She brewed herself a cup of fragrant tea; the taste of home rose from the cup like a soft, rising mist.

She sat unhurried beside a battered wooden table, like a leaf settling after a long wind. The forest hunting lodge, abandoned for years, breathed again with human warmth. The knights fed logs into the hearth, and the lingering cold of half-melted snow retreated like a pale tide.

"Spring is almost here," she said, like a bud testing the frost.

"But please be careful, Lady Saint. Winter hasn’t wandered far; the air still bites, and your legs..." The knight’s worry hung like a gray cloud.

"It’s fine. It doesn’t matter anymore." Her voice fell like ash from a cold brazier.

She let go of her usual, easy smile and sipped the scented tea, like drawing warmth from an ember.

"Lady Saint, do we not need to..." As the others kept watch, one knight leaned in with a question, his words cut off like a rope snapped mid-pull.

"We don’t need it." Her reply landed like a blade laid flat.

"...Why?" His voice trembled like a reed in wind.

"You’re too blunt for your own good... Do you know why your father let you leave the capital with me?" Her gaze pressed like a thumbprint in wet clay.

"Because you can make this world better, Lady Saint!" His conviction flared like a torch in fog.

"That’s one reason. I need a knight I can trust without reserve, to help a Saint with no combat skill cut the threads the Demon King has laid. Another reason is to break your habit of saying whatever’s in your mouth. The knight order, where glory comes to whoever charges, only feeds that habit like dry grass in a wildfire."

"Lady Saint—no, Your Highness..." His tongue faltered like a horse at a brook.

"Keep calling me Lady Saint. It’s been over ten years; now ‘Saint’ sounds gentler than ‘Your Highness’." Her words settled like silk on stone.

"Where should we go today? Whom should we meet? Who must we kill?" Each question struck like pebbles across a still pond.

"We don’t need any of that. I told you—never again." The finality drew shut like a gate in dusk.

"Your Highness..." The title bled out like ink in rain.

"My carriage is probably useless now. But those two white mares were my father’s gift for my sixteenth birthday. They’re endurance-bred, good horses. If you think it’s needed—no, I order you to ride them back." Her command rose like a banner in cold wind.

"Your Highness, what happened?" His breath skittered like startled sparrows.

"I said, call me Saint. Nothing happened, really. It’s just that we—no, only I—got found." The admission creaked like an old floorboard.

"Found by who?" The question flicked like a knife from a sleeve.

"The Demon King." The name fell like a stone into a well.

He said nothing. The silence pooled like winter water in a dark basin.

"Fourteen years ago, I awakened an ability called Causal Calculus." "I began trimming the Demon King’s threads knotted around the world, for a better future." "A year and five months ago, the Demon King truly descended." "The threads I had cut were sewn back at a despairing speed." "And today, they finally found me." Her timeline unfurled like a scroll in ash light.

Her words quickened like rain on tiles, and her grip crushed the teacup as if it were a brittle shell, almost ready to fling it.

"They finally found me... found me at last! Damn it! I was so careful!" Her anger snapped like a bowstring, her fear fluttered like trapped moths.

"Your Highness, then we leave now!" His urgency kicked like a stallion against a gate.

"Leave here? And go where?" Her question drifted like smoke from damp wood.

"We can return to the capital. Your father will surely protect you!" Hope leapt like a spark in dry grass.

"In fact, severing my ties to the kingdom is why I had you call me Saint, not Your Highness." The explanation set like frost over a stream.

"But, but, Your Highness..." His protest stuttered like hail on a tin roof.

"We’ve got a few hours left. Hah. Let me finish this tea properly. They’ll come and kill me. But your ending isn’t fixed. If you leave and pretend I never existed, never met this Saint... maybe you’ll live." Her calm lay over her dread like snow over embers.

"There must be another way! You’ve foiled so many of the Demon King’s plots—this time should be the same!" His faith shone like a lantern in a storm.

"Knight, my ability, Causal Calculus, lets me observe fragments of the inevitable future. I saw myself cut open—this part cannot be changed. Knight, I’m used to accepting what’s already written. Don’t waste pity on me." Her certainty sat like iron under snowfall.

"Then I’ll stay with you to the end!" His oath rang like steel along a scabbard.

"Your loyalty moves me. But think first. A fine high captain dying pointlessly with a Saint who’s as good as erased—does that end satisfy you?" Her question cut like a wind over bare rock.

He kept silent, the pause heavy as snow-laden branches.

"Then I order you to go back, Knight. Forget your fourteen years of wandering. Return to your order. If you still think I’m the lord you swore to, go." Her command struck like a drum at dawn.

"Your Highness—but I can’t accept it." The knight pressed his lips thin; his big-knuckled hand gripped his hilt, then let go, like a wave heaving and falling.

"Yes. Fourteen years of effort. Fourteen years under borrowed names. We’re no longer young, and still we’ve done nothing. The Demon King has started to close the net, and we have no proof of any gain. So... Knight, will you sit and share a cup of tea? It’s all I have to thank you for these fourteen years." Her invitation drifted like a lantern set upon water.

"Thank you. Please pour me one. To drink tea brewed by Your Highness’s own hands is, at least..." His sentence trailed like smoke that fails to rise.

"Call the others in, too. If my ability shows I die in a few hours, the crown of death won’t come early... Wait. Mm. I’ve got a question for you." Her cough fluttered like a sparrow startled from a branch.

"Please ask." His attention stilled like a pond under moonlight.

"Ahem. In the royal lessons on bodily health, I learned that in the face of life-or-death crises, reproductive instincts surge. So, ahem, I thought..." Her cheeks warmed like persimmons in autumn sun.

"I don’t quite understand, Your Grace." His confusion blinked like an owl at noon.

"Idiot! I’ve told you—your worst flaw is saying everything out loud!" Her scold cracked like a slap of bamboo.

"Uh..." His sound drooped like a wet reed.

"Forget it... Mmm. Honestly, I’m afraid of pain, too. Let’s drop it." Her deflection slid away like rain off eaves.

"Your Highness?" His worry perched like a crow on a fence.

"Shut up. Drink the tea. Then call the others and get out!" Her command snapped like a whip in cold air.

-----

When Vega knocked, polite as a court bell, a fierce wind rose at her back and tore the long-abandoned hunting lodge to pieces like paper.

Only the door remained, standing like a lone tree on a scraped plain.

Berenz hefted a massive serrated blade, chewing something crisp between his teeth. He stood at Vega’s rear flank, ready to drop the kill like a hawk stooping.

"Please forgive us for using a method that’s, strictly speaking, impolite, though I did knock." A person who can see the future is too dangerous. "Now that you’ve seen our true faces, you’ve stepped beyond a hero’s border. So our methods need not stay within the Demon King’s usual bounds." Vega’s voice was smooth like oil over steel.

The head maid turned the knob, pushed the door from its frame, then bowed politely to the woman, like a willow bending to rain.

"...Mm. I know. I won’t run. I did everything alone. I admit defeat." Her confession settled like dust on a bare floor.

"I personally appreciate your cooperative attitude—no clinging to life, no suicidal blast. That saves the Demon King Army time and coin. As thanks for lightening my workload, I’ll make your death as painless as possible." Vega’s courtesy glinted like frost on a blade.

The woman’s hand began to shake around the teacup, yet she lifted it anyway, her fear plain as a stain, clumsily trying to hide it like a child under a thin quilt.

Vega found her fascinating, like a rare moth fluttering against a lamp.

In her reports, from the day the twenty-four Sons of the Demon King entered the world, this woman kept thwarting the Demon King Army, almost without a seam.

Scheming against villains, making fools of the Demon King—would a person that ruthless fear death? The thought pricked like a thorn under silk.

"Your moves avoided contact with the Demon King Army almost entirely." "You tugged the currents indirectly, roundabout, and left our expected outcomes empty." "That level of planning isn’t just ‘an ability’." "If it were possible, I’d gladly recruit you into the Savior Demon King Army." "If you didn’t carry that power beyond reason." Her compliment folded like a lacquer fan.

"But anyone who means to interfere must touch the weave somewhere with their own hand—" Her concession creaked like a hinge.

"So, precisely for that reason, I caught you." Vega’s words clicked like a trap shutting.

"Mm. Yes. I lost in the end..." Her acceptance fell like late snow on a field.

"But your work was beautiful. Your layouts were exquisite, almost a piece of art." "If the Savior Demon King Army hadn’t gotten and held our intel properly, my lord might truly have quarreled with my lady." "Nivifar might have chosen to die with that pact instead of begging my lord for help." "Stini might have failed to defeat the Deity of Justice." "A Divine Being walking the earth would have shattered the whole peace conference—if not for me." Vega’s recital swept by like a cold river.

"But I still failed. In the end, I achieved nothing." Her words were flat as slate under shade.

"That isn’t your fault. If we ignore victory and defeat, it was a bracing game." Vega’s iron face finally showed a rare smile to this first-time opponent. "Sadly, you didn’t win at the end, so there’s no triumphant return, no fame to last a hundred years. And I must consider the Demon King Army’s path, and my master’s commission." Her verdict settled like evening dew.

The head maid tossed the door aside like a shed shell and walked toward the woman.

"Alone, unsupported, no background, no patronage—fine. If everyone keeps silent, let it be thus. Only you will die quietly here, and nothing else will happen." Her pronouncement dropped like a curtain.

"...Though I’m afraid, and there’s nothing I can do, I can only accept it." Her resignation moved like a leaf carried downstream.

"Mm. May I shake hands with an enemy who met me move for move?" Vega’s offer extended like a bridge across mist.

The head maid nodded and reached out her hand to the woman, palm steady like a white lotus on calm water.