Chapter 719
Shera and Valk were tired, half-lidded eyes, slow blinks, but they stayed alert out of sheer disbelief, glancing between Ludger, the runic carriage, and the massive sealed boulder being pushed along like contraband.
Shera finally murmured, voice low, more to herself than anyone.
“This was… quite the experience.”
Valk gave a quiet grunt that might have been agreement or a prayer.
Shera’s gaze followed the tunnel ahead, then flicked to Ludger’s back, small frame, steady pace, expression unreadable in the pale ward-light.
“And it turned into… all of this,” she finished, like she couldn’t find the right word because insane didn’t cover it.
Valk exhaled through his nose, eyes narrowing.
“I thought we’d be escorting cargo,” he muttered.
Maurien didn’t even look back when he replied, voice calm and amused in the faintest way.
“You were, kind of” he said.
Shera blinked slowly. Valk looked like he wanted to laugh and scream at the same time. Ludger, in front, kept walking as if none of it was remarkable. Because to him, it wasn’t the insanity that mattered. It was the outcome. And the fact that they were moving home, underground and unseen, with everyone alive and a sealed boulder of leverage rolling quietly ahead of them.
Ludger slowed just enough to let Shera and Valk draw level with him. The runic carriage kept pushing with a steady grind, the earth container rolling along like a silent accusation.
He didn’t turn his head much when he spoke, just enough to show he was listening.
“So,” Ludger said, voice low to keep it from echoing too far down the tunnel, “what did you think?”
Shera blinked at him like she wasn’t sure he was serious.
“What did I think?” she repeated.
Ludger gave her a sideways glance that said yes, use words. Shera exhaled, rubbing her face with the heel of her palm, then looked forward again at the pale tunnel light.
“I think…” she started, then paused, searching for something polite and failing. “I think I’m ready to spend ten more years at home after this.”
Ludger’s mouth twitched.
Shera continued, tone half honest and half defensive. “No offense. It’s just, one week of this chaos and I feel like I have aged.”
She gestured vaguely behind them at the sleeping pile of Kaela, Viola, and Luna, then toward the sealed boulder being pushed through the earth like a moving secret.
“I expected a lot of things,” she muttered. “Fights. Maybe a beast. A storm if the sea hated us.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I did not expect… other worlds.”
Ludger nodded once, like that was a reasonable reaction. Then his gaze shifted to Valk.
“And you?” he asked.
Valk’s posture was still solid, broad shoulders, steady steps, but there was a new tightness around his eyes. Not fear. Something sharper. He didn’t answer immediately. He stared at the tunnel ahead, at the way the walls curved like a throat around them, then finally spoke.
“I need to train more,” Valk said, voice blunt. “A lot more.”
Ludger’s eyes narrowed. “Because you felt useless?”
Valk’s jaw tightened.
“Because the world is bigger than I expected,” Valk replied. “I knew there were labyrinths. I knew there were monsters. But…” He shook his head once, slow. “Not like that. Not that kind.”
His gaze flicked briefly toward Ludger.
“You fought something that could copy other races with pills,” Valk said. “And you called it ‘troublesome’ like it was bad weather.”
Ludger didn’t deny it.
Valk continued, voice low and serious now. “If that exists… then there are things out there that make our training yard look like children playing with sticks.”
Shera let out a soft, humorless laugh. “He’s not wrong.”
Ludger considered both of them for a moment, then nodded.
“Good,” he said simply.
They both blinked. Ludger’s expression stayed flat.
“Fear is useless,” he continued. “Shock fades. What matters is what you do after.”
Shera sighed. “Great. So the lesson is: the world is terrifying and we should all become insane like you.”
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Ludger’s mouth twitched again, almost a smile.
“No,” he said. “The lesson is: the world doesn’t care what you expect.”
He tapped the tunnel wall lightly with his knuckles as they walked, the sound dull.
“So adapt,” he finished. “Or get eaten.”
By the time they surfaced again, the air smelled different. Not salt and tar. Earth and smoke. Grass. Familiar dung and cooking fires. The kind of scent you only noticed when you’d been away long enough to realize your body had filed it under safe.
The tunnel exit opened into the edge of town, hidden behind one of Ludger’s old earthworks, stone and packed soil shaped to look like nothing special unless you already knew where to look. The moment they stepped out, the faint hum of the place hit them: distant voices, boots on wood, someone yelling at someone else to move a cart, kids laughing somewhere they shouldn’t be.
Home noise. Real noise.
The group split naturally, people peeling off toward their quarters or posts like their bodies were running on memorized routes. Kaela and Renvar were barely awake again, stumbling forward with that glazed “I survived” expression. Shera and Valk stayed a little closer, still alert, still processing.
Viola and Luna walked with them until the road bent toward Torvares territory.
Viola’s house wasn’t far, Ludger stopped at the gate and looked at the two of them. Viola looked tired but recovered enough to wear her pride again. Luna stood quiet as always, posture controlled, eyes scanning out of habit. Ludger didn’t sugarcoat it.
“Think twice,” he said, voice flat, “before going on missions you weren’t selected for.”
His eyes flicked from Luna to Viola.
“You’re lucky the ocean didn’t decide to keep you.”
Luna’s expression barely shifted, just a subtle tightening around the eyes, like she knew he was right and hated that he said it out loud.
Viola, on the other hand, snorted. A short, dismissive sound like rules were something that applied to other people. Her chin lifted.
“If you almost die again,” she said, “I’ll jump in again and don't lose the scarf I gave you again. ”
Ludger stared at her. Viola’s eyes glittered with defiance, and exhaustion underneath it. Ludger sighed through his nose, already regretting the entire concept of “advice.”
“…Go sleep,” he said.
Viola waved him off like he was background noise and stepped toward the door anyway. Luna followed, pausing only long enough to give Ludger a brief look, something between acknowledgment and warning—before disappearing inside with her.
Ludger watched the door close, then turned away. Home at last. And somehow, the real work was only starting. Half an hour later, Ludger was back inside Lionfang’s walls.
The town greeted him with the same stubborn normality it always had, market noise spilling between buildings, the smell of bread and smoke, guild runners weaving through foot traffic with rolled messages tucked under their belts. The rebuilt stonework still held clean lines where his earth magic had shaped it, and the southern repairs were still… southern repairs. Functional. Not pretty. But standing.
Kids were playing near the market like the world hadn’t tried to swallow him a week ago. No barricades. No fresh scorch marks. No new militia patrol patterns screaming crisis. Ludger’s shoulders loosened a fraction.
Good.
It didn’t look different since he left.
Which meant the Empire hadn’t pulled any stunt while he was away. No “inspection.” No sudden “aid.” No polite delegation asking too many questions while everyone smiled and measured wall thickness.
If they’d done something, Lionfang would feel it. Still, there was one problem he couldn’t ignore. Rufas.
The mission wasn’t finished. The contract wasn’t clean. The sea beast hadn’t been “eliminated,” and Ludger had no intention of pretending it was. He needed to send a message. He needed to say the truth in the least irritating way possible.
Half the job is done.
Meaning: the immediate threat that had nearly sunk them had been handled enough to stop it from actively hunting the ship, and Lionfang’s people were alive. But the deeper problem, the labyrinth path, the other side, whatever the warden was truly guarding, wasn’t something you solved by stabbing one monster and calling it a day.
Ludger headed toward the guild office with his hands in his pockets, mind already composing the report in crisp, boring sentences. Rufas’ stated goal was reputation. Make the Lionsguard look strong. Reliable. A guild that could take contracts nobody else could handle.
Ludger should have cared more about that angle. He knew politics mattered. He knew image was currency. But reputation wasn’t what kept people alive.
If Rufas wanted a heroic story, he could hire a bard. Ludger would give him results. Partial results, for now, but real ones. And if Rufas didn’t like that? That was Rufas’ problem.
Ludger made it three steps from his front gate before everything important in his head got forcibly deleted. A shadow hit him low. A weight slammed into his legs.
He went down on the path with a solid thud, breath leaving his lungs in a short grunt. Then warm breath and wet tongue attacked his face with absolute enthusiasm.
“Silva—” Ludger tried to say, but the direwolf’s tongue hit his cheek again, then his forehead, then right across his nose like it was painting him with slobber.
Silva whined, tail thumping hard enough to rattle the fence posts, licking like Ludger had been gone for a year instead of a week.
Ludger squinted, grimaced, and shoved the giant head aside with both hands.
“Enough,” he muttered, wiping his face on his sleeve. “I’m not a salt lick.”
Silva huffed indignantly, then leaned in again.
Ludger managed to get up, half-damp and fully defeated, and made it to the door. He reached for the handle… It opened. And the real ambush began. Two small bodies collided with his legs like cannonballs.
Elle and Arash, and their reinforcements, hit him with the kind of fearless joy only kids had, tiny hands grabbing cloth and skin and pulling as if they could drag him inside by sheer strength. They weren’t walking properly yet, but they didn’t need to. They launched. They clung. They climbed.
“—Hey,” Ludger said, voice failing to stay stern as his balance immediately became theoretical. “I’m here. I’m here.”
Then came the second wave.
Two little direwolf cubs, bigger now, noticeably bigger, barreled into him from the side like they’d been training for this moment. Their paws slapped against his shins, claws catching, bodies heavy enough that Ludger actually felt it. They wrapped around his legs like living weights, whining and squirming and trying to climb him the same way the twins were.
Four points of pressure. Four anchors. Like chains.
I can’t move.
He tried anyway, staggering one step into the house with an awkward shuffle, babies clinging, cubs latched on, Silva pushing from behind like a proud siege engine.
Then, because the universe apparently hated him, he got hit in the chest. Twice. Two small impacts, warm and fuzzy in the worst way.
Ludger froze. He stared down. The cubs’ eyes were bright. Innocent. Proud. Like they were copying their masters.
Like they’d learned that “welcome home” meant attack with a hug.
Ludger exhaled slowly through his nose, trapped under a pile of family and fur and chaos.
Silva’s tongue reappeared from the side and licked his ear. Ludger’s shoulders sagged in surrender. He felt the cubs’ weight tugging at his legs, the twins’ little hands clutching him like he was their personal victory prize, and the familiar warmth of the house air wrapping around him.
Yeah.
He was truly back home now.