Some people have to stand behind the curtain, steadying the lamps so other bright protagonists can blaze.

If the Hero is the sword that slays the dragon, the ones backstage forge that blade.

They bring the dragon’s weaknesses, like a map inked on old bone.

They slow the dragon’s march on the kingdom, while the Hero trains beneath the cold moon.

Vega, and the woman before her known only as the “Holy Maiden,” are candles kept behind the screen.

Support roles rarely shine, yet consider this: without Vega, the Demon King Army would move like a body with its spine cut.

Though among the upper vassals Vega is famously weak, without her, the gears grind to dust.

Within the Demon King Army, Vega’s rank sits just below Andor, yet to common eyes she’s a moon drowned by daylight.

Andor wrought legend after legend, thunder rolled in fog, and the tales were not for outsiders.

In the Silver Era, the brightest face of the Savior Demon King Army was actually Berenz, a torch lifted in a crowded square.

Why, you ask, as the dust swirls?

Because Berenz stepped into the open often, like a banner snapping in the wind.

The World Saving Demon King was a dragon whose shadow showed and vanished, mostly tangled with the Hero.

When a Peace Council finally saw him appear, it was the lesser-known Vega wearing his mask.

And the one who matched the crowd’s idea of a villain, Berenz, carved the deeper mark like a blade.

They say Berenz slaughtered villages, leaving smoke like bruises on the hills.

They say Berenz brewed wine with human bones, pale cups under a blood-red sunset.

They say Berenz kidnapped a princess and kept her as a bauble, like a bird in a gilded cage.

They say Berenz wrecked stores on purpose; in the ruins lay years of grain for a kingdom, its origin unclear, a hoard under ash.

All of it was a whisper campaign spun by Vega, threads cast like frost across rumor.

“May I shake hands with a foe who meets me move for move, two stones set on the same chessboard?”

Berenz stepped forward and offered a hand to the woman, the gesture like iron under a velvet glove.

Berenz truly admired this woman who’d been plotting to break the Demon King Army for fourteen years, a candle burning with steady flame.

Centuries of webbing laid strand by strand; a thousand spiders setting their nets like frost along the rafters.

Baited with a true treasure, sweet enough that dying for it felt fine as autumn fruit.

Facing an enemy like you, if you hadn’t found me, there’d be another fourteen years, then another, poured like sand.

I don’t have your breadth, to shake hands calmly with my greatest foe, not with the tide still pulling.”

The woman spoke with her neck stiff, like a reed fighting the wind.

Vega noticed her pressing down her trembling hands, knuckles white like chalk.

Maybe she was stubborn about saving face, a stone refusing to be skipped.

Vega smiled and let her own hand fall, a petal drifting from the branch.

“Then one last question, a personal knot in my chest.

If you truly see the fixed future, you must also have glimpsed the far horizon.

Isn’t the Era of Cold Verdure my master will open good, a green rain after drought?”

“I can’t change what I see—visions fixed like ice.

But that world, dead-still and spent of madness, holds little joy, a sky without birds.

So I change what lies outside my sight, edges of the map inked by my own hand.”

“Unbelievable, that a seer like you still can’t grasp our aim,” Vega said, regret shaking her like wind in bamboo.

“That age will be called the Era of Cold Verdure, a season outside Gold, Silver, Bronze, Black Iron, and Clay.

An age we forged ourselves, a new river cut through old stone.”

She opened her arms, fever flickering like a hearth, and spoke.

“In that era—like spring breaking from stone—

Humans, free of taboos, like birds with the sky stripped of fences.

Humans, with no great enemy, a sea calmed to glass.

Humans, free to do whatever they desire, to try every door and every road.

Those who wish to be Heroes can be Heroes, banners white against storm.

Those who wish to be villains can be villains, wolves let loose under moon.

Those who wish to be monsters can be monsters, scales glittering like rain.

We’ll give humanity possibility, give humanity thought, give humanity freedom—a triad like sun, moon, and stars.

Isn’t that what you humans crave, a wide sky without chains?

We’ll act only as a brake before the world’s ruin; as long as you don’t blow up the stage, we won’t move.

Why would you still refuse, with lanterns lit and roads open?”

“Because that’s not humanity’s future; humanity’s future shouldn’t look like that, like a garden paved in glass!”

Terrified and nameless, the woman still hissed at the head maid, a sparrow crying at a hawk.

Even deep helplessness won’t make all humans bow; not every neck bends like reeds in rain.

“Your cherished ‘freedom’ banished absolute justice, like wind scattering incense.

Your worshiped ‘resistance’ drove out the gods, like hail beating down altar fire.

Your kept ‘morality’ cooled love and passion, embers shivering to ash.

Humans always do what they think is right, blades held high even in fog, so—

We’ll help you break every chain, iron snapped like twigs.

We’ll grant new possibilities and thoughts, seeds blown across fields.

We’ll give the earth wholly to humans, borders drawn like lines in wet clay.

We’ll sever conflict between Demonfolk and humans, a wall like mountain rock—what’s to dislike?”

These were exactly Andor’s words at the Peace Council, honey poured over steel.

Most important, he didn’t lie, the truth clear as winter water.

But inside the promised gift lay specks of malice, enough to stain and undo the good, like rot under paint.

“My master believes it’s a good era: without a great enemy, humans turn their knives on former kin.

After conquering the land, humans will crave more land, horizons devoured like bread.

License in the name of respect, escape in the name of trust—how beautiful, how beautiful, like flowers masking rot.

Your children will grow ugly like your enemies; even without us, it was the path after the Bronze Era.”

“That isn’t right, like a compass gone wrong…”

“Oh, it’s right, because it’s inevitable, shaped by countless human choices, like rivers carving stone.

We only moved the inevitable era to now, a moon dragged forward in the sky.”

What future does Andor desire for the world, the wind asks?

It hardly matters to debate; apart from the Heroes, he barely cares for ordinary humans, like stars dim at dawn.

Ferrel is the one who truly loves humanity as a whole, a lantern held over the sea.

So, out of a great one’s playful malice, the Demon King plans to grant Ferrel’s wish.

Give humans knowledge, information, and thought, seeds and maps, let humans choose their future by hand.

Then, when self-destruction blooms, step in to save them, while mocking Ferrel’s innocence, a smile like a blade.

Someone once said: the world is a sphere; push out any point, and the whole curve changes.

And that change isn’t always good, storms born from a single leaf’s fall.

For example, a society unready for reform suddenly receives a new political blueprint, a thunderclap in a crowded market.

Those demanding change clash with those resisting it—clash is a gentle word for blood and smoke.

The Era of Cold Verdure is about to meet upheaval of that scale, mountains shifting under roots.

Kings not kings, humans not human; the Demon King will spark fresh malice in human souls and watch the wild play, laughing behind the curtain.

The woman sought to halt it all; if she couldn’t halt the “inevitable future” she saw, she’d still nudge the world toward light.

Whether she ruined the Demon King’s plots or soothed quarrels between lords, her aim wasn’t a tally of victories.

As she said, so long as she wasn’t caught, she’d keep moving in shadow, doing what her sight allowed.

To make the world a shade better; to lessen deaths from meaningless clashes; to shrink the disasters seeded long ago.

“Compared to dreamers, what’s frightening about you is your plan is whole, a net without holes.”

Vega stepped behind her and gently pinned her loose hair, fingers like rain combing willow strands.

It felt like a long-lost lover, it felt like no killing intent, a calm lake under moon.

“How to beat us, how to tangle our plans, how to force branches in a written tale—you’ve done wonderfully, from a human view.”

“But you still caught me, like a fish snagged by a single hook.”

“A thousand spiders weaving in focus will find which thread trembles; the web tells its own wind.

Even if you see the future and hide backstage, lose once, and I’ll find you by that shiver.”

“Only once, yes, only once—I lost only once, a single fallen leaf.”

“Maybe losing isn’t always bad, like pruning that makes the branch bloom.”

At Vega’s signal, Berenz shrugged and withdrew; the head maid’s hands encircled the woman’s noble neck, a swan-white column.

“Now, you can try to rest, like a candle snuffed to sleep.”

Her teeth chattered; her whole body shook; fear flooded her like winter water—she was truly afraid of dying.

“It’s fine; I’ll be gentle and quick, like rain that falls and passes.”

Vega licked her earlobe; her hands tightened with a soft, steady pressure, the mercy of silk.

Weak among upper vassals is a relative word, a cloud beside a mountain.

For a human neck, it was enough, a hinge pressed shut.

There was once a hunter’s lodge in the woods here, beams smelling of pine.

As with all buildings gnawed by time, there is nothing now, only grass and quiet.

There was once an unsung Hero here, a name like dew.

Like all Heroes buried in shadow, she left no mark, no shrine; she sleeps here forever.

We don’t know why she died here, what vow she held, what legend she carried, what name she bore.

Even if novelists spilled ink like rain, they’d still have no story to record.

But she was truly a Hero, a seed under stone.

Beneath sun, moon, and stars, with gods and demons watching, someone strove for her home and her people without rest.