Chapter 632

Ludger’s gaze drifted toward the horizon, the road ahead stretching toward Rokram like a scar leading to an infection.

Varik frowned. “You think they staged it?”

“I think it’s possible,” Cor replied. “Not certain. But it's possible.”

Ludger’s mind chewed on it. It fit too well, and that was what made it suspicious. Real life rarely fits like a good lie unless someone has worked very hard to make it fit. Still… Cor’s next words were the hinge.

“But it’s risky,” Cor added. “Too risky.”

He glanced at Harold, then at Ludger.

“To vanish, they’d be giving up everything their family built over centuries,” Cor said. “Land. Titles. Houses. Wealth. Accomplishments. Territory. All the protection that comes with being

known

.”

Harold grunted. “No one throws that away unless they’re either desperate or already bought something bigger.”

Selene’s eyes gleamed faintly. “Or they think they’ll take it back after the world burns.”

Ludger didn’t speak for a long moment. Because Cor was right, abandoning centuries of power was an enormous price for a clean alibi. But Ludger also knew something else. Sometimes people didn’t abandon power. Sometimes they traded one kind for another.

And if someone had messed with a sealed labyrinth, if they’d let a furnace build until it exploded, then they weren’t thinking like normal nobles anymore. They were thinking like gamblers who believed they’d already rigged the game. Ludger exhaled softly.

“Either way,” he said, voice low, “someone benefits from Rokram falling.”

And that meant the real enemy might not be the ants. The ants were just the weapon. Ludger’s gaze stayed on the road, but his mind was somewhere else, moving pieces on a board most people didn’t even know existed.

“They wouldn’t do that,” he said finally, voice calm. “Not unless they had backing.”

Varik’s eyes flicked toward him. Cor’s staff stopped tapping for a beat.

“Backing from another powerful family,” Ludger continued, “one that benefits from instability.”

He didn’t need to name examples. But he did anyway.

“Like the Rodericks,” Ludger said. “They vanished too.”

The name sat heavy in the air. Not because everyone knew it. Because everyone knew what it implied: a pattern. A thread. A map you didn’t want to find yourself standing inside.

Varik’s mouth tightened. His first instinct rose up in his expression, irritation, skepticism, the reflex of a man who’d spent too long hearing nobles whisper about shadows and omens.

“You think too much about conspiracies,” he started.

He didn’t finish the sentence. Because even Varik knew how this looked. A sealed labyrinth breached under a manor. A city collapsing fast. Monsters organized enough to hold territory and send patrols. A guarding family disappearing without trace. It was the kind of event that

created

conspiracy whether one existed or not. Varik exhaled and rubbed a thumb along the edge of his glove, eyes tired.

“That’s what I want to say,” he admitted, “but…”

He glanced ahead, toward the distant haze where Rokram sat.

“…I agree with you.”

Selene’s grin returned, thin and sharp. “Good. I hate being right alone.”

Varik ignored her.

“This situation,” he said, voice low, “is exactly the kind of chaos someone would create if they wanted influence.”

Harold grunted. “Chaos makes people desperate.”

“And desperate people accept chains,” Cor added quietly.

Varik nodded once. “If you destabilize enough of the realm, you get to offer solutions. Protection. Emergency authority. ‘Temporary’ powers that never quite go away.”

Ludger’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t like that Varik was saying it out loud. He liked even less that it made sense.

“So,” Ludger said, tone controlled, “we treat the ants like the immediate threat…”

“And we treat whoever opened the door,” Cor finished, “as the real danger.”

Varik’s jaw tightened. “If we can prove it.”

Ludger didn’t answer, because proof was a luxury. But patterns weren’t. And this pattern smelled like someone using monsters the same way humans used armies, only dirtier. He kept walking. Because whatever game was being played, Rokram was the board. And they were almost close enough to see the pieces.

The road stretched on, and for a few minutes the group fell into the kind of silence that wasn’t peaceful, just occupied. Everyone was thinking, measuring distance, imagining what waited near Rokram.

Varik didn’t like that kind of silence. He also didn’t like where their last topic led, because conspiracies were the kind of thing you couldn’t fight with steel. You fought them with proof, and proof was slow.

So he did what tired men often did. He grabbed the nearest

other

problem. And unfortunately, the nearest problem that came to mind was Ludger himself.

Varik cleared his throat. “So…”

Selene’s eyes flicked sideways like she was already amused. Varik looked at Ludger, no ceremony this time, just honest curiosity cutting through the rank and armor.

“Your family refused the title the Regent offered,” Varik said. “Viscount. Land. Influence.” He hesitated, then asked, “What were you thinking?”

His gaze sharpened slightly. “Do you hate nobles that much?”

Ludger didn’t even slow. He shrugged, as if Varik had asked why he didn’t like soggy bread.

“It’s not nobles,” Ludger said. “It’s their

modus operandi

.”

Harold huffed. Cor’s eyes turned faintly amused. Aleia stayed silent, but her posture suggested she was listening carefully. Ludger continued, tone flat and annoyingly calm.

“All that fanfare. All that nonsense. Feasts and speeches and pretending the world runs on ‘honor’ while everyone’s hands are in someone else’s pocket.”

Varik’s mouth twitched, almost a smile.

“And,” Ludger added, “I dislike accepting something as a leash.”

Varik frowned. “A leash?”

Ludger glanced at him for half a second, long enough to make the point land.

“If you accept a title from someone anyone,” Ludger said, “you’re not just taking land. You’re agreeing to be obedient. You’re agreeing that they can

pull

whenever they want, and you’re supposed to come running.”

Selene snorted. “He means ‘sit.’”

Ludger ignored her.

“I don’t accept titles to become someone’s dog,” he said simply.

Varik held his gaze, the honest question still there. “So you’ll never take one?”

Ludger shrugged again. “Maybe I will. If it’s useful and clean.”

His voice hardened slightly.

“But I don’t

work

for people because they hand me a shiny badge.”

He looked forward, eyes steady.

“I work with those I deem worthy of my loyalty,” Ludger said. “Those who earn it.”

Harold let out a low laugh. “Sounds like you’re the noble now.”

Ludger’s expression didn’t change. “I’m worse.”

Varik stared at him for a moment, then exhaled through his nose, half disbelief, half reluctant respect.

“Right,” he muttered. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

Varik walked for a while in silence after Ludger’s answer, like he was chewing on it the way soldiers chewed on hard bread, slow, stubborn, and with the full intent of swallowing it anyway.

Then he tried again. Not with rank. Not with threats. Not even with the clipped, official tone he’d used when he first arrived at the branch. He tried with… sincerity.

“Look,” Varik said, eyes still forward, voice lower so it didn’t carry to every soldier in his squad. “I know how you see it. Titles as leashes. Nobles as parasites. The whole circus.”

Selene made a soft, pleased sound behind them, as if she enjoyed hearing someone say the quiet part out loud. Varik ignored her.

“But the Regent isn’t,” he paused, searching for the right phrasing, “, he isn’t some crazy power hungry.”

Harold snorted. “Brave stance.”

Varik shot him a look and kept going.

“He’s a good man,” Varik said. “Or as good as anyone can be in that seat. And he’s trying to manage a realm that’s going to change hands soon.”

Ludger didn’t react. That was the problem with arguing with Ludger, if you weren’t landing hits, he didn’t even grant you the courtesy of looking offended. Varik continued anyway, like he was pushing a cart uphill and had decided pride was irrelevant.

“The next Emperor will take the throne,” Varik said. “And when that happens, every faction, every major house, every guild with teeth… they’ll test the seams. Everyone will see what they can take.”

His fingers flexed once on the strap of his scabbard.

“The Regent knows that,” he said. “So he’s being careful. He has to be careful with anyone who accumulates power and influence, because

power moves

when leadership changes. And if it moves the wrong way, the realm bleeds.”

He finally looked at Ludger, expression tired but earnest.

“You’re building something huge,” Varik said. “Wolves. Rails. A guild that’s famous in less than five years. A town that can stand on its own. That’s… rare. That scares people.”

Selene muttered, “Good.”

Varik didn’t take the bait.

“The title wasn’t just a leash,” he said. “It was also… a way to formalize you. Bring you into the structure. Make you part of the empire’s stability instead of a wild card on the edge.”

He exhaled through his nose. “You can call it control. Sure. But from his side, it’s management. Risk management. Because he’s holding a realm together until the throne is occupied again.”

Ludger let Varik finish. Let the argument stand on its own legs. Then he shrugged. It wasn’t dismissive. It was the motion of someone who simply refused to make another man’s burden into his religion.

“It isn’t my problem to be convinced,” Ludger said.

Varik blinked. “That’s—”

Ludger cut him off, calm as stone.

“I’m doing what I can to improve my land,” he said. “Protect my people. Build infrastructure. Stabilize the frontier. I’m not harming anyone. I’m not marching in cities. I’m not collecting taxes from strangers. I’m not trying to replace the empire.”

His gaze stayed forward, scanning the road like the horizon might offer useful information.

“If the Regent has too many problems in his hands,” Ludger continued, “that’s unfortunate.”

Varik’s jaw tightened. “Unfortunate…”

“It’s not my place to make his life easier,” Ludger said, voice still flat. “Or anyone else’s.”

Harold’s mouth twitched like he wanted to laugh, but he didn’t. Even he recognized the edge under Ludger’s words, something personal and hard-won. Ludger went on, quieter now, but more dangerous because of how matter-of-fact it was.

“If I start being mindful of everyone’s problems and situations,” he said, “I’ll go crazy.”

Varik frowned. “You can’t just…”

“I can,” Ludger said.

He glanced at Varik for a brief second, eyes steady, tired in a way that didn’t match his age.

“I have enough,” he said. “Lionfang. The guild. The labyrinth. My family. Refugees. Monsters. Politics. If I also start shaping my decisions around what makes the Regent feel secure, and what makes Houses feel comfortable, and what makes Guilds less jealous…”

He exhaled, slow.

“There’s no end,” Ludger said. “The moment you try to live like that, you stop living. You just react to everyone’s anxieties until you’re hollow.”

Varik’s face tightened, like he wanted to argue, and also like he couldn’t fully disagree because he’d seen what “serving everyone” did to men.

“So you’ll never compromise,” Varik said.

Ludger shrugged again.

“I compromise when it makes sense,” he said. “When it doesn’t break my people.”

His tone sharpened, just slightly.

“But I don’t accept obedience as the price of ‘help.’”

Selene leaned in toward Harold and whispered loudly enough to be heard, “He’s so polite about being terrifying.”

Harold grunted. “It’s kind of his charm. Makes it worse.”

Varik’s eyes stayed on Ludger a moment longer, then he looked away, jaw working. He didn’t look angry. He looked… conflicted. Like he wanted the world to be simple enough for good men in high seats to be trusted automatically.

And Ludger was reminding him that simplicity was a luxury the frontier didn’t get. Finally, Varik breathed out.

“…Just don’t make enemies you don’t need,” he said.

Ludger’s answer came instantly.

“Then they should stop trying to own me,” he said.

And the road carried them onward, toward Rokram’s shadow, toward the containment line, toward a fight that didn’t care whether the Regent was a good man or not.

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