The day after his experiment, the air around the house was lighter. Rebecca's siblings had woken early to watch Lencar fix the old mana stove that sputtered and sparked whenever someone tried to boil water.
"It's just the flow regulator," he muttered, kneeling with a small screwdriver and a trickle of mana running along his fingers. "This thing's older than most nobles' pride."
The little girl, Arin, giggled. "You talk funny, mister."
"That's because I'm smarter than your stove," he said with a rare, crooked smile. "Barely."
Rebecca laughed softly from the kitchen, wiping flour off her hands. "Don't encourage him, Arin. If he starts comparing himself to furniture, we'll lose him to philosophy."
Lencar glanced up, pretending to scowl, but his eyes softened. "Philosophy's safer than battlefields."
"Not with you around," Rebecca shot back, crossing her arms. "You'd probably duel the philosophers too."
He actually laughed — short, startled, genuine. The sound made her look up, surprised. It was the first time she'd heard him laugh at all. His usual calm was so absolute that even his smile looked like a tactical choice.
"You should laugh more," she said after a pause. "It makes you look less like a statue."
"Statues don't fix stoves," he replied, screwing the regulator back into place.
"Point taken."
When the flame came alive with a soft whoosh, the kids cheered. Lencar gave a half-hearted bow, mostly for their amusement. It was an odd thing — how his hands were capable of killing, of tearing magic out of living grimoires, yet here they were, fixing a stove for children.
It was… disorienting.
That night, when the house grew quiet and Rebecca's siblings fell asleep, Lencar returned to his notebook.
The candlelight shimmered over sketches of magical runes and intricate circular equations — his work on Reverse Replication.
He'd already proven that the spell could create a new grimoire from absorbed data, but now he was testing precision. Could he reforge specific spell pages instead of full grimoires? Could he restore the fragment of a spell without the original user?
He reached into his satchel and pulled out a battered training wand he'd bought at the market earlier that day. The enchantment on it was half-faded — perfect for testing.
He placed it on the table, opened his grimoire, and whispered:
"[Reverse Replication]."
A faint circle formed above the wand. The surface shimmered, its embedded mana circuits lighting up briefly before stabilizing.
"Success rate — eighty percent," he murmured, jotting down notes. "Mana cost — excessive. Application… inefficient."
Then he frowned. The candlelight caught his reflection in the ink bottle — the same calm, unreadable eyes. Rebecca's earlier words echoed: "You should laugh more."
He exhaled through his nose, amused at the thought of someone advising him about emotional health. Still… she wasn't wrong.
He closed his grimoire. "Enough experiments for one night."
The next morning, Rebecca found him outside, sweeping the snow off the path before dawn. He had rolled up his sleeves, and his hair was a bit of a mess — the most human she'd ever seen him look.
"You're up early," she said, yawning.
"I finished the broom enchantment."
"…You enchanted a broom?"
He shrugged. "Efficiency. It sweeps itself. I'm just supervising."
Sure enough, the broom was hovering beside him, rhythmically brushing the snow away.
Rebecca stared at it for a few seconds. "That's either genius or laziness at a level I've never seen."
"Why not both?" he said.
She burst out laughing, and to his own surprise, Lencar chuckled too — a low, genuine laugh that made the cold air feel warmer.
He still didn't fully understand why he liked these moments. He'd lived among battlefields, academies, and libraries filled with scholars debating the shape of mana. Yet here, in a quiet village with a single mother and her siblings, he felt something dangerously close to peace.
Later that day, while Rebecca was working at the market, Lencar stayed behind to test mana compatibility between Reverse Replication and Devoured grimoires.
He summoned a small floating sigil of Wind Magic and another of Fire Magic, merging them through controlled compression. The resulting reaction cracked the ground slightly.
"Composite Spell: Wind Ignition — stable for 2.3 seconds." He nodded, jotting data. "Potential use: acceleration, cutting force, flight vector propulsion."
Arin peeked from the doorway, holding a piece of bread. "What are you doing?"
"Making wind hotter," Lencar said without looking up.
"…Why?"
"Because I can."
The little girl blinked. "That's a weird reason."
He stopped writing, smirked slightly, and handed her a slice of enchanted bread — the crust now warm and soft. "Try it."
She bit into it, her eyes lighting up. "It's warm! You used magic!"
"Don't tell Rebecca," he said mock-seriously. "She'll make me cook dinner next."
Arin giggled and ran off, leaving Lencar shaking his head faintly.
That night, Rebecca returned to find him asleep at the table, his grimoire open beside him. A faint trail of runic light flickered across his arm — an experimental tattoo seal.
She hesitated, then quietly covered him with a blanket. For a moment, she just watched him.
He wasn't like the others who passed through Hage — not loud, not broken, not running from debt. He was something else entirely. Calculated, careful, always thinking. But every now and then, she caught glimpses of something almost kind in him.
She smiled faintly. "You really are strange," she whispered, turning off the lamp.
From beneath the blanket, Lencar murmured, eyes still closed, "You're awake too late."
Rebecca froze. "You were awake?"
"Half. Monitoring mana flow."
She narrowed her eyes. "You're impossible."
"Statues don't snore," he said sleepily.
That made her laugh despite herself. "Goodnight, Lencar."
"Night," he replied, his voice fading into the steady rhythm of breathing.