The next few days blurred into a rhythm that was as punishing as it was necessary, a psychological metronome ticking back and forth between two irreconcilable realities. Lencar Abarame had effectively split his soul into two distinct entities, living two separate lives that met only in the brief, dreamless hours of sleep he allowed himself. It was a schism that would have shattered a lesser mind, but Lencar held the pieces together with the glue of absolute necessity.
From the moment the sun dragged itself over the horizon at 06:00 until it dipped back down at 18:00, he was Lencar the Commoner. He was the dishwasher, the prep cook, the smiling, non-threatening face of "The Rusty Spoon." He stood at his station in the cramped, steam-filled kitchen, a mountain of root vegetables before him, his knife moving with a rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack that became the heartbeat of the morning prep.
His hands, which at night wielded heavy iron swords and channeled curses through obsidian daggers, now smelled permanently of onions, garlic, and dish soap. He joked with Gorn about the rising price of flour, feigning shock at the cost of grain even though he had enough gold in his Void Vault to buy the entire supply chain of the region without making a dent in his finances. He watched Rebecca charm the customers, his heart aching with a soft, protective warmth every time she laughed at a bad joke or ruffled Marco's hair.
In this world, his biggest problem was a burnt pot of stew or a supplier running late with the ale delivery. It was mundane. It was exhausting in a way that physical training wasn't—it was a social exhaustion, the constant effort of keeping the mask glued tight to his face to prevent the cold, calculating gaze of the Sovereign from slipping out. And yet, it was the only thing keeping him sane. The smell of the soup stock grounded him; the laughter of the children anchored him to a reality where people lived and died without ever knowing what a "Grand Magic Zone" was.
He needed this. He needed to remember that the world wasn't just a tactical map to be conquered or a spreadsheet of mana values to be balanced. It was a place where Rebecca worried about rent, where Luca worried about her lost doll, and where a hot meal could fix a bad day. These were the stakes. If he lost touch with this, he would become no better than the villains he was preparing to slaughter.
But when the clock struck 22:00, the boy died, and the Sovereign woke up.
Every night, he slipped out of his warm bed, leaving the safety of the Scarlet household behind like a shed skin. He tapped his ring, and the world twisted around him. He spent hours in the Thunder-Crag Peaks, running until his lungs burned in the freezing air, swinging his heavy iron sword until his blisters popped and healed and popped again. He felt his body hardening, the Mana-Forging turning his muscles into something denser than steel, reacting to the constant infusion of the Breath of Yggdrasil like a starving man to a feast. He was turning himself into a weapon, tempering his body in the hostility of the storm so that nothing in the gentle world could ever break him.
However, on the fourth night of this grueling cycle, Lencar didn't go to the peaks. The weather in his mind was stormier than any magic zone.
He stood on a jagged ridge of grey stone overlooking the border region between the Clover Kingdom and the Diamond Kingdom. It was a desolate stretch of rocky badlands, filled with twisting ravines and thick, low-hanging fog that smelled of sulfur and old dust. The wind here didn't howl; it moaned, threading through the cracks in the dry earth like a bow drawn across a broken cello. It was a place where life went to die, a grey zone on the map where the jurisdiction of kings faded into the law of the wild.
Lencar adjusted his wooden mask, pulling his black cloak tighter against the biting chill. He wasn't training tonight. He was hunting for a trigger.
Below him, hidden within the labyrinth of canyons, was the Kiten Dungeon.
He knew exactly where it was. He had raided it weeks ago. He had stolen the Breath of Yggdrasil and the Demon-Dweller Sword from its depths, leaving the rest of the treasury intact. To him, the location was burned into his mind like a glowing GPS coordinate. He could teleport to the front door with his eyes closed; he could map the corridors from memory.
But to the rest of the world, it was still invisible.
Lencar crouched low against the rock, activating his sensory net to assess the board state.
"[Composite Magic]: [Sensory Domain: The Whispering Roots]."
He placed his gloved hand on the dry, cracked earth. He pushed his mana into the sparse, stringy vegetation clinging to the canyon walls—dead roots, dried moss, tough scrub brush that clung to life with stubborn refusal. His consciousness expanded, filtering through the biological network to create a three-dimensional radar map of the area.
Ping. Ping. Ping.
The feedback hit his mind instantly, painting a picture of silent, suffocating tension.
"Very crowded tonight, huh," Lencar whispered to the darkness, his breath misting in the cold air.
The area was crawling with people. It was a silent standoff, a high-stakes game of chess played by invisible pieces in the dark.
To the east, huddled in a small depression shielded by rocks, he sensed a squad of mages. Their mana signatures were warm, natural—Clover Kingdom scouts. Based on the uniformity of their cloaks and the disciplined way they rotated their watch, they were likely from the Golden Dawn or the Blue Rose Knights. They were moving slowly, checking mana disturbances with detection crystals, sweeping the area grid by grid. They were methodical, safe, and painfully slow. They were looking for a door, but they were afraid to knock.
To the west, hiding deep in the shadows of the ravine where the sun rarely touched, were harder, colder signatures. Diamond Kingdom spies. They were distinct—their mana felt rigid, engineered, stripped of the natural flow that characterized Clover magic. They moved in pairs, using earth magic to blend seamlessly into the rock walls. They were patient, like vipers waiting for a mouse to twitch. They weren't just looking for the dungeon; they were looking for the Clover scouts, waiting for an excuse to strike.
"They all know something is here," Lencar analyzed, watching a Diamond scout walk right past the hidden entrance of the dungeon without seeing it. "My entry last time must have caused a ripple in the spatial fabric. The dungeon's concealment runes are leaking slightly—just enough to create a mana anomaly that attracts attention, but not enough to reveal the physical door."
He watched them for an hour. It was agonizing.
The spies were thorough, but they were paralyzed by caution. They were circling the drain, but nobody wanted to jump in. The Clover scouts were waiting for a clear signal before calling in the heavy hitters. The Diamond spies were waiting for the Clover scouts to make a mistake so they could counter-attack. It was a stalemate of incompetence and fear.
Lencar checked his internal calendar, tallying the days with a growing sense of dread.
One and a half months until the Royal Banquet, he thought, anxiety tightening his chest like a vise. That's the hard deadline. The Eye of the Midnight Sun will attack the Capital. Fuegoleon will fall into a coma. Asta gets captured. If I want to be ready for that... if I want to intervene and change the outcome... I need the Dungeon Arc to happen now.
He ran the simulation in his head, over and over again. He needed Asta to gain combat experience against Mars—a struggle that would define his philosophy of never giving up against overwhelming odds. He needed Yuno to find the Wind Spirit, Sylph, inside the treasury, a power-up that was essential for his survival in the coming wars. And most importantly, he needed to fight Mars. He needed to test his Mana-Forging and his new artifacts against a General of the Diamond Kingdom. He needed to know if he was strong enough to stand on the stage with the monsters before the real war started.
And the sword, Lencar thought, his mind drifting to the Demon-Dweller currently sitting in his Void Vault.
In the original story, Asta found that sword here. It was crucial to his development. It allowed him to borrow magic from his allies and send slashes of anti-magic. It was the weapon that symbolized his connection to others.
But Lencar had taken it.
He had decided, in a moment of cold calculation weeks ago, that he could use it better. He could replicate the properties of anti-magic eventually, or wield it to bridge the gap between his modes. He reasoned that Asta was reckless, that Asta would break it or lose it, or simply that Lencar needed the edge more than the boy with the muscles.
He wasn't giving it back.
Asta would have to survive with just the Demon-Slayer—the giant, rusted slab of iron. It was a massive deviation from the timeline, a risk that gnawed at Lencar's conscience. He was handicapping the hero to empower himself.
Asta is resilient, Lencar justified, though the words tasted like ash in his mouth. He's the protagonist. He'll adapt. He has to. Because if I fall, there is no backup plan. I need every weapon I can hold. Asta has destiny on his side. I only have preparation.