Ludger was still sitting here, staring at a decision shaped by other people’s power.
Still weighing whether his mother and the twins deserved safety more than he deserved freedom.
Still trying to read Torvares’ angle, still trying to guess how much of the offer was velvet and how much was a noose.
Ludger exhaled slowly through his nose. The part that annoyed him most wasn’t the Regent.
It was the fact that no matter how much he built, no matter how much he prepared, the world could always produce a larger structure, something older, heavier, and more patient, then tell him to bend.
He lay back on the bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling. He’d planned for pressure. He’d planned for politics. He’d planned for threats. But he hadn’t planned for the feeling that all his work, every wall, every road, every rule, might only buy him the privilege of choosing which chain to wear.
His jaw tightened. Then, slowly, he forced the tension out of his shoulders and let his mind go quiet. If leverage wasn’t enough yet, then he’d need more.
And if the world insisted on playing games with his family’s future… He’d learn the rules well enough to break the board.
The moment Ludger’s door clicked shut down the hall, Arslan let out a long, defeated sigh.
It wasn’t loud. He didn’t throw his hands up or curse.
It was the kind of sigh that came from holding yourself together in front of your son, and then finally letting the tension spill out the second you knew he couldn’t see it.
Arslan stayed at the dining table for a few heartbeats, staring at the candle flame like it had answers. Then he turned to Elaine. And the expression he showed her was one he kept locked away from everyone else. Utter embarrassment.
Not the childish kind. The adult kind. The kind that twisted in your gut because you knew you were doing your best, and still felt like you weren’t enough.
“Every day,” Arslan murmured, voice rough, “working with him… managing the guild, fixing problems, building something real…” He shook his head once, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth before dying immediately. “It makes me proud.”
Elaine didn’t interrupt. She just watched him, steady as stone.
“But at times like this,” Arslan admitted, eyes dropping to the table, “it makes me feel…”
He searched for the word, hated it, and said it anyway.
“Embarrassed.”
His fingers rubbed at his knuckles again, that old habit turning into a confession.
“I’m supposed to be the father,” he said quietly. “The Guildmaster. The one who stands firm.” His jaw tightened. “And instead, I feel like a pushover compared to him. Like I walk into a room with nobles and I start thinking about how to bend without breaking, while he’s already thinking about how to take the room apart.”
He exhaled through his nose, bitter and tired. “It’s like… he’s thirteen and he already carries himself like he’s lived twice my life.”
Elaine’s expression softened, just a little. Not into pity. Into understanding.
“I understand your point of view,” she said calmly.
Arslan looked up, the embarrassment still there, but now mixed with something like relief, because if anyone could say the right thing without lying, it was Elaine.
“You don’t have any reason to feel ashamed,” she continued. “You’re not being a pushover. You’re being careful.”
Her eyes flicked toward the hallway, toward Ludger’s closed door.
“He wants freedom,” Elaine said. “And he’s good at protecting it, because it’s what he values most.” Then she looked back at Arslan. “You’re thinking about survival. About consequences. About what happens if the wrong people decide to make an example of us.”
She leaned forward slightly, voice low.
“That isn't a weakness,” Elaine said. “That's responsibility.”
Arslan’s shoulders loosened a fraction, like someone had finally taken a weight off that he hadn’t realized he was carrying.
Elaine reached across the table and placed her hand over his.
“You stood in the capital and didn’t let them corner you,” she said. “You bought time. You brought information home. You kept this family together.”
Her grip tightened, just a little, warm, firm, unyielding.
“So don’t be ashamed,” Elaine said. “If Ludger is a blade, then you’re the hand that keeps it from cutting the wrong thing.”
Arslan swallowed hard, eyes fixed on her hand over his.
Then he let out another breath, this one quieter. Not defeated. Just… human.
Arslan stared at Elaine’s hand on his for a moment, then slowly turned his palm upward and held it, like he needed something real to keep him anchored. His throat worked once before he spoke.
“I’m supposed to help him reach his true potential,” Arslan said quietly. The words came out rough, like they’d been scraped off his ribs. “Not… not let other people get in his way with their schemes and agendas.”
He looked toward the hallway again, toward Ludger’s closed door, and the embarrassment from earlier shifted into something heavier, frustration mixed with a kind of helpless anger he didn’t know where to aim.
“I’ve been part of his life for over ten years,” Arslan continued. “I’ve watched him grow. I’ve watched him build things that shouldn’t be possible.” His jaw tightened. “And it still feels like I haven’t truly done much.”
Elaine didn’t speak. She let him spill it out, because this wasn’t a complaint. It was guilt trying to find a place to sit. Arslan’s eyes dropped to the table.
“I keep telling myself I’m guiding him,” he said. “That I’m teaching him. That I’m protecting him.” He gave a short, bitter huff. “But most days?”
He shook his head slowly.
“Most days, I just… follow whatever idea he has.”
His fingers curled slightly, like he wanted to grab the thought and crush it.
“Because the path he leaves behind is easy to follow,” Arslan admitted. “Too easy.” He swallowed. “He clears obstacles before I even see them. He makes plans that make sense the moment he says them, and then I’m not leading, I’m just keeping up.”
He leaned back, eyes tired, voice lower.
“And now the Empire comes in with its polished words and its paper chains, and I’m sitting here thinking about compromises and damage control while he’s trying to protect the whole guild with his teeth.”
Arslan’s gaze flicked back to Elaine, raw honesty in it.
“I’m his father,” he said. “I’m supposed to be the one cutting a path for him. Not the one walking behind him because it’s the only place that feels safe.”
When Ludger woke up the next day, he didn’t wake up with an answer.
No sudden enlightenment. No clean click of the world rearranging itself into a neat plan.
Just the same ceiling. The same quiet house. The same problem sitting on his chest like a stone slab.
He lay there for a while, staring, listening to the faint sounds of morning, distant footsteps, a muted creak. The twins didn’t cry. That alone meant the night had been merciful. Ludger exhaled and sat up.
His head still didn’t have a complete solution, but it had something else. A thought that tasted like spite. He’d been acting like the Regent’s offer was a gate, and he either walked through it or got crushed by it.
That was wrong. He still had tricks up his sleeve. He swung his legs off the bed and paused, elbows on knees, letting the logic settle.
If the Regent said no to his counteroffer, unrestricted access to imperial labyrinths, then Ludger could say no right back. Not dramatically. Not with a public insult that forced the Empire to “respond.”
Just… no. And then he could do what he’d always done best. Make the world pay him anyway.
Option A: let the Empire use his stone rails… for a price.
Not “one-time payment” price. Not “bribe me once” price.
A living price. A toll. A contract. Maintenance fees. Consulting fees. Training fees. “Repair services.” All the boring words that turned into chains on them instead.
If they wanted the roads, they could have them. But they’d have to keep coming back to Lionfang with coin in their hands and humility in their mouths. They’d have to treat the Lionsguard like a partner, because the alternative would be spending ten times the mana to brute-force the same results.
It wasn’t freedom. But it was leverage. And it meant he didn’t have to swear loyalty just because the Regent wanted him to kneel. Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly. He could live with that. For a while.
But the problem with Option A was the same problem with every “reasonable compromise.” It kept the Empire interested. And when an Empire was interested, it kept digging. It kept watching. It kept trying to turn your business into its property.
So there was Option B.
Option B was… Ludger.
Option B was making the stone rails look like a waste of time. He stood up slowly, the floor cool under his feet, and the thought sharpened as it formed.
If the Regent wanted rails because rails were a logistics advantage, then Ludger needed to create something that made rails obsolete. Something that didn’t just compete, something that made the entire conversation feel outdated.
Not better roads.
A different kind of movement. Something that changed the rules. The question was what. He paced once, then stopped, staring at the corner of his room like it might cough up an answer. His tools were relatively limited, but his results weren’t.
Earth shaping. Runes. Overdrive. Reinforcement. Magic Enhancement. A growing understanding of mana behavior in materials. Beastmen instincts that treated the body like a weapon you could redesign on the fly.
Rails were good because they reduced friction, reduced bumps, reduced mana waste.
So, what reduced distance? What reduced time? What reduced the need for a surface route entirely? His mind threw ideas at the wall like knives.
A sealed stone roadway underground, protected from weather and ambush, smooth as glass. A tube. A “burrow route” that carts could ride without guards watching every hill.
Or… anchors. Runic anchor points that let a carriage “jump” between fixed nodes the way a spear jumped from hand to target, only heavier, uglier, and terrifying.
Even thinking it made his mana circuits itch. Rails were a tool. But a network of nodes? That was an infrastructure weapon. Ludger’s mouth flattened.
If he showed the Empire something like that too early, they’d stop trying to bribe him and start trying to take him apart. Which meant Option B wasn’t just an invention. It was a threat. A deterrent.
A way of saying: You can have my roads, or you can have nothing. Because if you push, I’ll build something you’ll never be able to control.
He rubbed his forehead once, annoyed. He hated that his best defense was always the same. Build bigger. Build harder. Build faster than the people trying to cage you. Ludger looked toward the door, then toward the faint light under it.
He still didn’t have the final answer. But he had momentum. He had two options, and neither of them involved kneeling immediately.
He stepped toward the door, already feeling the familiar shift inside him, the cold focus that came right before creation.
The question was what, exactly, would make an imperial rail project look like a child dragging a stick through dirt. And as Ludger reached for the handle, his eyes narrowed in thought.
“What,” he muttered under his breath, “makes roads pointless?”
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