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

Ludger leaned back slightly in the seat, mind turning over the issue again. Emerald green was memorable. Too memorable. The coolest solution would have been obvious. Contact lenses.

Not just ordinary ones either. Proper crafted lenses that changed the visible color of his irises and maybe even made his eyes glow in some ominous way. Red, perhaps. Or some dim unnatural gold. Something that made people stop thinking “Ludger” and start thinking “that person is probably involved in crimes, cults, or both.”

Very good. Very cool. Unfortunately, he did not have the technology for that.

Nor the materials. Nor the time. Nor, if he was being honest, the patience to invent contact lenses in the middle of an underground carriage while traveling to infiltrate the capital’s black market.

A shame. A very real shame. So he settled on the next best option. If he couldn’t change the eyes directly, then he would hide them better. Ludger pulled the hood section back out, studied the shape for a moment, then looked at the metallic reinforcement pieces he had left separate.

Yes. That would do.

He decided to add extra armored parts to the hood and make it feel less like cloth and more like a helmet. Not a full one. That would be too much.

But enough structure around the brow, sides, and upper face to deepen the shadows and narrow the visible angle of his eyes. Enough shape to alter the impression of his head and face at a glance. Enough material to make people remember the mask and silhouette instead of the exact color staring out from beneath it.

As the thought settled properly, a smirk touched the corner of his mouth. Then he raised one hand and began using earth magic. He guided it carefully, reshaping sections with controlled pressure instead of brute force, folding the material into a cleaner line around the hood’s structure.

A small ridge over the brow. Side guards angled just enough to cast better shadow. A sharper contour near the cheek line so the upper half of the face looked more enclosed. Not too bulky. Not too knight-like. Just enough.

The smirk remained. It was, in fact, very cool. Across from him, Eclaire looked up at the shift in mana and watched as the hood slowly changed shape in his hands. Ludger didn’t stop.

He kept refining the piece, using short bursts of geomancy to settle the added armor into place like it had always belonged there. With every adjustment, the hood lost a little of its “tailored outfit” appearance and gained more of a hard-edged, controlled menace.

Much better. He held it up once to inspect the angle. Yes. Now the eyes would sit deeper in shadow. Now the mask and hood together would dominate the face first. Now people would remember the figure before they remembered the details. And, maybe most importantly, it looked good.

No. Better than good. It looked dangerous in a way that felt correct. Ludger’s smirk deepened just slightly as he made one final adjustment with earth magic, smoothing the join and locking the shape in place. This was absolutely cooler than contact lenses would have been.

Probably.

Eclaire watched him finish reshaping the hood, watched the extra armored edges settle into place with clean geomantic precision, watched the way that faintly ridiculous smirk stayed on his face through the whole process.

Then she said, “You look like a child who likes a lot of toys and has the power to create them.”

Ludger didn’t even hesitate.

“If you’re jealous,” he said, “just say so.”

Eclaire let out a slow sigh. Not exasperated enough to be genuine outrage. Just the kind of sigh a person released when the other side had made being serious slightly more difficult than it needed to be.

“I had seen you a few times from a distance before,” she said. “At first glance.”

Ludger set the modified hood down and looked at her. Eclaire continued, her tone even.

“And from that distance, it looked like the rumors were true. The Vice Guildmaster of Lionsguard.” She tilted her head slightly. “A kid who works himself to the bone despite already being a strong fighter and a talented mage. Someone cold, practical, overburdened, and far too competent for his age.”

Ludger said nothing. That was not because he disagreed. Mostly because he was waiting for the insult hidden in the rest of it. Eclaire’s eyes stayed on him.

“But in fact,” she said, “you’re just a guy who worries too much and wants to have fun while solving problems that haven’t even appeared in front of you yet.”

Silence. Then Ludger stared at her for a second. Not offended. Just measuring whether that was stupid enough to deny. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t. He did worry too much. That part was obvious.

And while he would never phrase it like that, there was something annoyingly accurate in the rest too. He liked building things before they were needed. Fixing weaknesses before they mattered. Creating tools for problems that had not yet shown their faces. And yes, part of the satisfaction came from the simple fact that it was enjoyable.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

He liked being prepared. He liked making useful things. He liked making cool things even more. Eclaire seemed to read the admission in his silence, because one corner of her mouth twitched faintly.

That was enough. Ludger rose from his seat. Then, with absolutely no shame, he assumed a dramatic pose.

One hand near his chest. The other slightly out. Chin lifted just enough to make the whole thing look even more absurd inside a moving underground carriage.

And then he said, with complete seriousness, “Yes! I am!”

Eclaire stared at him. The carriage kept moving. For one full second, the scene was so ridiculous that even the runic hum beneath them seemed to hesitate in judgment. Then she closed her eyes again and exhaled through her nose.

“Of course you are.”

Ludger dropped the pose and sat back down like nothing unusual had happened.

Because to him, apparently, nothing unusual had happened. Eclaire looked at him for another moment, then glanced away before the expression on her face became too readable.

This boy… No, that wasn’t right anymore. This person was impossible to sort neatly.

At first glance he looked like a weapon pointed at the world by bad luck and worse timing. At second glance he looked like someone carrying too much responsibility too early. But then moments like this showed up, and suddenly it became clear that under all the work, all the caution, all the grinding and planning and violence, there was still something else there.

Not softness. Definitely not softness. But a strange kind of restless life.

The kind that refused to become entirely grim no matter how many ugly things it had already seen. The kind that still wanted to enjoy solving a problem stylishly, still wanted his tools to be effective and cool, still wanted to meet danger prepared and maybe a little dramatically.

Which, now that she thought about it, explained far too much. Eclaire leaned her head lightly back against the seat.

Eclaire watched him for another second, then said, “I forgot one part.”

Ludger glanced at her.

“You also like to joke around so things don’t get too serious,” she said. Her tone stayed calm, but there was a quiet precision in it now. “Because you don’t like looking vulnerable or giving openings to people to get close to you.”

That made his eyes narrow slightly. Not because the line was wrong. Because it was close enough to be annoying. Eclaire continued before he could cut in.

“You deflect,” she said. “You shift the tone. You make something dry, absurd, or sharp just before a moment settles too heavily.” Her gaze remained on him. “It’s not random. You do it when the conversation gets too close to something uncomfortable.”

Ludger leaned back in his seat and looked at her for a moment.

Then he said, “That training to study others sure was useful.”

The words were dry enough to sound like mockery, but not empty enough to be dismissal.

Eclaire noticed that. So did he. Still, Ludger wasn’t about to let her enjoy the moment too much.

“But,” he added, “if you think your assessments are always right, you’re in for a world of surprises.”

Eclaire tilted her head slightly.

“That sounds like a warning.”

“It is.”

Her expression stayed thoughtful rather than defensive.

“I don’t think they’re always right.”

“Good,” Ludger said. “Because people who start believing their own read on everyone usually end up missing the moment they’re wrong.”

The carriage rolled on through the underground dark, carrying them toward the capital while, somewhere between caution, analysis, and dry humor, the shape of their partnership became a little clearer. Not trust.

Not yet.

But something usable.

Once Ludger was finally done with the crafting and forging for the time being, he stopped moving.

The suit had been engraved as far as it reasonably could during travel. The hood had been modified into something closer to a light helmet. The crossbows had been checked again. The bracer idea for the broker had already begun taking shape in the back of his mind, even if he hadn’t started building it yet.

That was enough for now.

So Ludger shifted in his seat, drew his legs up, wrapped his arms around his knees, and closed his eyes.

It wasn’t a particularly elegant way to sleep. It was efficient. And that mattered more.

The runic carriage kept humming beneath them as it tore through the underground dark, steady and relentless, the motion smooth enough that sleep was possible if a person stopped caring about comfort. Ludger was very good at stopping caring about comfort when it became convenient.

Before drifting off properly, he opened one eye and glanced across from him.

Eclaire was still awake. That made him pause for a second.

It had already been close to a full day since they departed. Not enough to crush someone outright, but enough that a normal person traveling underground in tense silence would have started losing sharpness by now. They should reach the capital in about half a day if the route stayed clean and the carriage didn’t suffer any delays.

Still, she remained awake. Sitting upright. Quiet.

Her posture was controlled, but not relaxed. Her eyes weren’t closed. They shifted now and then, sometimes to the dim runic glow along the carriage walls, sometimes to nothing at all, as if her thoughts were too busy to let her rest.

Ludger watched her for only a moment before closing his eyes again. It was hard to say what the reason was.

Maybe she was worried about returning to the capital after so long. That would make sense. People like her carried old places around in their heads longer than they liked admitting. Cities, especially the ones where they had learned to survive badly, tended to stick like thorns.

Or maybe she just couldn’t relax while she was alone in a carriage with him. That would also make sense. Ludger wasn’t exactly reassuring company. Either way, he didn’t care. Her troubles were hers. And he wanted to avoid them about as much as she probably wanted to avoid his. That was one of the few clean parts of their arrangement.

They were useful to each other. That didn’t mean either of them needed to start poking around in the other person’s mess for no reason. Satisfied with that conclusion, Ludger settled a little more firmly against the seat, arms still around his knees, and let the hum of the carriage drown out the rest.

Then he went to sleep.