“What’re you thinking, Stini?”

“I’m thinking about whether ‘Stini isn’t right.’ In truth, I’m neither justice nor correctness, and owning that feels like a thorn lodged in my throat.”

Stini crossed her arms, fingers ticking like a tiny abacus, counting allowance coins and mapping the most efficient way to conquer the night market.

So her face went blade-still, a storm cloud holding back rain.

“But I have to face it. Permission to dodge, yet a demand to recognize facts and read the present—that’s what Andor taught me. In the mirror, you see the ugly, the uneven; you can shrug at it like wind passing reeds. But if you fear your own reflection, refuse understanding, and only spin bright fantasies, that path ends in fog.”

“You’re getting abstract again. I don’t really get it.”

“It’s simple. You have to know what you’re doing and what you want. For example, um… this, this…” Stini’s cheeks flushed like dusk over clay roofs, and her finger-counting slowed to a drifting leaf.

“You’re being so dishonest right now!”

“No, no. It’s just hard to say out loud. I know exactly what’s in my head…”

“You like Andor. What’s wrong with that?”

At that, Stini clenched her jaw, knuckles white as frost, breathing deep like waves rolling onto stone. In the end, she didn’t unleash on Vangibia. She tossed a small pouch of coin to the grilled-fish stall, snatched five or six skewers, and sat down puffing like a kettle to eat.

She looked like a hamster, cheeks full, eyes bright like beads.

Vangibia’s gaze spun twice like coins, and when she realized the riled-up Hero wasn’t going to swing, she slipped onto the chair beside her.

“Ma… ma—take it as you say. I know what I want to win. And here—” The young Hero touched the poor, barren plain of her chest. “The thought. I want him to look only at me. I want him to train only with me. I want him to tell me every hidden thing. I want him to stop sneaking into a room with the maid…”

“I see. But you also think ‘Andor isn’t wrong.’ He isn’t married, so he’s sworn to no one. He’s wealthy and warm, so girls admiring him is natural as moths to a lamp. In contrast, your blocking him again and again is jealousy sprouting like weeds, right?”

“Mm… I’m troubled by ‘I’m not right.’ I should be right. I should be justice. And if I’m not, if no one grants me that, then at least I could own being ‘evil intent.’ But no. I’m wrong. I’m ugly. There’s no room for a clean defense.”

Stini spoke while biting into the fish like a small predator, tearing it as if it were ragged cloth in her mouth.

What are you trying to shred? Andor, who tangles your thoughts like thornbush? Or yourself, who doesn’t feel beautiful, a cracked vessel under moonlight? Vangibia stayed smooth as still water, fished a few Colonna coins from the valley of her chest, and slid them to the stall owner. Then she plucked Stini’s small purse back and pushed it into her hands.

“What’s this…”

“Call it my treat.”

“But I heard the sound of coins…”

One coin is a month’s bread for a commoner. A lifelong pauper like Stini, hearing multiple coins chime together like tiny bells, shrank like a cat sensing a bigger shadow.

Dropping a stack of money and saying, I’m buying out the stall—where did that domineering CEO swagger come from? Ah, in Takinia there’s that real-life model behind every alpha-CEO paperback. What was it… some pastry shop?

“Feels fishy… Are you secretly rich, Vangibia?”

“Not at all. On average, I’m like you—five or six coins a month. But—okay, okay, take it as I like your vibe and I’m treating you.”

“…Fine.”

Stini rolled her eyes like marbles, tried to think of a retort, found none, and let it land like a feather.

No need to argue. No need to doubt. Something felt off, a grain of sand in the shoe, but her gut lay lazy like a cat in sun. So she didn’t dig deeper.

She didn’t notice the first hint glowing like a lantern. That was a good start; otherwise, the coming signs, bright or dim, wouldn’t kindle that steady thinking and imprint in her search.

The script penned by the Demon King meshed with reality like gears, turning smooth and cold.

Far off, on a rooftop edge, Vega sent a message to Victor. “Mr. Victor, please move according to plan.”

Stini kept eating skewer after skewer like sparrows pecking grain, unaware of what the next corner would hold.

“I think… Stini’s actions aren’t wrong. They’re simply… not that noble.”

Vangibia watched meat vanish at Stini’s lips—meat and meat and more meat—and swallowed like a dry reed. She waved off the skewer the owner offered with a rueful smile.

“Dieting?”

“…Something like that. Listen up, Hero. This is Vangibia’s first life-coaching talk in her tour-guide career. Stini, you just demand too much of yourself.”

“That tone—are you some philosopher hiding as a tour guide? Oh, so that’s why you fling coins like sparrows fling seeds… ow.”

The tour guide hammered Stini’s head with a firm fist, as clean as a gavel.

“How could I be? I’m twenty-six! Prime twenty-six! Tour guide is my past, present, and forever profession!”

That plush fist wasn’t as lethal as a ‘hammer of anti-reason.’ Stini stuck out her tongue, pretend-pained, play-apologetic, a kitten bowing to a bigger cat.

“I chose it because I love it. But first—your deal, Stini. You demand too much, so much you crack under it. A girl whining, sulking, throwing a small fit isn’t ugly; it’s cute as dawn dew—though sorry, you did go a bit over. I mean besides this morning’s style; lighter interference is understandable.”

“…And I get pummeled by someone I thought was on my side…”

“You’re just rampaging, saying nothing clear, spraying harm like sand in wind. Is it because you know Andor will stop you? We commoners don’t get Heroes’ way of whining. You scared me at first, sure. And I don’t support violence. Violence? I’m against it.”

“So you think I should confess? And then put rules on Andor? But, but…”

“To-tal-ly wrong. Forget success odds and how to confess. Tell me—do you even know what liking means? You can’t mix possessiveness with liking, even if sometimes they stand shoulder to shoulder like twin shadows.”

“Mm…” Stini bowed her head, quiet as a pond at dusk.

“I bet you want to ask, ‘How should I show I like Andor?’”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a big, big question. So big that the rest of your trip might not be enough for me to paint it end to end.”

“Then keep it simple.”

“Simplify it? That’s easy.”

“How?”

“Confess, then let go.”

“That sounds so simple it’s almost air—no substance at all.”

“But it’s the only path. Be like girls your age, like most people, confess to the one you love. Drop the weight of thinking into his hands like a stone into a river. Wait for yes or no, and let go while you wait. In love, even Heroes stand equal under the moon.”

“But what if he doesn’t accept?”

“If he doesn’t, he doesn’t. What else can happen? Will dragging your feet like a lame cart lead to a bright ending?”

“Mm…”

“Don’t think yourself nobler and lovelier than the crowd. In love, everyone’s equal, everyone’s got a chance—so the trouble is, everyone’s got a chance. If you don’t reach, don’t care, good men get hooked by girls who do, like fish pulled from a clear stream.”

Vangibia gathered the scattered skewers like picking twigs and handed them back to the stall owner.

“That’s the end of my wisdom. From a senior who’s loved twice and failed twice, my little offering to you.”

“I thought you’d talk clouds and fog and nothing solid.” Stini’s spirit looked brighter, like a lamp turned up. She wiped the oil on her lips and walked with Vangibia to the next night-market stall.

“I’ve never been to Atland. I don’t know much about the Council of Sages. All I have are love lessons to gift you. Remember, love isn’t a fair-weather book that reaches the ending without storms. It stings, disappoints, saddens. But above all, it’s sweet like honey when you steep in ‘love.’ A life rarely meets a person who fits your taste like a perfect tea. Don’t fuss too much. Don’t overthink.”

“Dad would never say that. He’d ask how Andor and I are going, then consider breaking a few of his bones—”

“Sounds like a dad who guards his daughter like a watch-dog under a gate—”

“I won’t deny it—”

“When you’re back, try confessing—”

“Then I’ll try. Not with a ‘low-expectation try’ like a limp bowstring. I’ll say every bit of my real heart. I’ll tell Andor everything so he understands what I truly feel—”

“I’ll back you—”

“Speaking of, where did Andor go? He ran off so clean this morning. He wouldn’t actually answer the draft call, right—”

“Guys do that. They pride themselves on their Valor, thinking bronze and brawn are magnets—”

“Ahh, Vangibia, what are my odds—”

“Not small. Honestly, I think you two carry a quiet echo of mutual affection—”

They walked deeper into the night market, like lanterns drifting down a river.

They watched Takinia’s famous dance floats sway like petals, bought a flower or two and candies sweet as little moons, and lifted their eyes to fireworks painting the sky.

Two people on the same wavelength can catch each other’s signals like birds sharing a breeze, trading easy yeses. The mood said, “We can talk about anything.” They griped about taxes favoring their favorite fields, and talked opera’s blazing moments with hands carving the air.

Vangibia felt like a slightly older Stini without extraordinary power, proof of what Stini’s life might be as a normal citizen, a lamp lit in a modest window.

Naturally, the two got along in warm circles. Stini even invited Vangibia to visit the Hero Academy a few times—which, for a coin-loving girl, was rare as summer snow. Vangibia declined politely, a fan folded with a smile.

However—

“As the philosopher says, there’s no feast that never ends, no train that never stops. You and I are travelers on crossing roads. No one walks another to the very last step. Victor, we’re done. Wrap it up. You can head back tonight.”

“Boss, you don’t need to watch to the end?”

“No need. No use. No right. Whatever the ending, it’s not ours. Listening, seeing, speaking would stain our reputation like ink in clear water. Remember, we offer choices. We don’t make them for people.”

Vega sank into the Shadow and left, while two kilometers away the two girls stepped out of the night party, ready to return to the inn.

Bellies full and heads warm, Stini had eaten food and drunk wine worth several coins. Night-market prices run higher than usual, but in any ledger, eating your own bodyweight is absurd as a fish riding a cart.

“How does your stomach even work? I’m genuinely curious.”

“When you fight on the front line, where a ‘fast’ adventure means you starve no longer than three days, you train up a habit: eat as much as you can when you can.”

“I still think that’s not physical—wait! What’s that?!”

In a furniture store window lay a velvet bed, tilted like a red ship in a glass harbor.

It was too high-end, so it hadn’t sold in ages and had become a long-standing ornament, a sleeping jewel framed by panes.

In Vangibia’s memory, that bed held nothing but a dark red, beautiful spread, a desert of cloth with no footprints.

Now, a silent girl slept there, breath steady as tide, and her body was covered by heaps of ink-black feathers, a night sky draped over white, gauzy dress.

Her face was calm and loose, like a field after rain. She seemed to be dreaming something sweet.