Another skeleton began to form, bone knitting from cold air, froststeel weapon blooming into its grip. Silva hit it before it could finish thinking.
And Ludger followed, still smirking, already counting XP like it was the most natural game in the world. Silva could easily solo the first section of the labyrinth. It wasn’t even close.
Frost skeletons formed, raised shields, tried to stab or cast, Silva didn’t care. He body-slammed the ones that tried to turtle behind the froststeel, ripped down anything that stood upright too long, and crushed skulls with the same casual certainty he used to tackle Ludger on a good day.
Ludger watched it happen while walking behind at a relaxed pace, hands mostly in his pockets, occasionally stepping around shattered ice and scattered bone dust. It was… borderline insulting.
The recruits had to come here in groups of three for safety. That was the rule. Two to cover, one to recover. Rotate. Don’t get surrounded. Don’t get cocky. Silva was doing it alone, like the labyrinth owed him experience points.
So he’s basically stronger than my recruits, Ludger thought, half amused, half alarmed.
Then again, it wasn’t a fair comparison.
Ludger didn’t know if Silva was benefiting from guild-related bonuses, whether the beast counted as his “ally” in the System’s eyes the same way a party member did, or whether the Guildmaster line was feeding hidden buffs through the bond. He didn’t have a clean way to test it yet. He had the Magic Tamer class on, but the guild master skills were equipped as well…
But even without that… The fact remained: He had a pet that could farm resources. Mana cores. Froststeel drops. Clean experience. Less risk, more reward. That was useful on an economic level that made him almost laugh. He could already see Yvar’s face if he walked in and said, I brought a wolf that prints money.
Ludger kept moving deeper, letting the minutes stack and the kills pile up.
Notifications ticked in his peripheral vision, Feral Ally Summoning XP, small bumps to related skills, a slow, stubborn crawl in the direction he actually wanted.
Then, finally, the System stopped being stingy.
His Magic Tamer class icon pulsed faintly.
A progress bar filled. And then—
Magic Tamer: Level 5
New Skill Unlocked: Strength Bond Support
Ludger halted for half a heartbeat, reading the description with the same intensity he used when inspecting a contract.
Strength Bond Support (Lv. 1): Increases the strength of your tamed allies by +3 per points level while the bond is active and you are nearby.
Ludger’s mouth curved into a satisfied, sharp smile.
“Good,” he murmured.
It was simple. Clean. Exactly the kind of multiplier he needed. Not a flashy attack. Not a trick. A support skill that made every bonded beast more dangerous just by existing .
Ludger looked ahead at Silva, already charging another forming skeleton, and felt the bond tighten with quiet approval.
“Alright,” he said under his breath. “Now we’re talking.”
And in the frost-lit corridor, as Silva slammed into another undead like a living battering ram, Ludger started thinking bigger, how many beasts, how many bonds, how fast he could turn this into a guild-wide advantage.
Because three points per level didn’t sound like much to him now. But in the labyrinth?
Three points decided whether a bite shattered bone or bounced off armor. Three points decided whether an ally lived long enough to matter. Ludger watched the new skill settle into place like a clasp locking shut.
Strength Bond Support. Simple, blunt, effective.
He could already see the next experiment forming in his head.
Can Magic Tamer level up without me around? he wondered. Would the System count Silva’s battles as his because he initiated the network? Would it treat it like guild growth?
It would be efficient. It would be clean. It would be perfect. And the more he thought about it, the more the answer shaped itself into something annoying. He probably wouldn’t get the chance to test it. Because this new skill made the condition obvious.
He needed to be present.
Strength Bond Support wasn’t passive in the “set it and forget it” sense, it was tied to his bond and his aura and the live thread between him and the beast. If he wasn’t there, the reinforcement couldn’t ride his mana.
No Ludger nearby meant no support. And no support meant the System likely didn’t count it the same way.
He clicked his tongue once, then looked ahead at Silva smashing another skeleton into powder.
“Well,” Ludger said, voice calm, “alright.”
He rolled his shoulders.
“Silva,” he called.
The dire wolf glanced back, eyes bright, muzzle dusted white.
“Today we hunt,” Ludger said. “We fight. We make progress.”
Silva huffed like that was the only reasonable plan in existence, then dashed forward again. Ludger followed, already thinking logistics even as ice mist curled around his boots.
“Half of today’s gains,” he added, mostly to himself, “goes to your food.”
Silva’s tail flicked.
Ludger’s mouth twitched. “And given your size…”
He watched Silva body-slam another forming skeleton hard enough to shatter its half-built shield.
“…I assume it won’t last long anyway.”
Silva howled triumphantly down the corridor, as if agreeing with the budgeting.
Ludger sighed, smirking despite himself, and stepped into the deeper cold with the calm certainty of a man who had turned a political deadline into a hunting schedule.
By the time morning bled into late morning, by the time Ludger’s breath had settled into that steady rhythm where effort became background noise, he and Silva finally pulled out of the Frost Labyrinth.
Not empty-handed.
They dragged a stone cart behind them, its rough runners scraping over packed snow, the load clinking and grinding with every bump. Froststeel filled it in uneven chunks, shimmering pale metal threaded with cold mana. Silva hauled it like it was a game.
Ludger guided the cart with one hand, eyes scanning the treeline and the path as if bandits might be stupid enough to try their luck. It was a lot of progress. Not just in loot. In skill growth. In bond reinforcement.
Still… as the labyrinth’s cold pressure faded behind them, Ludger’s mind didn’t relax. It switched targets. Because the more tools he gained, the more questions appeared. Strength Bond Support worked as a passive. That was the strange part.
You didn’t need to learn its basics the way you learned a stance or a breathing cycle. You didn’t need to “activate” it with focus or timing. Once it existed, it simply… applied .
The bond fed it. The aura carried it. The numbers changed whether anyone understood why.
Which meant his guild members probably wouldn’t even notice its effects.
They’d put on their bracers, build relationships with their wolves, start fighting alongside them, and when the wolves started winning fights, when claws hit harder and bodies endured longer, most of them wouldn’t think that it was normal progress.
They’d think the teamwork itself was doing it. That the bond was “naturally” making the beast stronger. That the companionship was “helping them grow.”
And, in a sense, it was . But the truth would be invisible, quiet, constant, and unfair. That was the weird thing about passive skills. They didn’t feel like power. They felt like reality.
Ludger glanced at Silva, who was trotting proudly beside the cart as if he’d personally forged every froststeel chunk in it.
“Most people don’t even notice when the world tilts in their favor,” Ludger muttered.
Silva sneezed and kept walking, completely content to let Ludger do the thinking as long as there was food at the end of it.
Ludger returned to the guild with frost still clinging to his boots. The guards at the gate of the city stared at the load, then at him, then at the dire wolf trotting alongside like this was routine.
Ludger ignored them and went straight for the underground warehouse. He rolled the stone cart down the ramp with controlled effort, the runners scraping stone, then tipped the froststeel into a designated pile.
Metal clinked and settled. A clean sound. A satisfying one.
Coin, his brain translated automatically. Armor. Weapons. Wages. Options.
He wiped his hands, climbed back up, and stopped when he heard the noise outside. A line had formed. Right there by the guild yard, near the crates where more bracers had been stacked, fresh forged, straps ready, blank metal waiting for his runes.
Members waited with the impatience of people who had seen others get something unfairly cool and refused to be left behind. Some tried to play it off like they weren’t desperate. Others didn’t bother.
They looked at Ludger like he was about to hand them a second life. Ludger’s expression stayed flat, but his pace didn’t slow.
He walked to the bracers, picked one up, and sat at a table that had already been cleared for him, tools laid out, metal cleaned. He didn’t make a speech. He just began engraving.
Stroke by stroke, the Mana Pulse rune took shape. The first few were quiet work. Then the line started to shift. People leaned forward. Whispers rose. The moment Ludger finished a bracer and held it out, the air tightened with expectation.
One by one, he handed them over. The next person stepped in. Then another. As soon as people got their bracers, they didn’t linger.
They moved toward the wolves with a mixture of fear and eagerness, and the yard began to fill with quiet introductions, hands held low, mana pulsed carefully, wolves sniffing and judging like picky nobles.
The guild was buzzing. Even the trainees watched with hunger now. The ones who weren’t in line looked like they were counting how many days until they could earn a place in it.
Ludger kept engraving, steady and efficient, letting the excitement burn around him without letting it touch his hands.
Then he paused. Not because the rune was wrong. Because something in the line felt… off. Three people stood together further back, trying very hard to look like they weren’t trying very hard.
Rowan. Jennifer. Eclaire.
They weren’t in the main line. They weren’t pushing forward. They weren’t making noise. They were doing what they’d been doing since they arrived, staying close enough to be “present,” far enough to avoid attention.
Avoid him. Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He’d noticed it before. The way they flinched when someone mentioned the capital. The way they avoided loud gatherings. The way Eclaire never let her hood fall back too far, never let her face stay exposed in open crowds for long.
They tried to act normal. But the moment Ludger’s gaze landed on them, their bodies stiffened. They felt it. Because Ludger didn’t look at people the way most did. He didn’t look for politeness. He looked for angles, pressure points, patterns. And their pattern screamed secret.
Ludger’s fingers tightened around the bracer in his hand. The noise of the yard dulled.
The excited line, the wolves, the chatter, none of it vanished, but it became background, like the world dimming around a single sharp point.
Eclaire met his eyes for a fraction of a second. Then looked away too fast. Rowan and Jennifer shifted subtly, like they wanted to put themselves between her and him, but didn’t dare make it obvious.
Ludger’s breath stayed steady. His expression didn’t change. But in that moment, the thought settled with cold certainty: They realized it too. He knew.
Eclaire’s secret.
Not just “a random girl.” Not just “someone important.”
A hidden heir, blood tied to the dead Emperor. Half-sister of the future Emperor of the Empire. And suddenly, the line of bracers and wolves wasn’t just a training program anymore. It was a political fuse sitting in the middle of his guild, quietly burning down.
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