By refusing Lencar's hand, by declaring his intention to seek the truth for himself, Mars had proven that he wasn't just a broken puppet reacting to a new master's strings. He was a thinking, feeling, angry human being asserting his own agency for the first time in his life.
The psychological operation was a massive, unprecedented success. The seed of rebellion was now officially, permanently sown deep in the highly fertile ground of the boy's returning trauma. It would grow in the dark. It would fester. And eventually, it would tear the Diamond Kingdom's control over him to shreds.
Checkmate, Lencar thought, a dark, satisfying thrill washing away a fraction of his physical exhaustion.
Lencar smoothly, casually retracted his slapped hand, letting it fall relaxed to his side. He made sure to keep his wide, victorious smile perfectly hidden behind the unreadable wooden facade of his mask.
"Fair enough," Lencar said, his voice light, carrying a tone of absolute, casual indifference that he knew would irritate the highly strung General.
He turned his back on Mars entirely. In the context of a combat situation with a known, lethal enemy, it was the ultimate, almost insulting display of dismissal. It communicated that Lencar didn't view Mars as a threat worthy of keeping his eyes on.
Lencar slowly raised his left hand and lightly tapped the heavy silver ring on his index finger.
The ambient mana in the air immediately shifted. The dark, shifting shadows cast by the jagged rocks around Lencar's heavy boots suddenly seemed to detach themselves from the physical ground. They began to rise, swirling upward like dark water, wrapping around his legs and torso, preparing to envelop him entirely and drag him through the spatial fold back to the warmth of Nairn.
"Alright, General," Lencar called out over his shoulder, his voice echoing from within the rising column of swirling darkness as the spatial magic reached its crescendo. "Keep your trust to yourself. Be a good little soldier and go seek your truth. But as those old, repressed memories start coming back to you in the dark of the night..."
Lencar turned his head slightly, just enough for Mars to see the dark, empty slit of his mask one last time before the shadows completely consumed him.
"...try not to become too traumatized after knowing the truth of what you really are."
The swirling, dark shadows of Lencar's spatial magic had already begun to rise around his heavy boots, wrapping around his legs like thick, inky water. His muscles were screaming, his mana core felt like a bruised, over-flexed muscle, and his head throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache.
But right as the spatial fold was about to swallow him whole and whisk him away from the freezing Thunder-Crag Peaks, Lencar froze.
An idea, sharp and opportunistic, suddenly pierced through the heavy fog of his exhaustion.
He had just successfully performed open-brain magic surgery on a Diamond Kingdom General. He had planted a psychological wedge that would eventually help derail the villainous plot of this world. But Lencar Abarame was, at his core, a terrifyingly practical pragmatist who never left value on the table if he could help it. He had unprecedented access to a high-ranking military asset, and there was a very specific, very dangerous problem in his life that a Diamond General could solve with a simple wave of a hand.
Lencar let out a long, tired sigh. He severed the flow of mana to his spell. The rising shadows instantly collapsed, melting back into the wet obsidian rock.
He turned his masked face back toward Mars.
The Diamond General had already turned away, his sleek, pale pink crystal armor catching the fragile, watery rays of the early morning sunlight that were finally breaking through the heavy clouds. He was staring down the treacherous, jagged slope of the mountain, clearly calculating the long, arduous trek back to the Diamond Kingdom border on foot.
"Wait," Lencar called out, his voice echoing sharply over the biting mountain breeze.
Mars stopped instantly. His hand twitched, instinctively moving toward his side where a sword hilt would normally rest, before he remembered he was unarmed save for the synthetic grimoire clutched in his left hand. He slowly turned his head, looking at the masked phantom over his crystal-plated shoulder. His pale eyes were wary, guarded, but lacking the immediate, homicidal hostility from earlier.
"I have a friend," Lencar said, stuffing his bruised, leather-clad hands into the deep pockets of his damp black cloak. He walked a few paces closer, bridging the physical gap between them. "She was originally from the Diamond Kingdom, but she is currently being hunted like an animal by your kingdom's assassins."
Mars fully turned around to face him, his brow furrowing in confusion. "A friend?"
"Yes," Lencar continued, his tone conversational but laced with a serious edge. "And because she is a defector from the Diamond Kingdom, but secretly lives within the borders of the Clover Kingdom, she has to hide from the Clover Magic Knights as well. She lives in a constant, paranoid state of absolute isolation. So, I want you to do something to help her."
Lencar tilted his head, the empty eye-slits of his wooden mask locking onto the boy. "After all, she is someone from your kingdom. And truthfully... she is somewhat related to you. Or, at least, related to your past."
Mars stared at the masked man for a long moment. The freezing wind whipped his short, pale hair around his face, but he didn't seem to feel the cold inside his new armor. He was processing the strange, unprompted request. This terrifying, ghost-like mage who had just shattered his reality was now asking for a political favor? It was absurd, but in the twisted logic of the morning, it somehow made sense.
"Alright," Mars said slowly, his voice raspy. "Tell me how I can help her."
Beneath the cracked, splintered wood of his mask, Lencar smiled. It was a wide, genuine smile of a man watching a complex plan fall perfectly into place.
"You don't need to do much," Lencar explained casually, waving a hand. "You don't need to fight anyone or launch a rescue mission. All you have to do is go back to your Kingdom, walk into whatever military high command you report to, and use your authority as a General to permanently take down the active bounty on a person named Dominante Code."
Mars visibly stiffened. The name hit him, sparking a flicker of recognition in his pale eyes. He was genuinely surprised.
"Dominante Code," Mars repeated, tasting the syllables. He frowned, his mind pulling up military dossiers he had read before. "Isn't she the wife of the former commanding officer, Fanzell Kruger? How in the world do you know her?"
Lencar let out a soft, knowing laugh that vibrated in his chest. "It seems you do know her. Yes, she is indeed the brilliant magic tool inventor and the wife of Fanzell Kruger. But..." Lencar paused, his tone shifting into something far more observant and clinical. "...you don't seem to remember Fanzell Kruger very much, do you?"
Mars's frown deepened into a scowl of frustration. He looked down at the wet rock, genuinely trying to pull up the memory.
Lencar watched him closely. He knew the lore. He knew that Fanzell Kruger had been the primary instructor at the Diamond Kingdom's brutal magical facility. Fanzell had been the only adult who had treated Mars, Fana, and the other children with any semblance of genuine kindness or humanity. Mars should feel a deep, abiding loyalty and a profound sense of sorrow regarding Fanzell's defection.
But the purple sealing rune in Mars's brain—even with the newly carved bypass valve—was still actively doing its job. It was violently suppressing the deep, emotional connection to his former teacher, leaving behind only the sterile, objective facts of a military report.