When a fighter built around a set of favored methods, those methods eventually stopped feeling like choices and started feeling like extensions of the body. Losing access to them, even temporarily, exposed every gap hidden behind familiarity.
Or maybe there was another reason.
Maybe the real problem was that too many of Ludger’s advanced techniques had become tied to identity rather than just combat value. If a move was effective but also recognizable, then using it in the wrong place created a different kind of weakness.
Either way, Ludger had no intention of leaving the issue alone.
So he decided to solve the problem in a simpler way. He would train the basics. Not because he had suddenly become sentimental about fundamentals. Not because some old master’s speech about purity of technique had touched his heart.
But because if his basic fighting styles became strong enough, fast enough, and clean enough, then he could brute-strength his way through enemies with speed and power alone.
No special signature needed. No obvious tells. No techniques so distinct that they pointed back at Ludger the moment someone survived them. Just overwhelming physical competence.
A punch that hit too hard. A step that crossed distance too fast. A bow shot too precise to be fair. A palm strike too clean to stop. A basic weapon form used at a level where “basic” stopped being a comfort and started becoming terrifying.
That was good enough for him. So he kept training. The bowstring drew back again. His stance settled. The world narrowed to distance, angle, weight, release. Then the arrow flew.
It passed through the hole in the stone wall cleanly enough that only a faint whisper followed. Ludger was already forming the next arrow before the first one had finished falling somewhere far beyond the target.
He would keep building. Layer by layer. Until even stripped down to the simplest motions, he was still monstrous enough that it didn’t matter what he chose to hide.
Ludger had already decided that he would fully master the Hunter class as soon as possible.
There was no reason to drag it out.
The class fit too neatly with what he currently needed—ranged precision, cleaner fundamentals, better battlefield awareness, and a combat style that did not immediately scream his identity to anyone with eyes and memory. It was useful in exactly the practical, irritatingly sensible way he liked.
And now that he could use Quick Nock, the speed of his progress was increasing even more.
That skill alone had made a visible difference.
At first, the improvement had seemed small. A smoother reload. A shorter delay between shots. Less wasted motion while nocking and drawing. On paper, it sounded almost underwhelming.
In practice, it was excellent.
Because Ludger wasn’t just standing around loosing arrows leisurely like some noble brat trying to impress girls at a summer hunt. He was training under repetition so brutal that shaving off even small bits of wasted movement multiplied across hundreds and thousands of shots. Quick Nock reduced friction. Reduced dead time. Reduced the number of moments where his body had to reset before the next arrow.
Which meant more shots. More correction. More growth. More pain, admittedly, but pain had never been a convincing argument.
Another arrow passed through the target hole.
Then another.
Ludger formed the next shaft with earth magic almost before the previous one had fully vanished into the distance, fingers moving with practiced efficiency as he drew, released, and repeated. The bowstring hummed. The hill stayed quiet except for the rhythm of his training. Wind brushed over the grass. Stone targets rose and fell farther and farther away.
Then the alert appeared. Ludger paused.
His eyes sharpened as he read the screen in front of him.
Teacher Class has reached Max Level.
All Teacher-class skills may now be used without being equipped.
For a moment, he simply stared at it. Then, despite himself, he smiled. It wasn’t a large smile.
More the brief, sharp expression of someone who had just received confirmation that months of effort had turned into something meaningfully useful.
That was good. Very good.
The Teacher class had become absurdly convenient. Being able to use all of its skills without keeping the class actively equipped meant even less friction between growth paths. He could keep teaching, guiding, accelerating others, and benefiting from all the ridiculous advantages that class had built up without sacrificing a primary slot for it.
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Efficient. Elegant, even. And more importantly, dangerous in the long term.
People were already learning too quickly around him. Now that effect would only become more persistent.
He dismissed the alert and rolled one shoulder, still faintly pleased. The next one should be the Sage class. That felt natural enough.
Sage was already moving in the right direction, and it shouldn’t take long if he kept using mana at his current rate. With how often he shaped earth, maintained structures, trained spell control, practiced ranged precision, and generally treated his mana pool like something meant to be exhausted and rebuilt repeatedly, the class would likely continue rising without needing special attention.
That was the plan, at least. Master Hunter. Push Sage. Keep building fundamental combat power. Train the others in parallel.
Simple. Which was exactly why Ludger should have known better.
Because, as expected, things did not always go the way he planned.
In fact, given his life lately, one could argue that plans only existed to give reality something to laugh at before breaking them.
The rhythm of Ludger’s training finally broke when one of the newer guild members came jogging up the hill.
The young man slowed before reaching him, clearly unsure whether interrupting Ludger mid-shot counted as courage, stupidity, or a fast way to get assigned extra work for the next month.
“Vice Guildmaster,” he said, catching his breath, “Yvar is calling for you.”
Ludger did not turn immediately.
He kept the bow raised for one more second, eyes on the distant wall, fingers steady on the string.
Then he gave a small nod.
If Yvar had not sent a written message, then it was serious business.
That was simply how the man operated. Notes were for logistics, reports, and the usual endless flow of guild management. Coming in person, or sending someone to fetch Ludger directly, meant the matter was important enough that Yvar either did not want it written down or did not trust the wrong eyes not to find it first.
Which usually meant trouble. Ludger exhaled once and fired.
The stone arrow shot forward with a hard hiss, crossed the distance, and punched into the wall with enough force to crack straight through the target area. This time he didn’t care about clean precision. The impact destabilized the whole structure, and a heartbeat later the stone wall split apart and collapsed into a heap of rubble before sinking back into the earth under his control.
Training over. For now.
He lowered the bow and let his eyes drift over the remains of the wall for a moment as a different thought resurfaced.
Since he had already taught a bunch of kids earth magic, he had started considering something interesting.
A force of earth archers.
Not normal archers who just happened to know a little magic, but an actual dedicated group built around the concept. Fighters who didn’t have to carry their own ammunition because they could create it on demand. Fighters who could shape arrows to fit the shot, adjust balance and density depending on the target, and use magic in flight to correct their aim rather than just pray their release was good enough.
On paper, it sounded excellent. Less dependence on supply lines for ammo. More flexibility in the field. Potentially brutal ranged pressure if they were drilled properly.
And if the foundation was built early enough, they could grow into something much nastier later. mages who thought like archers, or archers who thought like artillery.
The problem, as usual, would be execution. Most people were bad enough at archery without adding spell shaping and mid-flight correction on top of it. Teaching them all three at once would probably produce a small army of idiots flinging crooked rock sticks into trees and each other.
Still. Interesting. Very interesting.
Ludger handed the bow off to a summoned strip of earth that folded over it for transport, then started walking down the hill with the guild member trailing half a step behind him.
If Yvar was looking for him directly, then whatever this was would probably be more urgent than long-term archer experiments. Annoying. He had just started enjoying the quiet again.
When Ludger returned to the guild, he noticed the mood immediately.
Something was off.
Lionsguard was rarely quiet in a normal way. Even when people kept their voices down, there was usually a sense of movement under it—workers carrying materials, adventurers talking about routes, instructors barking corrections, northerners arguing loudly enough to sound like they were halfway to murder even when discussing soup.
This was different. The members looked tense. Not panicked. Not confused. Tense.
The kind of tension that spread when bad news had already arrived and everyone was waiting to see how much worse it would become once the leadership spoke aloud. Conversations died when he passed. A few people looked at him for a second too long before quickly pretending to be occupied with something else.
That alone was enough to make Ludger’s expression flatten. Annoying.
He kept walking without asking questions and headed straight for his father’s office. When he stepped inside, he found Arslan and Yvar already there.
That told him enough before either of them spoke. Both men looked grim.
Not merely irritated or burdened by work. Grim. Yvar’s usual measured composure had tightened into something sharper, while Arslan looked like a man who had been handed a problem he already hated before fully opening it. Between the two of them, the room carried the atmosphere of people waiting for the sky to begin falling properly.
Ludger closed the door behind him. Arslan gestured at the seat across from the desk.
“Sit first.”
Ludger frowned faintly, but obeyed. That made it worse.
When Arslan wanted someone to sit down before talking, it usually meant the conversation was either going to be long, ugly, or both.
His father let out a sigh before speaking.
“We got a job from the capital.”
Ludger’s brows drew together immediately.
A job from the capital, under the current circumstances, already sounded bad enough. But Arslan’s tone made it worse than that.
“Not really a job,” Arslan corrected himself a second later, mouth flattening. “More like a decree from the Emperor.”
Ludger furrowed his eyebrows. The Emperor was four. Maybe five. So no, it was definitely not from the Emperor. It was an order from the Regent wearing a child’s name like borrowed clothing.
“What is it?” Ludger asked.
Arslan’s face darkened further. He looked at Yvar once, then back at Ludger.
“An order,” Arslan said, “to hunt down and kill all the criminals who escaped from the castle and tried to kill the Emperor.”
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