The silence at the campsite held for a heartbeat, stretched taut by the sheer audacity of the intruder. The firelight danced across Lencar's wooden mask, casting shadows that made the simple carving look like a skull.
Then, the silence snapped.
"Kill him!" the Leader roared, his hand flaring with red, erratic mana.
The bandits scrambled up, abandoning their half-eaten chickens and wine skins. They were uncoordinated, drunk on victory and cheap alcohol, but they were dangerous simply by numbers. Twelve mages against one was a math problem that usually ended in a crater.
"Fire Magic: Crimson Bullet!"
"Ash Magic: Choking Cloud!"
"Sword Magic: Rusty Cleaver!"
Spells flew at Lencar from all directions. It was a barrage of chaotic, lethal energy—a storm of heat and sharp steel designed to overwhelm.
Lencar didn't move to draw the sword on his back. He didn't even raise a shield. He watched the trajectories with the cold, analytical eye of a man who had spent hours calculating wind resistance in the Vermillion Belt.
"Sloppy," Lencar thought " They have no formation. No overlapping fields of fire. They're just throwing things and hoping they strike."
He moved.
[Wind Magic]: [Gale Step]
He vanished from the impact zone a split second before the spells hit. The ground where he had been standing exploded in a shower of dirt and embers, but the target was gone.
"Where did he go?!" one of the bandits screamed, spinning around wildly.
He dropped from the air, using [Mist Magic]: [Silent Veil] to dampen the sound of his landing. He appeared right in the center of their formation.
[Chain Magic]: [Binding Serpent]
This was the spell he had acquired weeks ago from a rogue bandit who used a derivative of Revchi's magic. It wasn't as overwhelming as the original Saliss chain magic that bound Yuno, but in Lencar's hands, fueled by his dense, Stage 4 mana capacity, it was terrifyingly effective.
Countless steel chains erupted from the ground beneath the bandits' feet. They moved like living vipers, seeking ankles, wrists, and throats.
"Gah! Get off!"
"My magic! It's—"
The chains wrapped tight. The moment the metal touched their skin, the suppression seals etched into the links activated. The bandits' mana flow was disrupted instantly. Their fireballs fizzled out. Their ash clouds dissipated.
"You're making too much noise," Lencar said calmly.
He walked toward the nearest bandit—a burly man trying to gnaw through the steel links.
Lencar didn't use a spell. He used a simple, mana-reinforced punch to the carotid artery.
Thud.
The bandit's eyes rolled back, and he slumped forward, unconscious.
Lencar moved to the next one. It was a rhythmic, brutal efficiency. He ducked under a desperate headbutt from a trapped bandit and delivered a swift knee to the solar plexus, followed by a chop to the neck.
Thud.
"Stop him!" the Leader screamed, struggling against the chains binding his arms to his torso. "Do something!"
But they couldn't. Without their magic, they were just drunks in the woods. Lencar moved through them like a phantom, silencing them one by one. There was no malice in his strikes, only geometry. He hit the exact spots needed to shut down the brain without causing permanent damage.
Within two minutes, eleven bandits were piled on the ground, snoring or groaning in deep unconsciousness.
Only the Leader remained awake. He was on his knees, bound so tightly he could barely breathe. He watched Lencar approach, his eyes wide with the primal fear of a predator who realized he was actually prey.
"You..." the Leader stammered, sweat pouring down his face. "You're a Magic Knight Captain? No... a Captain wouldn't be this quiet. Who are you?"
Lencar stood over him. The firelight reflected in the dark lenses of his mask.
"Sleep," Lencar said.
He tapped the Leader's forehead with two fingers. A small pulse of [Shock Magic]—a minor trick—sent the man into oblivion.
The campsite was silent now. Twelve men, bound and unconscious.
Lencar let out a long breath, checking his perimeter. No witnesses. The forest was quiet.
"Phase Two," Lencar whispered to himself.
He walked over to the first unconscious bandit. He crouched down and picked up the man's grimoire. It was a greasy, dog-eared book filled with low-level fire spells.
Lencar summoned his own grimoire. It floated beside him, the pages fluttering in the night breeze.
He placed the bandit's grimoire on top of his own.
[Replica Magic]: [Absolute Replication]
The air hummed. A golden light flared between the two books.
It was a sensation Lencar had grown used to, but it never lost its intensity. It felt like drinking a cold glass of water on a hot day, but the water was power. He felt the bandit's Soul Gem—a small, flickering ember of Fire Magic—being ripped from the unconscious body.
The bandit's body twitched once, instinctively reacting to the severance, but the chains held him steady.
Then, the bandit's grimoire began to flake away. It turned grey, then white, and finally dissolved into fine dust that drifted away on the wind.
The bandit was now a "Husk." Powerless. Empty.
Lencar moved down the line.
Harvest. Dust. Harvest. Dust.
He worked with the dispassionate speed of an assembly line worker. He absorbed Ash Magic, Smoke Magic, Sword Magic, and generic Fire Magic. With every soul he took, his own mana capacity swelled slightly, the new Soul Gems orbiting in his inner world.
When he reached the Leader, he paused. The man's grimoire was thicker, the mana denser.
"You have potential," Lencar murmured.
He harvested the Leader. The Ash Magic Soul Gem was sharp and grey, pulsing with destructive intent.
Now, the campsite was filled with twelve empty shells. If Lencar left them here, they would wake up (eventually) as civilians. They would be confused, weak, and likely die in the woods.
But Lencar didn't want corpses. He wanted employees.
He sat on the log by the fire. He opened his grimoire to the back pages.
He grabbed a handful of blank parchment. Riiiip.
He tore out twelve pages.
He laid them out on the ground in a neat circle.
[Replica Magic]: [Reverse Replication]
"Mass Production."
Lencar closed his eyes. He reached into his inner library. He grabbed the twelve new Soul Gems he had just harvested.
He channeled them.
He poured the energy back out, directing it into the twelve torn pages.
The reaction was silent but spectacular. The pages glowed with a soft, golden luminescence. They lifted into the air, spinning slowly. As they spun, they began to change.
The paper thickened, turning into leather and bound hide. The edges darkened. Ink bled onto the surfaces, rewriting the spells that had just been destroyed.
In less than a minute, twelve grimoires fell gently onto the grass.
To the naked eye, they looked identical to the ones that had been destroyed. They had the same covers, the same stains, the same weight.
But Lencar could see the truth. Thin, invisible threads of golden mana connected each book to his own chest.
"Good" Lencar whispered.
He stood up and walked among the bodies. He placed the corresponding grimoire onto the chest of each bandit.
The moment the books touched their owners, the connection snapped into place. The "Lease" was active. The bandits' bodies, which had started to look slightly pale and grey from the soul extraction, flushed with color again. The mana—Lencar's mana—flooded their systems, stabilizing their life signs.
Lencar canceled the Chain Magic. The steel links dissolved into light.
He stood in the center of the camp, arms crossed, waiting.
He switched his attribute.
[Plant Magic]: [Pollen of Awakening]
He blew a handful of sparkling green dust over the group.
One by one, the Red Hoods groaned. They shifted. They coughed.
The Leader was the first to sit up. He gasped, clutching his chest as if waking from a nightmare where he had fallen from a great height.
"Gah!" He looked around wildly. "What... what happened?"
He saw his men stirring around him. He saw the fire crackling.
And then he saw the figure in the black cloak standing over them like a gargoyle.
"You!" The Leader scrambled backward, crab-walking away until his back hit a tree. "Stay back!"
The other bandits woke up to his scream. They saw Lencar and froze. The memory of the fight—of being dismantled in seconds, of the chains, of the darkness—came flooding back.
"Please!" one of the younger bandits cried out, curling into a ball. "Don't kill us! We surrender!"
"We have gold!" another shouted, pointing to their loot pile. "Take the silver! Take the food! Just let us go!"
They were terrified. In the Clover Kingdom, the penalty for banditry was usually execution or life in the dungeon. And for someone strong enough to beat twelve mages without a scratch... they expected no mercy.
The Leader looked down at his chest. He saw his grimoire. He grabbed it instinctively. He felt the mana inside it.
I... I still have my magic? he thought, confused. He didn't cripple us?
He looked up at Lencar, his eyes filled with fear and bewilderment.
"Why..." the Leader croaked, his voice trembling. "Why are we alive? You could have killed us while we slept."
Lencar took a step forward. The bandits flinched as one.
"I don't want your gold," Lencar said. His voice was calm, lacking the bloodlust they expected. "And I don't want your lives. Killing you is a waste of energy. And putting you in a cell is a waste of potential."
He gestured to the surrounding woods.
"You are surprisingly organized for fanatics," Lencar observed. "You move well. You cover your tracks. You have discipline, even if your aim is terrible."
The Leader blinked. "What?"
"I have a use for people with flexible morals," Lencar continued. "People who live outside the law."
He looked at each of them in turn.
"I am offering you a job."
The silence that followed was heavy. The bandits looked at each other, then back at Lencar.
"A... a job?" the Leader asked, dumbfounded.
"You keep your lives," Lencar said. "You keep your magic. You keep your freedom to roam the woods. But from tonight on, you don't burn what you want. You burn what I tell you to burn."
Lencar leaned in, the mask looming over them.
"You become my subordinates. You target the corrupt nobles I designate. You gather intel on the borders. And in exchange... I don't finish what I started tonight."
The Leader swallowed hard. He looked at his grimoire again. He felt the power humming there. He looked at his men. They were alive. They weren't bleeding.
This monster had spared them.
"You... you want us to work for you?" the Leader asked, his voice shaking. "That's it? You're not taking us to the Magic Knights?"
"I don't work with Magic Knights," Lencar scoffed. "I prefer direct action."
The Leader took a deep breath. He was a bandit. He understood power dynamics. When a wolf has its jaws around your throat and offers to let go, you don't argue. You thank the wolf.
Slowly, shakily, the Leader got to his knees. He placed his forehead on the dirt.
"We accept," the Leader said, his voice cracking. "My name is Pyre. The Red Hoods... we are yours. Just tell us what to do."
The other bandits, seeing their leader submit, quickly followed suit. They bowed, pressing their faces to the earth.
"We accept!"
"Thank you! Thank you for sparing us!"
"We'll do anything!"
They were shaking, terrified, and completely broken.
Lencar looked down at them. He didn't smile. He didn't gloat. He didn't tell them that their souls were currently orbiting inside his chest, or that he could turn off their magic with a snap of his fingers.
He didn't need to. Ignorance was a powerful chain. As long as they believed they were serving a powerful master out of gratitude and fear, they would be loyal.
"Good," Lencar said. "Get up."
The bandits scrambled to their feet, dusting themselves off, looking at him with the wide eyes of children looking at a strict father.
"Pack up this camp," Lencar ordered. "You're too close to the village. Move ten miles east, near the river. I'll find you when I have your first assignment."
"Yes, sir!" Pyre shouted, snapping a salute that was surprisingly sharp.
"And Pyre?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Lose the red cloaks," Lencar said, turning away and fading into the shadows of the trees. "They make you look like targets."
"Right away, sir! We'll burn them!"
Then Lencar tapped the shoulder of Pyre and marked him using the [The Far-Speaker Mirror] through the ring on his finger.
And from now on Lencar can see what Pyre sees and hear what Pyre hears and also contact him through it.
Then Lencar decides it's time to depart.
Lencar didn't look back. He walked into the darkness, listening to the frantic sounds of his new army obeying his first command.
He had expected resistance. He had expected to have to demonstrate more force. But fear was a universal language, and Lencar was becoming fluent.
He checked the time. If he hurried, he could be back in his bed before Rebecca woke up to start the bread.