“Greetings, human. I am Noct. I have traveled a great many realms in my time, though I fear this may be my last. Would you hear my predicament?”

The Hunter stared up in gaping horror at the thirty-foot-tall black demon towering above him. Raising his crossbow, he shouted at her, “What in the hells are you, cursed beast?”

“I am Noct. I am a being not native to this plane, nor indeed any plane—my kind traverses the universes at our own whims, subject only to our individual lifetime quests to achieve true moral Balance. It is this Balance, in fact, that brings me to your world.” Noct repeated politely, “Would you hear my predicament?”

“Y-your… predicament?” The Hunter lowered his crossbow. The creature was not violent; perhaps he would best preserve his own life by engaging this beast in the diplomacy she so desired. “Very well. I shall.”

“My kind is immortal, although each of us must undergo a rebirth every couple hundred millennia. This is only possible, however, if we end our lives in a state of moral Balance—our Good deeds having precisely equaled our Evil deeds. Myself, I am in an awful state of disequilibrium; I have slaughtered hundreds of millions of innocent lives, toppled dozens of civilizations with starvation and pestilence, personally seen to the extreme torture of countless individuals…” The Hunter noticed at this point that Noct was reading off of an itemized list, which she made vanish with the flick of a paw. “As you can see, I am in dire need of Good deeds to perform. Worse yet, the last being I encountered—the sole surviving member of a race I had annihilated—mustered with his dying breaths the strength to stab me with a sword forged of the one material my kind is vulnerable to.” Noct gestured to a wound on her chest which bled not blood, but rays of magnificent light. “Undoubtedly, I have only a few centuries left until I must undergo my death and—hopefully—rebirth. I don’t think I even have the strength to leave your planet now that I am here.”

The Hunter was still skeptical. “I do not believe you, beast.”

“It’s not important that you believe me. But might you please teach me, at the least, how to perform Good deeds?”

The Hunter was fazed. “You really need me to tell you?”

“I would be most grateful if you did. You see, I found it so intuitive to cause Evil; honestly, most interactions with others and their property resulted in as much. But the others of my kind have warned me that being Good requires much tact and effort, and just one false move can undo all the Good one has achieved.”

The Hunter tested the beast’s words. “So you’re saying you’ve committed all these Evil atrocities, and haven’t balanced it out with any Good? You must have quite the cosmic debt racked up.”

“I may have procrastinated slightly, daunted by the difficulty of the task… Now, may you please aid me in my quest to learn Good?”

After several more exchanges and reiterations, the Hunter realized that this beast’s naivety was genuine. “You know, b—Noct, I know the perfect way you can help me out.” After a moment of bemusement from Noct, the Hunter clarified, “And helping me would be Good.”

“Do tell!”

“I am a hunter from a nearby village, and I have lived in shame for some years now. Drunkenness, infidelity, but worst of all, an ineptitude at hunting. But if you would just show me your paw…”

Noct innocently extended her foreleg.

“… that could all change in a moment!” The Hunter whipped out a blade from his side and slashed at Noct’s wrist. The immortal beast waited patiently as the Hunter took several more swings, up until her paw was cleanly severed from her foreleg. The Hunter held it aloft and exclaimed, “Once they see this, my townspeople will hail me as a legendary hunter! This will turn my whole life around!”

Quick to escape the beast’s (nonexistent) anger, the Hunter took off. Noct was left wondering what exactly had transpired, but whatever it was, Noct hoped it had counted as a veritable act of Goodness.

For she was still a long way from achieving Balance.

---

The year was 1652 when Noct first entered the human world. In the months following the amputation (and swift regeneration) of her paw, Noct meditated on the nature of her first supposedly Good deed. What exactly constituted its Goodness? she wondered. After some time, she came up with a plausible-enough explanation: It was an act naturally reciprocal to Evil. Throughout all the millennia of her existence, she had always been the one doing the rending and eviscerating. To restore Balance, therefore, she merely needed to endure the same amount of injury that she had inflicted upon others. That might take a while. Hopefully, she could find some sufficiently sadistic humans to help her on her way.

Two hundred and two fruitless years passed as Noct acted on her newfound theory of morality. She traveled across the lands, greeting each human she encountered with a polite request to injure her as gravely as they wished. Unfortunately, most humans did not seem as violent as the Hunter had been, and would flee from the scene before Noct could even adequately explain her situation.

At first, Noct chalked this up to bad luck. Soon, however, she realized an obvious impediment to her approach: Most humans were not as well equipped as the Hunter at dismembering on request. As such, Noct made it a point to always deposit a pilfered longsword on the ground before beginning the conversation. Still, she encountered little success; the great majority of humans would not even take a swing before fleeing in fear, and those that did would hardly put their heart into it. At this rate, Noct worried about her chances of rebirth.

But then, one propitious day in the countryside of Victorian-era England:

“Greetings, human. I am Noct. I have traveled a great many realms in my time, though I fear this may be my last. Would you please mutilate me with this sword?”

“Oh my,” replied the Damsel. “What a ghastly favor to ask. Are you some sort of giant fox?”

“I have indeed noticed creatures in your world that resemble me on a smaller scale, but make no mistake, there is no relation between us. Now, I cannot waste any time on my journey, so if you are unable or unwilling to wound me, please inform me now so that I might be on my way.”

“I admit, such a thing is beyond my sensibilities. But if you would explain your circumstance, I might be able to help you in some other way.”

And so the giant fox related to the Damsel her predicament, as well as the theory of morality taught to her by the Hunter.

“Truly, I’m afraid you have it all jumbled up,” the Damsel said, stifling a dainty laugh with the tip of her finger. “Two opposite Evils don’t make Balance, but even if it did, not all creatures wish to wound you as you have them.”

“I can confirm,” Noct agreed.

“Instead, you must help them accomplish what they do wish, in a cordial and kind manner. That is the essence of Goodness.”

“I think I’m beginning to understand,” Noct said. She recalled the words of the wise Hunter: And helping me would be good. “Where should I begin?”

“Anywhere you want. Help some folks with their gardening. Talk to someone about their feelings, and give them compliments. Go out of your way to help people with household tasks they don’t have the time or energy for. It may depend on the person, but there will always be something you can do.”

And so the giant fox began down a new path of Goodness, starting by tending to the Damsel’s seasonal zinnia patch. In return, the Damsel spoke well of her gardener to all her friends in the village; slowly but surely they learned to no longer fear the magnificent beast that had become the talk about town. In fact, everyone was soon clamoring to have the interdimensional genocidal vulpine tend to their gardens, too, and partake in tea and talk therapy with their own family members.

All seemed well to Noct; she could surely undo all the Evil she had committed in no time at all.

---

Or could she?

More than half a century passed as Noct perfected her gardening skills, her locution skills, and the other various skills that contributed to her career as a philanthropic servant to the upper crust of Victorian society. Her renown spread throughout the country, and beyond: It was such that Noct was one day approached by a conniving German shipbuilder requesting a personal favor.

“Greetings, human. I am Noct. I have traveled a great many realms in my time, though I fear this may be my last. Do you have any flowers that I might tend to?”

“Actually, meine Freunde, you will have to forgive me,” the Shipbuilder began, “for I have no personal favors to ask of you.”

“You don’t? I’m sorry, but I can only tend to those who have Good deeds available for me to perform; as you may have heard, I am working very hard to undo all the Evil debt I have racked up.”

“Yes, about that,” the Shipbuilder insisted, “I meant to ask: Are you sure that you are on a sensible schedule to achieve Balance before you die?”

Noct was puzzled at the Shipbuilder’s insinuation. “I have spent all my time and energy tending to tasks that you humans have not had the time and energy for. A wise Damsel has assured me that this is the epitome of Good acts. There is no reason that I should not be on schedule.”

“Those are indeed Good acts, more Good than most of us mortals will ever accomplish. But reflect for a second on the sheer enormity of your Evil deeds; do you honestly believe that tending flowers and a few kind words will undo the extermination of millions of lives?”

“Hundreds of millions,” Noct corrected.

“Danke, my candid canid ally.”

Noct paused and thought for a moment. “I do believe I see your point, Shipbuilder. But if you are correct, what hope is there for me? I am already applying myself fully to my quest, and my time among the living is limited.” Noct began to succumb to a feeling of despair. “I know that doing Good requires that I help you, but could an exception be made, so that you might help me think of a solution?”

“Fear not, as I already have a proposition for you,” the Shipbuilder said with open arms. “No more piddly house chores for one human at a time. I know a way for you to do good for millions upon millions of humans at once!”

Noct’s eyes widened. “Oh, do tell!”

“You have heard of the Imperial German Navy, yes?”

“I believe so. I don’t know what it is exactly, but most humans appear to be quite fearful of it.”

“Around these parts that is to be expected. But from where I hail, millions recognize it as a glorious and excellent thing, to which your service would be praised as the greatest act of Nationalismus.”

Noct cocked her head. “And Nationalismus would be Good?”

The Shipbuilder beamed. “Yes, Nationalismus is very Good.”

---

And so Noct began her complimentary servitude under the Imperial German Navy. Her indomitable strength, size, and speed meant that she alone constituted the primary German advantage in the contemporary Anglo-German naval arms race. In particular, Noct saw to the construction of over a dozen of Germany’s first dreadnought-class battleships.

Indeed, that decade of Noct’s exclusive service to the German Empire was a boon to Nationalismus in millions of human hearts, much to Noct’s delight. Unfortunately for Germany, soon Britain—along with the United States, France, Russia, Japan, among other nations—became privy to just how simple Germany’s enlistment of the great fox was, and sent their own ambassadors to Noct to discuss opportunities for Good for their own navies. Noct found it curious that humans had so many different perspectives on this concept variously referred to as Nationalismus, nationalism, nationalisme, национализм, 民族主義… but it appeared to be a fairly universal thing, and she quickly picked up on the pattern.

The great fox’s efforts catalyzed the global militarization of the early 20th century, coming to a head in the Great War. Naturally, this was a very profitable time for Noct, who enjoyed a constant stream of requests for Good deeds in the form of military assistance across the Eastern Hemisphere. Noct was initially wary of engaging in mass murder again—after all, that was how she earned her debt in the first place—but the generals assured her that as long as the targets were Evil, and she was saving Good soldiers’ lives, it counted as a Good deed.

“But weren’t you the Evil guys just last week?” she would ask the general of an army she had been decimating, up until they sent her a telegraph message for aid.

“… It’s all right, Noct. We have learned our lesson, and we’re Good now, thanks to you. Unfortunately, our friends over in the Dolomites have fallen under the influence of Evil, and they need you to teach them a lesson, too.”

This to-and-fro was all very confusing to Noct, but she reasoned that the humans understood their own species best. At any rate, with all the lives she had saved and/or taken, she must have been getting close to finally achieving Balance.

After the Great War ended, Noct’s work slate dried up somewhat. But as she soon learned, humans were always keen to fight, and before she knew it the Russian Civil War had her back to working full time. (She at first worried that a war isolated within a single country wouldn’t provide her with much, but there were more than enough grisly battles to keep her occupied.)

One day as Noct was breaching fortifications at the city of Tsaritsyn, killing off the then-Evil forces of the White Army to allow Commander Blyukher’s men to secure the area, she noticed something strange: a compact group of armed combatants who fought both Red and White soldiers seeking to commandeer their location inside a warehouse. Curious, Noct approached, quickly neutralized the men with the guns, and addressed the one who appeared to be in charge:

“Greetings, human. I am Noct. I have traveled a great many realms in my time, though I fear this may be my last. Are you White scum?”

The man attempted to staunch the blood flow from an abdominal wound Noct had inflicted on him. “Do what you will, you mercenary fiend. But know that we are absolutely not dogs of the White Army.”

“Oh,” Noct said. “So you are with the Reds?”

“We do not take their orders either.”

“I do not understand. As far as I am aware, there are only two factions in this war. Who is it you are trying to kill? Everyone?”

“We want to kill no one! We are humanitarians, seeking to end this ceaseless bloodshed.” The Humanitarian made a sweeping motion with his arm to indicate all the occupied hospital gurneys strewn about. “We provide lifesaving care to casualties on the front lines. Each side would force us to let one half of our patients die, so we do not listen to either.”

“Sounds like a difficult task. Why do you do it?”

“Is it not obvious?” the Humanitarian asked. “We do it for the greater Good of humanity.”

“I see. These days, I just go around slaughtering whichever people are Evil at the time to do Good. I imagine we make a great team, don’t we? I cause wanton destruction in the name of Good, and you clean up the mess in the name of Good.” Noct smiled in satisfaction at this wonderful symbiosis.

The Humanitarian was shocked at the beast’s specious words. “The rumors, are they true? You do all that you do, going from battle to battle, slaughtering armies indiscriminately, because you honestly think it is Good?”

“I do not slaughter indiscriminately; it is very confusing, believe me, but I only slaughter people who are Evil at the moment. The generals always let me know who those people are.”

Sensing that he might not have the blood left in him to fully unravel this creature’s incoherent moral code, the Humanitarian tried to get to the heart of the matter: “You think you are doing Good for the human race? For all sides simultaneously?” he questioned. “Ask yourself this: Why is it that after all your effort, humanity is left worse off than it was before?”

Noct thought about it; she agreed, humanity as a whole did seem to suffer from the horrors of war. On the rare occasion she had reflected on it, though, she imagined it was despite her actions, not because of them. “So are you saying my deeds aren’t as Good as the generals told me they are? Why would they lie to me?”

“Trust me, anyone that willingly inflicts human suffering, let alone on such a large scale, is the very essence of Evil,” the Humanitarian inveighed. “To an extent, even the generals know this; they seek the Good, but only for the sake of their own people. Humans with differing conceptions of the Good will bring about the greatest Evil.”

Noct noticed the Humanitarian was slumped over, about to pass out from blood loss. She didn’t want him to die before he could fully explain this new paradigm of Good and Evil. “Tell me, how can I do the Good?”

The Humanitarian’s eyes shut. “You can’t trust humans to tell you, Noct, not even me. If we’re not manipulative, then we’re just plain ignorant. You have to think for yourself. Think for yourself how to alleviate the most suffering.” He breathed in a gasp of air and sputtered. “In this world, I promise you’ll never be lacking for opportunities to do just that…”

---

With each new human Noct conversed with, she felt as though she fell back into the pits of karmic debt right when she had almost finished climbing back out. With each new human Noct conversed with, she learned more of this enigmatic thing called morality, and it allowed her to put her previous misunderstandings into a new focus.

Noct immediately abandoned the service of the various world militaries, and devoted herself to humanitarianism. Entirely pacifistic, at that. Noct had to be sure this time that she was doing the Good, because she felt she had a little less than a century’s time left in this world; she could afford no more ideological setbacks.

To be extra sure, Noct made every effort this time around to converse with the humans, confirming that her deeds were well and truly Good for mankind. Refugee rescue operations during wartime. Demilitarization efforts during peacetime. Distribution of medical supplies to eradicate smallpox, with malaria and polio on the way. Counterterrorism and anti-poaching projects. Charity drives, disaster relief, mafia busting, environmental protection, anti-corruption… In everything that Noct did, humans worldwide assured her that she was most definitely doing Good.

That is, until the turn of the new millennium, when she met the Young Monk in a secluded African village.

“Greetings, human. I am Noct. I have traveled a great many realms in my time, though I fear this may be my last. Is there any suffering for your people that I might alleviate?”

“No, the suffering here is no more, Noct, thanks to you.”

“I am sad to hear that. As you may have heard, I have a debt to repay.” She conjured up a familiar list of hers out of thin air, reading off the catalogued numbers of the Evil deeds she had once committed. “How much Good would you estimate that I have performed by now, and how close am I to Balance?”

“I would agree with the calculations of all the others you have thus far asked, Noct, regarding the number of lives you have saved or bettered, compared to the number of lives you had once taken or ruined.” The Young Monk shook his head. “But you should know: I think you are no closer to Balance than the day you first arrived in our world.”

Noct felt offended. But most of all, she felt a well-known sense of dread returning. “What ever makes you say that?”

“You are helping humanity, there is no doubt about that. But do remind me: What is the first thing you said when I told you that you had eliminated the sufferings of my people?”

“I said I was sad, for I still have a debt to repay.” Just in case the human was confused, she added, “And I cannot do that, if there is no suffering left to relieve.”

“And do answer this: If I were the only thing standing in the way between you and Balance, would you slay me where I stand?”

“Of course I would.”

“So do speak honestly: If it meant the difference between perishing forever and being reborn, would you undo every last Good deed you ever did?”

“Yes, I would!”

“One last question: If there was even the slightest chance you might not achieve Balance, would you kill every last human on this planet in order to perish that chance?”

“I already told you I would!” Noct shouted. Could this human not understand the lengths she would go—has gone—in the name of Balance?

“Then I am afraid that the Good of your deeds, and therefore your Balance, is forfeit,” the Young Monk sighed. “The Goodness of an action lies not in its consequences, but in its intent. All your time in this world has been nothing but a costly transaction to you, an entirely selfish labor. A truly Good deed places the worth of another on an equal standard to its performer, or even higher.”

It was making sense. Why did it have to make sense!?. Noct sank deeper and deeper into despair as the separate contexts of her actions all fell into place. The Hunter, the Damsel, the Shipbuilder, the Humanitarian. All of them had invited her to perform deeds that would help them or others at the cost of her own time and energy. Were she selfless, she would have agreed to do them for its own sake. But since she was not, she did it only in pursuit of Balance. She lamented the lack of suffering, and did not rejoice in the abundance of happiness.

“Young Monk,” she pleaded, “there is no time left for me to repay my debt. I have at best a decade’s time left in this world. What should I do?”

He looked at her with pity in his eyes. “You are free to do whatever you want, Good or Evil, now that you are no longer bound by the yoke of Balance.”

---

After the Young Monk’s revelation, Noct fell into a seemingly endless depression. Endless, by the standards of a being who had watched millennia go by, and until recently thought herself immortal.

For a human, Noct mused, being fated to perish after a decade of healthy life might not be so bad a punishment. These beings were magnificent, she thought, if they could still bear to enjoy their lives under the unbearable weight of mortality. She didn’t deserve to outlive a single one of them.

When her melancholic stupor allowed her, when a small spark of optimism flickered inside her, she went out of her way to perform small, charitable acts for others. If she could not add years to her own life, it at least behooved her to add them to others’. For the first time in her life, Noct felt that perhaps she understood on a spiritual level that she was doing Good. Surely not in the hope of achieving Balance; that was long behind her now. The Evil acts she had committed, and even the supposedly Good deeds, sickened her.

Then, in the final hours of her existence on this plane, she once again encountered the Monk.

“Greetings, human. I have traveled a great many realms in my time, though this one is going to be my last. Will you teach me more about this thing you call Good?”

The Monk smiled at Noct in favor. “How about instead, I teach you a little more about Evil?”

“That is fine. The more I know about one, the more I am bound to know about the other.”

“As you have no doubt learned in your time here on Earth, Good and Evil are diametrically opposed to each other, yet they have much in common as well. Similar to Good, Evil finds its provenance not in the consequences of an act, but in its intent.”

“Evil intent is a result of selfishness, which seeks happiness only for oneself, and brings about suffering for all,” Noct responded listlessly.

“One must admit that a little bit of selfishness may not be a bad thing. Without positive regard for oneself, there would be no happiness, and no point in alleviating the suffering of others.”

“It does seem to be the natural order of things,” Noct agreed.

“The natural order of things, yes,” the Monk echoed. “Did you understand any of this, back in the days when you committed Evil?”

“No, absolutely not at all. If I had realized the profound anguish that I was causing, and the value of the life that I was destroying, I never would have tolerated one Evil deed. I would have plunged into a limitless debt of Good, and died with no regrets.”

“Then that means that all that time,” the Monk said, “you lived selfishly, but not in Evil; you simply could not see the true consequences of your actions, and you had no vile intent.”

Noct felt a flutter of hope in her chest, but met the Monk with jaded resistance: “You are simply getting my hopes up.”

“But it is true. You did not set your own worth above that of others; you did not even know that there were others, you did not even comprehend the category of grief that you could force others into, before you understood that grief yourself. Do you call a rock Evil for falling and cracking the skull of one below it? Do you call an unfeeling animal Evil for biting its owner when it is panicked? Do you call an immortal being Evil for extinguishing life when she knows not its value? No, it is simply the natural order of things.”

Joyous redemption coursed through Noct’s veins. “Do you mean that I am really able to achieve Balance and rebirth after all?”

“Yes, I am sure of it,” the Monk assured. “There is just one problem you have left, but I am happy to resolve it.”

“What could that be?”

“Up until last I met you, you had committed no Evil and no Good. But in the last decade, you have performed genuinely Good acts for the first time. I have been keeping track of them, and by now, they should be equivalent to the taking of one human life.”

Noct paused at length, taking in the gravity of the Monk’s offer. “Are you absolutely sure I can do this?”

The Monk nodded in consent.

“I promise you, wise Monk,” the great fox pledged, “the next life will be the last I ever live.”

With all the regret in the world, Noct plunged her claw through the Monk’s chest.