The sun had set, and the distant cheers from Hage had long since faded. The world, for Lencar, had shrunk to the four walls of his small, dim bedroom and the throbbing, agonizing fire in his arms.
His mother, Marta, had done her best. She had set the fractured bones as well as any commoner could, her movements quick and practiced from a life of farm-hardened first-aid. His arms were now encased in rough-hewn splints and wrapped in clean-ish rags. His father, Rion, had sat with him for an hour, saying nothing, his large, calloused hand resting on Lencar's shoulder.
Now, they entered together, their faces etched with a deep, weary concern in the flickering candlelight.
"You're awake," Marta said, her voice soft. She carried a steaming bowl of thin potato soup. "You need to eat."
Lencar didn't move. He just stared at the ceiling. The physical pain was a white-hot noise, but it was nothing compared to the cold, hollow void in his mind. He was Kenji Tanaka. The analyst. The man with the meta-knowledge. The prodigy of method.
And he had failed.
He had been beaten by a variable he knew existed but had underestimated: Asta's idiotic, unpredictable, brilliant instinct. He had analyzed the sword, but he had forgotten to analyze the fist.
"Lencar?" Rion's voice was rough. "Son, talk to us."
Lencar turned his head, his eyes landing on his parents. They were simple people. Their grimoires, a two-page fire-leaf for Rion, a two-page wind-leaf for Marta, were barely strong enough to light the hearth or dry laundry. They knew nothing of meta-knowledge, or data, or the crushing weight of a failed 15-year plan.
They just saw their son, broken and defeated.
"I lost," Lencar whispered, and the admission felt like swallowing glass. "I lost, and they're... they're going."
Marta set the soup down and sat on the edge of his cot. She didn't try to cheer him up. She didn't say, "You'll get them next time." She just... saw him.
"You scared us, Lencar," she said, her voice trembling just a little. "When we saw that... that fire. When we saw you get hit. We... we've always known you were different. So intense. So... driven."
"That boy... Asta," Rion rumbled, leaning against the doorframe. "He's a monster. And that Yuno... he's like a noble. You fought them both. You... you did more than anyone from Sosie has ever done."
He took a breath. "Maybe... maybe this is a sign. You don't have to be a Magic Knight, son. It's a dangerous life. We have the farm. You're so smart... you could... you could stay. Help us."
It was the single worst thing they could have said.
An offer of the one thing he'd spent his entire second life trying to escape: a simple, poor, commoner existence.
He felt a flash of anger, but it died as he looked at their faces. They weren't trying to trap him. They were afraid. They were afraid of losing their strange, intense son to a world that had just, very publicly, proven it could break him.
They were offering him what they thought was comfort. An 'out'. Safety.
Love.
A part of Kenji Tanaka, the 28-year-old analyst, recoiled.
But a deeper part, the 15-year-old Lencar Abarame, their son, was... grounded.
"I... I can't stay, Mom," he said, his voice raw. "It's... it's not who I am."
Marta just nodded, a single tear tracing a line through the farmhouse dust on her cheek. "I know." She brushed the hair back from his forehead. "Then you must rest. And you must heal."
She picked up the bowl. "And you must eat."
She held the spoon to his lips. Lencar, the transmigrator, the prodigy, the heretic, swallowed his pride and let his mother feed him, his useless, broken arms a monument to his failure.
His parents stayed with him until he finished the soup and drifted into a pained, fitful sleep.
He woke up hours later. It was the dead of night.
His arms were a dull, throbbing ache. The emotional haze was gone, replaced by the cold, sharp clarity of his analytical mind.
He was Kenji Tanaka again.
File: Tournament_Failure_Analysis. Status: Complete.
He couldn't move. He couldn't train. He could only think.
Initial plan: FAILED.
Reason: Over-reliance on physical superiority (negated by Asta) and mana-pool superiority (negated by lack of control). Critical underestimation of 'instinct' as a combat variable. I was rigid. They were fluid.
He had been a fool. He had Yuno's mana, but not his control. He had his own forged body, but not Asta's instinct. He was a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. A bad copy.
This cannot happen again.
His previous plan was to go to the capital with them. To ride their coattails, using his meta-knowledge.
That path was now closed.
So?
A slow, pained smile stretched his lips in the darkness.
So, I make a new path.
The local tournament was a regional filter. It wasn't the only way. The Magic Knight Entrance Exam, he knew, was an open call. Any 15-year-old with a grimoire could show up. Asta and Yuno had just won an 'easy' pass: a sponsored, direct trip to the capital.
He would have to take the hard way.
He would have to walk.
The capital was weeks, maybe months, away on foot for a commoner with no money. It was a journey fraught with danger, bandits, and wild magic-animals.
It's perfect.
It was no longer a training camp. It was a live-fire field-test.
New plan: The "Heretic's Path".
Phase 1: Recovery (2 weeks). His "Mana-Forged" recovery would knit his bones. He couldn't do physical training, so he would do mental training.
Phase 2: The "Firehose" Problem (3.5 Months). He would solve his lack of control. He would stay in Mage Mode, 24/7. He would learn to live with Yuno's mana thrumming under his skin. He would practice casting his father's [Tiny Fireball] with it, thousands of times a day, until he could do it without exploding a crater in the ground. He would learn to regulate the ocean. He would forge control.
Phase 3: The Journey (1 Month). He would leave Sosie and walk to the capital. He would hunt his own food. He would use his Heretic Mode to hide from threats and his Mage Mode to fight them. He would devour any grimoire he found along the way. He would arrive at the capital not as a wide-eyed village boy, but as a seasoned, self-sufficient, and dangerous applicant.
He was not left behind. He was merely taking the scenic route.
Asta and Yuno were the main highway.
He... he would be the hidden, winding, treacherous mountain pass.
The sadness was gone. The humiliation was gone.
All that remained was the cold, hard certainty of the new plan. The data had been analyzed. The new hypothesis was formed.
Now, all he had to do... was execute.