I find it refreshing to see an actually clever villain for a change. Too often villains, especially in these kinds of fantasy stories, tend to be more passive. They just kind of sit around waiting for the MC to be the clever one. At most a supposedly smart villain in actuality just has plot armour, coincidence, and retconning on their side, instead of actually being intelligent. This series even tells us how the villains can know stuff: because they used to be on the defending team.