Luna studied him for another second, then gave a small nod. No argument this time. No attempt to push herself into the plan. Just understanding. That, more than anything else, made the conversation tolerable.
Behind them, the trainees’ break was nearly over.
Soon the groups would rotate again. More frost skeletons would die. More lessons would be learned. More time would pass, and every hour would bring him closer to the moment where the false expedition stopped being false in the ways that mattered.
Ludger looked down at the last bit of ash from the burned note scattered over the ice-veined stone.
Then he said, “You should go back before someone notices you wandered off too long.”
Luna nodded.
But before she turned away, she asked one last thing.
“Are you worried?”
Ludger was silent for half a second.
Then he answered honestly.
“Yes.”
That seemed to surprise her a little. Not because he felt it. Because he admitted it.
Ludger looked toward the corridor ahead and said, “This kind of work is too volatile not to be.”
Luna accepted that with another small nod. Luna did not leave immediately.
She stopped a few steps away, then turned back and said, “You can’t do this alone.”
Ludger looked at her without speaking. Luna’s gaze held steady.
“Unless,” she added, “you’re planning a massacre in the capital.”
That made one of his eyebrows rise slightly. She was not being dramatic. That was what made the words land. Her tone stayed calm, precise, almost clinical as she continued.
“Because if you aren’t, then the problem is simple. Even if you are you, you won’t be able to hold back enough in that kind of place once things go wrong.” She folded her arms lightly. “And if you do survive, it will be very obvious that you did it. You’ll leave clues behind.”
The corridor seemed quieter around them for a second. Ludger understood the point.
The capital was not some border route where force could erase uncertainty. It was a place layered with patrols, structures, witnesses, and too many eyes. If an infiltration failed there and turned into open violence, surviving might still mean losing the actual game. A trail of broken bodies, shattered stone, and obvious mana signatures would not be a clean failure.
It would be a declaration.
Ludger asked, “Your point being?”
Luna looked away for the first time since approaching him. Not far. Just enough to show that what came next was more uncomfortable to say than the tactical part. Her expression shifted into something more complicated again, quieter and less certain than usual. She watched the frost glimmer along the edge of the corridor wall before speaking.
“Viola is only being like this because she cares about you.”
The words came out evenly, but they carried more weight than she seemed to like. Ludger said nothing. So Luna went on.
“She wants to help you because you’ve helped her.” Her eyes lowered slightly. “A lot.”
There was no teasing in it. No mockery. Just a plain truth she was forcing herself to say because she clearly thought the conversation would be incomplete otherwise.
“And it’s not only her,” Luna added after a moment. “The same applies to everyone else.”
That made Ludger’s expression flatten a little. Luna finally looked back at him.
“People don’t keep trying to get involved just because they’re bored,” she said. “Or because they want to make your life harder.”
That was, unfortunately, not fully true in Viola’s case. Ludger almost said so. But Luna kept speaking before he could.
“They do it because from their side, standing still while you go alone feels worse.”
That line sat there between them. Simple. Uncomfortable. Accurate enough to be irritating. Luna’s voice remained low and steady, but there was a sharper honesty in it now.
“You keep framing it as if they want convenience. And yes, that’s part of it. But that isn’t all it is.” She paused, then said more quietly, “Sometimes wanting to help is just what happens when someone matters to you.”
Ludger held her gaze for a second. That was the problem with Luna. When she chose to speak plainly, she usually aimed too close to the center. He looked away first, not out of weakness, but because he had already heard enough to understand the direction she was trying to push him.
Behind them, the trainees were beginning to stir more loudly as the break neared its end. Someone called for water. Someone else laughed and got told to quiet down. The ordinary sounds of a controlled training session drifted through the labyrinth while the conversation at the edge of it stayed fixed in a much less comfortable place.
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Ludger said, “Caring does not improve operational value.”
Luna did not retreat.
“No,” she said. “But ignoring it doesn’t erase it either.”
That answer came too quickly. Too cleanly. Ludger clicked his tongue softly.
Because once again, she was not attacking the plan itself. She was attacking the narrowness of the frame he preferred to use when thinking about it. He wanted the issue to be structure, efficiency, burden, risk. Luna was reminding him that from the perspective of everyone outside his head, the issue was also much more human than that.
That was annoying. Not because it was false. Because it made things messier.
He asked, “So you want me to start choosing team members based on emotional comfort?”
Luna gave him a flat look.
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s close enough.”
“It isn’t.”
For a moment, a little of her usual dry patience cracked through. Luna took a small breath and continued, calmer again.
“I’m saying that if multiple people are reacting this strongly, maybe the answer isn’t just that they’re foolish or intrusive.” She paused. “Maybe you’ve made a habit of shutting them out so early that all they have left is to push.”
That made Ludger go still. Not visibly. But enough. Because that possibility had crossed his mind before, in uglier, quieter moments he preferred not to examine too closely.
Luna noticed the silence and kept going.
“Viola pushes because that’s how she is,” she said. “She feels something, and she turns it into motion before she fully thinks it through.” The corner of Luna’s mouth twitched faintly, not quite a smile. “Usually too much motion.”
Despite himself, Ludger almost snorted. Almost. Luna continued.
“But underneath that, it’s still the same thing. She wants to stand where the important things are happening because she doesn’t want to be left behind while people she cares about walk into danger alone.”
That was a very clean description of Viola. Troublesomely clean.
Luna, apparently deciding not to elaborate on that part, brought it back to the point.
“The problem is that you hear concern and immediately translate it into interference.”
Ludger answered, “Because most concern becomes interference.”
“Only after you refuse to let it become anything else.”
That one landed harder. He did not answer immediately. The frost-lit corridor, the distant trainees, the silent weight of the coming week, all of it seemed to settle more densely around the space between them.
Luna looked at him for another second, then said more softly, “You don’t have to involve everyone. Maybe you shouldn’t. But there’s a difference between choosing carefully and refusing so completely that the only thing people can do is chase after you.”
Ludger exhaled through his nose. Long. Controlled. He was getting tired of people being right in inconvenient ways.
He looked at her and said, “That still doesn’t change the mission.”
“No,” Luna agreed. “I know.”
At least she had the decency not to pretend otherwise.
Then she added, “But it might change what happens after it.”
That was the part he liked even less. Because missions ended. Consequences didn’t. For a second, he could almost see what Luna meant from the outside. Viola wasn’t trying to be reasonable. She was trying not to be left out of something that mattered.
That was different. Not better. But different.
He said, “You’re all making this more troublesome than it needs to be.”
Luna’s expression softened by a fraction.
“Yes,” she said. “That part is probably true.”
Finally. Some honesty he could approve of. Then Luna gave him a small nod and, this time, actually turned to go.
She walked back toward the group in silence, and Ludger remained where he was for another moment, the cold of the labyrinth pressing against his skin while the weight of what she had said stayed behind.
Then he straightened, let the thoughts settle where they needed to settle, and headed back toward the trainees. The break was over. And whether people worried or not, the day was still moving forward.
Ludger sighed. Luna was being logical.
Out of the three of them, she was the only one who had managed to stay fully inside logic without letting curiosity, pride, or boredom twist the shape of the point. Viola charged at problems the way she charged at most things, headfirst, with too much heart and not enough patience. Elira wrapped her interest in clever words and bright smiles, but she still kept pressing because she found the whole situation far too stimulating. Luna, on the other hand, had cut through the noise and reached the part that was actually difficult.
That was annoying.
Mostly because it meant he could not dismiss her argument as nonsense. He understood perfectly well why Viola was acting the way she was. And, if he was being honest, part of the reason he kept shutting her out so firmly was because he wanted to protect her from the consequences of his choices too.
That was the truth of it. Not the whole truth, but enough of it.
Viola was reckless, loud, competitive, and incapable of leaving danger alone once she decided it mattered. But she was still family. Still someone whose future he did not want entangled with the ugliest parts of the work he chose for himself. If his decisions led to retaliation, suspicion, blood, or political fallout, then naturally he would rather that land on him than on her.
The problem was that wanting to protect her did not give him the right to erase her will. He could not stop her from taking her own risks forever. And if he was honest, that part was not fair. Not to her. Not when she had already chosen danger before. Not when she had stood her ground in other matters. Not when she had, up until now, never actually failed him in the ways that mattered most.
Troublesome? Constantly. Difficult? Absolutely. But dead weight? No.
Treating her like that was not the right thing either.
Ludger frowned slightly as he walked back toward the others.
That did not mean he had been wrong to keep her out of this.
It did not mean Luna’s logic overturned the mission, or that concern should suddenly start deciding operational structure.
But it did mean the matter was not as simple as he had been forcing it to be in his own head.
That was irritating.
And because of what Luna had said, and because of the timing in that note, and because the window ahead had narrowed into something sharp and ugly, a different idea had already started taking shape in the back of his mind.
Not a full plan yet.
Not something ready to be spoken aloud.
Just the outline of a next step.
A way to move that might fit the information he had now without collapsing into the worst version of the problem.
Ludger kept that thought to himself.