Chapter 727
Raukor stared at him for a heartbeat, then laughed once, short, incredulous.
“You are a menace,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “You do realize you’re asking for two separate miracle devices.”
“I’m asking for one,” Ludger corrected, tone bland. “The other one is a future problem.”
Raukor stared at the sketch again, then at Ludger’s face, searching for any hint of doubt. He found none. Raukor sighed again, but this time there was a spark under it. The kind of spark that meant a craftsman’s pride had been hooked.
“Fine,” he muttered. “A one-handed crossbow that doesn’t look like a crossbow. That fires like magic. That leaves no evidence. And that you can operate with one hand.”
He tapped the paper with a grim look.
“You’re going to owe me.”
Ludger’s smirk faded back into his usual dead calm.
“Put it on my tab,” he said.
Raukor snorted. “Alright. Start thinking about how you want it to fire. Bolt? Shard? Impact effect?”
Ludger’s eyes narrowed, already shifting into calculation.
“No physical bolts,” he said immediately. “Nothing recoverable. Something formed on demand. Temporary.”
Raukor’s grin crept back. “So you want the ammo to be mana.”
Ludger nodded once.
“And the silhouette?” Raukor asked, already scribbling notes. “You want it to vanish at range.”
“Forearm mount,” Ludger said. “Tight to the arm. Dark finish. No reflective metal. If I wear a cloak or a sleeve over it, it should disappear.”
Raukor hummed thoughtfully. “A hidden weapon.”
“A hidden answer,” Ludger corrected.
Raukor looked up again. “And the second hand?”
Ludger’s mouth twitched again, that same faint smirk returning. Raukor groaned like a man watching his peaceful life collapse.
“Wait. Don’t say it.”
Ludger said it anyway.
“It’s going to be fun.”
Raukor stared at him for a long moment.
Then he pointed at the door with a dirty finger.
“Out,” he said. “Before you give me a third idea.”
Raukor watched Ludger leave. No dramatic exit. No speech. Just that quiet, efficient stride, boots on stone, mind already three steps ahead of his body. Raukor leaned on the edge of his workbench, eyes following him through the open doorway until the boy disappeared into the corridor and the sound of his footsteps faded.
Only then did Raukor frown. Because he’d seen that walk before. He’d seen it on men heading to duels they didn’t expect to come back from. On hunters who’d decided the quickest solution was to walk straight into the beast’s mouth and start cutting.
Ludger was going to do something dangerous. That much was obvious. What wasn’t obvious, what bothered Raukor enough to pull his attention away from the interesting nightmare of building a one-handed crossbow that pretended it didn’t exist, was what Ludger didn’t ask for.
No armor. No reinforcement plates. No emergency inserts. No rune-laced padding. Not even a request for a fresh set of standard issue gear tuned for stealth.
Nothing. Raukor’s eyes narrowed. Most people who came to him for weapons came with the rest of the list too, because fear was honest. Because instinct screamed that if you were adding a blade, you might also want something between your ribs and someone else’s blade.
But Ludger? Ludger only asked for tools. He only asked for options. Raukor clicked his tongue and ran a thumb over a half-finished piece of rune-metal, thinking.
That could mean one of two things. Either the kid was so confident he didn’t believe he could be hit… or he was too arrogant to admit he could.
It would make sense, technically. Ludger was thirteen going on fourteen, already vice guildmaster, already walking around with accomplishments that would make grown men choke on envy. He’d survived labyrinths, politics, sea monsters, and things that didn’t belong on this side of the world.
Confidence grew naturally in a life like that. Arrogance could too. But Raukor had watched Ludger work. Watched him plan routes, count supplies, write manuals that treated injuries like predictable math. Watched him test ideas with controlled experiments instead of hopes and prayers.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Ludger wasn’t reckless. He was methodical to the bone. Which meant the lack of armor wasn’t oversight. It was a choice. And that choice had a reason Raukor couldn’t see yet.
Raukor turned back to his bench, picked up the sketch again, and stared at the lines with new eyes. One-handed. Invisible at range. Mana-fed. No evidence.Raukor sighed, then muttered to the empty workshop, half amused and half concerned.
Dinner at home was louder than any guild meeting.
The twins had discovered a new game that involved throwing soft bits of bread at each other and screaming like they were in a life-or-death battle. Silva lay near the hearth pretending he was asleep, one ear twitching every time something edible hit the floor. The direwolf cubs were bigger now, still clumsy, still convinced they owned the world, and one of them kept trying to steal bones from under the table with the subtlety of a collapsing wall.
Arslan ate like a man who’d spent the day solving other people’s problems with his face. Elaine corrected the twins with that gentle-but-absolute tone that didn’t invite rebellion. Ludger mostly ate in silence, listening, letting the noise wash over him like heat.
It grounded him. It also made him acutely aware of how much he was about to disrupt it. When he finished, he set his bowl aside and wiped his hands, posture straightening.
“I’ll be talking with Torvares tomorrow,” Ludger said. “Then I’m going to the other branch of the guild.”
Arslan paused mid-reach for a piece of meat. His eyes slid to Ludger, sharp and immediate.
“What for?” he asked.
Ludger didn’t hesitate. “I asked Torvares for a teacher.” he corrected himself with a faint frown, “I’m going to get details.”
Arslan’s brows rose slightly. “Another tutor.”
“Yes.”
Arslan chewed once, slowly, like he was chewing on the implications too. “For what subject?”
Ludger’s eyes flicked aside for a fraction of a second, then returned. “Basic illusion magic.”
Arslan grunted, not entirely convinced, but willing to let it sit, for now.
“And the guild branch?” he asked.
“I’m going to learn archery,” Ludger said.
Arslan’s hand froze again. “Archery.”
Ludger nodded once. “From Aleia.”
That made Arslan stare properly now, the way a man stared when his son said he was going to start wrestling bears for exercise.
Elaine, who had been calmly cutting food for the twins, finally looked up. Her gaze landed on Ludger like a weight.
“What for?” she asked.
Ludger swallowed, kept his face neutral, and delivered the closest thing he could to a lie without insulting her intelligence.
“I just felt like it.”
Elaine didn’t blink.
She studied him the way she studied everything that mattered, quietly, thoroughly, as if she could see the seams in his words and the stress points underneath. Ludger held her gaze without flinching. He didn’t owe her every thought. Not when half his thoughts were weapons in progress.
Elaine’s expression didn’t soften, but it shifted, acceptance mixed with warning. She could smell his bullshit. She just chose not to bite into it at the table.
“…Alright,” she said after a moment, voice calm. “Just don’t do anything stupid.”
Arslan snorted softly. “That’s not a helpful rule. He doesn’t know what stupid looks like.”
Ludger’s mouth twitched, almost a smile.
“I do,” he said. “I just do it anyway. It comes from your side of the family Dad.”
Elaine’s eyes narrowed.
Arslan’s chuckle died in his throat.
Then Ludger stood, pushed his chair in, and gave a short nod, dismissal, respect, promise, all in one small motion.
Tomorrow: Torvares.
Then the other branch. Then Aleia. Archery. Because sometimes the fastest way to become unpredictable… was to learn to kill from a distance like you’d been born with a string in your hands.
The next day, Ludger headed to House Torvares’ manor with the kind of pace that made guards straighten up without knowing why.
He expected to trip over Viola somewhere, either in a hallway pretending she wasn’t waiting for him, or in a courtyard “coincidentally” training within sightline. Luna too, quiet as a shadow near a pillar, watching everything.
Instead, the manor felt… empty in the wrong way. No loud footsteps. No sharp voice. No familiar presence brushing his mana sense. Ludger didn’t waste time hunting for them. If they weren’t visible, they were busy, or hiding, or both.
Either way, it saved him minutes. He went straight to Lord Torvares’ office.
The guards announced him. The door opened. The room smelled like old wood, ink, and expensive candlewax, wealth condensed into quiet certainty. Torvares sat behind a desk that looked like it had never once been moved by someone who didn’t own the building.
His gaze lifted as Ludger entered, steady and measuring.
“Ludget,” Torvares greeted, voice calm. “Just in time.”
Ludger gave a small nod and approached without ceremony.
Torvares watched him sit, then asked with faint amusement, “You’ve come about the illusion magic business?”
Ludger nodded once. “Yes.”
Torvares didn’t speak immediately. He leaned back slightly, fingers laced, eyes resting on Ludger like he was deciding which knife to use for this conversation.
A few seconds passed. Then Torvares exhaled.
“I contacted the individual,” he said. “And I received an answer this week.”
He paused, and the pause had weight, like he was choosing between honesty and convenience.
“I was wondering,” Torvares continued carefully, “how to explain certain things to you.”
Ludger’s eyebrows pulled together.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked.
Torvares didn’t answer directly. He simply reached into a drawer, pulled out a sealed envelope, and slid it across the desk.
“For now,” he said. “Read.”
Ludger took it, broke the seal cleanly, and unfolded the page. He expected words. Conditions. Prices. Demands. Some clever phrasing meant to prove intelligence or superiority.
Instead, the paper held a single thing: A drawing.
A tree, rendered with obsessive detail. Bark texture shaded so finely it looked real. Leaves layered in a way that suggested depth, not decoration. Roots twisting beneath the soil, hinted rather than fully shown, as if the artist knew exactly what mattered and what didn’t.
It wasn’t an ordinary sketch. It was… too precise. Too intentional. Ludger’s frown deepened. He flipped the page. Nothing. No signature. No message. No inked name. No polite noble nonsense.
Just the tree.
He stared at it for a long moment, then slowly looked up at Torvares.
“What,” Ludger said, voice flat, “is this supposed to mean?”