Chapter 675

The deck exploded into motion.

Rathen turned back to Ludger with a grim look.

“Then we sail,” he said. “And we pray your instincts are as good at sea as they are under the ground.”

Ludger glanced out at the water, bright, innocent, and lying through its teeth.

“They don’t have to be,” Ludger said quietly.

He tapped the sealed folder once against his palm.

“They just have to be good enough to find what’s hiding down there.”

Two hours later, the ship slipped free of the pier like it had been waiting to breathe.

Ropes came loose. Sail cloth unfurled. The hull groaned once as it met open water, then steadied, runic reinforcement humming faintly beneath the deck like a heartbeat. The port shrank behind them, buildings turning into pale blocks under the sun, then into nothing at all.

Only sea remained. Blue on the surface. Dark underneath. Endless and patient.

Rathen stood at the wheel, posture tight, eyes working the horizon and the wind at the same time. He looked more like a man steering a blade than a ship. A few sailors moved with practiced efficiency, adjusting rigging, checking lines, keeping distance from the passengers who carried too much mana and too many problems.

Rathen glanced over his shoulder at Ludger.

“So,” he said, voice carrying just enough to cut through the wind. “How are you planning to find the giant beast?”

Ludger leaned on the rail, gaze level with the waves, expression unreadable.

“We don’t hunt it blind,” Ludger said. “We start where it’s already been.”

Rathen’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Meaning?”

“We head to the places where the ships sank,” Ludger answered. “Fresh wrecks. Fresh patterns. If it’s territorial, it circles. If it’s hunting, it returns. If it’s guarding something… it won’t stray far from the route.”

Rathen held Ludger’s gaze for a moment, then nodded once, professional approval.

“Fair,” he said.

He turned back to the wheel, adjusted his grip, and called out a few short orders. The sailors responded immediately. The ship’s nose shifted, cutting a new line across the water, wind catching the sails at a slightly different angle.

The coastline drifted to their left, then began to fall away as they angled toward deeper water. Ludger watched the direction change, then spoke again, tone mild and sharp in the same breath.

“What were you moving when you were attacked?”

Rathen didn’t answer right away.

His hands stayed on the wheel, but his posture stiffened, just a fraction. The kind of stiffness that came from old instincts:

don’t say that out loud.

He looked at Ludger with a complicated expression. Not anger. Not fear. Something like resentment braided with obligation.

“It was something the Empire asked for,” Rathen said finally, carefully. “And I can’t give more details.”

He held Ludger’s gaze as if daring him to push.

“That was the agreement with the client,” Rathen added, voice flat. “We transport. We don’t gossip.”

The wind snapped the sails. The sea hissed against the hull. Ludger studied him for a long moment, reading the tension in his jaw, the way his eyes flicked away from the question and back to the horizon, like the horizon was safer than the truth.

Then Ludger said nothing. No argument. No pressure. No threat. He simply turned away from Rathen and looked out over the water. The ocean rolled on, sunlight glittering across its surface like coins scattered to distract fools from what waited below.

Ludger rested his forearms on the rail and watched the waves as if they might blink. Fine. If Rathen wouldn’t tell him what was on those ships… Then Ludger would find out the hard way.

The sea always kept records. They just had to be willing to dive deep enough to read them. Ludger moved along the deck, boots thudding softly against damp wood, until he reached the other side rail.

The sea rolled alongside them in a steady rhythm, friendly on the surface, heavy underneath. The kind of water that could look harmless right up until it decided to swallow you.

Viola stood there like she was at the edge of an arena instead of the edge of a ship.

Both swords were already in her hands, blades angled down but ready, her stance balanced with that eager tension of someone who

wanted

a fight to prove the last month of training wasn’t just sweat and bruises.

Her eyes swept the water, the horizon, the shifting texture of waves like she expected something to explode up at any second. Ludger watched her for a moment, then spoke.

“You don’t have to worry,” he said.

Viola’s head snapped slightly toward him, but her gaze didn’t fully leave the ocean.

“I’m using Mana Sense,” Ludger continued, tapping his temple once. “If it comes close, I’ll feel it first. Before anyone can see it.”

Viola’s mouth twitched. “So you’re the early warning bell.”

“I’m the early warning bell,” Ludger agreed. Then his eyes flicked down to her swords. “Also, are you planning to jump from this ship and slash the creature up?”

Viola’s grin widened like he’d offered her dessert.

“Maybe I will,” she said, entirely too cheerful. “I’ve made a lot of progress. I’m not scared of doing that.”

Ludger stared at her. He didn’t sigh, but his expression did the emotional equivalent.

“Right,” he said dryly.

Viola leaned closer, voice lowering just a bit like the sea might be listening. “Rather than that… what’s the battle plan?”

Ludger’s eyes shifted across the deck.

Maurien leaned near the main mast, cloak fluttering slightly, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else but still perfectly ready to turn the air into knives. Kaela stood a few paces away, calm and predatory, wind already moving around her in faint, barely visible currents. Renvar checked a coil of rope and a harpoon line with mechanical focus.

Ludger nodded toward them.

“We hit it with wind magic first,” Ludger said. “We damage it as much as possible. We keep it from diving cleanly and we force it to commit to the surface.”

He lifted a hand, palm up, as if laying the plan out on an invisible table.

“Maurien, Renvar and Kaela will shred it,” Ludger continued. “Cut its momentum. Pressure it. Make it bleed and make it angry.”

Kaela’s eyes flicked toward him, amused that he’d phrased it so simply.

Renvar looked up, giving a short nod like he’d already assumed that was his role—keep the ship stable, keep lines ready, and add whatever pressure he could without getting himself killed.

“And while they do that,” Ludger said, voice tightening slightly, “I prepare the strongest attack I can launch.”

Viola’s grin faded into something more serious. “Your best shot.”

“My best shot,” Ludger confirmed.

He looked out at the water again, gaze sharpening.

“Because if I can’t kill it in a single hit,” Ludger said, “I’m not fighting it underwater.”

Viola blinked. “You’re just… not?”

Ludger’s eyes stayed cold.

“Underwater is its territory,” he said. “It can move fast. We can’t. It can breathe. We can’t. Even if we win, we lose people. I don’t do fair fights. I do survivable fights.”

Viola’s jaw set, the thrill in her posture settling into something harder and more disciplined.

“So we force it up,” she said, following the logic.

“We force it up,” Ludger agreed. “We hurt it. We bait it into presenting a target.”

He glanced at her swords again.

“And you,” Ludger added, “stay on the ship unless I tell you otherwise.”

Viola rolled her eyes. “Yes, Vice Guildmaster.”

But her grip tightened on her blades anyway, like she was already preparing to disobey creatively. Ludger pretended not to notice.

He returned his attention to the sea, Mana Sense stretching outward like invisible roots. Somewhere ahead were wrecks. Somewhere beneath were answers.

And somewhere in that dark blue water was an eye big enough to make ships feel like toys, waiting to see if today’s prey would scream. Viola’s eyes narrowed, the earlier excitement turning into something more practical.

“And what about the others?” she asked, chin tilting toward the rest of the deck. “Luna. Shera. Valk.”

Ludger didn’t even glance back at them.

He kept his gaze on the water, Mana Sense stretched thin and wide like a net he didn’t fully trust.

“They can offer moral support,” Ludger said.

Viola stared at him like he’d just suggested they clap the monster to death.

“You’re serious.”

“Yes,” Ludger replied, perfectly calm.

He finally turned his head enough to meet her eyes.

“I’m not making people outside my guild risk their lives,” Ludger said. “Not for imperial coins. Not for my curiosity. Not for your pride.”

Viola’s jaw tightened. “They came on purpose.”

“They came to observe,” Ludger corrected. “If the plan works, they celebrate. If the plan fails…”

His voice dropped a fraction.

“…then I’ll have to buy time some other way while the ship retreats.”

That was the part he didn’t dress up. Not heroism. Not glory. Just the ugly math of survival, someone had to hold the line while wood and sail turned away from teeth. Viola’s grip on her swords tightened, knuckles whitening.

“You’re planning for that,” she said softly.

“I plan for everything,” Ludger answered.

He didn’t say

I’m the one who’ll do it,

but it sat behind the words like a shadow.

Before Viola could push back, a shout cut across the deck, sharp, urgent, and carrying the edge of a man who’d seen too many quiet seas turn violent.

“Arriving!” Rathen barked from the cabin doorway. “First attack point! Eyes open!”

The ship’s mood changed instantly. Sailors moved faster. Hands went to lines. Feet found stable stances. Ludger’s attention snapped forward, Mana Sense tightening like a fist.

The water ahead looked the same as it always did, glittering, calm, beautiful. Which meant it was lying. And they were finally close enough to start catching the truth. Rathen’s voice carried from the wheel like a hook thrown into the air.

“Here,” he called. “Around this stretch. That’s where it hit us.”

The ship cut through the swells at a controlled pace, sails adjusted to keep them steady instead of fast. Sailors lined the rail with nervous discipline, eyes scanning for anything that didn’t belong on the surface.

Ludger stepped to the side and let his senses extend.

Mana Sense flowed outward, cold, quiet, methodical, sliding through air, skimming the skin of the ocean, pressing down as far as he dared without committing.

Nothing. No vast pressure. No predatory presence. No wrongness in the water. Just the steady churn of sea life and the faint, normal pulse of the ship’s own runes. Ludger’s eyes narrowed.

“Keep moving,” he said to Rathen. “Circle the area. Slow. Don’t stop.”

Rathen didn’t argue. He turned the wheel a fraction, and the ship began to carve a wide loop through the waves, staying close enough to the point of impact without sitting still like bait.

Ludger crouched near the rail and started unfastening his gear.

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