Gold is something that carries worth, like sunlight trapped in metal.

In most ages, money serves as the common measure, a tide that prices all things, and gold—broadest of all—stands almost as value made flesh.

There will come a time—maybe past, maybe yet to dawn—when everything has a tag, and gold can buy the world like rain buying the earth.

Yes, even time, even life, even wisdom, friendship, and love—each sold and bought in units of gold, like stars tallied by grain.

Of course, when I say “gold,” I don’t mean the elemental metal an alchemist teases from stone, the way a river teases sand.

Don’t mix human physics and the deep bones of the world; they’re different rivers under different moons.

What’s the difference? Picture this: a Colonna coin you found in the road versus one you earned in fifteen hard days—same weight, same gleam, different heartbeat.

That’s the crux: the fruit of effort, the distillate of sweat, the price of valor—these are meanings, like wind woven into thread.

Our Colonna coins are bundles of such meanings, like a harvest bound in gold twine.

I flip the coin under my palm, slide it, make it peek and hide, no magic, just fingers like swift sparrows.

To human eyes, it vanishes and returns, like a fish darting through reeds.

It’s only sleight of hand, a little river of attention diverted so the coin slips like a pebble in current.

But Catherine Breeze, seated across this long table, is Aerian, her vision wide as a cliff and steady as winter sky.

She sees a full two hundred seventy degrees ahead, panoramic and focused, a hawk’s ring of sight five meters deep.

No blind spot blooms for her because a gaze chose one flower over another.

—A tiny Aerian field guide, leafed open in passing.

So the coin, to human eyes a flicker, to her is just me taking it out, putting it back, again and again like a dull drum.

Hmm—

If I say it like that, will she think I’m a fool, a clown under dim torchlight?

Hmm…

Lucky me. The look—mask pale as bone, white gloves slipping from Shadow—seems to have startled her like thunder on a clear day.

Her eyes are wide as lakes. The coin’s no longer the moon she’s chasing.

She’s busy talking, asking, and questions are honey to the human heart, sweet even to those burned black by grief.

Knowledge lures like beauty, like feasts, like gold; even a dead soul stirs to taste, then flies toward the flame for more.

You could ask: if an alchemist casts coins from pure gold, do they match the real thing, equal like twin stars?

I wish I could say, with a flourish as clean as steel, that a forged thing with a will to surpass the true might outshine the true.

But no. The world still holds together, mountain to mountain, night to dawn, and that speaks to balance, a scale even gods respect.

Gain and loss balance. Good and evil balance. The value of a coin has not yet collapsed like a ruined bridge.

I flick the coin and toss. My glove-tipped nail kisses the rim, and a thin, clear ring slips out like winter glass.

Call it a tremble-tone, call it a hum—names are reeds beside the stream.

Gold only measures “worth.” It “almost stands for worth,” but only almost—only a shadow on the wall of a cave.

What truly deserves the name of “worth” is the soul resting upon it, like a falcon resting upon a wrist.

Ah yes, the soul—that’s everything, a lamp that makes darkness meaningful.

Matter is “infinite” to gods and demons, an ocean too wide to cherish, a desert too broad to count.

Only souls—bright, rare, precious—carry value and meaning, like pearls dredged from night.

Spirit, will, history—lovely words, and in this small coin, these bloom like lanterns in fog.

We can call all of that the coin’s “soul,” a flame cupped in metal.

And no, souls aren’t the monopoly of humans—thinking so is pride slow-cooked to arrogance.

Why call only the Primordial Nine Races “human”? That’s pride dressed in silk, still pride.

I’m not here to be your enemy or to smear humankind; that’s not the wind I bring.

This coin settled in the Mishir volcanic ley-lines at the world’s dawn, laid there like amber in earth.

Two hundred fifty-two years ago, the nation of rivers and mountains, Kavat, mined it as part of their golden reserve, like wheat stored in stone granaries.

One hundred sixty-one years ago, it was traded to the Colonna Empire for minting, a phoenix feather pressed into a seal.

One hundred fifty-nine years ago, it left the bank and touched its first palm, like a ship first tasting salt.

One hundred thirty years ago, an old farmer traded half a year’s harvest for it, bread of sweat for a sun of metal.

One hundred six years ago, an adventurer cut an arm from a monster’s belly, the dead hand clenched around a bag of coins like a root around rock.

Fifty-seven years ago, a traveling merchant forgot this coin in his wagon, and the drought of it kept him from buying stock.

Thirty-three years ago, a traveler wondered whether to buy a bottle of HolyWater, hope corked in glass.

He clutched this coin, turned away, and later fell with a secret letter and the gold in the forest’s green mouth—bones faded, coin endured.

One year ago, a cultist offered this coin to the Demon King forty seconds before a Holy Knight’s sword pinned his heart like a moth.

And now—

Ting—

A coin’s ring is always this clean, a bell in a quiet shrine.

I arc it high, a small sun in flight, then let it fall to the tabletop like rain on lacquer.

It hops left, right—awkward, then slow, then rolls like a lazy wheel.

It crosses five meters of table, spins before Catherine, then falls, spent, like a tired bird.

She just watches, still as mountain ice.

“What does this mean?”

“Naturally, it’s for you.”

“No, I mean…” Catherine looks more and more at a loss, a reed tangled in riverweed.

“You think it’s dirty? But a coin is a coin. It stands for value like a standard bears a crest.”

Whether a cultist offered it or a Demon King toyed with it, a coin remains a coin, a lamp that doesn’t choose the hand.

“No, no. I mean, why give it to me?”

“This coin? Not only this.”

More. More. More and more—gold surges from the Shadow like a tide under a black moon.

A pocket of space folds shut like a curtain; inside, coins stack into hills and ring the long table like dunes.

“All of this is yours.”

“Why?”

“For your questions, I’ll pay extra in gold—a price for refusing to answer, a toll on a bridge I won’t let you cross.”

Gold pours a second time. The mountain grows by half a meter, a dune gaining a crest.

“But…”

“No ‘but.’ Let the gods witness. This is your due, a reward carved from the Demon King’s honest goodwill.”

You’ve done well, better than a spring that keeps running, so you need pay nothing more.

This gold will go back to the living world with you like swallows returning in spring.

Name your favorite city. I’ll hear it, then take a portion to seed your new identity.

Property, work, a roof and a plan—everything proper, everything expected, like law written in clear ink.

You can live again. A rich life. A life as you wish, as quiet or bright as a sunrise.

I spread my hands to her, palms like blank pages.

“I don’t understand. What have I done to deserve such payment from you? From what I remember…”

“No, no. Don’t dredge pain from the riverbed. Think of the clear water above.”

You don’t need to understand. That’s why I pay in gold twice—so silence feels warm, not cold.

Know only this: I hold no malice toward you, like a wind that passes without frost.

Be happy planning the road ahead. For example—

A roll of parchment drops from the air and lands before Catherine, striking the coin like a pebble on a bell.

—A blueprint for a life. Do you have a dream? A wish? Write it, and I’ll arrange it, the way a gardener sets stones.

All paid by the gold I give you, rain exchanged for river.

Because the pile is too large, we’ll need much to make it “reasonable”—to dress the miracle in clothes.

The cost of concealment isn’t small; it will give us headaches like storms in the night.

So I suggest you spend some. Mmh, a big part, like pruning a lamp forest.

It’s like a wish engine. Within the range of this gold, you can wish.

Wish to be a king? Sorry, the crown’s too high; but lord of a great city might fit your hand.

Wish to change laws? It depends on the reason’s spine; steeper changes cost more bones.

“Say, a law that kills anyone who speaks?” For that kind of cruelty, this gold won’t suffice—nor should it.

How about it? Wishes with limits, husks of impossible cast aside.

No raising the dead—no river runs backward for long—but the living can be helped, warmed like hands by a fire.

That age when gold buys all hasn’t arrived, but even now, this gold can buy a forest of outcomes.

After Anna’s long torment, Catherine’s soul and character were scarred, chunks gone like cliffs broken by ice.

After Anna returned and the World Saving Demon King stepped in, care slowly brought back her soldier’s straight-line steadiness.

That strict rhythm isn’t just Catherine; it’s the Aerian’s common wind, the flock’s shared flight.

She stares at the parchment and the coin, eyes steady, then reaches out like a bow drawn to a clean line.

Bit by bit, closer. Yes. Like this. Good. “Why” is a nettle you don’t need to grasp.

Just accept. Let the stage lights dim. Leave with a prize and a second life like spring after long frost.

No one else gets hurt. No one else needs to bleed. This is pure kindness, a cup with no poison.

No schemes. No hidden blades. I can swear by the gods, my voice clear as ice.

But her hand falls in the air, a leaf that doesn’t find its branch.

“I… you mean, I need to forget all this? Forget the past, the deal, the pain?”

“It’s only my personal advice. If you insist on keeping those memories—harm with no honey—then we’ll need a devil as go-between.”

We’ll sign a pact: you won’t tell anyone about what’s past, a lock on a chest buried under snow.

After all, I’m the Demon King. I hope you understand—like a hunter understands winter.

“Of course… I understand. I know why.” Her words carry two edges, a river with a hidden fork.

I’d learn soon enough what that second stream fed.

Catherine licks her lips. Even with the best supplies sent to her, she’s still dry as cracked clay.

She takes a deep breath, like a diver before dark water, and seems to decide.

“Then, I want to use this gold to buy a ‘happy ending.’”

“Happiness? Uh… what does happiness mean to you?”

Human satisfaction is long but unstable, a wind that shifts when you want a star.

With “finite” gold, I can’t kill a Divine Being for a wish like that, a mountain I won’t move.

“No, not mine. I’m already… it’s fine.” Catherine smiles at me, humble like a beggar praying to dawn.

Her lips and cheeks are parched, the smile brittle as dried leaves.

She’s not like Stini and Alina, girls who love to laugh like bells on a breeze.

Catherine shouldn’t have to smile. She fits storms and thunder, a face set, jaw tight, bow bent.

She fits a roar, a vow, an arrow against the Demon King in the teeth of wind.

That’s the Catherine Breeze I remember—who fought the Final Calamity for three days and three nights.

Not this girl who makes the heart ache like winter in a ruined house.

“I want it for everyone, a ‘happy ending.’”

“For who?” A chill crawls. My gut says snow.

“Alina Helen, Stini Saya, Raven Segrito, Gloria Colonna, Abigail Beatrice, and you—”

“Andor Mephy. A ‘happy ending’ for everyone.”

Negotiation, round two. What I thought simple has grown strange, a road bending into mist.