When they finally arrived back at the familiar wooden door of the house, Rebecca unlocked it and practically shoved Lencar inside. The house was quiet; the children were likely still asleep, exhausted from the late-night storytime.
Lencar leaned against the wall in the hallway, letting out a long, shuddering sigh of feigned exhaustion. He looked down at Rebecca, who was already pulling off her cloak and heading toward the kitchen.
"Rebecca," Lencar called out softly, his voice rasping against the linen mask.
She stopped and turned back to him, her expression softening. "Yes, Lencar? Do you need some water right now?"
"No, I'll be fine," Lencar replied. He took a step toward his bedroom door, pausing with his hand on the iron latch. "I just wanted to say thank you. For walking with me, and for putting up with all of this. I know I've been a burden."
"Don't be ridiculous," she scolded him gently. "You're family, Lencar. You'd do the same for us in a heartbeat."
Lencar felt a quiet, profound ache in his chest at the word family. It made the deception sting just a bit more, but it also hardened his resolve. He was stepping into a war zone today to ensure that the flames of the Royal Capital never reached this quiet town.
"I'm going to follow Brother Aris's advice strictly," Lencar told her, his tone turning serious. "I don't want to risk passing this to Marco, Luca, or the baby. I'm going to go into my room and lock the door. Please, for your own safety, do not come inside."
Rebecca frowned, her protective instincts warring with the healer's strict instructions. "But how are you going to eat? How are you going to get your medicine?"
"Just leave the food and the tea at the door," Lencar instructed, giving her a weak, reassuring nod. "Knock twice when you set it down. I'll crack the door open and grab it once you've stepped back. For now, I just need to lie down in the dark and sleep. I'll stay in the room and rest."
Rebecca stared at him for a long moment, clearly hating the idea of him suffering alone behind a locked door, but the logic was undeniable. The children's safety had to come first.
"Alright," Rebecca finally agreed, letting out a defeated sigh. "I'll go put the kettle on and make you some breakfast, and then I'll wake the kids up. Get in bed, Lencar. Yell if it gets too hard to breathe."
"I will. Thank you, Rebecca," he said softly.
He pushed the heavy wooden door open, stepped into his dark, quiet bedroom, and pulled the door shut behind him.
Click.
He slid the iron deadbolt into place.
The instant the lock engaged, the slouching, sickly demeanor of the exhausted prep cook completely evaporated. Lencar stood up straight, his broad shoulders squaring, his eyes sharpening into the cold, calculated focus of a predator preparing for a hunt. The time for acting was over. It was time for execution.
He moved quickly and silently to the center of the room. He raised his right hand, channeling a brief pulse of mana into the silver spatial ring on his index finger.
The air shimmered, a small, dark void opening before him.
Lencar reached into the spatial dimension and grasped the heavy, solid mass he had stored there precisely for this moment. With a smooth pull, he dragged the life-sized wooden puppet out of the void.
It was exactly as he had shaped it the night before—a dense, interwoven mass of thick, heavy vines that perfectly matched his own height and physical dimensions. The vines were still biologically active, radiating that crucial, faint organic warmth.
He laid the heavy wooden figure onto the mattress, arranging it so it looked like a man curled comfortably on his side, seeking warmth.
Next, Lencar quickly unbuttoned the simple, sweat-dampened tunic he had been wearing all morning. He pulled it off, along with his trousers, and meticulously dressed the wooden puppet in his own clothes. The fabric carried his scent, further cementing the physical reality of the decoy in case the illusion somehow faltered. He pulled the heavy woolen quilt up, tucking it snugly around the puppet's wooden shoulders, ensuring the featureless, vine-woven head rested perfectly against the center of the feather pillow.
From the spatial ring, Lencar retrieved the small, polished recording stone.
He didn't just tuck it into the blankets this time. He carefully wedged the stone deep into the central mass of the vines, right where the "chest" of the puppet was. He pulsed a tiny spark of mana into the artifact.
Immediately, the quiet room was filled with the harsh, ragged sound of his own recorded coughing and miserable, congested breathing.
But Lencar needed to ensure the pattern of the sound was entirely believable. If he just played a continuous loop of endless coughing from the moment he locked the door, Rebecca would grow suspicious and likely try to break the door down out of sheer panic. He needed the audio to reflect a sick man slowly succumbing to exhaustion and falling into a restless sleep.
He tapped the runic interface on the side of the stone, engaging a basic timing sequence he had programmed the night before. He set the artifact to trigger the harsh coughing loop every three minutes for the next half an hour. After that initial thirty-minute period, the artifact would automatically transition to a much quieter, steady loop of heavy, congested breathing, simulating deep sleep.
Cough, hack, wheeze. The sound echoed perfectly from the bed.
Lencar stepped back to the door, placing his ear against the wood. The acoustics were flawless. Anyone standing in the hallway would hear exactly what they expected to hear.
The physical framework was set. Now, for the final touch.
Lencar raised his hands, weaving the familiar, iridescent strands of Illusion Magic. He cast the spell over the bed, watching as the dense wooden vines vanished, replaced by the perfect, high-definition visual of his own pale, sweating face resting on the pillow. He tied the illusion to the ambient movement of the room, programming the blankets to rise and fall in a slow, rhythmic cadence that perfectly matched the audio coming from the recording stone.
The alibi was absolute. Lencar Abarame was sick in bed, quarantined and accounted for.
Lencar turned his back on the bed.
He reached into the spatial ring one last time. He pulled out the heavy, light-absorbing black traveling cloak, swinging it over his broad shoulders and fastening the clasp tightly at his throat. He retrieved the featureless wooden mask, lifting it and pressing it firmly against his face.
He felt the familiar hum of the enchantments locking into his mana signature. The transformation was complete.
Lencar raised his right hand, extending his index and middle fingers. He focused his mind, bypassing the chaotic noise of the world outside, and locked onto a very specific set of spatial coordinates he had memorized weeks ago during his initial arrival in the Clover Kingdom.
He targeted a secluded, forested ridge overlooking the sprawling, magnificent architecture of the Royal Capital.
"Spatial Magic: Void Step," Lencar commanded, his voice muffled and distorted by the wooden mask.
The dark purple vortex tore open the fabric of reality in the center of his small bedroom. Without a backward glance at the flawless illusion sleeping in his bed, Lencar stepped forward, allowing the darkness to swallow him whole as he plunged headfirst into the impending war.