Chapter 671

He tapped two fingers against his forearm, a tiny habit when he was thinking too hard.

“But now it’s returning,” Ludger finished quietly.

Arslan glanced toward the door Rufas had left through, as if he could pull the noble back by will alone. “Rufas said it’s been sinking imperial ships recently.”

Ludger nodded. “Yes.”

“And he said the Ironhand has been hit too.” Arslan’s eyes narrowed. “Is that true?”

Ludger shrugged, small and indifferent. “Rufas said it. He also admitted he doesn’t know everything.”

Yvar looked up. “You think he’s lying?”

Ludger’s expression didn’t change. “No.”

Arslan leaned forward slightly. “Then what?”

Ludger’s eyes went cold again, not angry, not emotional. Just precise.

“I assume he doesn’t get the real information,” Ludger said. “You don’t send an heir from a house close to the imperial family to negotiate with frontier people and then hand him the complete truth. He’s a messenger. A shield.”

Arslan’s mouth tightened. “So you think the Empire is hiding what those ships were carrying.”

Ludger didn’t answer directly. He didn’t need to.

“He didn’t mention what the imperial ships were moving,” Ludger said instead. “Not cargo type. Not route purpose. Not destination. Just… ‘ships.’”

Yvar’s quill paused again.

Arslan’s face darkened. “And that made you accept.”

“It made the job useful,” Ludger corrected.

He stood, walked to the window, and looked out over Lionfang’s streets, new buildings, refugee lines, labor crews moving like ants around the spine of the town. Direwolves visible near the gates. The whole place held together by work and fear and routine.

“I’m not leaving for five hundred diamond coins,” Ludger said, voice quieter now. “That’s just bait.”

He turned back.

“I’m leaving because there are ships on the bottom of the ocean,” Ludger said. “Imperial ships. Possibly Ironhand ships.” His eyes sharpened. “And ships don’t sink clean. They leave traces. They leave cargo. They leave bodies. They leave evidence.”

Arslan’s brows knit. “Evidence of what?”

Ludger’s mouth twitched, not quite humor.

“Of why the beast is back,” he said. “Of what they started moving again. And who benefits from it.”

He gestured vaguely, as if the answer was floating somewhere out past the walls.

“If the beast targets bulk mana movement,” Ludger continued, “then the wrecks tell us what kind of bulk. Mana cores? Artifacts? Something from Rokram? Something from that sealed ant labyrinth? Something they don’t want anyone seeing on land?”

Arslan stared at him, realization settling in with an unpleasant weight.

“You accepted… to investigate.”

“To confirm patterns,” Ludger said. “To see if the cargo matches what I suspect. To see if the Empire is pushing something through the coast while everyone’s distracted by refugees and politics.”

He stepped back to the desk, tapped the sealed folder once.

“And while I’m there,” Ludger added, like it was obvious, “I’ll take whatever I can find that’s useful. Resources and information. At the same time. One trip.”

Arslan’s expression hovered between pride and worry and the faint horror of realizing his son thought like a raider with a ledger. Yvar finally exhaled, long and tired, rubbing his forehead with two fingers.

“Only someone like you,” Yvar muttered, “would look at a problem the Empire is facing and decide it’s an opportunity.”

Ludger didn’t deny it. He just nodded once, calm as stone.

“If they want me away from Lionfang,” Ludger said, “then I’m going to make sure they pay for it twice.”

His eyes flicked to Arslan, sharp, serious.

“And if the ocean is the bait,” he added, “then I’m going to see the hook.”

Ludger didn’t let the conversation breathe into comfort.

The moment the logic was laid out, patterns, cargo, wrecks, leverage, his mind shifted gears like a machine clicking into the next step. No lingering. No victory lap. Just work.

He pulled the folder closer, snapped the wax without ceremony, and started sorting the pages into neat piles: coordinates, survivor testimonies, ship names, dates. The kind of information most men read like a story.

Ludger read it like a map of intent.

Yvar hovered nearby, already reaching for blank paper, ink, and a spare ledger. Arslan stayed seated for a beat, watching his son flip through imperial reports with the same expression he used when he watched Ludger plan a labyrinth run—equal parts pride and dread.

Finally Arslan asked the question that sat under everything.

“Do you want a large team?” he said. “For the extermination.”

Ludger didn’t even look up. He just shook his head once.

Arslan frowned. “Just like that?”

Ludger finally lifted his eyes. “A large team is loud.”

Yvar paused mid-scratch. Arslan’s brow tightened.

Ludger set one page down and tapped it with a finger, an estimated attack point marked with a red dot.

“That thing notices bulk,” he said. “It noticed us when we moved toward the runic golems labyrinth with numbers. If we sail out there with a fleet’s worth of bodies and mana, we’ll be announcing ourselves from miles away. That’s not hunting. That’s ringing a bell.”

Arslan’s mouth opened, then closed. He still wasn’t convinced.

“The recruits?” Arslan tried. “They have decent firepower now. And it would be good experience.”

Ludger’s eyes went flat.

“No,” he said.

One word. No softness.

Arslan held his gaze. “Why?”

“Because they’ll panic,” Ludger said, like it was as obvious as gravity. “They can throw spells at skeletons. They can hold a line against beasts on land or in the air. But the moment they see that thing, really see it, half of them will freeze and the other half will start screaming orders that don’t matter.”

He didn’t sound cruel. Just realistic.

“And when people panic on a ship,” Ludger continued, “they don’t just become useless. They become dangerous. They trip others. They drop ropes. They break formation. They force the calm ones to babysit.”

Yvar’s pen scratched softly again, the sound small in the suddenly heavy room.

Ludger slid another sheet forward, an imperial shipping lane note, faintly smudged, like whoever wrote it didn’t want it read too closely.

“I’ll take a handful,” he said. “People who won’t lose their heads. People who can follow instructions while the world is trying to drown them.”

Arslan nodded slowly. “And the rest?”

Ludger’s gaze drifted to the window again, to Lionfang’s walls, to the workers and refugees and patrols moving like blood through the town’s veins.

“The rest stay here,” Ludger said. “Every force we can spare stays around Lionfang.”

Arslan’s expression sharpened. “Because of your third condition.”

“Because if I’m wrong,” Ludger said, “we lose nothing but time. And if I’m right…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

Arslan leaned back, jaw tight. “You really think they’d try something while you’re away?”

“I think people do stupid things when they think they’re clever,” Ludger said. “And the capital has been sealing labyrinths and controlling information. That’s not nothing.”

Yvar cleared his throat.

“I still don’t believe the Regent would use such a roundabout way to get rid of the Lionsguard,” Yvar said carefully, like he was trying to be the voice of reason without being the voice of

naïve.

“If the crown wanted you removed, they have simpler tools.”

Ludger looked at him.

“And if they don’t want me removed,” Ludger said, “but they want me distracted? Or tested? Or out of position for three days while someone else makes a move?”

Yvar’s mouth tightened. He didn’t answer. Because that version fits too. Ludger turned back to Arslan, already assembling the list in his head.

“Send a message to Kharnek,” Ludger said. “Tell him to keep his people ready. No raids. No posturing. Just readiness. If Lionfang gets hit, I want the northerners moving before the smoke clears.”

Arslan nodded immediately. No argument this time. That wasn’t politics. That was survival.

“I’ll send it myself,” Arslan said.

Yvar sighed, long and resigned.

“All caution will be welcome,” he admitted, though it sounded like it pained him to say it.

Ludger didn’t react. He was already writing. Team composition. Supplies. Communication methods. Emergency protocols. His mind ran ahead like a scouting hound.

Because out there was an ocean full of wrecks and secrets… and something with a giant eye that had watched him build a bridge like it was deciding whether he was worth eating.

This time, Ludger wasn’t going to let it watch. This time, he was going to make it bleed.

By the next morning, Ludger’s preparations were finished.

Not

mostly

finished. Not

good enough

. Finished the way a man finished a weapon, checked, tested, balanced, and ready to be trusted when everything went wrong.

He left nothing to chance that he could control. Supplies counted and repacked. Rope and hooks. Sealed wax pouches for maps. Spare mana potions that didn’t freeze in salt air. A small stack of communication stones that Yvar insisted would “save everyone’s lives exactly once.” Ludger had agreed, mostly because Yvar said it with the kind of confidence that usually meant he’d already watched someone die without one.

When Ludger stepped out of the house, the cold morning air hit him like a slap. So did the fur. A giant furball slammed into his chest and drove him straight back onto the ground with all the grace of a rock getting mugged by a bear.

“Ugh—”

Ludger hit the dirt, knocked flat.

A wet tongue immediately went for his face like it had a personal grudge.

“Silva,” Ludger managed, words muffled between licks. “Stop.”

Silva did not stop.

The direwolf’s tail thumped against the ground like a drum. His paws pinned Ludger’s shoulders. His breath steamed in the morning air, hot and animal and stubbornly affectionate.

Ludger let it happen.

He didn’t fight it. Didn’t shove him off. Just lay there for a few seconds and took the punishment like a man paying a tax. Because he couldn’t take him. Not this time.

He’d already decided it. Direwolves were too visible, too loud, too tied to Lionfang’s identity. Bringing Silva would turn a mission into a parade, and it would leave the town without its most terrifying peacekeeper.

Silva licked his cheek again, harder, and Ludger finally pushed a hand up to the wolf’s muzzle, not to stop him, but to hold him there.

“Alright,” Ludger muttered. “Alright.”

Silva’s ears perked, like he understood more than he should. Ludger shifted, rolled, and sat up with Silva still trying to crawl into his lap despite being the size of a small horse.

He scratched behind one ear, the spot Silva always pretended didn’t matter while leaning into it like his spine was made of pudding.

“Watch the house,” Ludger said quietly.

Silva stared at him with those pale, intelligent eyes. Then he threw his head back and howled. It wasn’t a playful noise. It wasn’t a greeting. It was a promise.

The sound rolled over the street, over rooftops, and into the morning like a warning to anything thinking of taking advantage of an empty doorstep. Ludger exhaled once, stood, and brushed dirt off his clothes. He pointed at the door.

“Don’t let anyone in,” he added.

Silva’s tail thumped once, hard, as if offended Ludger thought he needed clarification. Ludger turned and left before the wolf could decide to tackle him again. Ten minutes later, he was at the guild.

The courtyard was already awake, crates being loaded, sailors’ knots being tested, metal clicking against stone. The air smelled like oil and rope and that faint, sharp edge of mana in tools that had been handled by people who knew what they were doing.

His team had been assembled. And for a second, Ludger felt something almost like relief.

Because the first three faces he saw were exactly the ones he’d chosen, but the other four weren’t.

Thank you for reading!

Don't forget to follow, favorite, and rate. If you want to read 400 chapters ahead, you can check my patreon: /Comedian0