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

All three of them looked toward the door immediately. A second later, Viola’s voice echoed up through the house.

“I dropped a cup!” she called. “It’s nothing!”

But something in her voice was off. Too quick. Too high at the edge. Nervous. For some reason, nervous enough that Ludger’s eyes narrowed at once. Torvares let out a long sigh through his nose.

Not because the broken cup mattered. Because Viola had managed to break the tension in the room at exactly the wrong moment, which was somehow very on brand for her.

And as if that wasn’t enough, a second later she appeared in the office doorway with Luna right beside her.

Viola stepped in first with the confidence of someone who had never once in her life believed a closed door meant she should stay outside if the room behind it contained people she cared about and potential secrets. Luna followed half a step behind, quieter as usual, but very clearly just as interested.

Viola’s eyes moved over the room quickly. First Torvares. Then Ludger. Then the strange dark clothing he was half wearing, with its sharper lines, armored hood, and the general look of someone who had either become much cooler or much more suspicious over the last day.

Then Eclaire. Viola took all of that in and paused. Actually paused. Which, from her, meant the thoughts behind her eyes were moving fast enough to trip over one another. She looked at Ludger again. Then at Eclaire again. Then at the two of them together.

Her expression shifted into the kind of slow, dangerous thoughtfulness that usually appeared right before she either asked something extremely direct or said something that would make half the room regret having ears.

Finally, she asked, “Why are you having such a secret meeting without me and Luna?”

Ludger looked at her for a second.

Then said, “If I wanted a secret meeting, I wouldn’t have walked around the garden of the manor in broad daylight.”

That made Viola blink once. Because, annoyingly, he had a point.

The moment he and Eclaire had returned, he had not exactly behaved like someone trying to conceal the fact that they had come back together. And the clothes alone made it even worse. If secrecy had truly been the priority, then he would have changed before entering Torvares’s grounds instead of walking through them dressed like a suspicious noble bodyguard from a story people told around campfires.

Torvares, apparently deciding that letting this drift into pure chaos immediately would be a waste of what little peace remained in the house, spoke next.

“We were discussing the need to improve our intelligence-gathering network.”

His tone was flat enough to suggest that was both true and very much not the full story. Viola heard that. But to Torvares’s visible irritation, she looked far less interested in the “intelligence network” part than in the much more immediate and entertaining fact that Ludger and Eclaire were sitting here together looking like they had clearly been doing something questionable.

Possibly dangerous. Probably illegal. And definitely interesting. Viola crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes slightly at Ludger.

“That sounds important,” she said.

Then she looked at Eclaire.

“But it also looks like my half-brother and Eclaire have been doing something suspicious.”

Luna, standing at Viola’s side, said nothing. Which was wise. Because Viola was already doing enough damage for two people. Viola’s eyes moved over Ludger’s outfit again, slower this time.

“Actually,” she added, “it looks a lot like underworld work.”

Ludger stared at her. Torvares pinched the bridge of his nose once.

Eclaire remained very still, but the faintest tension entered her shoulders again, not because Viola was entirely wrong, but because Viola had landed on the shape of the truth much faster than was remotely convenient.

Naturally. Viola pointed lightly at Ludger.

“You are dressed like someone who definitely had to threaten at least three criminals to get useful answers.”

Then her finger shifted toward Eclaire.

“And she looks like someone who absolutely helped.”

Ludger’s face didn’t change. That probably made him look guiltier.

Torvares lowered his hand and said, with great patience, “Viola.”

But she was already thinking too hard now. Which meant the trouble had escaped containment. Her eyes flicked between them again.

She was very clearly stuck on the fact that Ludger and Eclaire had apparently gone off together to do suspicious things in the capital while she had not been included.

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And from the way her eyes kept narrowing thoughtfully, she was already building at least three incorrect theories and one dangerously close to the truth. Ludger clicked his tongue softly.

“We were working,” he said.

Viola’s brows rose.

“With those clothes?”

“Yes.”

“With Eclaire?”

“Yes.”

“In the capital?”

“Yes.”

Viola looked at Luna. Then back at him.

Then, with absolute confidence, said, “That sounds even more suspicious when you answer like that.”

Eclaire closed her eyes briefly. Torvares sighed again, deeper this time.

And for one brief, ridiculous moment, the room stopped being the center of a conspiracy tied to military command, underworld networks, murdered apothecaries, and sealed labyrinths… and became a family room where the most immediate threat was Viola deciding she had been excluded from something interesting.

Viola narrowed her eyes at him for another second, then asked, “So what are you planning next?”

Ludger didn’t answer immediately. Not because he lacked one. Because there were too many versions of the answer, and some of them became much worse the moment they were spoken in front of Viola.

Outwardly, he remained still. Inwardly, his mind had already moved ahead. The closest job should be the sealed labyrinths. That part was obvious now.

The black market had confirmed structure. The illusionist had confirmed direction. Torvares would push spies and records from above. Ludger would push from below. The sealed labyrinths were the nearest point where hidden movement, transport, storage, personnel, and pressure might all still connect in ways that hadn’t been fully burned clean yet.

But saying that out loud here would be stupid.

Because the moment Viola heard “sealed labyrinth,” she would understand exactly enough to become dangerous.

Not dangerous to the enemy. Dangerous to the plan. She would realize it was high risk. She would realize he intended to move fast. She would realize the kind of place that required secrecy, infiltration, and the sort of gear he was already wearing. And then, because she was Viola, she would reach the obvious emotional conclusion before the tactical one.

I need to go with him.

Not because she was useless. That was the problem. If she were useless, this would be easy.

But Viola was not weak, not stupid, and not the kind of person who stayed behind politely once she decided someone she cared about was walking into the jaws of something ugly. If she caught the shape of the mission too clearly, she would either insist on coming, start preparing to come, or, worse, decide to “cover” for him in some political or practical way that would only make the whole operation messier.

That would be troublesome. Because once Viola decided she was involved, she stopped being a passive element and became a moving force. And if he had to split attention between the actual mission and managing Viola’s involvement, then the mission’s chance of working dropped immediately.

Not because she would fail. Because she would change the shape of it. And right now the shape mattered too much.

Unacceptable. So Ludger thought through the options very quickly. Tell the truth? Bad. Lie poorly? Worse. Viola would smell it and dig harder. Give a half-truth? Risky. She was good at connecting things when properly annoyed.

The cleanest solution was also the most irritating. Deny access. Completely.

So after just a fraction too much silence, Ludger finally said, “It depends on the intelligence we gather.”

That part was true. Viola waited.

Ludger looked at her and added, “But you don’t need to know.”

The room went quiet for half a beat. Viola blinked once. Actually blinked. Which, from her, counted as being baffled.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

Ludger didn’t soften.

“You heard me.”

That left her staring at him like he had just reached across the table and stolen the natural order of the universe. Not because he had refused her. Because he had refused her so directly. Viola opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again.

“That is an incredibly rude answer.”

“Not really, just the truth,” Ludger said.

Torvares, who had been watching this whole thing with the exhausted stillness of a man who could already see the argument forming before it had fully stood up, let out a slow breath through his nose. Luna looked between them and wisely said nothing. Viola crossed her arms.

“I asked what you were planning next.”

“And I answered.”

“No,” she said. “You said I didn’t need to know.”

“Yes.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is if the answer is that you don’t need to know.”

Viola stared at him in disbelief. Ludger remained completely unmoved. Because the alternative was worse. Much worse.

If she understood even half of what he was actually thinking, then her next move would be obvious. Her face would sharpen. Her voice would flatten. She would stop joking and ask how dangerous it was. And then she would decide she was going anyway, because that was who she was.

He had no intention of giving that possibility room to breathe. Viola’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re doing that thing again.”

Ludger tilted his head slightly.

“What thing?”

“The thing where you decide something is too dangerous, then lock yourself inside your own head and refuse to tell anyone because you’ve already concluded their input will be inconvenient.”

That was irritatingly close. He did not say that.

Instead, he said, “Your input would be inconvenient. Try to understand things from my perspective at once.”

That made Torvares cover part of his face with one hand. Luna looked down. Eclaire, for her part, remained very still. Probably because this had become enough of a family matter that stepping in from the outside would be a tactical error.

Viola’s stare sharpened even further.

“That was not supposed to be a confirmation.”

“It was an accurate summary.”

“You are impossible.”

“No. I very much exist.”

She looked like she wanted to throw something. Possibly another cup.

But beneath the frustration, Ludger could already see the dangerous shift beginning, the point where she stopped being offended and started becoming curious in the determined, strategic way that made her worth respecting and occasionally burying.

So he cut the moment cleanly.

“You don’t need to know yet,” he said.

The added word mattered.

Yet.