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

Ludger’s eyelid twitched once.

Eclaire continued before he could answer.

“You’re good at many things,” she said. “Subtle presence in controlled social filth is not the first strength that comes to mind.” A faint trace of amusement touched her mouth. “You carry yourself like someone who solves problems by becoming the largest threat in the room. That works very well in combat. Less so when you need people to underestimate you for longer than a minute.”

Ludger stared at her.

“That’s a rude way to describe competence.”

“It’s a very accurate way to describe you.”

He clicked his tongue softly, but didn’t deny it. Because he couldn’t.

If things went wrong, his first instinct was usually to end the problem fast, hard, and permanently. Useful in a fight. Useful in a labyrinth. Useful with monsters, smugglers, and lunatics who threw fire around while laughing.

Less useful when the objective was to walk into a nest of criminals, ask careful questions, and leave before anyone realized the apparently inconvenient boy in the corner was actually Ludger.

Eclaire folded her hands again and went on.

“If you go there looking like yourself, acting like yourself, and speaking like yourself, then anyone with a functioning survival instinct will notice that something is wrong.” Her head tilted slightly. “Even if they don’t identify you immediately, they’ll know you don’t belong. And in places like that, not belonging is often enough to get watched.”

Ludger exhaled slowly through his nose. That was true too. Annoyingly true. Eclaire studied him for a moment, then her expression grew a little flatter.

“I don’t want to blow my cover either,” she said.

That shifted his attention back to her fully. She held his gaze.

“If I’m associated too openly with this, then I become visible in ways I would rather avoid. The same people I’ve spent years staying beneath might start asking who am I, who I’m speaking to, what I know, and who I’m helping.” Her mouth tightened faintly. “I would prefer that not to happen.”

Very reasonable. An illegitimate imperial daughter did not get the luxury of casual exposure. Not if she wanted to remain alive, unclaimed, and outside certain games. Still, she continued before he could respond.

“But even so,” she said, “I’ll help you with that.”

“With what?” Ludger asked.

“Not making yourself immediately obvious.”

That earned a brief silence.

Then Ludger gave her a long look.

“You?”

Eclaire’s expression turned dry.

“Yes. Me.”

“You’ve spent most of your time hiding in Lionsguard.”

“And before that,” she said evenly, “I spent most of my life being taught how to exist around dangerous people without drawing the wrong kind of attention.”

That was hard to argue with. She leaned back slightly.

“I’m not saying I can turn you into a master infiltrator overnight,” she said. “That would require divine intervention, memory loss, or a complete personality replacement.” A small pause. “Possibly all three.”

Ludger’s face stayed flat.

“You’re getting comfortable throwing jabs at me.”

“I guess so.”

He ignored that. Eclaire continued more seriously.

“You don’t just need a disguise,” she said. “You need a role that explains your strengths without revealing too much of what you really are.”

Ludger crossed his arms.

“And you can help with that.”

“Yes.”

Her answer came without hesitation.

Then, after a brief pause, she added, “Partly because if you go in badly disguised and start a disaster, the consequences will not end neatly with you.”

That was as close to open concern as she was likely to phrase it.

“The black market won’t just remember your face,” she said. “It will react. People will move goods. Burn records. Change meeting points. Kill loose ends. If there really is overlap between noble interests, underworld guilds, curse movement, and trafficking routes, then one clumsy entry could send half the useful trail underground.”

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Ludger’s expression hardened slightly.

“I’m aware.”

“I know you are,” Eclaire said. “That’s why I’m saying this plainly. I want the trail disturbed as little as possible before you grab it.”

That, too, was fair.

He studied her for a second, then asked, “So what exactly are you offering?”

Ludger stared at her in silence. She met the stare without flinching, then continued as though she had not just suggested trimming down one of his most defining qualities for the sake of infiltration.

“There is a method,” Eclaire said, “that one of my teachers taught me for reaching places like the black market without walking in blind and hoping the right people notice.”

That made Ludger’s expression sharpen slightly.

“A teacher?”

She nodded.

“One of the more unpleasant ones,” she said. “Which, in hindsight, probably made him one of the more useful ones.”

That tracked. The Empire did seem to produce a remarkable number of valuable lessons through thoroughly objectionable people. Eclaire leaned back a little in her chair, voice settling into that calmer, more instructional tone she used when explaining structures instead of herself.

“The mistake most outsiders make with the black market is assuming access works the same way it does with normal merchants. Find the seller. Offer money. Buy the thing. Leave.” Her eyes stayed on him. “That is not how the deeper parts work.”

Ludger said nothing, so she continued.

“Money matters, obviously. A lot of them work for money. They would be idiots not to.” Her mouth tightened faintly. “But once you get past the cheaper layers, coin stops being enough on its own. Everyone there already wants coin. Everyone already understands coin. Coin is common.”

Her gaze dipped briefly to the notes on the table before returning to him.

“What they really value,” she said, “is access. Leverage. Exclusivity. Something that gives them an advantage other people cannot buy from the next stall over.”

Ludger folded his arms.

“So your method is bribery.”

Eclaire gave him a dry look.

“My method is understanding that criminals who survive long enough to become useful are rarely impressed by ordinary payment.”

That was fair. She continued.

“If you want street trash to point at another alley for a few silver pieces, then yes, money is fine. If you want a real information broker in the black market to trust you enough to open their mouth on something dangerous, then you need to offer something else.” Her voice lowered slightly. “You need to give them a reason to see you as more valuable alive, pleased, and interested in future dealings than dead, robbed, or sold out.”

Ludger’s eyes narrowed faintly. An information broker. That was better than pulling answers from random smugglers by the throat. Less efficient in the short term, maybe. Much more useful in the long term. Eclaire saw that thought land and pressed on.

“To get the trust and loyalty of someone like that,” she said, “you need to give them something no one else can.”

Now Ludger really was listening. Because there weren’t many categories in the world where that description fit him as cleanly as it did in one particular area. Eclaire must have noticed the exact moment the answer formed in his head, because she said it immediately afterward.

“I would recommend one of your runic bracer.”

Silence.

Then Ludger said, “Go on.”

“A new one,” Eclaire added. “With an effect no one has heard of before.”

That made him lean back slightly, studying her. Not because the idea was bad. Because it was good enough to be dangerous. Eclaire folded her hands more neatly in her lap as she explained.

“If you offer coin, a broker will compare your purse to the next customer’s purse. If you offer a gem, they will compare it to the next gem. If you offer a relic, they will wonder who else can provide one.” Her gaze remained steady. “But if you offer a crafted item with an effect they have never seen before and cannot buy elsewhere, then you are no longer just another client. You become a source.”

Ludger said nothing. She kept going.

“And sources are treated differently.”

Yes. They were.

A broker might cheat a buyer. Delay a courier. Sell scraps of rumor to anyone rich enough. But a source of unique goods? That was a vein of future profit. Something to be cultivated. Protected, even. At the very least, not casually burned unless the reward was overwhelming.

Eclaire’s voice stayed measured.

“It doesn’t have to be your best work,” she said. “In fact, it shouldn’t be. But it should be real. Useful. Strange enough to be desirable. Limited enough that it cannot be easily copied at a glance. If the broker believes you can provide more, or provide variants, then they have reason to maintain the relationship.”

Ludger clicked his tongue softly.

“And your teacher taught you this.”

“He taught me that in shadow markets, information flows toward novelty almost as reliably as it flows toward fear.” She paused, then added with a faint trace of distaste, “He preferred explaining everything through practical extortion models. I am improving the presentation.”

Ludger’s gaze drifted for a moment, not away from her but inward. A runic bracer. That did fit too well.

He already knew from experience how abnormal his work looked to people. Even Hroth, slippery as he was, had nearly drooled at the thought of getting one of his bracers in exchange for information. And that was from a man who made a career out of treating every relationship like a layered lie.

A broker buried in the black market would likely react even harder. Especially if the effect was clean, practical, and just mysterious enough to stir greed. Eclaire watched him think.

“The item matters,” she said. “But so does the message carried by the item. You would not simply be paying. You would be signaling that dealing with you can lead to future access that no ordinary merchant, noble, or craftsman can offer.”

Ludger’s expression remained serious.

“And that buys trust.”

“It buys interest first,” Eclaire corrected. “Then caution. Then greed. Then, if handled well, preference.” She tilted her head slightly. “Trust is too noble a word for that kind of place. But preference can be just as useful.”

That was an important distinction. Trust implied morality. Preference implied incentives. In some places, the second was far more dependable.

While Ludger was still thinking through the bracer idea, Eclaire added, “There’s one more thing.”

He looked at her.

“If you go in alone, people will question you sooner or later,” she said. “Even with a role. Even with a pretext. You stand out too easily once someone looks at you for longer than a few seconds.”

“That keeps happening for some reason,” Ludger muttered.

Eclaire ignored that.

“The cleanest option is for you to act as my bodyguard.”

That made him stare at her.