Chapter 741
Ludger’s eyes narrowed. So why send him here? That was the part that irritated him most.
Maybe the illusionist truly didn’t want to be found directly. Fine. Ludger could understand caution, especially from someone dealing in illusion and secrecy. But this didn’t feel like simple caution anymore.
This felt curated. Like the man wanted Ludger to see the tree. Wanted him to ask questions. Wanted him to uncover this particular layer of rot before he reached the next clue. Not a meeting. An education. Or worse, a manipulation disguised as one.
Ludger hated that.
He hated being led by the nose through someone else’s puzzle, especially when the puzzle brushed against things that were already poisoning his own life, sealed labyrinths, hidden routes, wasting sickness, the Empire quietly burying truths under polished stone and wealthy gardens.
His jaw tightened. If the illusionist only wanted to hide, there were easier ways. A fake name. A dead drop. A proxy. A simple test of talent. Instead, he’d pointed Ludger toward a symbol tied to old death and labyrinth sickness. Which meant one of two things.
Either the illusionist believed this mystery was directly relevant to what Ludger needed to learn… or he wanted Ludger involved in it. The second possibility sat badly in his stomach. Because if that was true, then the illusionist wasn’t just screening students. He was selecting tools.
Useful minds. Useful hands. People clever or stubborn enough to follow the trail and dangerous enough to survive what they found. Ludger’s fingers flexed at his side. A pretty roundabout way of doing things. And exactly the kind of thing a secretive old mage might think was clever.
He hated that too. Not because it was ineffective. Because it worked. Because Ludger was standing here, in the capital, staring at a cursed-looking tree in the middle of the night, already chasing the connections in his head instead of walking away.
The man had baited him with relevance.
That was the worst kind of manipulation, the kind built out of truths you already cared about. Ludger looked away from the tree and out across the noble district rooftops, expression flat and cold. Maybe the illusionist didn’t want to be found. But maybe he still wanted Ludger to solve this. To prove something. To show he could connect dead trees, old sickness, secret burials, and noble estates into a pattern worth trusting.
If so, the man was insufferable. And if he was doing this on purpose, if he was using the promise of illusion magic to drag Ludger through a buried mystery… Then Ludger would remember that.
Because he didn’t mind learning. He didn’t mind danger. He didn’t even mind secrets, when they had a reason. But he despised being handled. Hroth glanced at him from the side, probably catching some of that shift in expression.
“You look annoyed,” he said quietly.
Ludger kept his eyes on the tree.
“I am.”
Hroth snorted. “At the tree?”
“At the person who drew it,” Ludger said.
Hroth raised an eyebrow. “You think this was deliberate.”
Ludger’s mouth flattened.
“Yes,” he said. “And I think he wants me to keep going.”
The words tasted irritatingly true. He folded his arms and stared at the tree one last time, as if it might offer an easier answer out of pity. It didn’t. Of course it didn’t.
So Ludger did what he always did when someone tried to turn him into a piece on their board. He decided he would keep moving, but on his terms.
“Fine,” he murmured.
Hroth glanced at him. “What?”
Ludger’s eyes sharpened.
“If he wants me to solve this,” he said, “then I’ll solve it.”
A beat passed.
“And when I find him,” Ludger added, voice calm and dangerous, “he can explain why he thought this was a good way to introduce himself.”
Hroth kept his eyes on the tree for a few more seconds before glancing sideways at Ludger.
“So,” he said, voice quieter now, stripped of the earlier sarcasm, “what are you actually doing?”
Ludger didn’t answer immediately. He didn’t want to.
Not because Hroth hadn’t earned some honesty, he probably had, at least by rooftop standards, but because saying it out loud made the whole thing sound even more ridiculous.
I’m chasing an illusionist through tree drawings and old burial rumors because I want to learn a new kind of magic while also trying to build weapons, skill books, and an unstoppable guild.
It sounded stupid. Worse, it sounded like the kind of thing people underestimated until they were already in trouble. Still… A thought surfaced. Argarthia.
If Hroth really came from there, and if the stories were true, then his homeland had a reputation for strange forms of magic. Subtle ones. Specialized ones. Not just battlefield casting, but arts woven into culture, bloodlines, and methods the Empire didn’t fully understand.
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Illusion magic might be one of them. Ludger exhaled through his nose. Then he decided to explain, at least enough.
“I’m looking for a teacher,” he said.
Hroth’s brow rose slightly, but he didn’t interrupt.
“An illusionist,” Ludger continued. “Or someone connected to one. I asked around. Eventually I got this drawing as a response.”
He tapped the folded paper inside his coat.
“And instead of giving me a name or a place, he sent me here through… this nonsense.”
Hroth’s mouth twitched faintly. Ludger ignored it.
“I think he wants me to solve something,” he said. “Or prove I can. Either way, I need illusion magic, and he apparently decided a tree was the best first step.”
Hroth studied him for a moment, then looked back at the estate.
“…Illusion magic.”
Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“You’re from Argarthia,” he said. “Do you know anything about it?”
Hroth’s answer came immediately.
“No.”
Ludger blinked once.
Hroth shrugged. “Not personally.”
Then, with the kind of casual disregard for dignity that only men who lived through enough violence ever developed, Hroth tugged open the front of his shirt.
Moonlight caught on skin, and on the mark spread across it. A tattoo. Not a small one. Not a decorative one.
It covered most of his torso in dense blue patterns that flowed across his chest, ribs, and stomach like layered rivers of ink. The lines were too precise to be ordinary art. They curved and branched in repeating structures, somewhere between runes and living script. Some segments were thick and bold, others hair-thin, all interlocking in a design that looked almost organic, as if someone had mapped a spell system directly onto flesh.
The blue wasn’t flat either. It held a faint depth under the skin, like mana sat in the pigment and slept there. Ludger’s eyes sharpened instantly. Hroth let him look.
“People where I come from use tattoos like this,” Hroth said, tapping one of the thicker lines across his sternum. “They let us use certain types of magic more easily. Or amplify what we’re already suited for.”
Ludger stared at the pattern, mind already breaking it down. Channels. Anchors. Trigger structures. Mana routing through body instead of through carved tools. Interesting. Very interesting.
Hroth pulled the shirt open a little more, exposing how the design wrapped around his side and vanished under the fabric at his back.
“It’s not uncommon,” he said. “At least not for people with the means or the right background. Some lineages favor specific patterns. Some regions prefer certain schools.”
He let the cloth fall back into place.
“But illusion magic?” Hroth added with a small shake of his head. “I haven’t heard of anyone using tattoo magic for that.”
Ludger frowned slightly.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing reliable,” Hroth said. “Enhancement, elemental shaping, some protection methods, tracking, body reinforcement… those, sure. But illusion? No.”
He glanced back toward the tree.
“That kind of thing tends to belong to people who prefer not to leave instructions where others can copy them.”
Ludger found that annoyingly believable. He looked once more at where the blue lines had shown across Hroth’s torso, thoughts already moving.
Tattoo magic. A body as a rune medium. A different way to route and amplify spells. Even if it wasn’t useful for illusion directly, it was still another reminder that the Empire wasn’t the only place with hidden methods. Not the only place hoarding systems of power.
Which meant the illusionist might not even be imperial. Or worse, he might be, but operating from a tradition older and stranger than the Empire’s current schools. Hroth caught the look in Ludger’s eyes and sighed.
“No,” he said, already sounding tired. “You are not copying my tattoos onto yourself.”
Ludger blinked once.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was evaluating possibilities.”
“That is the same thing when it comes from you.”
For the first time that night, Ludger almost smiled. Almost. Then his attention shifted back to the estate, to the tree, to the puzzle that still hadn’t given him the next step. But now at least he had another thread in hand.
And in Ludger’s world, threads had a habit of turning into ropes. Ludger went quiet again, staring at the tree beyond the gate while the night settled heavier around the estate. He still didn’t know what the next step in this ridiculous chase was supposed to be. He had found the tree. He had found the meaning behind the tree, or at least part of it.
And yet the trail still felt incomplete, like someone had handed him the middle of a sentence and expected him to guess the rest. A wild goose chase. That was what it felt like. The kind of trail built by someone who enjoyed watching other people do the walking.
Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly. Then another question surfaced. Not about the illusionist. About the tree itself. He looked at Hroth.
“If those trees grow where people died like that,” Ludger asked, “why would anyone plant them there in the first place?”
Hroth glanced toward the garden, then back at Ludger.
“In the past,” he said, “they were often used as warnings.”
Ludger waited.
“So people wouldn’t forget what happened,” Hroth continued. “A marker. Not just for a grave, but for the kind of death buried there.”
He folded his arms, tone steady and a little distant, as if reciting something old enough to no longer belong to one country.
“Some believed the tree would grow over the dead and protect the family from similar bad fortune in the future.”
Ludger’s brow furrowed.
“Protect.”
Hroth nodded. “That was one belief.”
The wind stirred the leaves beyond the gate. The tree barely moved.
“But not the only one,” Hroth added.
Ludger looked at him again. Hroth’s expression stayed serious.
“Some people believed the trees were used to seal the spirits of the dead.”
The words settled coldly.
“Seal them,” Ludger repeated.
Hroth nodded once.
“They thought people who died from that sickness didn’t always leave cleanly,” he said. “That whatever took them… left something behind.”
Ludger’s eyes narrowed further.
“A curse?”
“Maybe,” Hroth said. “Maybe resentment. Maybe the sickness itself clinging to what was left of them. Depends which old story you ask.”
He looked back at the twisted trunk beyond the gate.
“But the point was always the same. The tree kept the dead in place.”
The silence after that felt different. Heavier.
“Because,” Hroth said quietly, “if they weren’t kept down, some believed they would curse the living too.”
Ludger didn’t blink.
“And make them die in the same manner.”
That made the shape of the whole thing uglier. Not just a memorial. Not just a warning. A seal. A living lock grown over a dangerous grave.