"Rise," Lencar commanded, his resonant voice echoing in the clearing. "Your mana has deepened. You have been training diligently."
The leader stood, the others following a second later. "We live to serve your will, Master. The purification of the corrupt demands strength."
"Give me your report," Lencar instructed, crossing his arms over his dark cloak. "Have there been any complications with the targets I designated?"
"None, Master," the leader answered mechanically. "We successfully infiltrated the estate of Baron Vane. As per your orders, we did not burn the manor to the ground. We circumvented his private guards using Smoke Magic, isolated the Baron in his study, and extracted the ledgers detailing his embezzlement from the local farming subsidies. We left the ledgers nailed to the front door of the local magistrate's office, and we left the Baron heavily bruised, bound, and gagged in the town square."
Lencar nodded approvingly. It was exactly the kind of targeted justice he wanted them executing. "Excellent. It sends a message without drawing the full, immediate wrath of the Magic Knight Captains. Was that your only engagement?"
The leader hesitated for a fraction of a second. "There was... an anomaly, Master. An unscheduled engagement that occurred a week ago during our patrol near the village of Oakhaven."
"Explain," Lencar ordered.
"We sought shelter in Oakhaven from a storm, and the villagers showed us kindness," the leader recounted, his tone steady. "The following night, the village was attacked. A single necromancer, utilizing a crude but numerous army of soul corpses, attempted to slaughter the residents."
Lencar's posture remained perfectly still, but beneath his mask, his eyebrows shot up. A necromancer? Soul corpses?
"We intervened," the leader continued, unaware of the internal shock he was causing his master. "The necromancer's creations were weak to sustained heat. We utilized our synchronized formations to vaporize his vanguard. He was... highly erratic. He ranted about his hatred for the Magic Knights and the Capital. He claimed an 'organization' sent him to build a zombie army to attack the noble realm."
Lencar's mind was racing at the speed of light. Rades Spirito. It had to be. Which meant the Eye of the Midnight Sun was already making their moves to harvest corpses for the canonical attack on the Royal Capital.
"Did you eliminate him?" Lencar asked, his voice carefully neutral.
"We attempted to," the leader replied, a hint of frustration bleeding into his voice. "We had him cornered. He was a coward who preyed on the weak, utterly unworthy of the purification he spoke of. However, before we could execute him, a second individual appeared. A spatial mage wearing a dark fabric mask. He opened a portal and extracted the necromancer before we could strike."
A spatial mage. Valtos.
Lencar stared at the disciplined, red-cloaked cultists standing around the campfire. The sheer, cosmic absurdity of the situation hit him like a physical blow.
He had taken a group of minor, fanatical thugs, brainwashed them into being his personal Robin Hood shock troopers, and let them loose on the borders. And by pure, random chance, these absolute goofballs had stumbled directly into the path of the primary antagonists of the entire series.
Not only had they stumbled into them, but they had utterly humiliated Rades, destroyed his canonical vanguard of zombies, and forced Valtos to flee. And they had done it all because an old lady in a barn gave them a bowl of soup.
For a long moment, the clearing was completely silent.
Then, a sound broke the quiet. It started as a low, deep rumble in Lencar's chest, vibrating through the enchantments of the wooden mask. The rumble grew louder, bubbling up into his throat, until Lencar Abarame threw his head back and genuinely, loudly laughed.
It was a rich, booming sound that completely shattered his terrifying, enigmatic aura. He couldn't help it. The irony was simply too delicious.
The Red Hoods stood perfectly still, exchanging entirely confused glances beneath their deep hoods. They had never heard their terrifying, god-like Master express anything remotely resembling humor.
Lencar finally reigned in his laughter, shaking his head slowly. "You drove them out of the village."
"Yes, Master," the leader confirmed, slightly unnerved. "Did we... err in our judgment? Should we have allowed the necromancer to proceed with his attack on the Capital?"
"No, no," Lencar chuckled, waving a hand dismissively. "You performed flawlessly. Protecting those who show kindness is exactly what you should do."
Lencar turned away from the fire, looking up at the starry sky above the tree line.
His mind was buzzing with the profound implications of what had just happened. This wasn't just a funny anecdote. This was a massive, unforeseen ripple in the timeline. Rades's zombie army was supposed to be the massive distraction that drew the Magic Knights away from the Eye of the Midnight Sun's true objectives during the Capital invasion.
Because of the Red Hoods, Rades had just lost a massive portion of his undead forces. His vanguard was crippled. The distraction would be significantly weaker. The Magic Knights in the Capital wouldn't be nearly as overwhelmed as they were supposed to be.
Lencar realized, with a thrilling, terrifying clarity, that his actions—even the minor ones, like subjugating a border cult—were fundamentally altering the fate of the Clover Kingdom. The butterfly effect was in full motion, and the ripples were crashing against the shores of destiny.
"The board isn't just moving," Lencar murmured to himself, a sharp, genuinely excited smile hidden beneath his wooden mask. "I'm kicking the pieces over."
He turned back to the Red Hood leader. "Maintain your patrols. Keep targeting the corrupt, and protect the soil. If you encounter the necromancer or his spatial mage again, engage with extreme prejudice. They are not our allies."
"Your will is our command, Master," the Red Hoods chorused, bowing once more.
With a final, amused shake of his head, Lencar opened a spatial portal, stepping back into the void, leaving his incredibly effective, entirely accidental heroes alone in the quiet forest.
Current Day
The afternoon sky over the town of Nairn was an unrelenting, bruised gray. A steady, cold drizzle had been falling since the early morning, turning the dirt roads into thick mud and keeping most of the townsfolk indoors, huddled around their hearths.
Inside the "Rusty Spoon," the atmosphere was entirely at odds with the dreary weather outside, though it was unusually quiet. The hearth fire crackled merrily, casting a warm, orange glow across the polished cedar tables, but the lunch rush had been practically non-existent. Only a handful of stubborn regulars occupied the corner booths, nursing warm mugs of spiced cider and talking in low, hushed tones.
In the kitchen, the lack of tickets meant a rare moment of downtime.
Lencar stood at his usual prep station, a large sack of onions resting beside his cutting board. His hands moved with a rhythmic, mesmerizing precision, the heavy chef's knife falling in rapid succession.
Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack. Perfectly uniform slices piled up on the wood. He wasn't using magic, nor was he tapping into the terrifying physical speed he used in combat; he was just leaning into the muscle memory of an honest day's work.