The first few days passed without much conversation.
Lencar worked, ate, and slept as if following an internal schedule. Rebecca started to get used to the rhythm — the sound of him waking before dawn, the low scrape of a knife cutting dough, the way he never asked for more than what he was given.
He was a strange guest, but a useful one.
And for a small bakery in Nairn Village, useful mattered more than normal.
Morning Silence
"Lencar," Rebecca said, standing behind the counter, "you forgot to dust the top shelf yesterday."
"I didn't forget," he said without looking up. "You were still baking. I didn't want the flour falling on the trays."
She blinked, surprised. "Oh… right. Good thinking."
He didn't reply, just kept arranging the loaves with mechanical precision. Each loaf was identical in spacing, each shelf lined perfectly. She found herself watching him, then quickly turned away, annoyed that she even noticed.
Her youngest sister, Milly, giggled nearby. "Sis, he's like a broom that talks."
Rebecca almost choked trying not to laugh. "Milly!"
Lencar looked at the little girl, eyes calm. "Brooms don't talk. But they do keep things clean."
Milly's smile widened. "Then you are a broom!"
He gave a faint shrug, neither offended nor amused, and continued his task. But Rebecca caught a small flicker at the corner of his mouth — the closest thing to a smile she'd seen from him so far.
Later that day, a strong wind swept through the village, scattering baskets and knocking down a wooden sign from the bakery's wall. Rebecca cursed softly as she saw the cracked hinge.
Before she could reach for the tools, Lencar had already crouched beside it.
He pressed his hand against the broken metal, mana faintly glowing between his fingers — not the bright, colored kind used by normal mages, but a subtle distortion of air.
Within seconds, the hinge was reformed. Perfectly sealed, smooth as if newly forged.
Rebecca froze. "You—what was that?"
"Minor restoration spell," he said simply, brushing the dust from his hands. "Spatial compression, not healing."
She didn't fully understand, but she'd seen enough mages to know his magic wasn't ordinary. The mana he used didn't radiate or hum — it folded. Like space itself obeyed him.
"You don't have to fix things that way," she said carefully. "Magic draws attention."
"I used less than a drop of mana," he said. "No one will notice."
It wasn't arrogance. Just fact.
That made her more uneasy than reassurance would have.
That night, after the bakery closed and everyone went to bed, Lencar sat cross-legged on the floor of his small room. His grimoire floated before him, pages whispering open to a series of handwritten notes.
Each rune diagram represented a different grimoire he'd copied in his life so far — scattered fragments of elemental and special-type magics.
Water Manipulation – Copied
Spatial Control – Copied
Wind Current Tracing – Copied
Restoration Layer – Partial
But copying wasn't enough anymore.
He had learned that replication always consumed a trace of the original's essence — a magical scar that never healed completely. Over time, that trail could lead back to him.
Hence the project: Reverse Replication.
He scribbled in silence, testing mana flows through conjured sigils of faint blue light.
> If extraction requires convergence of mana signatures, reversal must demand separation of origin layers.
To give back what was taken… you must first identify what was yours to begin with.
He closed his eyes, channeling mana through the rune, and a faint pulse answered — unstable, violent. The sigil cracked and vanished, leaving a thin scorch mark on the floor.
"Still unstable," he murmured. "Spatial layering conflicts with residual traces."
His experiments were slow, quiet. He couldn't afford to slip — not here, not in this house.
He leaned back, exhaled, and allowed the magic to fade from his fingers. "I'll try again tomorrow."
Downstairs, Rebecca stirred in her sleep, then woke suddenly at the faint sound of a rune pulsing above her. A flash of blue light flickered briefly through the cracks of the ceiling.
She frowned. That wasn't candlelight.
She thought about knocking on his door — asking what he was doing so late. But she stopped herself.
Lencar didn't strike her as dangerous.
He struck her as... haunted.
She turned over and whispered to herself, "If he wanted to hurt anyone, he already would've."
Still, her curiosity lingered long into the night.
By the end of the week, Lencar had become part of the bakery's rhythm.
He repaired things, stacked supplies, and carried water from the well every morning before dawn.
The villagers began to notice.
"That new helper of yours," said an old customer one afternoon, "he's quiet. Polite, too. Don't see that often."
Rebecca smiled faintly. "He doesn't talk much, but he works hard."
"You'd better keep him. Most men his age leave for the capital."
"I know," she said softly.
But the truth was, she didn't know him. Not really.
At night, when her siblings were asleep, she sometimes caught herself wondering what his life had been before this. What kind of man worked like a soldier but read books on magical theory by candlelight?
When she asked once, casually, "You were in the army, weren't you?", he didn't even look up from the table.
"No," he said. "But I saw what armies leave behind."
That was all he said.
And somehow, that silence told her more than any confession could.
One evening, Milly tripped while carrying a tray of hot bread. The tray hit the floor, scattering crumbs everywhere. Before it could touch her foot, the air shimmered — and the tray froze mid-fall, suspended inches from her toes.
Lencar's hand was raised, expression calm.
With a flick of his fingers, the tray floated back to the table and landed softly.
Milly gasped. "That was—! You stopped it!"
Rebecca rushed over, heart pounding. "Milly, are you okay?"
"I'm fine! He saved me!"
Rebecca turned to Lencar. "That—was that magic again?"
He lowered his hand. "Reflex. Sorry if that scared you."
"You—don't need to apologize," she said, voice shaking a little. "I just—don't want people to see. If word spreads, they'll think we're harboring a mage."
"They won't see," he said. "I'm careful."
She nodded slowly, still processing. "You really don't do things halfway, do you?"
"Halfway effort leads to halfway results," he said quietly, then turned back to his work.
Rebecca found herself staring again — not in fear, but in quiet respect.
Two nights later, a faint pressure rippled through the air outside the village — the kind that only trained mages could sense.
Lencar's eyes opened instantly. He reached for his grimoire, scanning the mana field.
A detection pulse — Clover Kingdom style, Level 3 sweep. Someone nearby was searching for spatial traces.
He swore under his breath and layered a concealment rune around the entire bakery. The walls shimmered for an instant, then faded.
If the sweep reached here, it would only register faint ambient mana — nothing unusual.
Still, his pulse slowed only after several minutes passed with no follow-up surge.
"Too close," he whispered. "They're expanding their radius."
He shut his grimoire and sat back against the wall. It wasn't paranoia — the capital had begun hunting for irregular mana patterns after the Finral incident. If they connected that to him, his time here would end in flames.
He looked toward the small window, where he could see the faint glow from Rebecca's room. She was probably asleep by now, unaware of how close danger had come.
He clenched his jaw.
He didn't want to bring ruin here. Not to her. Not to the first quiet place he'd found.
By morning, the danger had passed. The sky was calm again. Rebecca was outside hanging laundry when Lencar stepped out, his cloak draped loosely over one shoulder.
"You look tired," she said.
"Didn't sleep much," he admitted.
"Bad dreams?"
"Something like that."
She studied him for a moment, then smiled softly. "You're not very good at resting, are you?"
He almost smiled. "Not yet."
Rebecca laughed lightly. "Well, you'll learn. Around here, there's nothing to fight except burnt bread."
Lencar paused, looking at her — really looking this time. Her face was tired but bright, her hands dusted with flour. For someone who had so little, she carried herself with quiet strength.
He finally said, "Then maybe I'll stay a little longer."
Rebecca raised an eyebrow. "Was that ever in question?"
"Always," he said.
---
That night, Lencar wrote a single new note in his grimoire before closing it:
> Objective: Maintain cover. Continue research. Protect the Scarlet family if necessary.
He hesitated before adding one last line.
> For now… this is home.