Back in their room, Viola threw herself onto the bed and punched her pillow with enough force to make the thin mattress creak under her.
Then she punched it again. And once more for good measure. It did not help.
Mostly because what annoyed her was not simply that Ludger had refused her. She could have lived with that part. Barely. What truly irritated her was that he had done it while being completely, unbearably right in a way she could not even attack properly.
Viola hated losing arguments to him. She hated losing to him in general.
But losing to Ludger when it came to logic was especially infuriating, because he always delivered it in that same calm voice, as if the conclusion had simply arranged itself and he was doing everyone a favor by stating it plainly. No effort. No performance. No visible satisfaction.
Just that awful certainty. Viola buried her face into the pillow for a second, then groaned into it. Across the room, Luna sat quietly on the edge of the other bed, showing a more complicated expression than usual.
Not angry. Not exactly. But thoughtful in a way that made her seem older than the others for a moment. Her brows were drawn just slightly, and her gaze stayed lowered, fixed on nothing obvious. She was replaying the conversation, Elira could tell. Not just the words, but the shape of it. The pauses. The parts he had admitted without really giving ground. The parts where he had been harsher than normal because softness would only have made things less honest.
Elira remained silent for a while, sitting across from them and watching the two of them with a serious expression. Then, slowly, she smiled a little. Not mockingly. With real interest.
Because now she understood the situation properly. And once she did, the whole thing became far more fascinating than before.
She had thought Ludger was interesting because of the things he did. Because he fought monsters like a natural disaster, because he built things too quickly, because he made decisions with a kind of dry, ruthless clarity that made normal people look half asleep next to him.
But this… This was different. This was more intimate. More revealing. She had not expected things around him to turn so interestingly once she stepped a little closer.
The tension was not just about danger, or guild business, or secrecy. It was about the way he carried everything alone so thoroughly that the people around him had already learned to hate the shape of it while still accepting that he would keep doing it.
That was much more interesting than simple hero worship.
After a little while, Elira asked, “What kind of shady work does Ludger usually do that you’re aware of?”
Viola and Luna both looked at her. Then at each other. Only for a moment. But the look itself said enough. Viola was the one who answered first.
“I’m not sure you should hear that,” she said, “when you only met him a week ago.”
Elira tilted her head slightly.
“Please,” she said. “Everyone knows Lionsguard is at odds with the regent and is doing work to prepare in case they have to face him.”
She spoke easily, but not carelessly.
“Considering that, most of the shady work is done by Ludger, right?” she went on. “Since he doesn’t want to burden others with his decisions.”
That made the room go quiet again. Because, phrased like that, it sounded uncomfortably close to the truth. Viola clicked her tongue softly and looked away. Luna remained still. Elira’s eyes moved between them, patient now, sensing that silence itself had already answered part of the question.
She smiled a little more.
“I’m not asking for every secret,” she said. “I just want to know what kind of person he really is when people aren’t watching from a distance.”
Viola let out a long breath through her nose and flopped onto her back across the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
“That’s the problem,” she muttered. “He’s the same person.”
Elira blinked. Viola frowned at the ceiling and went on.
“From far away, people think the stories about him are exaggerated. Then they get closer and realize the stories weren’t exaggerated enough. That’s the annoying part.”
Luna’s mouth twitched faintly, not quite a smile. Elira folded her arms.
“That still doesn’t answer the question.”
This time Luna spoke.
“He handles the things other people can’t be allowed to mishandle,” she said quietly.
Elira looked at her. Luna continued in the same calm tone.
“The uglier parts. The parts where if too many people know, talk, hesitate, or get emotional, the situation gets worse.”
That was still not a full answer. But it was more honest than a dodge.
Viola turned her head slightly and added, “He’s done things for the guild that most people don’t fully know about, and probably shouldn’t.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Elira stayed quiet. Viola went on after a moment.
“And the annoying thing is that he usually has a reason. A real one. So even when I want to call him impossible, I can’t always say he’s wrong.”
Luna’s expression grew more distant.
“He decides too early that he has to be the one carrying the ugliest choices,” she said.
Elira took that in slowly.
Then she said, “So he really is doing exactly what I thought.”
Viola gave her a look.
“What did you think?”
Elira leaned back a little.
“That he acts boring on purpose,” she said. “Calm. Annoyed. Dry. All of that.” Her eyes sharpened a fraction. “But underneath it, he keeps choosing to step into the parts no one else wants to touch, and then acts like that’s just normal.”
Neither Viola nor Luna answered immediately. Which was answer enough. Elira’s smile returned, softer now but more certain.
“Yes,” she murmured. “That is very interesting.”
Viola rolled onto her side and frowned at her.
“You say that like you found a rare animal.”
Elira looked entirely unashamed.
“Maybe I did.”
That earned her a long stare. Then Viola groaned and punched the pillow again. Because somehow, even in a private room after the argument was over, Ludger was still managing to irritate her without being present.
The conversation did not end there.
Once the first layer had been peeled back and the room had settled into that strange late-night honesty that only happened after people stopped pretending to be polite, Viola shifted onto one elbow and looked at Elira with a more thoughtful expression.
“From your side,” she asked, “what do people actually think about the changes in the Empire since the regent took over?”
Elira looked at her. Viola continued before she could answer.
“The Lionsguard’s opinion might be a bit biased.” She said it bluntly, but not unfairly. “We’ve been at odds with the capital for a while now. And the same probably applies to my family. Torvares is too close to Lionsguard not to be affected by that.”
Luna stayed quiet, but she was listening closely. So was Elira. That was a more serious question than the earlier ones. Less curiosity for amusement. More the kind people asked when they were trying to line up what they had seen with what others were seeing elsewhere.
Elira crossed her arms and leaned back slightly, her eyes drifting up toward the ceiling as she organized the answer.
“For nobles?” she said after a moment. “Aside from a few, most are still with the Empire and its choices.”
That part sounded dry. Matter-of-fact. Not approving. Just realistic.
“Or at least they act like they are,” she continued. “Some out of loyalty, some out of fear, some because they still believe the current order is preferable to uncertainty. If the regent says tighter control is necessary, most noble houses will agree as long as the pain lands somewhere else first.”
Viola’s expression sharpened slightly at that. Elira went on.
“But adventurers and common folk are getting more and more annoyed.”
That line came out cleaner.
“The price of things keeps going up,” she said. “Food. Metal. Travel. Basic supplies. Repairs. Potions. Everything costs more, and people notice that much faster than they notice court speeches or policy justifications.”
She uncrossed and recrossed her arms more tightly.
“It’s not the sort of anger that explodes all at once. Not yet. But it’s there. A lot of people feel like they’re being squeezed while being told that it’s necessary for stability.”
Luna’s gaze lowered slightly, thoughtful. Viola frowned. Elira kept speaking, her tone steady now that she had settled into it.
“Somehow, areas closer to the north didn’t change as much.”
That made Viola glance up. Elira noticed and gave a small shrug.
“That’s what people say, anyway. They compare prices, trade flow, availability of goods. And a lot of them think the difference is because of Lionsguard.”
Viola blinked once. Elira continued.
“Your guild has been producing food, materials, and goods at a pace people actually notice. Not just inside Lionfang. Outside it too. Enough that merchants talk. Enough that people traveling through compare costs and start asking why things are more stable there than elsewhere.”
Now even Luna looked more intent. Elira tilted her head slightly.
“And since most people don’t understand the details, they simplify it. They say Lionsguard is insane, but useful. That the frontier is somehow producing better than places that are supposed to be civilized. That while the Empire keeps tightening and prices rise, the north stays livable because some absurd guild keeps making too much of everything.”
Viola more or less knew that already. Or rather, she knew pieces of it. She knew Ludger had been buying businesses. Knew he had been pushing production. Knew food output and crafted goods had grown enough to matter.
But hearing it from Elira’s perspective made it feel different. More external. More real.
Not just internal strategy. Not just another one of Ludger’s relentless expansions. People were actually measuring the difference now. Comparing regions. Forming opinions around it.
Viola’s brows drew together. She had known Ludger was building a lot. She had not been fully aware how much of that might already look like preparation.
For the kind of situation where the wider Empire became strained and unstable, and whoever had food, goods, tools, and functioning routes would quietly gain more power than titles alone could hold.
That made her think of all the businesses he had been buying again. The roads. The goods. The production lines. The way he always acted like expansion and preparedness were the same thing.
Viola exhaled slowly through her nose.
“So he really was preparing for that kind of situation,” she muttered.
Elira looked at her.
“You didn’t realize?”
Viola gave her a flat look.
“I realized he was doing things,” she said. “That’s not the same as realizing the scale of what those things meant.”
Luna finally spoke.
“With Ludger, it usually is.”
That made Viola grimace. Because Luna was right, and that was always irritating too. Elira leaned back slightly, watching them both now with open interest.
“From the outside,” she said, “it looks less like random growth and more like someone building insulation.”
Viola turned toward her.
“Insulation?”
Elira nodded.
“Against shortages. Against instability. Against political pressure. Against other people controlling the flow of basic things.” She paused. “That’s why common people notice it. They don’t care about strategy in the abstract. They care that they can still buy food, repair tools, and live without being choked quite as hard.”
The room went quiet for a second after that. Because once put that way, the shape of it became easier to see.
Ludger was not just growing Lionsguard because growth felt good. He was building resistance. Freedom of movement. The ability to function while others became more dependent.
And that, from a political perspective, was far more dangerous than brute strength alone.