Ludger turned toward the cell, his gaze landing on the still-twitching man sprawled across the floor. The prisoner’s breath came in shallow gasps now, sweat dripping down his temple, the aftershocks of Kaela’s magic still making his muscles spasm every few seconds.
“Kaela,” Ludger said quietly.
She looked up, tilting her head with a faint grin. “Yes, Luds?”
“I need you to ask him a few specific questions.”
Her grin widened. “Oh? What kind of questions?”
Ludger didn’t answer right away. He stepped closer to the cell, shadows tracing his sharp features as the dim runelight flickered against his face. When he finally smiled, it was the kind that wasn’t supposed to be reassuring, the slow, deliberate kind that seemed to tighten the air in the room. Even Maurien raised an eyebrow.
Kaela blinked, then chuckled softly. “That smile is bad news,” she said. “You’re starting to look like trouble.”
Dalan, standing a few steps back, exhaled sharply. “Gods above,” he muttered, rubbing his face. “Ludger, if you’re planning on diplomacy, don’t do it with that smile. You’ll start a war before you finish a sentence.”
That earned him a sideways glance and a flicker of amusement from Ludger. “Who said anything about diplomacy?”
Kaela clapped her hands once, practically glowing now. “Now that’s more like it. All right, Vice Guildmaster, what are we asking?”
Ludger leaned in slightly, lowering his voice just enough that only she and Maurien could hear. He outlined a few pointed questions, names, locations, trading routes, and most importantly, who collected the payments from the League side. The man in the cell wouldn’t survive another full interrogation, but Ludger didn’t need him to. He just needed confirmation.
When Kaela straightened again, her expression turned sharp, her playful tone gone. “Understood,” she said.
Maurien watched the exchange and smirked faintly. “You know,” he murmured, “I used to think Arslan was the dangerous one in your family.”
Ludger didn’t look away from the cell. “He still is,” he said calmly. “I just learned from the best.”
Kaela grinned at that, cracking her knuckles before stepping back into the glow of the rune circle. The prisoner tried to crawl away from her, but the air around him shimmered as invisible currents of wind pinned him down.
Dalan muttered under his breath, “And now he’s sending the devil to ask questions…”
Maurien chuckled. “You’re just realizing that?”
When night finally fell, the city academy of Coria dimmed into a haze of green and blue runelight. The air still smelled of steel and smoke, but the streets were quieter now, workers gone, furnaces cooling. It was the kind of quiet Ludger liked best: the kind that hid movement.
He stood in the room’s shadowed corner, fastening the last clasp of his dark traveling coat. The faint gleam of a rune-sealed pouch hung at his side, filled with the gear he’d stripped from the captured smugglers earlier that day.
Maurien leaned against the table nearby, arms crossed. “You’re really going through with this?”
Ludger nodded, checking the mirrored edge of his gauntlet to study his reflection. His brown hair had darkened to a muted gray from a mana dye charm, and faint illusionary marks now crossed his jaw. His eyes, once sharp and steady, now glimmered with a faint dull red glow, just enough to pass for someone who’d spent too long under unstable draught fumes.
“That’s the plan,” he said. “They lost their middlemen, but the other buyers are still waiting for a delivery. I’ll take the prisoners’ place, deliver the goods myself.”
Kaela frowned from where she sat perched on a table, her wind-tousled hair swaying slightly. “You mean you’ll act like them? Walk straight into their den with their own cargo?”
“Exactly.”
Maurien exhaled. “That’s not a plan, it’s a gamble.”
Ludger glanced at him. “I don’t gamble. I calculate.”
He buckled his satchel, sealing it with a pulse of mana. “If I do it right, they’ll think I’m part of their trade network. That gives me a direct line to the buyers, and once I confirm who’s in charge, I’ll crush them before they can react. Quietly. No survivors, no witnesses, no messages getting out to the Empire or the League.”
The calm in his voice made both of them pause. Kaela swung her legs idly, watching him with an unreadable look. “You’re starting to sound more like a bad guy,” she said lightly. “Just… more surgical about it.”
Ludger didn’t respond.
Maurien pushed off the table. “Then I’m coming with you.”
“No,” Ludger said immediately.
Maurien raised an eyebrow. “No?”
Ludger shook his head. “You and Kaela are too recognizable. You’ve both made names here already here. If the League or the council are watching, three of us moving together would scream Lionsguard. I can’t risk that.”
Kaela hopped down from the table, eyes narrowing slightly. “So what, you go alone and hope they don’t notice you’re twelve?”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I am almost thirteen,” Ludger corrected automatically. “And yes. They’ll see what they expect to see, until they don’t.”
Maurien sighed, muttering under his breath, “And I thought I was the reckless one.”
Kaela crossed her arms, biting back the urge to argue further. She could tell by his tone that his mind was already made up.
Ludger adjusted his gloves and stepped toward the door. “Stay here. Keep the local councilor under observation. If something goes wrong, seal the routes and burn the evidence.”
Kaela let out a long breath. “You’re really going to walk into a den of smugglers and nobles alone.”
Ludger gave her a small, sharp smirk as he pulled up his hood. “No,” he said quietly. “I’m going to walk in as one of them.”
Just as Ludger reached for the door handle, a sharp knock echoed from the other side. He tensed for a fraction of a second before Maurien flicked a finger, letting a thin wisp of wind slide under the door. The breeze returned a moment later carrying familiar voices.
“It’s us.”
Maurien opened the door, and Dalan and Linne stepped in, both looking worn, their coats smudged with soot and their arms full of metal-reinforced crates. They set them down with a clatter on the floor.
“Didn’t expect you two back this soon,” Ludger said.
Dalan exhaled hard, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, well… this whole situation’s a damn mess. And part of it’s our fault for not realizing what was happening right under our noses.”
Linne nodded beside him, her tone quieter but resolute. “If we hadn’t been so focused on our research, maybe we would’ve seen the pattern sooner. So, consider this an apology. Or maybe… insurance.”
Ludger tilted his head. “Insurance?”
Dalan pried open the top crate, the hinges squealing faintly as a faint blue glow spilled into the room. “You’re heading out alone, right? Then you’ll need something better than a hood and luck.”
Inside, neatly folded, was a set of black leather armor, sleek, segmented, and reinforced with subtle layers of runic lining. Unlike typical assassin garb, the runes weren’t hidden; they were etched in faint green along the seams, pulsing gently like veins of light.
Linne crouched beside the crate, running a hand along the material. “Made from smoke-tanned wyvern hide. Resistant to mana burns and alchemical residue. The runes are for more than decoration, self-repair, impact absorption, even minor concealment when you channel mana through it.”
Maurien gave a low whistle. “That’s not cheap….”
Dalan smirked faintly. “It’s an old prototype. We abandoned it because it required constant mana regulation. Too unstable for most users.” He looked at Ludger. “But you’re not most users, are you?”
Ludger studied the outfit carefully, eyes tracing each rune pattern, each connecting thread. The design was precise, almost surgical. “You’re giving this to me?”
Linne stood, brushing dust from her gloves. “Not giving. Lending. You make it back in one piece, you return it. If you keep it with you, then people might connect the dots when they find this with you as the cause of whatever is about to happen.”
Kaela peeked over Ludger’s shoulder, grinning. “Black leather, green runes… very dramatic. You’ll fit right in with the underworld crowd.”
Ludger ignored her, still examining the armor. “And if someone asks where it came from?”
Dalan shrugged. “Say you took it off a corpse, or we say that we had it stolen. Anyway, only both of us knows of this.”
That earned him a faint smirk from Ludger, one that carried just enough sharpness to make Dalan reconsider his own joke.
Linne smiled thinly. “Just… don’t burn it. It’s one of a kind.”
Ludger lifted the armor, feeling the faint pulse of mana through the fabric as the runes flickered alive under his touch. It was light, too light for something so dense. It adjusted almost instantly to the warmth of his skin.
“This’ll do,” he said simply.
Ludger tightened the last strap on the leather suit, the runes dimming to a subtle green glow as they synced with his mana. But he wasn’t finished. Not even close.
He reached into one of the crates Dalan had brought and pulled out a long, dark cloak, lightweight, but made to mute movement and muffle sound. He swung it over his shoulders, fastening it beneath the collarbone. Then came the hood, broad, shadow-casting, and finally a matte black mask covering the entire lower half of his face.
The mask was featureless, smooth, and faintly reflective under the lamplight. Combined with the hood, it made him look less like a boy and more like a silhouette with intent.
Kaela blinked. “…Okay, that’s unsettling.”
Maurien nodded slowly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone hired a ghost.”
Ludger pulsed mana into the runes on the suit.
Fwoom.
The symbols drank in his mana like starving beasts. A ripple spread over his body, weight decreasing, muscles feeling looser, reaction time sharpening. Another pulse and the runes along his ribs and forearms flared softly, thickening the air around him like a thin second skin.
He rolled a shoulder, testing the movement.
“…Good. Lightweight but reinforced. Almost as good as overdrive.”
Dalan raised both eyebrows. “You already did the calculations?”
Ludger ignored him. He turned instead toward the far corner of the room. Fighting bare-handed, even with Hard Fists, didn’t feel right for this mission. Anyone who’d fought alongside the Lionsguard, or against them, knew exactly which twelve-year-old was fond of breaking ribs with his fists.
He needed something new, something silent, efficient, and untraceable. So he lifted one hand and summoned a dense ball of earth mana. The air hummed as the sphere condensed, shrinking into a compact, perfectly smooth stone. Then Ludger split it in half.
Crack.
He shaped each piece with precision, earth flowing like clay beneath his fingertips. First into rough blades, then into short sickle-like daggers. Then he molded the bases into thick, curved handles, more like reinforced knuckle dusters than standard grips.
With another pulse of mana, he hardened both weapons, compressing the stone until it was nearly black, denser than most metals, the edges faintly serrated with layered mineral patterns.
Maurien let out a low whistle. “Those aren’t daggers… those are skull-breakers.”
Ludger inspected the first blade, tested its balance, then slid his fingers through the knuckle-guard grip. The weapon locked into place seamlessly, quiet, close-range, brutal. Perfect for subterranean work.
“They won’t break,” Ludger said. “Not unless I want them to.”
Kaela raised a hand. “So… let me get this straight. Dark cloak, assassin armor, mask, new weapons… You’re basically crafting a whole new identity.”
“Exactly,” Ludger replied, sliding the second blade into his belt. “If I’m going to move through their network, I can’t look like myself. I can’t move like myself. I can’t fight like myself.”
Maurien’s eyes sharpened. “And what do we call this version of you?”
Ludger lowered the hood a little further, hiding most of his face in shadow.
“…No one. A nobody.”
He turned toward the door, blades in place, runes primed, presence vanishing into the dimness.
“I’ll be back in a few days,” he said. “Prepare to move when I send word.”
And with that, the disguised Vice Guildmaster slipped into the night—no footsteps, no sound, nothing but a brief flicker of mana before he disappeared from sight entirely.
