The next morning, Ludger walked toward the guild with the kind of cautious optimism only a fool would entertain, hoping, praying, begging the universe for a quiet start to the day. His cup of hot tea steamed in his hand. The streets were calm. The sun hadn’t fully risen yet. For a brief moment, he let himself imagine a peaceful morning of literacy lessons and water control drills.

  Then he reached the guild’s training yard. Noise slammed into him like a physical force. The chaotic rhythm of wooden swords smacking against shields, the shuffle of uncertain footwork, and, most damning of all, an overly dramatic voice barking corrections with the confidence of a seasoned instructor and the competence of a shoe.

  “NO—NO—ELBOWS IN! Why are you bending like that?! Stand straight! STRAIGHT! Your stance looks like a drunk chicken trying to squat!”

  Ludger stopped dead. His eye twitched. He knew exactly whose voice that was. Peering around the corner, Ludger’s hopes of a peaceful morning died a gruesome death.

  Renvar stood in the middle of the yard like a captain commanding his troops, waving a practice sword as though conducting an orchestra made of confused, terrified children. Around him, almost a dozen new students stumbled through footwork drills using the Lionsguard’s official training gear, the heavy wooden swords, reinforced practice shields, and padded gauntlets that were definitely not meant to be taken out without permission.

  The same gear Ludger kept locked away. The same gear only the second squad was ever allowed to touch unsupervised. The same gear Renvar apparently decided belonged to him now.

  Renvar strutted between them, tapping ankles with the flat of his sword, correcting stances with obnoxious enthusiasm, and shouting commands loud enough for half the town to hear.

  “To the left! No—your OTHER left!—who taught you people to hold a spear backwards?!”

  The newcomers looked exhausted, confused, and miserable. Renvar looked thrilled. Ludger inhaled slowly. Then marched forward. He didn’t announce himself. He didn’t clear his throat. He didn’t warn anyone. He simply approached Renvar from behind, lifted a hand, And brought it down in a sharp, precise chop to the top of his skull.

  The impact echoed across the yard. Despite being taller, Renvar crumpled immediately, dropping to one knee and clutching his head like someone had dropped a boulder on it.

  “OW—OW—WHAT—WHY?!” he yelped, eyes watering.

  Ludger looked down at him with the flat expression of a man rapidly losing faith in humanity. “You’re loud. And stupid.”

  Renvar blinked up at him, wounded both physically and emotionally. “I was helping!”

  “No,” Ludger corrected, “you were making noise.”

  He then turned to the group of newcomers, who froze mid-motion the moment his attention shifted to them. Some still held their stances in awkward angles, their bodies trembling. Others held weapons upside-down. A few looked ready to drop dead just to escape the situation. Ludger’s voice dropped into the dangerously calm register that made even seasoned Lionsguard members straighten.

  “Who,” he asked, “decided it was a good idea to take guild training equipment without permission?”

  As one, the kids all avoided his gaze. One stared so intently at the sky it was like divine revelation might descend. Another stared at her shoes, pretending the scuffed leather contained the secrets of mana theory. A third simply turned around as if he could hide behind his own shadow. Silence.

  Then Renvar, still crouched and rubbing his head, raised a timid hand.

  “Uhh… It was me?”

  Ludger stared at him. Just stared.

  Renvar swallowed. “…Or it might have been me.”

  The newcomers trembled.

  Ludger’s eyebrow twitched. “Why?”

  Renvar puffed up his chest again, confidence returning like a cockroach crawling out from under a boot. “Because! They need training! And I’m good at teaching!”

  Ludger glanced at the crooked stances, reversed grips, and the one girl somehow holding a shield backwards like a turtle shell. He turned back to Renvar.

  “You’re not good at teaching,” he said flatly. “You’re good at annoying me.”

  Renvar deflated like a punctured wineskin. The students stood frozen, terrified that another chop might be incoming. Ludger rubbed the bridge of his nose. Another morning. Another headache. Another disaster courtesy of the new idiot who refused to behave like a normal human being. And Ludger knew, deep in his bones, that this was just the beginning.

  Ludger drew in a slow breath, letting his irritation simmer just long enough to stay sharp but not enough to explode. He stared down at Renvar, who was still kneeling and clutching his head like a wounded animal. “Did the kids ask for this?” Ludger asked, his voice deceptively calm.

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  Renvar blinked rapidly, clearly scrambling for an answer. His gaze flicked from Ludger to the children and back to the open sky, as if hoping divine inspiration would drop into his skull. After several painful seconds, he let out a defeated sigh. “…The idea was mine,” he admitted, almost whispering it. To his credit, he didn’t try to shift the blame onto the newcomers, if he had, Ludger would have buried him waist-deep in the ground before anyone could blink. Even if they had asked for it.

  Ludger turned his attention back to the group of kids, who suddenly became collectively fascinated by everything except his face. Some stared at their feet. Others stared at clouds. One boy seemed intensely interested in a pebble he nudged with his shoe. They all radiated guilt and nervousness.

  He stepped forward, letting silence press down on them like a physical weight before he finally spoke. “Listen carefully. You are not allowed to use Lionsguard equipment without permission. Ever.” His tone was firm, not angry, just absolute. “And you do not train with weapons or fight each other unless a proper guild member is supervising.”

  Their heads lowered even further.

  “There are reasons for this,” Ludger continued, pacing in front of them with his hands behind his back. “If you get hurt on these grounds, then the guild is responsible for it. Not you. Not your parents. Us.” He saw a few flinches and pressed on. “And if there isn’t a healer nearby? If no one can mend broken bones or stop bleeding? Then the injury can be permanent. A leg that never heals right. A hand that won’t grip anymore. A spine that never straightens again.”

  That silenced even the ones who usually fidgeted. He could practically feel their fear and realization crackling in the air, and for once, the quiet was welcome.

  “You want that?” Ludger asked, voice low and blunt. “You want to risk your future over unsupervised training? At your age?”

  A wave of frantic head-shaking swept through the group.

  “Good,” Ludger said with a nod. “Because there will be a time when you’ll learn to defend yourselves properly. With actual instruction. With someone making sure you don’t break your own skull swinging a sword like an idiot.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “But learning to swing a blade won’t guarantee you food. It won’t get you work. It won’t protect you from poverty.”

  He let that sink in.

  “Unless,” he added, voice tightening just a fraction, “you’re planning on becoming bandits. Or joining an underworld guild.”

  Several kids went pale as milk. Ludger took a step forward, letting his mana pulse subtly beneath their feet. The ground trembled just enough to remind them exactly who they were standing in front of.

  “And if that’s your goal,” he said, eyes sweeping over all of them, “then maybe you shouldn’t learn from the Lionsguard at all.”

  No one dared breathe.

  “Because the vice guildmaster,” Ludger said, tapping his chest with one finger, “has a long, well-documented history of destroying underworld guilds and hunting down bandits. Thoroughly.”

  That did it. The entire group erupted with frantic “NO, VICE GUILDMASTER!” and “WE WON’T!” and desperate, overlapping promises that they would never think about banditry again.

  Only then did Ludger nod, satisfied. “Good. Then follow the rules. No equipment without permission. No training without supervision. No exceptions.”

  The kids chorused another unanimous, terrified agreement. Finally, Ludger looked back down at Renvar.

  “You. Never do this again.”

  Renvar saluted from one knee, looking both pained and ashamed. “Yes—yes—understood—never again—maybe—ow.”

  Ludger exhaled slowly. Morning ruined. Headache rising. Idiot contained, for now. But at least the lesson landed where it needed to.

  Ludger began the morning lessons with the same routine as always, letters, mana control, basic water shaping. He expected Renvar to wander off eventually, to grow bored, drift toward the tavern, or find some other disaster to cause somewhere else in Lionfang. But no. The idiot stayed.

  Renvar lingered at the edge of the training grounds like a particularly stubborn mosquito, observing the entire lesson with an expression that suggested equal parts curiosity and mischief. Every time Ludger glanced over, Renvar stood there with his hands behind his head, whistling innocently, too innocently, like he enjoyed how irritated Ludger became.

  By the time the final handwriting drill ended and the last cup of summoned water splashed into a bucket, Ludger felt his patience thinning. The moment the kids dispersed for lunch, Renvar marched over with the confidence of someone who absolutely lacked self-preservation.

  “So…” Renvar began, scratching his cheek, “if directly teaching them how to fight is a bad idea… what about indirectly?”

  Ludger stared at him. Long. Hard. Unblinking.

  “Are you incapable,” Ludger asked slowly, “of learning anything in your life without experiencing large amounts of pain first?”

  Renvar forced a laugh that cracked halfway through. “C-Come on, that’s harsh. I was thinking of something simple. Helpful. A friendly spar, maybe? The kids could learn a lot from watching.”

  Ludger tilted his head. “By ‘friendly,’ do you mean ‘you getting folded like wet laundry’?”

  Renvar coughed. “Uh, no? I mean, I’m decent! And if the kids see me fight someone strong, it might motivate them! And I can show my value to the Lionsguard.”

  Ludger crossed his arms. “The Lionsguard doesn’t recruit people just because they’re strong.”

  “Right, right,” Renvar said quickly, “but strength helps!”

  Ludger conceded that point with a grunt. The truth was… Renvar accidentally had a decent idea buried under all the stupidity. A demonstration would help the kids. Show them the difference between flailing around with wooden swords and real combat.

  Show them why calm, controlled decision-making mattered. Show them why people like Renvar—boisterous, loud, overconfident, usually ended up face-first in the dirt. And Ludger could put Renvar in his place in front of witnesses. That alone was almost worth it. He exhaled, tapping his foot lightly against the ground.

  “…Fine,” Ludger said. “A demonstration might be useful.”

  Renvar brightened immediately. “Really—?”

  “But,” Ludger continued, giving him the look of a predator studying prey, “you’re the demonstration. Not the instructor. I’m going to use you to teach them the value of being calm and collected instead of shouting like a lunatic.”

  Renvar blinked. Realization dawned.

  “Oh.”

  Ludger smiled. Not kindly.

  “It’ll be a great learning experience,” he added.

  Renvar swallowed. “For… them?”

  “For you,” Ludger said.

  Renvar’s face paled. And Ludger felt, just slightly, his headache fading.