Chapter 438

The capital noticed them immediately.

There was no subtle way for the Lionsguard to arrive, even less so with two hundred northerners in tow. The moment the convoy passed through the outer gates, the city reacted like a struck bell. Sound carried down stone streets, metal boots rang against pavement, voices rolled in waves that bounced between tall buildings.

People stopped what they were doing. Merchants leaned out of shop doors. Apprentices climbed crates. Guards straightened unconsciously as banners passed. The northerners were loud, unapologetic, laughing and shouting to one another like the capital itself was a challenge issued in stone and mortar.

The Lionsguard cut a different figure. Disciplined. Armed. Marked by froststeel bracers that caught the light and made their affiliation unmistakable. Adventurers, recruits, veterans, mixed together in a way that wasn’t clean or noble, but

real

.

It was a strange, compelling sight. Cheers started somewhere near the central avenue.

At first, they were scattered, isolated shouts, raised fists, names called with excitement instead of fear. Then more voices joined. Louder. Braver. Soon it became a rolling noise that followed the procession forward.

“Lionsguard!”

“That’s them!”

“They’re the ones from the border!”

People clapped. Waved. Some even bowed. Ludger stood at the front of the runic carriage, looking out over it all. And frowned. This wasn’t admiration earned quietly over time. This was momentum.

Crowds loved spectacle. Loved strength. Loved anyone who looked like they were winning against a system most people felt crushed beneath. Today it was cheers. Tomorrow it could be expectations. Demands. Pressure to

perform

.

He didn’t like it. Applause was loud, but it was fickle. It turned out the moment someone disappointed it. Behind him, the northerners soaked it in, laughing louder, slapping each other on the back, playing to the crowd without even trying. To them, noise was just another form of presence.

To Ludger, it was a warning. He rested one hand lightly against the froststeel at his wrist and kept his gaze forward as the convoy moved deeper into the capital. They were being watched now. Not as a guild. Not as allies. But as something larger, and that made everything more dangerous.

Arslan noticed the frown. While the crowd cheered, while voices carried Ludger’s name and the Lionsguard’s banner echoed down the streets, his son stood stiff at the front of the carriage, eyes forward, expression flat. Not proud. Not pleased.

Arslan leaned closer.

“You know,” he said quietly, “this isn’t coming from nowhere.”

Ludger didn’t answer immediately.

Arslan continued anyway. “It’s the orphans you helped. The kids you taught for free. The farmers who didn’t lose their livelihoods because you cut off problems before they reached them.”

He gestured subtly to the crowd. “You fought people who never showed their faces. The ones who tried to strangle cities slowly instead of burning them outright.”

Ludger exhaled through his nose.

“I know,” he said.

“Then why the face?” Arslan asked. “Most people would be proud.”

Ludger finally looked at him.

“Because cheers aren’t gratitude,” he said calmly. “They’re expectations.”

Arslan blinked.

“When people cheer,” Ludger went on, “they stop seeing outcomes and start seeing symbols. They stop asking

what was done

and start asking

what will be done next

.”

His gaze returned to the street.

“And when that next thing doesn’t match what they imagined, admiration turns into disappointment. Or resentment.”

Arslan was quiet for a moment.

“…You really don’t like being put on a pedestal,” he said.

“No,” Ludger replied. “Pedestals are just convenient places to push people off from.”

Arslan forced a smile, trying to lighten the mood.

“Well,” he said, “if I were in your position at your age, I’d at least use the fame to get a girlfriend.”

He shrugged. “Or a few.”

The words barely finished leaving his mouth before the temperature dropped.

Arslan felt it. Slowly, he turned his head. Elaine was staring at him. Cold. Flat. Absolute.

“…Do you want,” she asked calmly, “my son to become someone like you were?”

Arslan froze.

“Traveling around,” Elaine continued, voice measured and merciless, “breaking girls’ hearts and leaving them pregnant?”

The carriage went very quiet.

Arslan sighed, a long, weary sound.

“…It has been a long time,” he muttered, “since I’ve been reminded of my mistakes. Our son, right?”

Elaine didn’t soften. Ludger, meanwhile, looked out at the cheering crowd again, expression unchanged. Fame. Expectations. Pedestals. Yeah. He still didn’t like any of it.

They stopped at Torvares’ estate shortly after crossing deeper into the capital, the convoy slowing as stone walls and carefully kept gardens came into view. Servants were already moving at a brisk pace, clearly warned in advance, but even so, the moment the full column halted, the scale of the gathering became impossible to ignore.

Lionsguard. Northerners. Carts.

The estate wasn’t small, but it had never been meant to host a small army. Ludger took it in with a critical eye, then voiced the practical concern.

“Is there enough room for all these people?”

The question hadn’t even finished echoing when Kharnek threw his head back and laughed.

It was loud. Deep. Completely unbothered by the capital’s decorum.

“Room?” the chieftain boomed. “Don’t worry about that, lad. Half my people will spend their nights in taverns.”

Ludger closed his eyes for a heartbeat. Of course they would.

Kharnek gestured broadly toward the city beyond the estate walls. “This place has drinks we don’t get back north. Music too. And stories.” He grinned. “A waste not to experience them properly.”

“So we don’t need beds,” Freyra added cheerfully. “Just floors. Or streets.”

Ludger exhaled slowly. They were in the capital. The place where enemies didn’t announce themselves with banners or axes. Where danger wore silk and spoke politely. And the northerners wanted to drink until they passed out.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Kharnek noticed and waved a hand, suddenly a little more serious.

“We’ll be careful,” he said. “We know where we are.”

Then he added, with a crooked grin, “If something happens, we promise not to crack

too many

skulls.”

That… wasn’t reassuring. But Ludger nodded anyway.

“See that you don’t,” he said flatly.

Kharnek inclined his head, just enough to show he understood this wasn’t a joke anymore.

As the group began to break apart, some heading into the estate grounds, others already drifting toward the city’s brighter streets, Ludger watched them go with a thoughtful, slightly weary expression.

Two hundred northerners loose in the capital. Half a guild under scrutiny. Enemies hiding behind laws and smiles. Yes. He would definitely need to talk to Torvares about this. Soon.

The estate was a controlled kind of chaos as unpacking began.

Crates were opened, carts emptied, guards repositioned. Servants moved with practiced urgency, trying to impose order on a situation that had already outgrown neat solutions.

Ludger stood slightly apart, the twins asleep in his arms, one on each side, their weight balanced easily against his shoulders. Their breathing was slow and even, small hands curled into his clothes like anchors. With them out cold, he didn’t have to worry about censoring his thoughts or his words. That was good. A few steps away, Arslan was doing his best to explain himself.

“…I didn’t mean it like that,” he was saying, hands raised defensively as Elaine folded her arms. “It was a joke. A bad one.”

Elaine’s stare could have frozen magma.

“So you admit it was bad,” she said calmly.

Arslan sighed, shoulders slumping just a little. “Very.”

Ludger pretended not to listen. He’d heard enough. Footsteps approached.

Torvares had finished issuing orders of his own and now walked toward them, Viola at his side and Luna following just behind, silent as ever in her maid uniform. The old lord’s expression was tired, but alert, the look of someone already counting problems instead of minutes.

He stopped in front of Ludger.

“What is it?” Torvares asked.

Ludger shifted the twins slightly, then tilted his head toward the estate gates.

Beyond them, the northerners were already dispersing into the capital like an invading force of bad decisions. Laughing. Pointing. Arguing loudly about which taverns looked the most promising, as if they were on a sacred quest to test every barrel of alcohol the city possessed.

It looked less like a visit and more like a challenge.

“Do your information collectors have eyes on them?” Ludger asked.

Torvares followed his gaze, then nodded without hesitation.

“Yes,” he said. “I assumed I would need them, given the scale of this event.”

And the people involved.

“Good,” Ludger replied.

Viola watched the northerners with open amusement. “They look happy.”

“They look loud,” Ludger corrected.

Torvares sighed softly.

“I’ll have reports,” he said. “If anything unusual happens, anything

intentional

, I’ll know.”

Ludger nodded once. That was all he needed for now. With the twins still asleep in his arms and the capital unfolding around them, he turned his attention back inward. This was only the beginning.

Night came fully, draping Torvares’ estate in warm lamplight and long shadows. Dinner had ended not with laughter, but with the quiet clatter of plates being cleared and the low murmur of people who knew they were standing on the edge of something larger than themselves.

Groups formed naturally. Some spoke in hushed tones. Others argued logistics. A few simply listened.

Ludger didn’t bother easing into the conversation.

“I want this finished tomorrow,” he said plainly.

The words cut through the room’s background noise. Several heads turned. No one laughed. No one scoffed. Torvares, however, smiled. It wasn’t amused. It was patient. The smile of someone who had already seen this kind of thing spiral beyond anyone’s preferred timetable.

“It won’t be that simple,” the old lord said calmly.

Ludger frowned slightly. “Why not?”

Torvares folded his hands and gestured vaguely outward, toward the city beyond the estate walls.

“Because this stopped being just a dispute between guilds the moment it became public,” he said. “People came to the capital specifically for this. Nobles. Guild representatives. Merchants. Even spectators with no stake other than curiosity.”

He shook his head.

“Guild-on-guild confrontation is rare these days. Too dangerous. Too exposing. That makes it… compelling.”

Ludger’s eyebrows knit together.

“And useful,” Torvares continued. “For certain people.”

That was when Ludger said it.

“Bread and circus.”

The words were flat. Clinical. Torvares stiffened slightly, then let out a slow breath as understanding settled in. His smile faded into a frown.

“Yes,” he admitted. “Exactly that.”

A public spectacle. A distraction. Something loud and simple enough to occupy attention while quieter, uglier problems were pushed aside or rearranged behind the scenes.

The silence that followed was heavy. Torvares broke it by scanning the room again, his eyes narrowing just a fraction.

“I don’t see your trackers,” he said. “Kaela. Gaius. Maurien.”

Ludger’s mouth curved, not into a grin, but into a knowing smirk.

“I left them behind,” he said.

Torvares looked at him sharply.

“…Behind?”

“Ahead,” Ludger corrected. “Just not with us.”

Understanding flickered across the old lord’s face.

“I sent them earlier,” Ludger continued. “Different routes. Different timings. They’re already in the capital, watching places people won’t think to guard while everyone else stares at the arena.”

Torvares studied him in silence for several seconds. Then he nodded.

“Of course you did,” he said quietly.

Ludger’s smirk lingered.

“If everyone’s eyes are on the spectacle,” he said, “then the real movements will happen in the shadows.”

Torvares exhaled slowly.

“Yes,” he said. “And that’s where the real danger always is.”

Around them, conversations resumed, but more subdued now, more careful. The arena would draw the crowd. But Ludger had made sure someone was watching everything the crowd wasn’t supposed to see.

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