The black market never slept, but at this hour, it seemed to be holding its breath. The air in the tunnels was stagnant, thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and damp earth. Lencar moved through it like a rumor, his steps silent, his presence muted by the Concealment Magic he had integrated into his soul.
He found Jareth in his usual booth, though the informant looked worse for wear, nursing a swollen jaw—likely the result of a deal gone wrong.
"You again," Jareth grumbled, not bothering to look up. "I'm fresh out of high-value targets, kid. Unless you want to hunt sewer rats for copper pieces."
"I need a map," Lencar said, placing a silver coin on the table. "A detailed cartographic survey of the Clover Kingdom. Specifically, the topography between Nairn and the Forsaken Realm."
Jareth blinked, his one good eye scanning the masked figure. "The Forsaken Realm? Why? There's nothing out there but potatoes and disappointment. No bounties, no loot."
"I have a personal errand," Lencar replied, his voice flat. "Do you have the map or not?"
Jareth sighed, reaching into a satchel beneath his stool. He pulled out a rolled parchment, the edges frayed and stained with wine. "This is old, but the mountains haven't moved in a hundred years. It'll cost you."
Lencar didn't haggle. He dropped two more coins, snatched the map, and vanished back into the shadows before Jareth could count the money.
Back on the surface, Lencar found a secluded rooftop on the outskirts of Nairn. The mist was already gathering, a precursor to the unnatural weather plaguing the north. He unrolled the map, weighting the corners with loose stones.
His finger traced the line from Nairn to Sosshi Village.
Distance: Approximately 120 kilometers.
Terrain: Mountainous, dense forest.
"Too far to walk," Lencar muttered. "And too far for a single jump."
He closed his eyes, visualizing the geometry of the world. His Spatial Magic, harvested from Silas of the Red Clay Bandits and refined through his study of Finral's technique, was his greatest asset. But it had limits. He wasn't Langris Vaude; he couldn't erase space effortlessly. Every kilometer traveled exacted a tax on his mana reserves.
"I can jump forty kilometers at maximum output before risking instability," Lencar calculated. "Three jumps. With recovery intervals."
He stood up, the wind whipping his cloak around his legs. He wasn't doing this for money. He wasn't doing this for fame. He was doing this because he knew the script, and he knew that without intervention, people would suffer unnecessarily. Or perhaps, more selfishly, because he needed the Ice and Mist magic that awaited him.
"Jump One."
He raised his hand. The air didn't tear; it folded.
[Spatial Magic]: [Long-Range Coordinate Shift]
The world twisted into a gray smear. The sensation was nauseating—like being pulled through a straw from the inside out.
POP.
Lencar stumbled onto a snowy ridge, forty kilometers north. The air was thinner here, biting at his lungs. He checked his internal mana gauge. The jump had consumed nearly 70% of his reserves.
"Inefficient," he gasped, leaning against a pine tree. "I need more capacity."
He sat in the snow, assuming a meditative posture. He didn't have time to sleep. He used his strong spirit and his control over mana to draw ambient mana from the environment, forcing it into his core. It was a slow, grinding process, like filling a bucket with a teaspoon.
Twenty minutes passed. His breath leveled out.
"Jump Two."
He stood up and warped again.
This time, he landed in a dense valley. The trees were taller, the shadows longer. He could feel the ambient mana in the air changing—it was getting colder, sharper.
He rested again, eating a strip of dried meat to keep his physical stamina up. He checked his pocket watch—a cheap iron thing he had bought in Nairn.
Time: 09:15 AM.
"The mission starts soon," Lencar whispered. "Asta and the Bulls are likely already en route on their brooms. Or rather, Magna's broom."
He prepared for the final jump.
[Spatial Magic]: [Coordinate Shift]
He reappeared on a cliff edge overlooking a valley.
Below him lay Sosshi Village. Or what should have been the village.
Instead, he saw a white ocean.
A thick, unnatural mist blanketed the entire valley floor. It wasn't drifting; it was stagnant, heavy, and oppressive. It swallowed the houses, the trees, and the sound.
Lencar stood on the precipice, looking down. He could feel the mana radiating from that fog. It wasn't weather. It was a spell.
"Mist Magic," Lencar analyzed, feeling a hunger in his gut. "The ultimate stealth attribute. If I had that... combined with my Assassin skills... I would be untraceable."
He checked his gear. His mask was tight. His cloak was secure. His grimoire was ready.
He didn't charge in. The mist was a trap. If he walked in blindly, he would be disoriented.
"I need to beat them at their own game."
Lencar accessed his spell library. He pulled the thread of Illusion Magic he had harvested from Madame Vex. He wove it together with the Wind Magic (to control the air around him) and Concealment Magic (to hide his mana signature).
[Composite Magic]: [Phantom Walker]
His body didn't just turn invisible. The light bent around him perfectly. He became a lens, allowing the background to pass through him without distortion. To the naked eye, he was gone. To mana sensing, he was a void—a patch of dead air.
He leaped from the cliff.
He used [Wind Magic]: [Feather Fall] to descend silently into the white abyss.
As he entered the mist, his vision went white. He couldn't see his hand in front of his face. The mist was damp and cloying, sticking to his skin like cold sweat.
Sensory Deprivation.
"They use this to confuse the villagers," Lencar thought. "To separate them. To make them feel alone."
But Lencar wasn't alone. He had the souls of ten bandits and five rogues inside him.
He closed his physical eyes. He expanded his senses using illusion magic—a technique he created based on ki used by Yami Sukehiro.
He felt the pulses of mana in the fog.
There.
To the east, a cluster of weak, terrified heartbeats. The villagers.
And standing over them, four distinct, cold signatures.
The Eye of the Midnight Sun.
Lencar moved. He didn't run; he glided. His Illusion magic tricked the mist itself, making him pass through it without creating a wake. He was a ghost haunting a graveyard.
He broke through the dense wall of fog and entered a clearing near the village square.
The scene was exactly as he remembered from the story, but seeing it in person carried a weight that ink and paper never could.
Dozens of villagers were huddled together in the mud. Men, women, children. They were trembling, their eyes wide with a terror so primal it smelled like copper.
Standing over them were the executioners.
There were four of them.
Three subordinates wore long, hooded robes that draped to the ground, hiding their figures completely. They stood like statues, wands drawn, radiating malice.
And in the center stood the leader.
Heath Grice.
He was a striking, terrifying figure. He wore a dark, form-fitting jumpsuit beneath a light-colored tunic that stopped at his knees. A short cape covered his chest, the circular ornaments on the hem glinting in the dull light. A hood shadowed his face, but Lencar could see the scar running down his cheek—a mark of his fanaticism.
Heath was looking at a silver pocket watch in his hand. His expression was one of supreme, bored detachment.
"It is 09:42 and 15 seconds," Heath said. His voice was smooth, cultured, and utterly devoid of empathy. "We are behind schedule."
"P-Please!" an old man—the Village Chief, Seihi—stepped forward, his hands shaking. "Who are you people? What do you want with us? We have no money! We are just farmers!"
Heath didn't look at the chief. He looked at his watch.
"You are beasts," Heath stated simply, as if identifying a species of insect. "Beasts do not need to know the reasons of men. You only need to know your end."
"Why?!" Seihi cried, tears streaming down his face. "We are citizens of the Clover Kingdom! The Magic Knights will come!"
"The Magic Knights?" Heath finally looked up. His eyes were cold, pale blue chips of ice. "They care nothing for the Forsaken Realm. To them, you are livestock. And to us... you are merely an obstacle to be cleared."
Heath raised a hand. The air temperature plummeted twenty degrees in a second. Lencar, hidden twenty meters away behind a water trough, saw his breath mist in front of his invisible face.
[Ice Magic]: [Icicle Barbs]
Above the huddled villagers, the moisture in the air froze instantly. Hundreds of jagged, razor-sharp ice shards materialized, hanging like the sword of Damocles.
"I have allocated ten seconds for your execution," Heath said, checking his watch again. "Three... two..."
The villagers screamed. Mothers threw themselves over their children. Seihi closed his eyes, praying to a God that seemed to have abandoned them.
Lencar watched.
His hand twitched toward his grimoire.
Calculation: If I attack now, I reveal my position. I lose the element of surprise. I lose the chance to harvest them easily.
Counter-Calculation: If I don't attack, forty people die in the next second.
Lencar wasn't a hero. He was a heretic. But he had lived with Rebecca. He had told stories to children. He knew the value of a life lived in the mud.
"Damn it," Lencar whispered.
He sensed something else.
Far above the mist, piercing through the cloud layer like a comet, a chaotic, loud, and incredibly violent energy was descending.
Asta.
And beside him, a hot, roaring mana signature. Magna.
"They're here," Lencar realized. "But they're too slow. The ice will hit before they land."
"One," Heath finished his count. He snapped his fingers.
The ice shards fell.
Lencar moved.