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

For a few seconds after that, Ludger said nothing.

He simply sat there, mask on, arms crossed, staring at the illusionist wearing Orleandul’s face with the same calm precision he used when looking at a structure he intended to break later.

Because that had done it. Not the name alone. Not the claim alone. This. This had convinced him.

Not emotionally. Not in the blind, stupid way people got convinced when they heard exactly what they already wanted to believe. Ludger was too used to ugly truths to trust one just because it fit neatly into his anger.

It no longer sounded like a dramatic accusation thrown into the air to bait him. It sounded like the kind of statement made by someone who had already measured the man, the routes around him, the security around him, the risks of approach, and decided that assassination was possible but strategically inferior to something else.

But belief was not enough. He was not about to pick a fight with one of the top dogs of the Empire without clear proof of the man’s guilt. Not because he was afraid of the fight itself.

If it came down to killing the man eventually, Ludger would not lose sleep over the moral side of it. The sort of person who ran an underworld guild under the capital, served a vanished great house, and helped bury curse murders had already chosen what kind of death he deserved.

But Armandis was not just some hidden criminal. He was power. Official power. Recognized power. The kind that came with armies, rank, command structures, paperwork, loyalty chains, patriotic myths, and enough political weight that one wrong move against him could make Ludger look like an actual traitor.

That was the problem.

If Ludger moved too early, then instead of a corrupt general being cornered, the Empire would see a dangerous provincial guild boy making wild accusations against the right hand of its military commander.

And then what? Armandis would deny it. Officials would lock down records. Witnesses would vanish. Useful allies would be isolated. And the few people who already knew fragments of the truth would either hide deeper or die faster.

Still… The thought did not settle neatly in Ludger’s mind after that. Because once he had proof, the next question would matter just as much. Dispose of the asshole? Or expose him? That was where things got uglier.

Killing him would be simpler in some ways. Cleaner in the immediate sense. One corpse. One removed node in the structure. One dangerous man no longer able to command, lie, reposition, or hide behind rank. Ludger understood that solution instinctively because it was direct. Final. Satisfying in the way that ending a genuine threat usually was.

But exposing him… That might be better. Or worse.

If Armandis had truly betrayed the Empire while pretending to serve it, then exposing him would do more than end one man. It would crack trust high up in the military chain. It would create political panic. It might force hidden allies to surface, force records to move, force frightened nobles and officers to start protecting themselves by pointing elsewhere.

Beside Ludger, Eclaire remained motionless, but he could feel the quiet tension of her attention. She probably understood part of what he was weighing now. Not the full shape of it, maybe, but enough.

This was no longer just revenge. Not just even when it was personal. Arslan’s dead family. The cursed nobles. The apothecary suppression. The Obsidian Sword. The black market. The Rodericks. And now an imperial general sitting near the center of military power.

This had turned into the sort of problem where one bad decision could either cut the throat of a monster or help it molt.

Ludger finally breathed out through the mask, slow and rough and wrong.

Then he said, “I’m not touching him yet.”

The illusionist said nothing. Ludger’s eyes stayed on him.

“I have a direction now,” he said. “That’s enough.”

Enough to start. Enough to hunt. Enough to stop walking in circles and begin driving the knife where it mattered. His voice stayed calm.

“I’ll investigate the rest myself.”

And that, more than anger or threat, sounded like the real danger in the room.

The illusionist watched him for a moment, then said, “If there were any evidence left of Armandis’s connection to the underworld, I would have found it already.”

Ludger’s eyes shifted back to him. The man, still wearing Orleandul’s face like it belonged there, continued in the same maddeningly calm tone.

“I am not withholding proof because I prefer mystery,” he said. “Nor because I enjoy being difficult more than usual.” A faint smile touched his mouth. “I am showing you no proof because I do not have any.”

Silence settled over the small tent.

Then he added, “Because it does not exist.”

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That was the sort of statement that should have sounded arrogant. Instead, it sounded like diagnosis. The illusionist folded his hands again.

“A man like Armandis did not rise that high by leaving written admissions, traceable intermediaries, clean payment chains, or convenient witnesses tucked into forgotten rooms.” His eyes stayed on Ludger. “If he ever allowed evidence of his betrayal to remain behind, it has already been erased so thoroughly that even scraps have stopped being scraps.”

Ludger didn’t answer immediately. The illusionist continued.

“Only the man himself could truly confirm or deny it now.” Then his expression flattened slightly. “So spare yourself the waste of trying to unearth a trail that no longer exists.”

Ludger looked to the side. Not in dismissal. In thought. Then he let out a tired sigh through the mask, the sound coming out low and wrong through the filter. Because it made sense.

Someone that influential would not remain near the top of the Empire by leaving obvious clues behind. Not if he truly had one foot in military command and the other buried in the underworld. A man like that would survive by making sure every layer beneath him could burn cleanly before the fire ever reached his name.

That was exactly the kind of structure Ludger would have built himself if forced to run something rotten and wanted it to live longer than its obvious owner. Still… His eyes narrowed slightly again.

“There’s a difference,” he said, “between not finding old clues and not making new ones.”

The illusionist’s smile returned.

“Yes,” he said. “Now you’re thinking in the correct direction.”

Eclaire looked between them.

“What do you mean?”

The illusionist turned slightly toward her.

“Target the people and the places that work for him,” he said. “The structures beneath him. The channels he still uses. The hands that move because he tells them to move.” His smile sharpened by a fraction. “And eventually he will make mistakes.”

Ludger remained silent, listening. The illusionist went on.

“Not because he is sloppy,” he said. “Because pressure changes habits. Men like Armandis stay clean by controlling pace, sequence, distance, and certainty. If you disturb the right pieces, you force reaction. Reaction creates decisions. Decisions create asymmetry. And asymmetry,” he added lightly, “is where careful men start bleeding.”

That was true.

A structure built for secrecy could be flawless while operating smoothly. But once pressure forced it to adapt too quickly, the perfect distance between command and action began to shrink. Orders got rushed. Safer channels got bypassed. Disposable people got moved badly. Old fallback systems got activated. Someone somewhere made a choice they would not have needed to make if left alone.

“So instead of chasing proof directly,” she said, “we make him produce it.”

The illusionist nodded.

“Precisely.”

Ludger’s posture remained still, but the filtered breathing behind the mask had changed again, quieter now. More controlled. The sound he made when a shape started forming in his head and the first real outlines of action replaced the haze of possibility.

Then he asked, “Why are you helping this much?”

The illusionist looked at him.

Ludger’s eyes stayed hard.

“I can tell you could affect the Empire,” he said. “You have information. Reach. Skill. Enough nerve to walk through rooms wearing other people’s faces and enough knowledge to bury or expose half the filth under this city if you wanted.” He tilted his head very slightly. “But you don’t want to.”

The illusionist’s ordinary smile returned to Orleandul’s features in a way that made the whole face feel even more wrong. Ludger kept going.

“You’re that kind of person, aren’t you?” he said. “The kind who wants to know a lot. Wants to understand everything. But for some reason doesn’t want to use that knowledge the way he obviously could.”

That made the illusionist go still for the first time in a different way. Not defensive. Not threatened. Just… still. The kind of stillness that came when a person realized someone had put a finger on a part of them they preferred to keep moving.

Eclaire noticed it too.

The illusionist looked at Eclaire for a moment, then back at Ludger.

“This,” he said, with a small motion of one hand around the tent, the market, the answers he had already given, “is more than I usually give.”

Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly. The illusionist continued before either of them could speak.

“I am giving you a bit more because Ludger is giving a hand to someone I care about.” His tone remained calm, but something in it had changed. Not softer, exactly. Just less like a broker speaking through layers and more like a man who had momentarily stopped bothering to disguise the fact that he had preferences. “That is all.”

The silence after that was brief, but heavy enough to matter.

Then he added, flatly, “Do not ask questions about that.”

His gaze rested on Ludger now.

“And do not think too hard about it either,” he said. “Because this is one of those topics that may annoy me.”

That landed differently from everything else he had said so far.

Up until then, he had spoken like an information broker, an observer, a man who slipped through the Empire wearing borrowed faces and preferred to stand slightly outside of every structure he described. Even when he revealed too much, he still did it with that careful detachment of someone who treated secrets like objects on a shelf.

This was different. This sounded like himself. No performance.

No amused distance. Just a line drawn cleanly across the floor. Eclaire noticed it immediately. So did Ludger. And both of them understood the same thing at once: They should not pry. Not because he was fragile.

Because he clearly had a limit, and stepping on it inside a tent under the black market while he wore the Commander’s face seemed like a very poor use of their time.

Still, the statement lodged itself in Ludger’s mind. Someone he cared about. Among his people.

That meant this man had ties somewhere near him. Not vague interest. Not distant amusement. A real connection strong enough that Ludger helping someone had shifted the amount of truth the illusionist was willing to spend tonight.

That was… irritating. And interesting. Very interesting.

Ludger’s gaze stayed on the man in front of him, but the thoughts were already moving behind the mask.

Who? Torvares? Unlikely. The tone didn’t fit. Arslan? Impossible, or at least absurd enough that even this night would have protested. Elaine? No. Viola? Maybe, but no. The shape felt wrong.

Someone in Lionsguard? Someone around the guild? Someone from the capital? Someone who had spoken of him without him noticing? Someone he had helped and not realized mattered to another person standing further behind the curtain?