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

The word gave Ludger just enough ground not to turn the whole thing into a wall. Viola caught it immediately. Her eyes narrowed again, but this time more thoughtfully.

“Yet,” she repeated.

“Yes.”

That bought him a little room. Not much. But a little. Enough that she couldn’t quite launch into full outrage without first deciding whether the word meant she might eventually get something if she didn’t push too stupidly right now.

Which, again, was better than the alternatives. Viola exhaled sharply through her nose.

“That is still incredibly suspicious.”

“It should be.”

“That is not helping.”

“I’m not trying to help.”

Torvares finally spoke then, his voice cutting across the room before this could spiral farther.

“Viola.”

She glanced at him. The old bull’s expression did not change.

“If Ludger says the next step depends on intelligence, then that is the current answer.”

Viola looked from him to Ludger and back again. She clearly hated that.

But Torvares’s intervention gave her less room to turn the whole thing into a siege without openly challenging both of them at once, and she was smart enough to know when the room had started closing ranks.

So instead she clicked her tongue, muttered, “You’re all awful,” and shifted her weight to one side with the air of someone temporarily accepting a defeat she had no intention of forgetting.

Ludger, for once, counted that as a success. Because baffled Viola was troublesome. Determined, mission-aware Viola was much worse.

Viola stared at him for another second, then said, “So you’re keeping secrets from me now, huh?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“I wonder why.”

Ludger looked at her, completely unbothered on the surface.

“I’m not keeping all the secrets.”

That made Viola’s frown deepen slightly, like she wasn’t sure whether to expect a real answer or something irritating. Naturally, she got the second one.

A small smirk touched Ludger’s mouth as he said, “I could tell you my height and weight.”

He paused just long enough to make it worse.

“Even though that is personal and super secret information.”

Viola stared at him. Ludger continued with a perfectly straight face.

“Those are the kind of details people would pay a lot of money for.”

Now even Luna blinked once. Viola’s expression flattened into disbelief.

“Who,” she asked slowly, “in their right mind would care about that?”

Ludger’s smirk didn’t leave.

“A lot of people.”

“That is disturbing.”

“Yes.”

“That also sounds made up.”

“No.”

Viola looked like she wanted to argue that point on principle alone.

Before she could, Torvares spoke, clearly deciding that the tension in the room had risen enough and that letting Ludger keep feeding it would only make the entire conversation slide off a cliff.

“Viola.”

His voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. She looked at him.

The old bull leaned back in his chair and said, “Ludger only keeps the necessary secrets. You should know that by now.”

That made Viola’s eyes shift briefly toward Ludger again. Torvares continued.

“And only for a time.”

His tone stayed even, carrying that old, immovable certainty he used when he wanted people to stop kicking at a door he had already decided would remain closed.

“In due time,” he said, “you will hear the truth.”

That took some of the edge out of the room. Not all of it.

Viola was still clearly unhappy, and the way she held her arms made it obvious she wasn’t actually satisfied. But Torvares had given her something better than a wall. He had given her time as an answer, which meant this was not permanent exclusion.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

That mattered. Viola exhaled through her nose and clicked her tongue softly.

“I hate when the two of you sound reasonable together.”

“That sounds like your problem,” Ludger said.

Viola pointed at him immediately.

“See? That. That is why I don’t trust either of you when you act calm.”

Torvares closed his eyes for a second, as though considering whether old age entitled him to simply walk out of his own office.

Luna, for her part, looked suspiciously close to asking questions as well for some reason. Eclaire remained composed, but there was the faintest ease in her posture now that the room had stepped back from the ledge.

Viola looked at Ludger one more time, still annoyed, still curious, and still very much unconvinced. But she didn’t push further. Not yet.

The conversation ended there.

Not because the tension had truly disappeared, but because everyone in the room understood that if it kept going, it would either become an argument or something more annoying than an argument.

Ludger rose from his chair first.

As he did, he looked at Viola and said, “I could tell you what I’m hiding if you beat me in a duel.”

He paused just enough for that to settle.

“It has been a while since you challenged me, after all.”

Viola puffed her cheeks in immediate annoyance. Because that was low.

Not unfair, exactly. Just low in the very specific way Ludger liked best, technically reasonable, deeply irritating, and aimed straight at the part of a person most likely to react. She crossed her arms tighter.

“I’m tired of losing those.”

That was the truth.

At first, challenging Ludger had been simple enough. A way to test herself. A way to vent. A way to prove she could keep up with the absurd little monster the world insisted on calling her half-brother. And early on, even losing had still carried the excitement of feeling herself close the gap little by little.

But that had changed. Or rather, Ludger had. He kept getting worse. Not just stronger. Worse.

Sharper. Faster. More creative. More unfair in the tactical sense. Every time she improved, he somehow found three more ways to make that improvement annoying for her. It was like trying to hit a wall that kept learning martial arts and then insulting her technique afterward.

So yes, she had gotten tired of losing.

Eventually she had decided to keep training hard until she knew for certain that she could win.

No more impulsive challenges. No more trying her luck because she felt particularly confident that day. No. She had told herself she would wait until the difference was clear, until the fight in her head ended with Ludger on the ground and not the other way around.

Unfortunately, that moment never seemed to arrive. Which was, in her opinion, completely unreasonable. Viola narrowed her eyes at him.

“You’re using that because you know I won’t agree.”

Ludger’s expression stayed flat.

“That sounds like a skill issue.”

Viola looked personally offended by the existence of his face. Luna had to look away for a moment.

Torvares sighed once more, but this time there was a trace of amusement hidden under the exhaustion. Eclaire, meanwhile, watched the exchange in silence, clearly uncertain whether this counted as family bonding or a form of psychological warfare.

Given the people involved, it was probably both. Viola clicked her tongue.

“One day,” she said, “I’m going to beat you.”

Ludger gave a small nod.

“Then one day you can ask. Well, old age comes to all of us.”

That only made her more annoyed, because he didn’t say it mockingly. He said it like a simple fact. Like the door was there, perfectly real, and if she wanted what stood behind it, all she had to do was become strong enough to kick it open.

Infuriating. Also effective. Ludger turned slightly toward the door after that, clearly done with the conversation.

Behind him, Viola muttered, “You really are the worst kind of sibling.”

Without looking back, Ludger replied, “That sounds like a compliment.”

“It wasn’t.”

He left anyway. And behind him, Viola stayed where she was, cheeks still faintly puffed in irritation, already torn between wanting to throw something at him and wanting to go train immediately out of spite.

They returned to the runic carriage soon after that and headed back to Lionfang. The ride was quieter this time.

Not because there was nothing left to think about. Quite the opposite. There was too much to think about now, and most of it had sharp edges. The carriage hummed through the underground dark while the two of them sat across from each other, the runic light along the walls faint and steady, the motion constant enough that silence felt natural.

After a while, Eclaire asked, “Why do you act like that with your sister?”

Ludger glanced at her.

“Like what?”

“Like…” She paused, clearly sorting through which part to point at first. “You irritate her on purpose. Then you refuse to explain things. Then you provoke her into challenging you. Then you act like none of that is unusual.”

Ludger looked forward again.

“That’s because it isn’t unusual.”

Eclaire waited.

Ludger added, “We talk like that all the time. It is my civic duty to annoy her.”

That answer came out so matter-of-factly that it was hard to tell whether he considered that normal in a broad human sense or just normal for them. Probably the second one.

The carriage kept moving for a while longer before Ludger spoke again, this time with less dryness in his tone.

“Viola is my sister,” he said. “Technically she’s also a member of Lionsguard.”

Eclaire nodded once. That part she already knew.

“But she’s also Torvares’s heir,” Ludger continued. “And that matters more than the guild part when the problems get big enough.”

Now Eclaire listened more closely.

“If she gets too involved in my business,” he said, “it causes more trouble for her than for me.”

That sounded cold at first. Then the logic settled in. Ludger kept speaking in that same even tone.

“She has clear duties to the Empire as a noblewoman. As Torvares’s heir, she’s expected to stand in certain places, support certain things, maintain certain relationships, and not get tied too openly to every violent mess I decide is worth punching through.” He exhaled softly through his nose. “If I become inconvenient, people call me inconvenient. If she becomes inconvenient, they start measuring what that means for House Torvares.”

Eclaire sat quietly for a second after that. Then she nodded. She understood the logic. Because for someone like Viola, position was never just position. It was a net. Obligation upward, downward, sideways, outward. Every movement touched more than the person making it. Every scandal had a radius. Every rumor had an inheritance attached to it.

Ludger, in contrast, could afford to be a dangerous problem in ways Viola simply couldn’t. Not because he had no responsibilities. Because his responsibilities were different.

So yes, if Viola got too deeply tied to his darker operations, then the consequences would spread in directions much wider than his own shadow.

Eclaire lowered her eyes for a moment and said, “That makes sense.”

Ludger gave a faint nod.

Then, after a little silence, he asked, “Why didn’t Viola seem that friendly to you?”