nesis had once been a soldier—a pure, disciplined soldier.
The human armies existed to resist the other races. Unlike the noble knights, they were mostly ordinary people from countless small towns, with no family legacies of enchanted armor or ancient combat techniques.
Yet through sheer numbers, and the occasional one-in-ten-thousand “God of War” among them, they could suppress even the knightly orders and beco the mightiest bulwark against the alien races.
nesis had once appeared on the front pages of newspapers across the Four Domains. Soldiers and civilians alike affectionately called her the youngest major general.
She had felt proud of that recognition—naïvely believing she could fulfill her dream and give the soldiers who trusted and respected her, and the countless citizens behind them, a hopeful future.
That day marked the seventh day of their grand offensive against the demons.
It was the first—and only—ti in human history that they had changed from defense to offense, a full-scale assault on demonkind.
If Her Majesty the Empress was the founding ruler who united and cald the fractured human realm, then the Hero who led the counterattack against the demons was the expeditionary general who injected a new surge of life into a nation barely recovering from ruin.
Under that unstoppable advance, the outer demon forces were quickly annihilated. They pressed forward, determined to seize the Demon King’s Castle within three days.
It was their most glorious hour—the mont of greatest courage and valor.
At 3 p.m.
The front-line camp, resting and regrouping, was suddenly struck by a cataclysmic blow. Fire, smoke, and screams tore through the air, reminding everyone of the terror they’d felt the first ti they’d faced the monsters.
But sothing was strange.
This ti, the Hero didn’t appear. They also lost all contact with the lead Hero Squad, who served as the vanguard of the army.
At the sa ti, Heroes stationed in other war zones began sending grim reports: the cohesion and strength of the demon forces had suddenly increased. The anomaly made their advances difficult, and they requested reinforcents.
A heavy gloom settled over nesis’s heart. Her years of battlefield experience told her sothing was terribly wrong.
The war was starting to ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ slip into the unknown.
Instead of dispatching reinforcents elsewhere, she gathered her remaining forces and followed the vanguard Hero Squad’s route of advance after multiple failed attempts to reach them.
Under a dim, oppressive sky—
Demons roared, humans scread, and the air reeked of blood. Clear rivers had turned crimson.
nesis finally caught sight of the Hero Squad. For a mont she felt relief and rushed forward to ask what had happened—but then froze.
The Hero Squad wasn’t fighting any monsters. They stood motionless, wrapped in a suffocating tension.
nesis didn’t understand, so she signaled her troops to halt and take cover.
“Flaviel, why did you lie to ?”
“I don’t want to answer that. But I hope you’ll leave. Don’t go any farther... As long as you don’t interfere and return, I can handle the rest.”
“Handle it? How? By killing everyone who knows? Or will you just lock yourself up in the Demon King’s Castle and never co out again?”
“...Please don’t push any further. Maybe I was wrong from the start—humans and demons will never truly coexist.”
“It’s co this far, and you’re still lying to ?! Stop this, before—”
Among the trees—
nesis bit her arm to stifle a gasp. She had just overheard sothing she was never ant to know.
She had t that golden-haired girl several tis before, and she knew she was publicly known to be the Hero’s lover!
Then, the golden-haired girl turned her head—looked straight toward nesis’s hiding spot—and suddenly charged in her direction!
But the Hero didn’t let her go. He rushed forward, clashing with her midair.
nesis could see clearly—they weren’t fighting seriously. Each was holding back, exchanging blows like children sparring, not like enemies fighting for their lives.
Fear gripped her, but thoughts of her comrades still dying on the frontlines pushed her forward. Gritting her teeth, she began to run toward them, foolishly trying to stop the battle that should never have happened.
“Release.”
The golden-haired girl seed to lose patience. With a low murmur, nesis’s heart stopped for a single beat. She looked up in shock as a vast surge of magical power erupted from the girl’s body—unleashing a storm that swept through the forest.
A golden figure rose at its center, and nesis’s eyes caught it clearly.
A being of gold, half-human, half-dragon, floated just beneath the clouds. Golden scales like armor glead across her body; her twin wings beat slowly, and her long, powerful tail curved upward.
She smiled disdainfully, golden fire flickering in her pupils.
She was the Demon King—the supre ruler standing above all demons.
nesis’s breathing quickened; adrenaline flooded her veins, her heart pounding like a drum.
Now she understood why they’d been fighting.
Who could have imagined that the Demon King—who had vanished for over a decade and lived only in rumors—would reappear in the world as the Hero’s lover?
In that instant, nesis’s mind held only one thought.
It’s over.
That afternoon, the final transmission from her soldiers had been their horrified screams:
“Demon King! Demon King! Demon King!”
Years later—
nesis would still wake from nightmares, drenched in tears. In those dreams, old won carrying baskets ca to her, asking for their sons.
She didn’t know why she was still alive—
why she, of all people, had survived.
Maybe dying there, alongside the soldiers who perished because of her orders, would have been the better ending.
Later, she heard reports of the chief Hero’s death—and the Demon King’s death as well.
She could never tell whether those were state-issued lies ant to pacify the people, or just convenient stories to cover up the truth.
But one thing she knew: besides those five in the Hero Squad, she wasn’t the only survivor of that day.
She’d once thought about seeking the remaining mbers of the Hero Squad for answers. But she could never et them, and she began to suspect they harbored secrets too dark to reveal.
Just like the Demon King who had stood among them.
So nesis left the army and vanished from the world.
And within the army’s records, she too was listed as dead—another naless soul among the countless ghosts of Mount Aisa.
“Achoo...”
nesis sneezed, wrinkling her nose from the dust as she pulled Vieya out from the rubble.
“Introduce yourself. Why are you here?” She paused, glanced at the gray-haired man beside her who was frowning deeply, and added, “This is Rakaide. I’m nesis. We’re from the sa adventurer party.”
“nesis... Rakaide...”
Vieya repeated softly, staring suspiciously at the tiny one-ter-fifty-tall girl in front of her.
“So you’re that ‘smart, experienced adventurer’ Luna and the others talked about?”
“You know them?”
nesis exhaled, relaxing a little. “Then that makes things easier. Oh, and—” she turned back to Vieya, looking serious, “don’t listen to their nonsense. My brain’s actually pretty average. They just say that to justify being lazy and dump all the thinking on .”
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