Chapter 561

Ludger ignored Raukor’s complaints the way he ignored most noise.

If Raukor wanted to argue, he could argue after he taught. The decision was already made.

Ludger left the room, left the beastmen to whatever private judgments they wanted to make about him, and went right back to work like nothing had happened.

Because in his world, work didn’t pause just because someone didn’t like the plan.

After that, Ludger tried to delegate.

He really did.

He pushed tasks outward the way he pushed walls outward, carefully, deliberately, trying not to crack the structure.

He let his father handle the flood of people requesting jobs. Arslan was good at it in a way Ludger wasn’t: calm voice, steady eyes, the kind of presence that made desperate men stop shouting and start listening. He also put Arslan in charge of helping members find work, matching bodies to tasks, steering hotheaded recruits away from roles that would get someone killed, keeping the guild from turning into a random pile of ambition.

That alone took a huge weight off Ludger’s back. It should have made things manageable. It didn’t.

Because every time he pushed one load away, two more appeared in its place.

Contracts for the textile workers. Housing logistics. Food supply increases. Tool procurement. Security for the new workshop. Scheduling instructors for two hundred trainees. Training yard repairs. Delving party registrations. Froststeel inventory decisions. Rathen’s bracer orders. The south branch wagons. And businesses…

Businesses were worse than fights. A fight ended when something died. A business stayed alive by constantly demanding attention.

The textile line wasn’t just “make clothes.” It was raw material intake, processing flow, quality control, storage, shipping, pricing, dealing with merchants, preventing theft, making sure the workers didn’t quit from exhaustion.

Every time he thought he’d built the foundation, another list appeared with “just one more thing.”

By the end of the day, Ludger sat at his desk with ink stains on his fingers and a headache building behind his eyes, and the ugly truth became clear. He had underestimated it. Not the difficulty. The volume.

Starting large businesses wasn’t a single project. It was a permanent war against chaos, except the enemy was time, and time never ran out of reinforcements.

Ludger caught Renn, Marie, Bramm, Jorin, and Tali after the morning drills, when the trainees were still breathing hard and too tired to cause new problems.

He didn’t bother easing into it.

“Watch for the ones struggling with reading and writing,” Ludger said. “The ones who can’t keep up even with steady practice.”

Renn’s eyes narrowed. “You want extra lessons?”

“No,” Ludger said.

That made them all pause.

Marie frowned. “Then what?”

Ludger pointed toward the yard, toward the trainees hunched over slates, tongues out in concentration, trying to copy letters like the marks might bite them.

“Send them to apprenticeships,” he said. “Raukor. Julia.”

Bramm blinked. “To the forge and the cloth hall?”

“Yes,” Ludger replied. “If they’re better with their hands than their letters, we stop forcing them into a path they hate.”

Jorin scratched his cheek. “Isn’t that… giving up on them?”

“It’s teaching them properly,” Ludger said, flat. “There’s no need to force people to do things they’re bad at. Not when the guild needs smith hands and craft hands just as much as it needs scribes. They can learn how to read and write at their pace later”

Tali’s eyes narrowed, sharp as ever. “And what about discipline? People will try to dodge learning.”

“They don’t dodge,” Ludger said. “You test them. Give them a week. If they’re trying and still drowning, we redirect. If they’re pretending, you keep them in the yard until they stop pretending.”

Marie nodded slowly. “So it’s about fit.”

“It’s about efficiency,” Ludger corrected, but he didn’t argue the point.

Tali tilted her head. “Why now?”

Ludger didn’t answer immediately.

He looked tired today. Not weak, never weak, but like his brain had been running without rest for too long.

Then he said, calm and simple, “Because I’ll be out for a week.”

Tali froze. “Out?”

“Yes.”

Her expression turned openly confused. “Why? seven days isn’t that long for kids to learn how to read and write. Some of them just need time.”

Ludger’s mouth twitched faintly, almost a smile, almost irritation.

“You’re right,” he said.

That only made her more confused.

“And yet you’re telling us to redirect them

now

,” Tali pressed. “So… why?”

Ludger looked at her for a long moment.

He didn’t explain his entire plan. He rarely did. Not because he enjoyed mystery, because plans leaked when too many people held them.

“I have reasons,” Ludger said. “And I have work that can’t be done from a desk.”

Tali stared at him, trying to read the space between his words.

Then she nodded once, slowly. “Understood.”

Renn shifted his stance. “How many apprentices do you want Raukor and Julia to take?”

“As many as they can handle without it becoming chaos,” Ludger said. “Start small. Keep the ones with the best attitude. If they work, we expand.”

Bramm grunted approval. Jorin looked relieved, like he’d just been given a way to save a few kids from humiliation. Marie was already mentally sorting names.

Tali was still watching Ludger.

He met her gaze, calm.

“Do it,” Ludger said. “While I’m gone.”

She nodded again, but her eyes still held that puzzled edge. A week wasn’t long either.

So if Ludger was making preparations like this…

Then he definitely had something in mind.

For a week, Ludger was

gone

.

Not hiding. Not running. Just moving, fast, quiet, and annoyingly efficient.

He traveled along the trade routes of the Empire the way a predator traveled through a forest: with purpose, with memory, and with a clear list of what mattered. Port towns. Forge districts. Caravan junctions. Places where soldiers sold off battered gear and merchants sold “almost-new” equipment at prices that assumed the buyer was stupid.

Ludger wasn’t stupid.

He bought weapons first, blades with good steel but bad maintenance, spearheads with chipped edges, axes with decent balance and cracked hafts. Armor next, breastplates with dents that didn’t compromise the core, bracers with worn straps, helms with rust creeping in like an infection. Accessories after that, buckles, harness fittings, scabbards, ward disks that had lost their bite, mana-lamps that flickered because the channels inside were dirty.

He spent like someone who understood leverage. Coin didn’t scare him. Wasted coin did.

And once the gear was his, he did what the sellers couldn’t. He fixed it. Not beautifully. Not like a masterpiece. Like a professional.

Patched fractures. Reinforced weak points with simple, honest rune work, nothing fancy, nothing that screamed “artifact,” just solid improvements that made ordinary gear

behave

better under stress.

He etched grip-stability on gloves and weapon handles. Reinforced edge retention on blades. Minor impact dispersion on plates. Simple warmth retention on scarves and underlayers. A few light wards that turned a fatal cut into a survivable one, if the wearer had the sense to retreat.

Then he sold it again. Not at outrageous prices. At

correct

prices. And every time he sold, he made sure the buyer heard the same sentence.

“If it degrades,” Ludger told them, calm as stone, “you can repair it in Lionfang.”

Some laughed. Some scoffed. Some immediately asked where Lionfang was and how far it was from their current life. That was the point. He wasn’t just flipping gear. He was planting a route in people’s heads. A destination.

A place that became synonymous with

reliability

.

By the end of the week, he’d spent around ten diamond coins. He’d earned twenty more.

Not by gambling. Not by luck. By turning neglected equipment into higher-grade tools with the smallest possible investment of mana and time, and by selling a future service alongside the product.

The results hit his interface like a hammer.

Merchant Lv. 21 (+2 INT, +2 DEX, +2 LUK)

Skills: Trade Insight Lv. 31

Appraisal Sense Lv. 11 — A quick glance and touch gives you a rough read on an item’s condition, craftsmanship, and likely failure points (cracks, warped channels, fake materials).

Haggler’s Edge Lv. 09 — Your words land sharper in bargaining. You’re harder to pressure, better at flipping objections, and can force a negotiation toward

your

price without raising your voice.

Market Thread Lv. 11 — You passively track local market shifts where you operate (who’s buying, what’s rising, what’s flooding the market). Helps you choose what to stock

before

prices swing.

Reputation Ledger Lv. 05 — Every completed trade slightly reinforces your credibility. Repeat customers become more likely, scams become less effective, and people remember

where to go

when they need reliable goods or repairs.

His Merchant progression skyrocketed so fast it almost felt stupid, like the system itself had been waiting for someone to treat commerce as strategy instead of noise.

Ludger didn’t smile.

Because the profit was nice, yes. But it wasn’t the goal. The goal was what came with it:

A steady flow of customers to Lionfang.

A reason for merchants and fighters to travel

to him

. A funnel of coin, materials, and rumors into his town. And the quiet pressure that came when enough people started saying,

“If it breaks, take it to Lionfang.”

By the time he turned back north, his pack lighter and his coin pouch heavier, Ludger’s eyes were already on the next step.

The week had been successful. Now it was time to spend that success on something that wasn’t money. Something that would matter when the labyrinth doors stopped pretending they were sealed.

When Ludger reached Lionfang again, the first thing he saw wasn’t the walls. It was a wagon. Rolling toward the gate under escort, wheels creaking, guards walking tight around it with hands never far from weapons. Darnell was at the front.

And the moment Ludger saw the shape of the situation, his mood soured.

Because there were men in the wagon. Not injured. Not rescued. Chained.

Iron on wrists. Iron on ankles. Links clinking with every bump in the road. A few of them tried to sit tall like the chains were decoration. Others stared at the floor like it might open and save them.

Ludger’s eyes narrowed. He recognized some of the faces. Trainees. From the new batch.

Darnell spotted him and raised a hand in greeting, expression dry as ever.

“Vice Guildmaster,” he called. “Welcome back.”

Ludger didn’t return the greeting immediately. His gaze stayed on the prisoners.

“What did they do?” Ludger asked, voice calm.

Darnell’s mouth tightened. Not angry, not annoyed. Like he’d had to waste time on stupidity when he had better things to do.

“They didn’t like it when the instructors told them to leave the training yard,” Darnell said.

Ludger’s eyes sharpened. “They were expelled.”

“Yes,” Darnell replied.

“And they disagreed,” Ludger said.

Darnell snorted. “Violently.”

He gestured back toward the wagon with his chin. “They made a scene. Loud. Tried to turn it into a public spectacle.”

The chained men shifted, a couple glaring openly now that Ludger was present, as if this was still negotiable.

Darnell continued, voice steady.

“And they tried to incite a larger conflict,” he said. “Started shouting that the Lionsguard ‘disrespects’ people. That we’re tyrants. That the northerners are here to threaten them. Tried to get others to join them, especially the new trainees.”

Ludger’s jaw tightened slightly.

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