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

It had been a while since either of them had seen that expression.

And both of them immediately understood the same thing. Everyone was about to be in a world of trouble because of it. Arslan stared at his son for a second, then let out a breath through his nose.

“That,” he said, pointing vaguely at Ludger’s face, “is exactly the kind of expression I never want to see when the Regent is involved.”

Yvar did not disagree.

In fact, if anything, the scholar looked more concerned than Arslan. Ludger’s usual cold practicality was manageable. His dry irritation was predictable. But that smirk only showed up when something in his head had shifted from reaction to intent.

And intent from Ludger was rarely healthy for the people standing on the other side of it. Arslan rubbed a hand over his beard.

“What are you planning?”

Ludger lifted his eyes to him.

“We should send a message back.”

Arslan frowned. “Saying?”

“That we accept the job.”

For a moment, neither Arslan nor Yvar responded. Then both of them stared at him like he had just calmly announced that he planned to jump into a volcano for exercise.

Arslan blinked once. “...What?”

Yvar’s expression went flat in the way it always did when he was trying not to say something rude too quickly.

“You want to accept it,” Yvar said carefully.

“Yes.”

That was all Ludger gave them. Arslan sat back and stared harder. This made no sense.

Not just because the decree was dangerous, manipulative, and politically poisonous, but because Ludger, more than anyone in the room, had the least patience for the Regent’s brand of filth. If anything, Ludger usually carried himself like he wanted to walk up to the man in person and tell him to go put his ass in an ant hole.

Actually, Arslan was fairly sure the wording would be less polite than that. And yet here he was, calmly saying they should accept the job.

So both men waited. They waited for the explanation. For the reasoning. For the inevitable line where Ludger would unfold whatever twisted logic had produced that smirk and make the rest of them regret having functional imaginations.

Ludger did not explain.

Not immediately.

He simply rose from his chair.

Arslan frowned deeper. “Ludger.”

“The message,” Ludger said, already turning toward the door. “Send it as soon as possible. We’ll accept.”

Yvar’s eyes sharpened. “You are going to explain why.”

Ludger rested a hand on the door for a second. Maybe he would explain.

Maybe he would at least give them one piece of the thought process. Instead, he said nothing. He opened the door and left. Just like that. Arslan and Yvar sat in the office, staring at the doorway he had walked through.

The silence he left behind was somehow even worse than the one before. After several long seconds, Arslan exhaled and leaned back in his chair.

“I hate that look.”

Yvar kept staring at the door.

“Yes,” he said dryly. “Because every time he makes that face, someone important suffers.”

Arslan folded his arms. “The problem is that I’m no longer sure whether I’m more worried for the Regent, the fugitives, or us.”

Yvar’s mouth twitched faintly, but not into anything resembling a smile.

“That,” he said, “is probably the correct level of concern.”

And outside the office, somewhere in the guild, Ludger was already moving with the quiet certainty of someone who had found the part of the problem he intended to ruin first.

Ludger left the guild not long after that and headed home to prepare for the trip.

At least, that was what anyone watching would have thought.

In reality, his mind was already running ahead of his own steps, cover stories, likely routes, political consequences, and all the other annoyances that came attached whenever the capital decided to vomit one of its problems across the rest of the Empire.

He had almost made it through the quieter part of town when he saw her.

Eclaire.

She was standing just off the road in the kind of position people used when they wanted to look like they had only just happened to be passing by. Her posture was composed, almost casual, and her expression carried that faint practiced distance she liked to wear whenever she wanted to avoid giving too much away.

It would have been more convincing if she hadn’t spent the last week avoiding him again.

The moment she heard the rumors from the capital and connected the dots, she had become very good at suddenly being somewhere else whenever Ludger was nearby. Not openly. Not dramatically. Just enough to be obvious to anyone paying attention.

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Ludger, naturally, had paid attention. He didn’t slow much as he approached her. Eclaire looked at him, then slightly away, as if this really might have been an accidental meeting between two people walking around town with no deeper intent.

Ludger had no patience for that.

“Do you want to come this time too?”

He went straight to the point. Eclaire’s expression tightened for the smallest fraction of a second. Then she frowned. She didn’t answer. Ludger stopped in front of her, eyes flat.

“Don’t try to play dumb.”

That got her full attention.

“You should have heard by now that an emissary from the capital arrived,” he said. “And you want to know the details. That much is obvious.”

Eclaire’s lips pressed together slightly. She still didn’t deny it. At least that saved time.

For a moment, the only sound between them was the distant movement of Lionfang carrying on with the day as if the Empire were not busy chewing through its own limbs in the background.

Then Eclaire asked, quieter than before, “Is this about Rufas?”

Ludger nodded once. That was enough. Something shifted in her face. Not surprise, exactly. More like confirmation of a fear she had already built a shape for and still disliked seeing proven right.

Ludger hadn’t heard every detail of her history in the capital. He didn’t need to. He knew enough.

The family that had hidden her existence, the family that had let her leave the capital instead of being swallowed by it, had clearly been the Dalmoren family. Maybe not every branch of it. Maybe not every person bearing the name. But enough of them. Enough that Rufas and his house were not just political names to Eclaire.

They were tied to the part of her past that had not ended with a knife at her throat.

That made this personal.

Which, in Eclaire’s case, usually meant she would rather choke on the words than admit it directly.

Ludger watched her for another second.

“Well?” he asked.

Eclaire’s brow furrowed deeper, but this time the expression felt real instead of defensive. She looked away briefly, toward the road, toward the guild, toward anywhere that wasn’t his face.

“You’re asking me too casually,” she said at last.

“I’m busy.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s enough of one.”

She let out a quiet breath through her nose, half irritation, half something more strained. Of course he would do this like that. No easing into it. No comfortable setup. Just a direct offer thrown at the center of the problem like a knife.

Her voice lowered. “If this is about Rufas, then things in the capital are worse than the rumors say.”

“They are.”

That answer came without hesitation. Which told her more than a longer explanation would have. Eclaire’s gaze sharpened.

“And you’re going.”

“Yes.”

“To hunt them?”

Ludger’s eyes didn’t move.

“We accepted the decree.”

That was not the same as answering her question, and both of them knew it.

Eclaire studied him for a moment, clearly trying to decide whether to be annoyed, worried, or impressed by how effortlessly he could say something technically true while hiding the more important part underneath it.

Probably all three. Finally, she crossed her arms.

Eclaire frowned again, but there was less distance in it now. Less performance. The capital had already reached between them whether she liked it or not, and the name Rufas had cut through the last of the useless pretending.

She had been avoiding him because once she admitted the rumors were probably connected to him, then she also had to admit that whatever happened next might drag her old debts into the light.

And now here he was, offering to drag her along on purpose. Ludger waited. He didn’t push. Didn’t soften either.

He just stood there with the same dry, practical expression, as if asking someone whether they wanted to involve themselves in imperial treason fallout was no more unusual than asking if they wanted to inspect a new storehouse.

Eventually, Eclaire looked back at him fully.

“If I come,” she said, “you tell me everything relevant.”

Ludger’s mouth flattened faintly. “No.”

She stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“I’ll tell you what matters when it matters.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“It’s the version you’ll get.”

For one dangerous second, it looked like she might actually tell him to go to hell. Instead, she just closed her eyes briefly, then reopened them with the expression of someone accepting that reality had once again chosen the most irritating available route.

“You really are awful at this.”

“I’ve been told.”

“Yes,” Eclaire said dryly, “probably by everyone.”

That almost earned a reaction from him. Almost. Then she uncrossed her arms and let out a slow breath.

“I’m coming.”

Ludger gave a small nod, as if that had been the expected outcome all along. Which, annoyingly, it probably had been. Eclaire narrowed her eyes at him.

“You already knew I would say yes.”

“I thought there was a good chance.”

“That sounds suspiciously close to the same thing.”

Ludger turned and resumed walking toward home.

“Be ready.”

Eclaire stared at his back for a second, then started after him with a look that suggested she was already regretting several future decisions.

Above them, the sky remained clear and quiet. Which was nice. Because between Ludger, the capital, the Regent, the Dalmorens, and now Eclaire’s involvement, the peace on the ground was almost certainly about to become a temporary misunderstanding.

Eclaire followed him for several steps before finally asking the obvious.

“Why do you want me on a job given by the Regent?”

Ludger didn’t slow.

He kept walking toward home with the same maddeningly even pace, hands at his sides, expression unreadable from the angle she had.

Then he answered in that flat tone of his, as if what he was saying was perfectly reasonable.

“I’m just giving you the chance to see Rufas after a long time before I have to dispose of him.”

Eclaire stopped for half a heartbeat. Then she stared at his back.

What? The words were so dry, so casual, that for a moment she genuinely couldn’t tell whether he was serious, mocking her, or simply saying something horrible on purpose because he found other people’s reactions educational.

She narrowed her eyes. Normally, reading people was easy.

That had been drilled into her long before she had the freedom to call any part of her life her own. Tone, posture, breathing, gaze, hesitation, the shape of a lie before it finished leaving someone’s mouth, most people opened themselves without realizing it. Even when they hid things, they usually hid them in familiar ways.

Ludger was different. Infuriatingly different. She looked at the set of his shoulders, the rhythm of his steps, the complete lack of visible amusement or coldness or anything else that would help her place the line properly.

Nothing. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking at all. Was he joking? Was he warning her? Was he baiting her into showing too much?

Or had he simply decided that if Rufas became inconvenient, then yes, he would kill him, and this was his version of courtesy?

With Ludger, any of those felt possible, which was probably the most irritating part.

He kept walking. When he finally spoke again, he still didn’t look back.

“Go get some things from Julia.”

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