Chapter 717
By the time Ludger finished, the food on the table had gone cold. No one noticed. He’d laid it out without drama, storm, fall, wrong sky, warden, island, snake-people, aura-giants, gate, guardian with capsules, purple spears, the sea monster’s “gift,” the ride back through the labyrinth route.
It should’ve sounded insane. It did sound insane. But Ludger said it like he was reading an inventory list, and somehow that made it worse. For a few long seconds after his last sentence, nobody spoke.
Rathen stared at the table as if the wood grain might offer an explanation. Shera’s eyes were distant, replaying images she’d never seen. Valk looked like he was trying to do mental math on a problem too big to fit in numbers. Renvar’s usual humor had vanished completely, replaced by a tight, thoughtful frown.
Kaela kept glancing between Ludger and Luna like she expected one of them to crack and admit it was all a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation.
Viola sat perfectly still. Her face didn’t show panic or anger now, just something heavier. The kind of silence that came after a worldview snapped and you had to hold the pieces in your hands and decide what they meant.
Slowly, eyes turned toward Luna. The unspoken question hung in the air: Is this real? Luna met their stares without flinching. She didn’t embellish. She didn’t soften it. She simply nodded once. A clean, decisive motion.
“Confirmed,” the nod said. He didn’t die. None of it was a fever dream. Ludger is not exaggerating.
That single gesture hit the table harder than any of Ludger’s words. Because Ludger being dramatic was always possible. Luna agreeing meant it was true. And truth, in this case, was terrifying. Rathen exhaled slowly, like he’d been holding his breath for a week and only now realized it.
Shera whispered, barely audible, “Other worlds…”
Kaela’s fingers tightened around her cup. “So the ‘sealed’ labyrinths…”
Maurien’s eyes narrowed with a predator’s focus, already extracting implications like a butcher separating meat from bone. Viola’s gaze dropped for a moment, then lifted again, sharper. Not toward Ludger this time.
Toward the world.
The image they’d carried in their heads, what the sea was, what the labyrinths were, what threats existed, what “sealed” meant, had shifted.
Not gradually. Violently. Like someone had rotated the whole map and revealed a coastline they hadn’t known existed. Ludger watched them absorb it. He wasn’t as surprised as they were. Not really.
He’d already felt the wrong sky. Already tasted the aura. Already seen the capsule turn a giant into a hybrid thing that could copy another race’s ability. He’d already had the sea monster’s ancient mana pressing against his senses like a statement.
Still… He was a bit surprised. Not by the existence of other worlds. Not by the fact that monsters and labyrinths had rules beneath the chaos.
By the system’s behavior. By the fact he could get classes from a monster. He rolled the thought around in his mind like a coin. Aquamancer. Water Manipulation. A “gift,” sure, but the mechanism mattered. It wasn’t random. It wasn’t purely luck. Something about contact, intent, mana transfer, recognition… some rule he didn’t fully understand.
And rules could be tested. Experimented with. Exploited, carefully. Ludger’s eyes half-lidded as his mind drifted away from the stunned faces and toward future trials.
If monsters could grant classes… Then the world was even more malleable than he’d thought. And that meant one thing, no matter how exhausted everyone looked.
They had work to do.
Kaela was the one who finally stabbed a hole in the suffocating silence. She set her cup down with a little clink and leaned forward, eyes glittering with the kind of mischief that only showed up when everyone was too exhausted to stop her.
“Well,” she announced, “it’s time for Ludger to confess his sins.”
Ludger blinked once. Slowly.
“Sins?” he repeated, like he hadn’t heard the word correctly. “What sins?”
Kaela pointed at him like a prosecutor who’d been waiting all morning for this moment.
“The sins you committed against Luna during the last week,” she said, sweet as poison.
Luna’s head turned a fraction. Her expression remained calm, but one eyebrow lifted, barely, like she was bracing for stupidity.
Kaela continued, ignoring all warning signs.
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“A guy and a girl alone on a tropical island.” She spread her hands as if presenting universal law. “You know the rules. And so do I. I can tell that you tried to seduce her with your sweet tongue.”
Ludger stared at her. Then he looked at the table. Then he looked back.
“…I didn’t have time for the fanfic you wrote in your head,” he said flatly.
Kaela frowned. “The what?”
“Fanfic,” Ludger repeated, deadpan. “The imaginary story where you make everything weird.”
Kaela’s frown deepened. “I don’t know what that is.”
“But,” she added immediately, voice full of certainty that should’ve been illegal, “I can tell a horn dog when I see one. And all men are horn dogs.”
Renvar made a choking sound that might’ve been a laugh. Shera covered her mouth. Valk stared at the table like he was trying to escape through the wood grain. Rathen’s eyes closed for exactly one second, like a man praying for patience.
Luna’s face stayed blank. Which, somehow, was the most threatening reaction in the room. Ludger rubbed his forehead once.
“First,” he said, “we weren’t alone on an island.”
He ticked it off on his fingers like she was slow.
“Second: giant people-eating monsters.”
“Third: a giant sea beast.”
He paused, eyes narrowing in disbelief.
“Remember?”
Kaela sniffed. “I heard your report.”
“And you still went there,” Ludger said.
Kaela lifted her chin. “I said what I said.”
Ludger’s expression went flatter, almost impressed by how confidently wrong she could be. Then he leaned back and replied, mild as tea.
“Such prejudice must’ve made your life easier,” he said, “in finding us, then.”
Kaela blinked.
“What?”
“If all men are horndogs,” Ludger continued, voice calm and cutting, “then you probably assumed I’d swim back just to prove you right.”
Renvar actually laughed that time, quick and disbelieving. Shera’s shoulders shook. Valk made a sound somewhere between a cough and a snort.
Kaela narrowed her eyes at Ludger, like she was deciding whether to be offended or proud he could bite back. Luna finally spoke, quiet and lethal.
“If you’re done,” she said, “we need to go home.”
The room snapped back into focus. But the edge was gone. The tension had been punctured… And for the first time since the bridge, the table felt like a group again, not a collection of people holding a broken map and trying not to panic.
Kaela wasn’t done. She leaned across the table like she was about to deliver a verdict, eyes bright with the kind of energy that should’ve been illegal before noon.
“Come on, Ludger,” she said. “Tell us what you did. Don’t disappoint me.”
Ludger stared at her for a beat, then blinked slowly.
“How would me having morals disappoint you?” he asked, tone flat.
Kaela’s grin widened like that was the wrong answer. Ludger’s eyes narrowed.
“What kind of moron are you?” he continued, voice sharpening. “If you planned to join a guild filled with men with dubious morals, you joined the wrong guild.”
He flicked a glance around the table, as if reminding everyone what the Lionsguard actually was.
“This guild runs on discipline and contracts,” he said. “Not whatever story you’re writing in your head.”
Kaela scoffed and jabbed a finger at him like she was accusing him of treason.
“Your acting doesn’t fool me,” she declared. “I will unmask you as the closet horndog that you are.”
She leaned in even closer, eyes gleaming with righteous nonsense.
“The worst of the worst type of horndog.”
Renvar made a strangled noise into his cup. Shera looked like she was one second away from laughing herself off the bench. Valk stared into the middle distance, clearly regretting literacy. Rathen’s face went very, very tired.
Luna’s expression stayed blank, but her fingers tapped once on the table, one sharp beat that promised violence if this kept going. Ludger sighed. Not a dramatic sigh.
A deep, resigned one, the kind that came from a man realizing some battles were unwinnable because the enemy didn’t care about reality.
That kind of nonsense, honestly, was the strongest proof he was back on his planet. He glanced at the table, at Kaela’s smug face, at everyone’s barely-contained laughter, and felt something he hadn’t expected.
A twisted, reluctant relief.
Then his eyes drifted, just for a moment, to the window, toward the sea, toward the horizon that had tried to swallow him. He almost missed dealing with the creepy giants instead of this.
Almost.
Ludger stood up before Kaela could escalate her nonsense into an actual migraine.
He didn’t even bother arguing anymore. Arguing implied there was a finish line. With Kaela, there was only… more Kaela.
He still didn’t know what her deal was. Whether she was trying to lighten the mood, test boundaries, or just enjoyed poking at people until they made interesting faces.
All Ludger knew was this:
He didn’t have time.
Not for jokes. Not for rumors. Not for someone trying to drag him into imaginary stories when the real world was already complicated enough.
So he left.
He slipped out of the room while the others were still laughing and muttering, moving through the port town with the quiet, practiced gait of someone who didn’t want to be stopped. The docks were alive again—repair crews shouting measurements, ropes creaking, hammers ringing. The SS Elaine sat half-bare in its maintenance cradle like a patient with its ribs exposed.
Ludger ignored all of it.
He headed for the stone bridge.
The same bridge Viola had stood on for a week, staring holes into the horizon.
The air was colder out here, cleaner. Salt wind slapped his face and made his hair shift. He leaned on the rail and let his eyes rest on the sea.
For a minute, he let his mind drift.
Lionfang. The twins. The guild. The Empire’s sealed lies. The labyrinth gates. The warden’s warning.
Loose threads.
A web waiting for him to pull the wrong strand and get bitten.
He exhaled slowly and watched waves fold and break against the beach below, white foam crawling up the sand before sliding back like it regretted touching land.
Then something caught his eye.
Down near the shore, where the waterline shifted with the tide, the surf shoved something forward—dark and heavy—half-buried in wet sand.
It wasn’t driftwood.
Driftwood didn’t have straight lines.
The next wave surged and pushed it again, scraping it farther up the beach with a gritty sound. Foam poured around it, then drained away, leaving the object exposed for a heartbeat.
Metal glinted.
A shape that looked too deliberate to be natural.
Ludger’s eyes narrowed.
His posture changed without him noticing—weight shifting off the rail, feet ready.
Another wave rolled in and shoved the thing again, like the ocean was delivering a message with brute force.
And Ludger’s gut tightened with that fam
iliar instinct.
That shouldn’t be here.
He started moving before the next wave could hide it again.