Ludger exhaled slowly as Ragdar crumpled, clutching at his own throat in blind panic. The berserker draught kept the man’s muscles swollen with power, but even that couldn’t override the simple biological truth: without the diaphragm working, he wasn’t breathing properly anymore. Good. He’d live for a bit. Long enough for Ludger to finish what mattered.

  Ludger raised his pierced hand and let a soft glow of Healing Touch seep through his fingers. The mana wrapped around the torn flesh like cool water, stitching muscle fibers together, sealing the internal bleeding, pushing the spikes’ residual damage out of his palm. It wasn’t perfect, Healing Touch never was unless he committed more mana, but it closed the worst of it after a while.

  Blood stopped dripping. Pain faded into dull pressure. Good enough. He shook his hand once, letting the last bit of stiffness leave his fingers. Then he turned toward the cages.

  The prisoners inside flinched the moment he looked at them. Some backed up against the far bars, others huddled together. Eyes wide. Breath sharp. They had watched the entire fight, from the moment Ragdar flew into the wall, to the berserker rampage, to the brutal counter that folded the guildmaster like wet paper. They had seen enough to understand one truth: This masked man was not normal. Nor merciful. Nor someone they wanted to remember. Ludger approached the nearest cage, placed his hand on the bars, and pushed.

  The iron bent like warm clay. He didn’t use mana. He didn’t need to. Just a simple application of pure strength, and the bars groaned open wide enough for a grown man to slip through. He stepped aside, his tone calm and flat, yet carrying an unmistakable weight.

  “Leave,” he said roughly to mask his voice. “All of you.”

  Nobody moved at first. Then one by one, they scrambled out, stumbling over each other in desperation to escape. Ludger moved to the next cage. And the next. And the next. Each time, he pushed the bars aside with the same quiet ease, the same detached posture, the same steady gaze that felt more dangerous than any spell.

  When the last prisoner stepped out, Ludger stood in the center of the chamber, arms loose at his sides, voice low but unmistakably cold through the stone mask.

  “You will walk out of here,” he said. “You will forget what you saw. And you will not mention me to anyone.”

  Silence. Only fear-filled eyes staring back. Ludger tilted his head slightly.

  “No one,” he repeated.

  The way his mana flared, barely, subtly, was enough to send a shiver through the entire group. They nodded, frantic, terrified, some nearly tripping over themselves in their haste to agree.

  “G–got it…”

  “We never saw anything…”

  “We were never here…”

  Good. Ludger gestured toward the exit tunnel. “Go.”

  They didn’t need to be told twice. The prisoners fled, footsteps echoing rapidly down the underground corridor, leaving Ludger alone with the fallen guildmaster and the faint dripping of water from the remnants of his Splash spells.

  Only then did Ludger roll his shoulders, stretch his hand once more, and mutter under his breath:

  “…Now to finish cleaning up this mess.”

  When the last of the prisoners’ footsteps faded into silence, Ludger turned back toward the battle’s aftermath. Only Ragdar still drew breath. The rest of the guildmaster’s goons lay sprawled across the stone, blue-skinned and frozen stiff from Ludger’s earlier Cold Wind blast. He hadn’t meant to kill all of them. But between the berserker draught, the power from Ragdar’s blows, and the shock of the fight, the weak ones had simply stopped enduring. Ludger exhaled slowly.

  Well… that’s one cleanup problem solved.

  The real issue was the idiot still alive. Ragdar would not break easily. Ludger knew that immediately. The man had enough ego to give speeches underground, enough pride to drink a draught that would fry his brain, and enough stupidity to think he could fight a walking natural disaster head-on.

  But pride and stupidity were weaknesses. And mental pressure was a weapon just as reliable as earth magic. When Ludger felt the berserker draught’s effects fade, Ragdar’s muscles shrinking back to their natural size, veins receding, breath turning ragged instead of explosive, he moved.

  He dragged Ragdar’s limp form toward the cages and got to work. Iron bars that had been twisted open were twisted again, but this time with purpose, Ludger reshaped them like thick, contorted ropes, wrapping them tightly around Ragdar’s wrists and ankles. The metal coils constricted with each movement of Ludger’s hand, locking the guildmaster in place like a hog-tied beast.

  By the time Ragdar finally groaned awake, every limb was bound so thoroughly he couldn’t twitch without the metal tightening. His blurry vision cleared just in time to realize he was tied down, legs forced apart, arms wrenched behind him at uncomfortable angles. He flexed experimentally, and immediately regretted it.

  A stone sphere materialized in Ludger’s hand, and with a casual flick of his wrist he sent it smashing into Ragdar’s forehead.

  THUD.

  Ragdar’s head snapped back, eyes going cross-eyed for a moment as his thoughts scattered like spilled marbles.

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  “Ggh—what the—?!”

  Ludger stepped into his view, face half-hidden beneath his makeshift stone mask, only one cold eye visible.

  “Stop thrashing,” Ludger said, voice flat. “Unless you’d like to get some brain damage first. Makes the questioning harder.”

  Ragdar froze instantly, breath catching in his throat. The iron bonds creaked from his aborted attempt to struggle. Ludger crouched down in front of him, resting his forearms casually on his knees like he had all the time in the world—even though he would’ve preferred to finish this quickly and get back to scouting for other threats.

  “Alright,” Ludger said quietly, tilting his head. “You talk. You live a bit longer. You don’t talk… well.”

  He tapped the stone orb against Ragdar’s forehead again, softly this time, but the sound was enough to make the guildmaster’s entire face twitch.

  Ludger’s mana flared, barely noticeable, just enough to send a faint shiver through the ground and a spike of dread through Ragdar’s gut.

  “Your choice.”

  Ragdar blinked slowly, the blow to the head still making his vision wobble—but his mind was clearing enough to process the boy crouched in front of him. His gaze dragged over the earth residue coating Ludger’s arms, the precision of his counter, the way he reshaped iron like wet clay, the cold calm in every movement. Recognition hit him like another stone sphere.

  “…You,” Ragdar growled, lips peeling back. “You’re that brat. The Lionsguard’s little vice guildmaster.”

  He spat to the side, thick, red-tinted spit hitting the floor with a wet slap.

  “I hate a lot of things,” Ragdar snarled, voice low and bitter. “But nothing, nothing, pisses me off more than a noble’s watchdog.”

  Ludger tilted his head.

  Watchdog?

  Really?

  He wasn’t sure when that label stuck. Probably around the time the Lionsguard started dismantling smuggling networks, exposing corruption, and being seen next to Torvares a bit too often in public. Political perception could turn anyone into anything, even a twelve-year-old who preferred sculpting rocks in silence.

  “Interesting opinion,” Ludger replied, voice dry. “But you lost. So if you have any pride left, this is where you talk.”

  Ragdar barked a laugh, hoarse, humorless, full of stubborn teeth-gritting defiance.

  “Trying to use my pride against me? Useless, kid. I already know I lost.”

  Ludger leaned an elbow on his knee, unimpressed. “Just like using logic against you?”

  Ragdar’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

  “Yes,” Ludger added, calmly tapping his own head, “since you clearly can’t understand it.”

  The guildmaster’s face twisted into a snarl. If he had fangs, he would’ve shown them. His body tensed, the iron restraints creaking as he strained, instinctively, stupidly, like an angry dog fighting its leash.

  Ludger raised an eyebrow.

  “Who’s the dog now?” he murmured.

  Ragdar froze.

  Then bared his teeth again, but this time… slower. Angrier. More unsure. Ludger didn’t move. Didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t threaten. He just looked at Ragdar the way a tired adult looks at a toddler mid-tantrum.

  And that somehow infuriated the man more than any kick to the ribs ever could.

  Finally, Ludger spoke again, with the same tone one uses when dealing with an animal that can’t decide whether to bite or whine.

  “So,” he said, resting his palm lightly on the stone sphere, “ready to talk… or do you need another demonstration of logic?”

  Ludger stood there for a moment, letting the silence stretch. Only the faint drip of water from the ruined ceiling broke through the stillness. Then he shifted his stance, letting the stone sphere roll lazily across his palm as though he had all the time in the world to decide what to do with Ragdar next. When he finally spoke, his voice was steady and disturbingly calm.

  “Let’s try something simple,” Ludger said. “Who asked you to investigate the guards at the Torvares estate?”

  The question landed like a hammer. Ragdar’s eyes narrowed to thin slits. The muscle in his jaw twitched. A click of annoyance escaped his tongue, loud, sharp, unmistakably guilty. It wasn’t an answer, but Ludger didn’t need it to be. It confirmed suspicion more effectively than any confession. He sighed once, almost theatrically, and shook his head.

  “Wrong answer.”

  He placed his palm against the stone floor. The ground responded immediately. A low rumble rippled through the chamber as earth softened beneath several of the frozen corpses. The bodies sank slowly at first, then faster, their limbs disappearing under the shifting stone. Ragdar watched in stiff silence as the earth swallowed the dead without ceremony, without sound, without trace, like watching sand fill a grave.

  He didn’t look horrified. He looked… uneasy. This wasn’t showy magic. It wasn’t intended as a performance. It was quiet, precise, and clinically efficient, and that unsettled him far more than if Ludger had thrown fireballs around the room. Ludger straightened, brushing nonexistent dust from his fingers, then fixed Ragdar with a flat gaze.

  “Let’s try again,” he said. “Who hired your guild for that job?”

  Ragdar snarled like an irritated beast, strain tightening the ropes of iron around his limbs. “Just kill me. I’m not telling anything to the Torvares family’s little watchdog.”

  Ludger blinked slowly. “When did I become a watchdog?” he muttered, more to himself than to Ragdar. “I must’ve missed the ceremony.”

  Still, he let the insult pass with nothing more than a flick of his fingers.

  “You’re entitled to your opinion,” Ludger continued. “But you lost. And usually, people with pride speak when they’re beaten.”

  Ragdar’s growling stopped abruptly. He glared, but the glare lacked the confidence from before. Ludger didn’t bother acknowledging it. He simply continued, voice low and steady as he dissected the situation aloud.

  “You probably don’t even know who hired you,” he said. “You’re not the type they trust with details.”

  Silence. Ludger walked a few steps toward the cages before turning back.

  “You capture people without asking why. You move crates without checking what’s inside. You follow instructions without understanding them…” He paused, then tilted his chin thoughtfully. “And let me guess: the cloaked guy who trained the newbies? He’s the one who taught you how to watch noble guards and how to hit shipments without being noticed.”

  Ragdar’s eyes flicked away. He didn’t deny it.

  Ludger pressed further, voice dropping even lower. “And he was also the one who told you to form this little ‘Iron Moth Brotherhood,’ wasn’t he?”

  A muscle in Ragdar’s cheek twitched. His silence was answer enough. And Ludger, finally, had the confirmation he needed.