Chapter 621

Ludger’s lips curled slightly, the closest thing he had to a smile. Let the Regent make the next move. Ludger was already making his.

At home, Ludger didn’t sleep so much as he negotiated with exhaustion and won by brute force.

Elaine had finally gotten the twins down, one of them curled against her chest, the other tucked into the crook of her arm like a stubborn little kid that refused to admit it needed warmth. The house was quiet in that fragile way that made any sane person tiptoe.

Ludger wasn’t sane.

He spread a map of the empire across the table and weighted the corners with whatever was closest: a mug, a knife sheath, a small sack of dried beans that had escaped the pantry. Then he lit a stubby candle, dipped a charcoal stick, and started drawing.

Not borders. Not politics. Routes.

He traced lines from Lionfang outward like veins, first to the nearest major trade roads, then further, connecting the big cities. It was easier that way. More efficient. More profitable.

If he wanted to buy resources and products in bulk, he needed direct access. Reliable access. He needed to cut out the middlemen who “lost” shipments when a noble frowned too hard.

And if he wanted the rails to earn money fast, connecting big cities meant clients. Merchants moving goods. Workers moving themselves. Travelers who could afford to pay extra to avoid bandits, mud, and broken axles.

Transportation wasn’t a luxury when the world was dangerous. It was survival sold by the mile. He circled hubs. Marked choke points. Scribbled little notes in the margins that only made sense to him.

Then he paused, staring at the clean lines he’d drawn, and the ugly truth behind them. Runic engines.

Stone rails without engines were still useful, carts could be pulled, loads could be pushed, earth magic could cheat. But if he wanted scale? If he wanted regular schedules and real capacity? He needed runic engines.

Not the delicate toy ones nobles bought to flex at parties. The kind built to haul. The kind that didn’t quit when the road turned bad or the weather turned worse. An investment.

His charcoal hovered over the map as he ran the numbers in his head. Cost per engine. Maintenance. Driver training. Guard rotations. Replacement parts. At least fuel wasn’t the problem.

Mana cores.

He had those. The Runic Golems Labyrinth was practically spitting them into his hands at this point, and the guild’s supply was growing fast enough that even Yvar was starting to look hopeful instead of merely stressed.

Ludger’s eyes narrowed. He’d even thought, briefly, that he could save on mana cores by teaching drivers how to use Stone Surfing, let them push the carts along rails with controlled earth-aspected mana, reduce engine burn, stretch the cores further.

A clever thought. A dangerous thought.

Because teaching people a movement technique that turned the ground into a weaponized conveyor belt was the kind of “efficiency” that made later problems… enthusiastic. He snorted softly and wrote

maybe

next to it anyway.

Then he drew one last line, longer than the others, ambitious enough to make a politician choke, before finally blowing out the candle.

Sleep came in thin, sharp fragments. Morning came too fast. When he reached the guild, the planning haze fell off him like a cloak yanked away.

He felt it before he fully saw it, the wrong energy in the air. The tension. The way people turned their heads, not casually, but like they were tracking a threat. Then he saw the courier.

Not one of Yvar’s usual runners. Not one of the guild’s messengers. A special courier. The kind House Torvares used when the message couldn’t wait and couldn’t be intercepted.

The man was sprinting straight for the Guildmaster’s quarters, boots slapping stone, breath ragged. His cloak was half-twisted from running too hard, too long.

And he looked… wrong. Flustered was generous. He looked like someone had chased him through hell and he’d heard the gates closing behind him.

Terrified.

He nearly collided with a passing recruit, stumbled, caught himself, and kept going without even apologizing. Ludger’s hand slid toward his forearm guards on instinct. His mind did a hard pivot, wiping clean the rails, the engines, the neat lines on paper.

Only one thought remained, sharp as a blade:

Torvares doesn’t send that man unless something already went bad.

He stepped forward, eyes tracking the courier as he disappeared into the hall.

And for the first time in days, Ludger stopped thinking about what the Regent might do next… Because whatever it was, it had finally started.

Ludger was already moving before his brain finished sorting the feeling into words. He cut through the yard, boots striking stone, cloak snapping behind him. By the time he hit the guild entrance, the “special courier” was coming back out… and the man looked even worse up close.

Pale. Eyes too wide. Sweat on his brow despite the cold. He didn’t slow. He didn’t stop. He just shot past Ludger like the wind had decided to wear a cloak for a day. That alone was enough to make Ludger’s stomach tighten.

He pushed inside, took the stairs two at a time, and didn’t bother knocking when he reached the Guildmaster’s office.

Yvar was already there, standing near the desk with his hands clasped behind his back, posture rigid in the way that meant he was trying to look calm for other people. Arslan sat with a paper in his hands, eyes scanning lines that were clearly refusing to become less terrible no matter how many times he read them.

His expression wasn’t anger. It was worry. Real worry, heavy enough that it made him look older.

Ludger shut the door behind him. “What happened this time?”

Arslan didn’t answer immediately. He finished reading, lips pressing into a thin line, then exhaled through his nose like he was trying to force the tension out of his ribs. After that, he simply tossed the paper across the desk.

Ludger caught it in midair without thinking. He opened it. Read. And felt the room get colder.

Rokram has been overrun by monsters.

Not “attacked.” Not “raided.” Not “pressured.”

Overrun.

Half the city, its place and population, decimated. The wording was clinical, but the meaning was blood and broken walls. Survivors were fleeing in a wave. Refugees heading to Fittar.

And behind them… Monsters. Not a scouting pack. Not a few stragglers. A moving threat, following the scent of fear and meat. Ludger’s eyebrows drew together, his jaw setting as the map of the region snapped into place in his head.

Fittar.

That was where the new branch of the guild had started a few months ago, after they’d secured ownership of the reptilian labyrinth. It was supposed to be a foothold. A growth point. A controlled expansion.

Not… a wall in front of a flood. He looked up from the paper.

“We should help them,” Ludger said immediately. No hesitation. No politics. “If Fittar falls, we lose the branch, the labyrinth, the supply line, and we get a refugee wave that turns into a famine. We move, now.”

Silence answered him. Not disagreement. Not refusal.

Just—

Yvar and Arslan exchanged a look. A long one. The kind that didn’t need words because the words were ugly enough to burn on the way out. Ludger stared at them, confusion sparking sharp and fast.

“…What?” he asked, slower this time. “Why are you looking at each other like that?”

Arslan’s hand tightened on the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening.

Yvar’s eyes didn’t leave Ludger’s face, but his expression had gone carefully blank, the look he wore when he was deciding how to deliver bad information without getting someone killed.

Ludger’s grip on the paper firmed. The message in his hands suddenly felt less like news… and more like the first domino.

“Tell me,” Ludger said, voice low.

Because whatever their silence meant, it wasn’t about

whether

they should help. It was about what helping would cost.

Arslan finally broke the silence. His voice came out rougher than usual, like he’d swallowed sand on the way to speaking.

“Based on your reaction,” he said, eyes fixed on Ludger, “you weren’t the cause of this.”

Ludger blinked once. Then twice.

“Cause—” he started, and stopped, because the word itself was ridiculous on his tongue.

Yvar’s jaw tightened a fraction. Arslan didn’t look away.

“Rokram,” Arslan continued, “was home to one of the sealed labyrinths. One of the ones you wanted to check… for the Rodericks.”

The last name hit like a small hammer. Not because it was powerful.

Because it was

connected

.

And in that instant, Ludger understood what the look between Yvar and Arslan had meant. They hadn’t been debating whether to help Fittar. They’d been debating whether Ludger had done something reckless enough to light a fuse under half a city.

He felt his mouth go dry.

“So you thought…” Ludger said slowly, and it wasn’t anger yet, just that cold clarity when you realize how other people see you.

“That you might have poked the seal,” Yvar said, quiet and careful. “Or tested it. Or send someone. Something.”

Arslan’s gaze didn’t soften, but it did steady. “We considered it. Because you’ve been pushing hard. You’ve been planning. And you don’t always tell us everything.”

Ludger could’ve argued that he told them

enough

. He could’ve pointed out that half the reason Lionfang still stood was because he didn’t waste time explaining every step.

Instead, he exhaled. His hands stayed still. The paper didn’t crumple. That, more than any words, apparently answered them.

Arslan nodded once. “Your face says no.”

Yvar gave the slightest dip of his head. Agreement. Ludger let the silence stretch a heartbeat longer, then spoke with the calm of someone who’d already started sorting the problem into pieces he could kill.

“It wasn’t a new labyrinth,” he said. “A new labyrinth doesn’t erase half a city before people even know what to call it. That kind of disaster happens when something

contained

gets uncontained.”

His eyes dropped to the message again, then lifted.

“Someone messed with a sealed labyrinth.”

Yvar’s expression stayed neutral, but his eyes sharpened. “It’s possible. Or… the family guarding it failed in their duties.”

He didn’t have to say what “failed” meant. Negligence. Corruption. Somebody opening a door they weren’t supposed to open because they wanted what was behind it and didn’t respect the cost.

But the bigger issue wasn’t the mechanics. It was the timing. Yvar tapped the message with two fingers, like he was pointing at the real threat hidden between the lines.

“This raises problems,” he said. “Because the Regent knows you, and the Lionsguard, are interested in the sealed labyrinths.”

Ludger felt it click into place, clean and ugly. The Regent could interpret this a dozen different ways, all of them useful to him.

The Lionsguard were sniffing around sealed labyrinths, then a city falls.

The Lionsguard refused my offer, then monsters pour out and refugees run to their branch.

The Lionsguard are gathering wolves and building rails, then chaos spreads.

He could paint them as reckless. As conspirators. As instigators. As the spark that “proved” they needed to be put under control. And he wouldn’t have to lie outright. He’d just have to suggest. Ludger’s grip tightened on the paper until the edge bent.

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