Rades turned back to the Red Hood leader, spreading his arms in a gesture of twisted solidarity. "See? We have a massive organization behind us! We are going to bring true despair to the Clover Kingdom! If you guys really hate the nobles, you shouldn't be stopping me! You should be helping me harvest these weaklings! My zombie army is going to be the vanguard that tears down the gates of the capital!"
Valtos closed his eyes beneath his mask, rubbing his temples in absolute agony. Rades was a child playing with live explosives. He had just confirmed the existence of a larger organization, verified an impending attack on the capital, and explicitly detailed the tactical role of the zombie army, all in a desperate bid to win over a group of fanatical strangers.
The village square fell silent once more. The crackling of the localized fires seemed deafening in the sudden quiet.
The Red Hood leader did not lower his grimoire. He did not extend a hand of friendship, nor did he look impressed by Rades's grand revelation of a larger organization. He simply stared at the necromancer, processing the words with cold, mechanical logic.
The leader tilted his head slightly, the shadows of his hood shifting.
"You are building a vanguard," the Red Hood leader repeated slowly, his voice echoing clearly in the damp night air. "An army of the dead, designed to tear down the heavily fortified gates of the Royal Capital. An army that needs to face the combined, elite might of the Magic Knight squads."
"Exactly!" Rades grinned broadly, thinking he had finally gotten through to them. "We're going to overwhelm them with numbers and sheer, unstoppable force!"
The Red Hood leader looked past Rades, his gaze sweeping over the charred, pulverized remains of the soul corpses that had been entirely decimated just minutes prior. Then, he raised his hand and pointed past the village, toward the deep, foreboding tree line of the dense, untamed wilderness that bordered the Diamond Kingdom.
"Then answer me this, necromancer," the Red Hood leader said, his tone devoid of all anger, replaced by a sharp, cutting, and entirely humiliating logic.
"If your organization requires a powerful vanguard... if you truly need an unstoppable army capable of fighting the strongest mages in the Clover Kingdom..."
The leader's hand remained pointed toward the dark, howling forest.
"...Then why are you digging up the corpses of malnourished peasants?"
Rades's triumphant grin froze instantly.
"The wilderness outside this village is teeming with magical anomalies," the Red Hood leader continued relentlessly, his voice echoing like a judge reading a final sentence. "There are Dire Boars with hides as thick as steel. There are Shadow-Wolves that move faster than the eye can see. There are mutated Mana-Bears capable of ripping a stone watchtower apart with a single swipe of their claws."
The leader lowered his hand, his eyes locking onto Rades's pale, stitched face.
"If you truly want a strong army to fight the Magic Knights, why don't you target the animals outside this village who are significantly stronger, faster, and more durable than these people?" the leader asked, the question hanging heavily in the air. "A single reanimated Mana-Bear would be worth fifty of your peasant corpses. Yet, you bypass the true beasts to terrorize farmers who cannot even cast a defensive spell."
The logic was flawless. It was a brutal, undeniable deconstruction of Rades's entire methodology.
"You do not harvest these villagers because they make good soldiers," the Red Hood leader concluded, his voice dripping with utter, profound disgust. "You harvest them because they cannot fight back. You do not seek a powerful army. You seek the pathetic thrill of tormenting the weak. You are a coward, playing at revolution."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Not a single word was spoken. The ambient noise of the burning village seemed to fade away completely.
Rades Spirito stood perfectly still in the mud. The manic energy, the righteous fury, the twisted pride—it all vanished, completely drained from his body. His mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out. He stared at the Red Hood leader, his eyes wide and vacant. The brutal truth of the accusation had pierced straight through his massive ego, hitting the deeply insecure, cowardly core he tried so desperately to hide. He had no counter-argument. There was no defense. He was a coward who preyed on the weak, and it had just been laid bare for everyone to see.
Beside him, Valtos also fell entirely silent.
The spatial mage stood completely still. He did not step forward to defend his comrade. He did not summon a spell to attack the Red Hoods. He simply stood there, staring at the cloaked leader with a mixture of shock and deep, internal reckoning.
Valtos realized, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that the Red Hood leader had just flawlessly articulated the exact same hesitation, the exact same disgust, that had been eating away at Valtos's own conscience for weeks.
You attack peasants because you are weak.
The words echoed in Valtos's mind. He looked at Rades, seeing the necromancer not as a powerful vanguard leader, but as exactly what the Red Hoods had described: a pathetic, sadistic bully throwing a tantrum against people who couldn't fight back.
And in that profound, humiliating silence, standing amidst the mud and the ashes of Oakhaven, both members of the Eye of the Midnight Sun found they had absolutely nothing left to say.
The silence that followed Valtos's recounting of the events in Oakhaven was profound. The spatial mage remained kneeling on the polished white stone floor, his dark, hooded cloak standing in stark contrast to the brilliant, ambient light radiating from the walls. His head was bowed, his heart hammering against his ribs. He had spoken the forbidden thought. He had taken the chilling, flawless logic of a fanatical enemy—the leader of the Red Hoods—and laid it bare at the feet of his master.
Why do we have to harm the defenseless villagers to form the zombie army, and not use dead animals or actual threats?
It was a question born of tactical efficiency and a lingering sense of displaced honor, but the moment the words left his lips, Valtos felt a sudden, suffocating wave of anxiety. Had he overstepped? Had his encounter with the Red Hoods corrupted his unwavering faith?
Licht stood perfectly still, his pristine white and gold robes glowing softly. He did not immediately answer. The long, braided hair the color of spun sunlight cascaded down his back as he looked down at his most loyal servant. The golden eyes, usually swimming with a boundless, comforting compassion, were now sharp, piercing through the layers of Valtos's defensive mana and staring directly into the core of his soul.
When Licht finally spoke, his voice was not laced with anger or the volatile, unhinged fury that Rades so often displayed. Instead, it carried a heavy, deeply sorrowful weight. It was the tone of a disappointed father looking upon a beloved child who had lost his way.
"Valtos," Licht said softly, the melody of his voice echoing mournfully in the vast, circular chamber. "It seems... that you have lost belief in our cause."
The words struck Valtos like a physical blow. The air in his lungs vanished. The very idea that his master, the savior who had pulled him from the dark and given his life absolute purpose, would suspect him of losing faith was a torment worse than any physical torture the Magic Knights could inflict.