By the time Ludger finally slowed, the city around him was still alive with celebration, but the mood no longer felt quite so bright. Lanterns still glowed. Music still played. Drunken voices still rose and fell across the night.
Yet underneath it, he could feel the same thing more clearly than before.
Too many moving parts. Too many people gathering. Too many pieces on the board. Ludger looked down one crowded street, then another, before exhaling quietly through his nose.
He had found nothing useful. Which, in its own way, was useful enough. Because when the capital was this full, and even a simple walk through its busiest veins turned up only absence, it usually meant one thing.
The real players were already somewhere deeper inside.
Ludger changed direction and headed toward the estate where Hroth was supposed to be working as a bodyguard.
If the drunkard-spy was not haunting taverns and shady corners like usual, then maybe he was actually doing his job for once. That possibility alone felt wrong enough to deserve checking.
The capital’s festive noise faded a little as Ludger moved away from the busiest streets and into the districts where noble homes sat behind walls, gates, trimmed hedges, and expensive silence. Lanterns still burned here too, but more neatly. More deliberately. The music from the city center reached these streets only as a distant blur, softened by stone and wealth until it became background decoration instead of life.
When he reached the mansion, Ludger slowed. Then stopped. The place was empty. Not quiet. Empty. That was different.
The gates were shut, but not in the normal guarded way. The courtyard beyond showed no servants moving about. No stable hands. No watch rotation. No low activity from a household that should still be functioning even during a major event. The windows were dark in the wrong way too. Not like a family out attending festivities and leaving minimal staff behind, but like a place that had been stripped of presence entirely.
Ludger stood still for a moment, letting Mana Sense spread lightly. Nothing. No notable mana signatures. No hidden guard trying to stay clever.
His expression hardened slightly. That was not a good sign. Not now.
Not at a time like this, when the capital was overflowing with people, attention, and security. A noble family connected enough to afford someone like Hroth as a bodyguard should not have a mansion that felt abandoned unless something had happened.
Ludger’s mind moved through the possibilities quickly. Had they gone somewhere else under special orders? Had they been relocated? Had they been taken?
Or had something happened to them and Hroth, being Hroth, gotten dragged into it whether he wanted to or not? That last possibility felt annoyingly plausible.
There was no point standing there longer. If the estate had answers, they were not the kind he would get by staring at dark windows and empty stone. So he tried the next obvious move. He went to the usual rooftop.
The one Hroth favored when he wanted to pretend he was simply drunk and useless while actually keeping an eye on things. The one that gave a clean enough view across nearby streets without making the watcher too obvious unless someone already knew where to look.
Ludger climbed up, settled into the shadowed edge, and waited. The night moved around him.
Lantern light spilled across rooftops and narrow streets below. Distant laughter rose and fell. Somewhere nearby, a dog barked once and then decided not to continue. The capital carried on with all the confidence of a city that thought celebration could bury unease beneath enough wine and silk.
Hroth never showed. Not after a few minutes. Not after longer.
No staggering figure climbing up with a bottle in hand and secrets hidden under the stink of alcohol. No sarcastic greeting. No complaint. No sign at all.
Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked out over the dark line of roofs. That made two things missing now. The foreign warriors. And Hroth. Neither absence felt good.
After another stretch of waiting, Ludger finally exhaled through his nose and muttered to the empty night,
“Just my luck.”
When Ludger returned to the Torvares manor, he found Luna waiting for him at the gate with her arms crossed.
She did not look angry. Which somehow made the sight more weird.
The lantern light from the estate walls cast a soft glow around her, catching along the edge of her hair and the clean line of her posture. She had clearly been standing there for a little while already, patient in the way only Luna ever managed to be. Not restless. Not dramatic. Just there, like a quiet piece of judgment that had decided to take human form.
Ludger stopped in front of her.
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Luna looked at him once and said, “Investigating is fine.”
Ludger waited.
Then she added, “But if you make it too obvious, then it’s a waste of time.”
That made him raise a brow faintly. The words were calm, but the meaning underneath them was clear enough. You were seen. Or at least, you were close enough to being seen that she disapproved.
Ludger looked at her and said, in a flat voice, “Yes, Mom.”
Luna’s eyes narrowed immediately. He continued before she could respond.
“You’re becoming a lot more nagging lately. You rarely complained before.”
For a second, Luna stood there with a look that mixed annoyance and exasperation almost perfectly. It was not dramatic enough to be amusing, but it was very close. The sort of expression someone made when they realized a person was being difficult on purpose and also knew that saying so would only encourage them.
Then she sighed. A small one. Controlled. And just like that, her face settled back into its usual calm.
“That isn’t what this is,” she said.
“It sounded like it.”
“It wasn’t.”
Ludger gave the faintest shrug.
Luna looked at him for another brief moment, clearly deciding that continuing this line of conversation would only make the evening worse for her specifically. So she let it go with the efficiency of someone who knew exactly when not to waste energy.
“Viola and Lord Torvares are waiting for dinner,” she said instead.
Ludger nodded once. Then, without another word, he followed her inside.
The gate closed behind them, the noise of the capital dimming just a little as they stepped back into the controlled quiet of the manor. Luna walked ahead with her usual measured pace, while Ludger trailed beside her, already setting aside the empty mansion, the missing Hroth, and the useless search for foreign warriors.
For now, at least, there was dinner. Which in a house like this meant food, conversation, and a high chance that someone would say something annoying before the night was over.
Dinner was served not long after.
The Torvares manor handled it with the kind of quiet efficiency that made the whole thing feel effortless from the outside. Warm food, proper portions, polished silver, soft light, servants moving in and out without disturbing the conversation. It was the sort of setting meant to make people relax.
Ludger, naturally, used it to ask practical questions instead. After eating in relative peace for a while, he set his utensils down and looked toward Torvares.
“What’s our schedule for the next three days?”
Torvares dabbed his mouth lightly with a cloth before answering.
“Simple, for the most part.”
That alone made Ludger suspicious.
Torvares continued in his usual calm tone. “Usually, there’s a small meeting arranged between the visitors and the host of the birthday party.”
Ludger raised a brow faintly. “The emperor?”
Torvares nodded once. “In theory.”
Then he let out a low hum and added, “In practice, they won’t allow that many people to head directly to the castle just to present gifts.”
That made sense immediately. Too many guests. Too many factions. Too many opportunities for something to go wrong.
“It would be too dangerous,” Torvares said. “Even with layered security, you do not invite a crowd of nobles, foreign guests, warriors, and unknown attendants to approach the emperor one after another in a tight ceremonial flow and expect that to remain merely decorative.”
Viola leaned slightly on one hand. “So all the gift-giving nonsense is just handled indirectly?”
“Mostly,” Torvares said. “Servants, stewards, officials, and designated channels. Gifts are inspected, recorded, placed, and acknowledged. The appearance of personal presentation matters less than keeping the emperor alive.”
Ludger found that refreshingly practical.
“So we don’t actually have much to do,” he said.
Torvares nodded. “Correct. We wait for the event.”
Luna, who had been quiet until then, asked, “And direct interaction?”
Torvares’ expression barely changed. “Unlikely.”
He looked at each of them in turn.
“It is very unlikely that we’ll speak with the emperor directly,” he said. “And even less likely that we’ll have any meaningful private words with the regent.”
That did not surprise Ludger. If anything, it fit too neatly with the sort of control the capital liked to pretend was courtesy.
Torvares continued, “So our task is simple. Attend. Be seen enough to fulfill appearances. Remain there for a couple of hours. Avoid drawing unnecessary attention. Then leave.”
Viola frowned slightly. “That sounds boring.”
“That,” Torvares said dryly, “is the ideal outcome.”
Ludger understood that perfectly. Boring in the capital usually meant successful. Anything more exciting tended to involve politics, blood, or both.
“So we enter,” Ludger said, “stay visible enough not to offend anyone, invisible enough not to attract problems, and leave before the event becomes more interesting than it should.”
Torvares gave a small nod of approval. “Exactly.”
Viola let out a breath through her nose. “You say that as if avoiding attention is easy.”
“For some people, it isn’t,” Ludger said.
Viola looked at him immediately. “Was that aimed at me?”
“Yes.”
Luna lowered her gaze slightly, but Ludger caught the faintest shift at the corner of her mouth before it vanished.
Viola clicked her tongue. “You’re one to talk. You have the presence of a knife left on a dinner table. People notice you whether you want them to or not.”
“That’s still better than trying to be noticed on purpose.”
“I do not try to be noticed on purpose.”
No one at the table said anything for a second. Then Torvares calmly took another sip of his drink. Ludger looked at Viola. Luna looked at Viola. Even Viola seemed to realize the argument was weak halfway through holding it.
So she folded her arms and said, “Fine. Sometimes.”
Torvares chose that moment to steer them back before the conversation turned into another pointless loop.
“The next two days before the party are ours,” he said. “Use them carefully. Rest. Observe. Prepare. But do not do anything reckless.”
His eyes rested on Ludger for a fraction longer than the others. Ludger ignored that. Mostly.
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