Viola looked toward the wall, though what she was really looking at was probably the image of Ludger in his office, arranging things in silence while everyone else was still trying to catch up to what he had already decided months ago.
“He really is annoying,” she muttered.
Elira smiled faintly.
“Yes,” she said. “But not in the way I first thought.”
Luna did not answer.
She just sat there quietly, already understanding what the other two were only now piecing together: that Ludger’s habit of making impossible-seeming things look ordinary was exactly why so many people underestimated the meaning of what he built until it was already there.
The next day, Ludger headed to the labyrinth with a good portion of the guild’s trainees.
The morning air was cool, the road still carrying that early hush before the day properly woke up, but the group itself had enough energy to make up for it. Packs, practice weapons, real weapons, supplies, and all the rest of the nonsense that came with a training expedition moved along in a long, uneven line behind him. Some of the younger members looked tense. Some looked excited. A few were clearly trying very hard to appear more composed than they actually felt.
The instructors were supposed to be walking by his side. That had been the plan. A simple one. A practical one. The kind of arrangement that should not have been difficult to maintain.
Instead, they were walking beside Viola. And worse, they were half-fangirling while doing it. Ludger could hear it even without trying.
The tone. The eager questions. The overly respectful agreement. The subtle competition to see who could seem the most impressive in front of her without looking like they were trying. Annoying.
Viola, naturally, was enjoying every second of it.
She walked with a bright smile and the relaxed confidence of someone basking in attention she had accepted as her natural due from the world. Now and then she tilted her head just enough, laughed at just the right moment, or answered with a little flourish that made the idiots around her look even more invested.
Ridiculous. Ludger looked ahead and exhaled slowly through his nose. He had taught those five discipline. That much was obvious enough in how they moved, how they handled their gear, and how they kept pace without turning the march into a complete mess. Apparently, what he should have taught them as well was professionalism. Because discipline clearly stopped functioning the moment a pretty girl with the reputation of a storm wrapped in noble blood started smiling in their direction.
Luna and Elira were walking near Viola too, the three of them forming an entirely unnecessary cluster of complication inside what should have been a straightforward guild operation. Luna, at least, was not encouraging the nonsense. She carried herself with her usual quiet calm, observing more than participating. Elira, meanwhile, seemed amused enough by the whole thing to let it continue for a while.
Then she noticed Ludger’s gaze. Or rather, the particular flavor of annoyance in it. A moment later, she broke away from the others and approached him.
Ludger did not slow. Neither did she. When she came up beside him, her expression held that same composed curiosity he had already started associating with incoming trouble.
“You look annoyed,” she said.
Ludger kept his eyes forward.
“I am.”
Elira glanced back toward the instructors orbiting Viola like poorly trained birds around a bright object.
“I see.”
“That would make one of us.”
That got a small smile out of her.
She walked in silence for a few more steps before asking, “Do you want me to tell them to behave?”
Ludger finally looked at her.
“No.”
Elira blinked once.
“That surprises me.”
“It shouldn’t.”
He looked forward again.
“If they can’t manage basic professionalism on a road march, it’s better I know now rather than later in a place where incompetence has sharper consequences.”
That made her expression shift a little. Not less amused. More thoughtful. Behind them, Viola laughed at something one of the instructors said, and the sound carried just enough to make Ludger’s eyebrow twitch again.
Elira noticed.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Then, because of course she did, she said, “You sound like you disapprove of her popularity.”
“I disapprove of idiots forgetting their jobs.”
“Ah.”
She sounded almost pleased by the distinction.
Ludger ignored that and kept walking, the trainees and instructors stretching behind him in a moving line of gear, nerves, and varying levels of competence. Ahead, the labyrinth waited. Behind him, professionalism was apparently still being tested by things far more embarrassing than monsters.
Elira walked beside him with her hands loosely clasped behind her back, matching his pace without any effort. The road to the labyrinth stretched ahead in a long gray line of packed earth and stone, bordered by sparse grass, wagon ruts, and the occasional scrub tree bent by wind. Behind them, the trainees continued marching in a broad, uneven group, their energy rising and falling in small waves as people talked, adjusted gear, or stole glances toward Viola and the little orbit of nonsense still gathering around her.
Ludger, meanwhile, kept his eyes on the road and pretended not to notice how comfortably Elira had inserted herself into the most annoying place possible.
At his side. Again.
After a few moments of silence, Elira said, “So are you really planning to do every bit of shady work by yourself from now on?”
Ludger did not answer.
The question was too direct, and the tone behind it was too light. It was not really the question of someone seeking understanding. It was the question of someone prodding a bruise because they had already noticed it existed and wanted to see how deep it went.
Elira glanced at him from the side.
“Because,” she went on, as if she had not noticed his refusal, “that doesn’t make much sense unless you get some sort of kick out of it.”
That made one of Ludger’s eyebrows twitch almost imperceptibly. He still did not answer. Mostly because he could already tell she was finding the situation amusing. Not just this conversation. The whole layered mess around him.
The fake expedition. The real plan hidden under it. The trainees behind them. Viola causing problems by breathing. Luna quietly observing everything. And Ludger himself, walking at the center of it like someone trying to keep all of it from becoming a disaster by force of irritation alone.
Elira was enjoying it far too much. And since he had no intention of rewarding that enjoyment with a detailed explanation, he kept walking in silence. Naturally, that only encouraged her.
She tilted her head slightly and said, “Is it fun?”
Ludger turned his head just enough to show he had heard her.
Elira smiled faintly and asked, “Treating everyone around you like dead weight, I mean.”
That earned her a flat look.
“They aren’t dead weight,” Ludger said.
That answer came quickly. Too quickly, perhaps. But it was honest.
Because that had never been the issue. The people around him were not useless. Some were more than capable. Strong, clever, skilled, reliable. Useful enough that involving them would often make things easier in the narrow, immediate sense.
The problem was not usefulness. The problem was weight. Consequences.
Ludger looked forward again and said, “I just don’t want to burden others with my choices and decisions.”
Elira was quiet for a second after that, which was already more thoughtful than he expected.
Then she asked, “Are you planning to do that with your own family too?”
That made his gaze sharpen slightly. For one moment, his mind jumped in an entirely different direction than the one she probably intended. His own family.
Did she mean the family he might have one day?
A wife. Children. A household of his own beyond the one he had been reborn into.
The thought irritated him immediately, mostly because it arrived uninvited and because he had not thought about it nearly that far. Not enough to have a proper structure for it. Not enough to say what that would even look like.
He had thought about trade routes more seriously than marriage. He had thought about branch guild logistics, food supply resilience, and hostile political shifts more seriously than any hypothetical future wife.
Which, in his opinion, was perfectly reasonable. Then Elira continued, and the shape of her question became clearer.
“Because unless you’re planning to marry some kind of damsel in distress,” she said, “that won’t work.”
Ludger gave her a slow look. Elira either ignored the look or took it as encouragement, which with her amounted to much the same thing.
“Besides,” she added, “considering the situation with your family, your mother might find it odd if you pick someone who can’t defend herself.”
That made his eyebrow twitch again. Not because the observation was entirely wrong. Unfortunately, it was exactly the sort of practical nonsense Elaine might quietly approve of. Not in some crude, obvious way. She would never say it bluntly at a dinner table while smiling politely at a guest.
But if the matter became real? Yes. Elaine would probably evaluate a potential daughter-in-law at least in part on whether the girl could survive normal life around this family without dissolving under pressure.
Ludger disliked how plausible that felt.
He also disliked that Elira had somehow managed to drag the conversation from covert work and burdens of command into a bizarrely practical discussion of what kind of woman would pass inspection in his household.
So he said, “You’re reading too much into my nonexistent love life.”
Elira smiled at that. Not kindly. Not cruelly either. With the exact expression of someone who thought his attempt to dismiss the topic had only confirmed it was worth pushing further.
“Am I?” she asked.
“Yes.”
He did not hesitate.
Then, because the morning had already become absurd enough that precision no longer mattered, he added, “Get a hobby.”
That made her laugh softly under her breath.
A quiet little sound of satisfaction, like she had gotten exactly what she wanted from the exchange, not answers, necessarily, but a reaction. Confirmation that this line of pressure reached somewhere real enough to be worth returning to later.
Troublesome girl. Ludger looked ahead and chose not to continue the topic.
The entire march had begun to feel like a practical lesson in why he preferred direct problems. Monsters were easier.
Monsters at least behaved according to the limits of their nature. They lunged, bit, broke, poisoned, charged, screamed, or planned within the scope of whatever sort of intelligence they possessed. But people, especially people who had decided they were interested in him, had a way of making simple things messy.
Elira, walking beside him with entirely too much comfort, clearly sensed the direction of his thoughts.
“You really don’t like talking about yourself, do you?” she asked.
Ludger’s answer came without effort.
“No.”