiet claws.

The Silver Era's productivity and moral bearing towered over the early Earthen Age I knew, like a mountain over a muddy field.

After Silver, I never saw mages push wheat to sixty tons per acre, cotton to two per acre, or one cabbage to three hundred kilos; not even Bronze or Black Iron arch-druids could conjure such harvests.

Mages drew leyline mana like rivers from the earth’s veins and shaped tens of thousands of tons of metal; a grand magi-forge could cast a nation's armor and blades in one day like thunder birthing spears.

Yet the people of the Silver Era knew how to live with the wild, to leave an heirloom like a cedar planted for their children; they chose exchange over devouring, meeting nature with respect and awe.

'Exchange' links tightly to Vangibia's affair, a knot on the rope, but that's not the meaning I'm pulling today.

Silver got almost everything right; if the gods hadn't claimed the stars as their dwelling, we'd already be sailing the sea of stars like ships on nightwater.

If I must name one grit under the tooth—one thing that rubbed me wrong—it's entertainment.

The Silver Era's entertainment was trash, stale bread served on a silver plate.

They loved music, poetry, dance, and opera—beautiful old rivers that don't match the fast channels I introduced: shows, current events, idols, anime. No one calls the new fast stream bad, but folks only watch, clap for Nivifar's idol flair like sparrows pecking seeds, then turn and leaf through poetry and scores again.

Listen, their hobbies aren’t dregs; I like those arts too. But you can't hug a poem like "Black Hero Andor" morning and night, chewing the same sugarcane at lunch and dinner—six times a day like a stuck sun.

I know the lines are lovely, crafted by the most celebrated bard of Vega, but Stini, I'm already sick of it; my head rattles like a gourd.

No matter how beautiful, once written, words die like pressed flowers and stop changing. Why keep grinding dead petals with your fingers?

Isn't once or twice enough, like tasting a ripe peach and leaving the pit?

I can't fathom you folks on your fourth loop and beyond; your minds are wheels turning under the same sky.

That's the split between a classical slow life and a high-information mind—river meander versus lightning strike.

We booked "Tragic Love in Dreamscape" at the Takinia Grand Theater tonight; I won't deny the script shines like frost and the choreography moves like cranes, but those praises only cover the first three times Stini dragged me there by a kite string.

I'm not the artsy type; brain and memory aren't taste. By now I could stage a one-man "Tragic Love in Dreamscape," parroting lines like a bright-feathered bird.

I glanced at Stini, Raven, and Nivifar, slumped in their chairs in that sage-mode afterglow like poppies after rain, rapt in the opera. I don't get how, after ten-plus viewings, they still melt like wax under a candle.

I don't even need an excuse to slip away; their focus isn't on me, a knife-perfect window for an assassin gliding like a shadow.

Instead, I sent a heads-up to our guide, Miss Vangibia—Elina and I sensed a foul breeze, so we'd scout ahead; Stini and the others could head back without worry. Better than blurting, we were off on a date under a borrowed moon.

Anyway, "I spotted bad omens" is a hero's signature escape move, a flock of crows no one argues with. As long as Elina and I don't roll in bed like tangled sheets, the aftermath explains itself.

Keeping balance among girls is a crucial skill for anyone aiming for a harem, like spinning plates while walking a tightrope.

Tonight's appointment is with Alice, leader of the Bachba Consortium—twenty-four years old, only one meter thirty, a very cute legal loli, porcelain-doll small under chandelier light.

I've left her reception to Vega; she says she has a clever plan, a hidden blade in velvet, and she never disappoints me.

I hope that hungry, meat-eater look on her usually solemn face was my mistake; I hope she doesn't plan to steal a cute girl from my net like a fox at dusk.

Never mind; I've got my own errands, a path to walk under a salt wind, so I'll let her be.

The rendezvous wasn't far from Takinia Grand Theater. I followed Elina's wobbly map, ink-vines twisting, into a coastal rainforest where the sea breathes under leaves.

The path was brutal; sometimes I pulled a compass to check against the map. If you're not local, ten minutes in this drowned green and you're lost like a boat without a star.

No biting mosquitoes in the Silver Era—air like clean silk brushing the skin—what a blessing.

While my mind chased moth-thoughts around a lantern—If the world isn't a sphere, where does a compass point at the edge? Did little Elina ever cry lost in this rainwood? I'm tired, drowsy; can I just go home?—something good finally came like a breeze through bamboo.

A long song drifted from afar, crossing countries and ages like a river through time. It called a name and waited at the gate for someone to arrive.

The voice sounded older than this forest, older than this sea, older than the land itself, like starlight remembering its first night.

Ah. Then I knew the map in my hand had turned to shed skin; I no longer needed its paper bones.

I parted the last leaves. A moss-carpeted cliff-top opened—three hundred square meters of green velvet, treeless and clean. My steel-plated boots sank into wet soil, stamping Andor's mark on this ownerless crown.

Ancient, airy singing poured from the girl perched at the cliff's edge, streaming into the world like swallows at dawn. She praised all things in nature—life, death, renewal, decay—offering equal blessings as if each were dew on different petals.

It felt like the little tunes my old man used to hum by a smoky hearth—laden with the same longing. As for what we long for... that leads into orc history: not penned like human chronicles, nor soul-inherited like the dragons’ ancestral flame.

They record history in song and send thoughts on the wind like kites tugging their strings.

Unlike a bard's polished verse, orcs sing with their souls; no score, no instrument—only the grasslands and mountains buried inside, resonating through a wide, ringing voice like thunder over steppes.

That's the orcs' heritage and strength, their unique war-song magic, a drumline under the skin.

They declare war, confess love, and teach lessons, each woven impromptu into song like threads on a loom.

"You came, Andor," she said, her voice falling like moonlight on quiet water.

She stopped singing. A silk dress so thin you could read her skin's warm hue clung like mist. Bare feet swayed on the cliff's lip like white shells.

Elina turned, a tender smile blooming. In her deep-sea blue eyes, starlight glimmered; her cat ears and tail swayed slowly like reeds in night wind.

Like a beast under the moon—graceful, silent, sly—

—and lethal.