Lenna's eyes were wide, her mind a whirlwind of pure, logical paradox.
How?
Her thoughts spun, trying to reconcile a reality that was rewriting itself every few seconds. I followed him from the city. I watched him enter the cave. I was observing the decoy in the tunnel, the man I 'saved'. But the real one was here, behind the wolf, the entire time? How did he just... disappear from my senses, while his duplicate was fighting? How?
The man she had been watching, the one who was bleeding and exhausted, was a lie. The fight itself was a lie. Her own senses, honed for centuries, were a lie. Her composure finally shattered.
"What the HELL is your power?!" she finally yelled, her voice echoing in the stone cavern, all pretense of scholarly calm gone. "How could you be gone from my senses, while your duplicate was fighting right down there?! HOW?!"
Lenna's furious, desperate questions hung in the air, but Hayato completely ignored them. He looked from her enraged face to the two halves of the dead Storm Wolf, his expression shifting to one of detached, practical interest.
"This wolf," he said, his voice calm, completely derailing her tirade. "What parts does the Guild want? For the subjugation proof."
Lenna blinked, her anger and confusion momentarily short-circuited by the question. She took a deep, calming breath, trying to regain her composure. "The horn is the primary proof, and sometimes... sometimes they form a Fulgur Gem inside their chest, near the heart. But it's rare."
Hayato nodded. "Right. Already got the horn," he said, patting the satchel at his hip. He then walked past her to the middle of the cavern, approaching the two halves of the massive beast.
As he got closer, a foul, coppery smell hit him. He pinched his nose, his face twisting in disgust. "This stinks so bad."
Pinching his nose tightly, Hayato used the tip of his dagger to probe the inside of the wolf's chest cavity. After a moment of grim work, the blade hit something hard.
He pried it loose and held it up. It was a crystal, the size of his fist, so dark a black that it seemed to drink the light, with a faint blue spark pulsing in its core.
He pointed it at Lenna. "Is this it?" his voice came out nasally.
She nodded, her eyes fixed on the gem. "A Fulgur Gem. The old texts say that if a person consumes one, they can absorb a fragment of the creature's power. Though the exact results are... unpredictable."
Hayato just gave a curt nod, wiped the gore from the crystal onto the wolf's hide, and carefully placed it in his satchel. The task was complete.
Seeing him put the gem away, Lenna's focus snapped back to the greater mystery. The immediate mission was over, but her questions remained. "Hayato, you never answered me before."
She looked at him, her gaze piercing. "How does your power actually work? The duplicate you create... it ignores all the known laws of magic. It has no flaws. How?"
Hayato looked at her, his expression unreadable. "If I tell you the real truth, a truth that sounds even more impossible than what you've already seen, will you stop believing me?"
Lenna was confused by the question but shook her head. "If you are honest, I will believe you. I am a scholar. I seek knowledge, no matter how strange."
He seemed to accept that. He walked over to the bisected wolf, took out his dagger, and began the grim, practical work of slicing a manageable cut of meat from the massive thigh. He didn't look at her as he spoke, his voice calm and even over the sound of his work.
"My power is called 'Perfect Illusion', i can project them over a very wide area. The effective range is at least five kilometers, based on my own estimates."
He paused his cutting and finally looked at her. "The 'Hayato' you followed from the city this morning was an illusion. The one who fought the wolf was an illusion. The one you 'saved' in the tunnel... was also an illusion."
He then delivered the final, impossible truth. "While all of that was happening, the real me was sitting at a food stall near the city gate. That's when I first saw you, hiding in the shadows of the Guild, watching my duplicate. You've been following a ghost all day."
Lenna stood frozen, the half-butchered wolf and the man working on it seeming to warp before her eyes.
He was at the city gate, her mind whispered. The entire time. A flawless, combat-capable duplicate, controlled from five kilometers away...
The scale of such a power was beyond the scope of any magic she had ever studied. It wasn't the art of an adventurer; it was the casual, terrifying feat of a god.
Then, his words replayed in her mind, hitting her with the force of a physical blow.
"I saw you, hiding in the shadows of the Guild, watching my duplicate."
A cold dread, deeper and more absolute than any she had ever felt, washed over her. Her cleverness, her suppressed presence, her centuries of skill in observation it had all been a pointless game. He had known she was there from the very beginning.
The final, horrifying truth clicked into place, shattering her entire perception of the day.
She finally realized what had truly happened. All this time, she hadn't been following him.
He had been following her.
Lenna stood frozen, grappling with the scale of his deception. The real Hayato finished wrapping the cut of meat and then unhooked a simple bamboo water canteen from his satchel.
He tossed it gently to her. Lenna caught it out of sheer reflex, her movements stiff and robotic.
"You look like you need a drink. It's important to stay hydrated." He gave her a small, unreadable smile. "And also, thank you for making this easy."
Lenna could only stare at him, confused.
He then revealed the final, crushing layer of his plan. "The whole performance... the struggling duplicate, the backlash that 'injured' the decoy in the tunnel. It was all a bit dramatic, don't you think?"
He looked her directly in the eyes, his expression now completely cold and analytical. "I was waiting, Lenna. I was standing invisibly right beside you on that ledge the entire time. The decoy's near-defeat was a calculated test. I needed to see if you would be willing to help."
The full weight of the deception, of being a pawn in a test she didn't even know she was taking, finally hit Lenna. She stumbled back and sank onto a nearby rock, the bamboo canteen still clutched in her hand. A slow, quiet laugh escaped her lips—a sound not of humor, but of a mind that had been pushed past its breaking point.
"I just... don't understand," she whispered, shaking her head. "I was trying to reconcile it all in my head, but it's impossible."
She looked up at Hayato. "All the book texts are clear. A high-level illusion, one that can completely fool the senses of a target... it requires direct eye contact to establish a connection. That is the fundamental rule."
Hayato walked over and sat on a rock across from her, the bloody wolf corpse between them. "I don't know anything about those rules. I'm just learning as I go."
He looked at her, his expression plain and factual. "My power isn't based on eye contact. It's just range. If I know a location is within about five kilometers, I can project an illusion there. That's all there is to it."
Lenna processed his words, her mind trying to build a framework for a power that operated on a scale she'd only read about in myths.
"A five-kilometer range... And you still maintain that you have no mana? Or are you simply hiding it from me?"
"No, i'm not hiding anything. The ring was correct. I don't have any mana. None at all."
His answer only deepened the impossible nature of it all. Lenna looked at him, her expression now a mixture of awe and deep, unsettling paranoia. "Then... the man I'm talking to right now, is it actually you? The real you?"
Hayato offered a small, tired smile, understanding the root of her fear. "Yes, this is me. I know you're probably still paranoid, and I don't blame you." He reached over, took the bamboo canteen from her unresisting hand, and took a long drink of water. "But yes. This is the real me."
Lenna watched him take a drink, her mind finally accepting the immediate reality of the situation. Then her tome and a quill materialized in the air before her, hovering over her lap.
"Fascinating," she murmured, already beginning to write. "Let's codify this. The duplicates. Is there a limit to how many you can project simultaneously?"
Hayato looked at the magical book, then back at her. He had decided to trust her with the core truth, but he would not be handing over the entire operational manual. The backlash he'd felt was a critical vulnerability, a weakness he couldn't afford to share.
"Like I said, I can create many, the fight with the Orcs is a good example of the scale."
"And the range," she pressed on, her quill scratching silently on the page. "Is five kilometers a hard limit, or does the integrity of the illusion degrade over distance?"
"It's my current working estimate, i haven't had a chance to test the absolute limits."
He was stonewalling her, and she knew it. He was only repeating the same few, incredible facts, refusing to elaborate on the finer details, especially any costs or weaknesses.
***
They walked in silence for a long time, leaving the dark mountain behind them. The sun began to set, painting the sky in strokes of orange and purple.
It was Lenna who finally broke the quiet, her mind still trying to place him within the known rules of the world.
"Your power is so refined, your control is absolute. where were you born? Is it some regional art? Or is it your heritage? A mix-blood, perhaps? Does your family have a history with illusion magic?"
Hayato, walking a few steps ahead, didn't even turn around. "No," he said, his voice flat and final.
The single word was so blunt it made Lenna stop in her tracks. "What do you mean, 'no'?" she called out, confused.
Hayato stopped too, a short distance ahead. He looked back at her over his shoulder, his face partially obscured by the shadow of the setting sun. "I mean no to all of it, no special birthplace, no unique family, no magical heritage." He paused, then delivered the final, simple truth.
"I'm no one."
The moment the words hit her, the world seemed to warp. For a terrifying second, the simple silhouette of the man before her was overlaid with another taller, broader, a figure of cold authority from a memory of ice and betrayal. The air was stolen from her lungs. She stumbled back a step, squeezing her eyes shut, blinking rapidly to clear the phantom image.
When she looked again, it was just Hayato, staring at her with a confused expression.
"Did you... Did you just use your illusion on me?" she whispered, her voice shaking.
He looked genuinely bewildered. "No… What ilussion?"
It was a factual denial, and her senses, though shaken, confirmed it was true. But the words, and the cold, empty tone he'd used... it was a perfect match for a memory she thought she had buried. It was like a ghost had spoken with his voice.
To Be Continued.