All Jobs and Classes! I Just Wanted One Skill, Not Them All!

Chapter 622

“…So even if we had nothing to do with it,” Ludger said, voice low, “it can still be pinned on us.”

Arslan’s eyes hardened. “Or used as justification.”

Yvar nodded once, slow. “And if the Regent wants to squeeze, this gives him an excuse that makes him look like the responsible one.”

Ludger stared at the message like he could squeeze answers out of ink. Fittar was in danger. Their branch was in danger. Refugees were coming. Monsters were coming.

And somewhere, in the capital, or in a manor with too many guards and too much confidence, a man with an unwanted reply was going to decide whether this was a gift…or a weapon.

Ludger’s expression didn’t change much. It rarely did. But the air around him felt sharper. His voice cut through the tension like a blade through cloth.

“We’re helping them,” he said.

Arslan’s gaze sharpened, searching his son’s face for the angle—the political read, the contingency, the cost. Ludger didn’t give him any of that at first. He just held the line.

“Even if the Regent uses this chance to turn it against us,” Ludger continued, “it won’t matter.”

Yvar’s eyes narrowed slightly. “It will matter.”

Ludger looked at him, expression flat. “Not compared to letting Fittar burn and our allies take risks.”

That was the core of it. The part Ludger couldn’t negotiate with. He could play politics. He could plan routes and margins and rail schedules. He could even stomach killing when it was necessary. But he didn’t do nothing while allies died, just because an enemy might clap politely and call it “proper restraint.”

Yvar held Ludger’s gaze for a long second, then exhaled slowly.

“This is indeed the best option,” he said, voice measured. “If Fittar collapses, the loss isn’t only moral. It’s strategic. It’s economic. It’s… permanent.”

Arslan’s jaw worked once. He didn’t argue. Not now.

Yvar added, “But we still need countermeasures. If we move openly, the Regent can claim we’re mobilizing. If we don’t move openly, we lose time. If we…”

“We’ll think along the way,” Ludger said.

It wasn’t dismissive. It was simply Ludger’s way of saying thinking doesn’t require standing still. He turned toward the door.

Arslan’s voice followed him, low and tight. “Ludger—”

Ludger didn’t stop. He didn’t even fully look back.

“I’ll send instructions,” he said, already halfway out. “Mobilize everyone to get ready..”

Then he was gone. Not walking. Not pacing. Gone in the way a knife left a sheath, fast, clean, inevitable. The door swung shut behind him. For a moment, only the crackle of the hearth and the faint sounds of the guild outside filled the office.

Yvar pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

Arslan looked at him. “He’s right.”

“I know,” Yvar said. He lowered his hand, eyes tired but sharp. “He’s always right about that.”

Arslan didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. Yvar glanced toward the door Ludger had vanished through, like he could still see the trail of urgency hanging in the air.

“I knew he wouldn’t let his allies suffer without doing anything,” Yvar murmured. “I just wish he wasn’t so…”

He searched for the word, found it, but didn't like it anyway.

“…impulsive.”

Arslan’s mouth twitched, half grim, half proud, all exhausted.

“He gets that from his mother,” Arslan said.

Yvar stared at him. Arslan’s eyes flicked toward the map corner of the desk, where Ludger’s drawn lines still sat like a promise.

“…And from me,” Arslan admitted after a beat.

Yvar’s sigh this time was deeper.

“Then we’d better make sure his impulse doesn’t get turned into a noose,” he said softly.

And he reached for the dispatch ledger, already moving, because if Ludger was going to run headfirst into a fire, then someone had to make sure he ran with water in his hands instead of just rage.

Arslan nodded. Not because he liked any of it. Because pretending this was optional would only get people killed.

He pushed back from the desk and started moving with the brisk, practiced efficiency of a man who’d spent his life preparing for problems that polite society pretended didn’t exist. He crossed the office, already listing priorities in his head, who to station on the west wall, who to keep on the south gate, which patrol routes needed doubling, which watch captains wouldn’t panic when rumors became screams.

If refugees were moving, stories would move faster. And if monsters were following, then every road became a question mark.

Lionfang’s defenses had improved. Ludger had made sure of that, stonework thickened, kill zones shaped, choke points designed by someone who thought like a delver and built like a siege engineer.

Still. Arslan wasn’t naïve enough to believe walls alone were safety.

He would have to increase the defenses of the town. Reinforce the guild. Tighten discipline. Make sure the wolf pairs didn’t turn into a pack of enthusiastic chaos the moment blood hit the air.

And he would have to do it while the Regent watched from far away, waiting for any excuse to call it “mobilization.”

Arslan paused with one hand on the doorframe, staring out into the guild hall where people were already sensing the shift. The nervous energy. The way a community felt a storm before the clouds arrived.

He understood why Ludger moved the way he did.

Ludger was building something, something bigger than a guild, bigger than contracts and profit. He was building a structure that could take a hit and not shatter. A last line of defense for their family. For Lionfang. For anyone who didn’t have a title to hide behind when the world got ugly.

Arslan respected that. He feared it, too. Because the cost of being the last line was that you were always the one bleeding. His gaze drifted toward the stairs Ludger had already taken, the echo of his boots still lingering in the wood and stone.

Arslan’s jaw tightened.

He has to act, Arslan told himself.

It was the truth, and it tasted like iron. But another thought followed, softer and more dangerous because it wasn’t strategic, it was a father’s thought, the kind that didn’t care about politics.

Is it right?

Is it the best option for a kid his age to carry that weight? To look at every problem like it was his responsibility to solve, to patch, to anticipate before it even happened? Ludger was thirteen.

Thirteen.

At that age Arslan had worried about training drills, bruises, whether he’d embarrass himself in front of girls. Not whether a city falling could be used as a political weapon. Not whether a sealed labyrinth had been tampered with. Not whether he needed to build infrastructure to make an enemy hesitate.

Arslan exhaled slowly, pushing the doubt down where he kept all the other feelings he didn’t have time to deal with.

There would be time to worry about what a child should be later.

Right now, they had a guild to run, a town to protect, and a storm rolling in from the east. He straightened, shoulders squaring. Then he stepped into the hall and started giving orders, voice steady and sharp, because if Ludger was going to race toward the fire…

Arslan would make sure the home they left behind didn’t catch, too.

Ludger didn’t “leave the guild.”

He detached from it like a blade leaving a sheath, clean, fast, already committed.

He cut through Lionfang’s streets with speed, ignoring the looks and the whispers that followed him. People had started sensing something. You could see it in the way shutters closed a little quicker, in the way shopkeepers paused mid-count when he passed, in the way the wolves at people’s sides lifted their heads and watched him go.

By the time he reached home, the decision had already calcified into action.

He grabbed what he needed without ceremony. A travel cloak. Two sealed mana potions packs. The small pouch of tools he used for some work. A spare bracer. A strip of dried meat, mostly because running on an empty stomach was a great way to make stupid mistakes, and Ludger didn’t like giving fate free opportunities.

Elaine was in the main room with the twins. Exhausted, but upright. She had that steady look she always wore when the world tried to crumble and she refused to let it.

And beside her… A dire wolf.

Not as large as Silva yet, but big enough that the house felt smaller just by sharing air with it. Elaine’s wolf lay with its head near her feet, eyes half-lidded, pretending it wasn’t listening to everything. The twins had their own cubs too, small bundles of teeth and fur that wriggled around like they were trying to bite the concept of life itself.

Domestic chaos with fangs. Ludger slowed just enough to make it clear this wasn’t a casual visit. Elaine looked up. One glance at his face and her expression tightened.

“What happened?” she asked.

Ludger handed her the message he’d memorized already, summarizing it in the shortest possible terms.

“Rokram fell,” he said. “Monsters. Half the city. Refugees heading to Fittar. Monsters following.”

Elaine didn’t flinch, but her eyes sharpened. She read the danger behind the words and the distance on the map all at once.

“Arslan?” she asked.

“At the guild,” Ludger replied. “Working with Yvar. They’ll organize defenses here.”

Elaine’s mouth tightened. “And you?”

Ludger didn’t answer with words. He stepped to the side, lifted his hand, and whistled, sharp, specific.

Silva. The bond tugged like a thread in his chest. He felt the response immediately, warm, eager, and violently cheerful.

A heartbeat later, the dire wolf materialized in a ripple of mana, landing on the floor with a heavy thump and an offended huff like being summoned interrupted something important… like sleeping.

Silva’s head snapped up, eyes bright. He immediately lunged forward and tried to lick Ludger’s face with the enthusiasm of a weaponized mop.

Ludger leaned back, dodging by instinct. “Not now.”

Silva whined, then turned his attention to Elaine and the twins, tail thumping once, friendly, but still carrying that predator weight. The cubs immediately tried to bite his ear.

Silva tolerated it with saintly patience for approximately two seconds. Then Ludger crouched slightly and put a hand on Silva’s neck, his voice dropping into the tone that meant listen or we both regret it.

“Stay here,” Ludger said. “Keep them safe.”

Silva’s ears perked.

“And bite anyone to death that looks suspicious.”

Silva’s tail wagged harder.

Elaine’s head snapped toward Ludger. “Ludger.”

He didn’t look guilty. He didn’t even look apologetic.

Elaine’s voice sharpened. “Don’t give orders like that.”

Ludger shrugged, straightening. “If someone looks suspicious, they’re probably suspicious.”

“That’s not how—”

“That’s how wolves work,” Ludger cut in, calm as stone. “And right now I prefer wolves to politics. Bite first, ask questions later.”

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