Viola landed in a low crouch beyond it, her blade still humming faintly, breath fast but controlled. She straightened, turning back to Ludger with a fierce grin. “Got it.”

Dust drifted down around her like ash, the only sound the hiss of her blade’s fading glow.

Ludger lowered his hands, the last flicker of his own mana dispersing. “Good,” he said simply. “That’s the speed you need.”

Luna, standing a pace back, watched the scene without a word, her eyes flicking from Ludger’s calm control to Viola’s explosive strike.

Ludger didn’t say anything right away. He lowered his hands, the glow of mana fading from his armguards, and simply watched Viola’s back as she straightened from her strike. Inside, though, he was startled. That wasn’t a technique, he thought. She just… built an attack method around her own strengths on the fly. If she can do that consistently, she’ll be something else entirely.

Viola spun her sword once, eyes bright with confidence. “Again,” she said, already shifting her stance.

Ludger stepped aside to give her room, curious to see if she could repeat it when another beast showed up.

She dropped into the same single-handed grip, blade angled, foot sliding back for a burst. Mana flared around her limbs—but this time her breathing hitched, her eyes flicking for a second to the walls, and the tension in her shoulders broke.

She pushed off anyway. The burst of speed was there, but her focus wavered; her boot slipped on grit, her balance went off, and instead of a clean thrust she stumbled forward. She tumbled head over heels, sword clattering, rolling across the corridor until she skidded to a stop flat on her back in front of an iron elemental.

The monster’s core pulsed, its arm-plates already rising to fire.

“What a moron…” Ludger muttered.

He didn’t even raise a hand. A single [Mana Bolt] cracked from his palm like a thunderclap, punching straight through the creature’s chest. The core burst in a spray of dim light before it could release a single shot. The floating plates collapsed around it like a puppet cut from its strings.

Viola lay on her back, blinking up at the fragments raining down, cheeks red with embarrassment.

Ludger stepped forward, still calm but his eyes sharp. “Lesson learned,” he said quietly, offering her a hand up. “Burst techniques only work if you keep your head.”

Viola scrambled to her knees, cheeks burning, bits of grit sticking to her clothes. She snatched up her sword and pushed her hair out of her eyes, refusing to look at Ludger.

He, of course, didn’t let it slide. A crooked grin tugged at his mouth as he extended a hand to pull her up. “What was that supposed to be?” he asked, voice dry. “Trying to forget sword techniques and body-slam the beast to death?”

Viola’s ears went red. “Shut up,” she muttered, gripping his hand and letting him haul her to her feet.

“I’m serious,” Ludger went on, still smirking. “Because if you’re planning to throw yourself at elementals bare-handed, I need to start charging admission. People will pay to see that.”

Viola tightened her grip on her sword, glaring at him, but there was a flicker of a smile under her scowl. “I tripped. That’s all.”

Ludger dusted off his armguards. “You tripped, you rolled, and you almost became an iron dartboard.” He gave her a look that was equal parts warning and amusement. “Keep your focus if you’re going to use that burst. Otherwise you’re just launching yourself at things like a human battering ram.”

Viola exhaled through her nose, half embarrassed, half determined. “I’ll get it right next time.”

“I know you will,” Ludger said, his tone easing as he turned back down the corridor. “Just don’t test it by face-planting into monsters, alright?”

Luna, still at the rear, covered her mouth with one hand to hide a tiny smile. The corridor fell quiet again except for their boots crunching over grit as they moved deeper.

They pressed deeper into the labyrinth, the torchlight flickering across twists of stone and dark seams of iron. Another pair of iron elementals slithered out of the ceiling ahead, plates scraping as they fired off their projectiles.

Ludger moved without hesitation, his palms flashing blue as [Mana Bolt] bursts smashed the bullets midair. “Your window!” he barked.

Viola lunged in again, her sword glowing with [Weapon Enhancing] and [Overdrive], but her timing faltered and she stumbled on loose gravel. The blade still cut an arc through the creature’s torso, but she nearly lost her footing and had to scramble back as shards clattered around her boots.

They fought again. This time she hit clean, bursting forward and piercing the core exactly as planned. Next fight she tripped on her own momentum again, barely dodging a counter. It went like that—success, then failure, over and over.

After the last elemental fell apart with a hiss of sparks, Ludger lowered his hands and gave her a look. “You’re at fifty percent,” he said flatly. “That’s not good enough down here.”

Viola wiped sweat from her brow. “I know,” she muttered.

He stepped closer, voice low but steady. “Before I use my mana, I envision the use perfectly. I don’t think about failing. I picture the effect, the path, the outcome. My hands only move once that picture is set.”

Viola frowned, breathing hard. “So… you’re saying you don’t hesitate?”

“I’m saying the picture in your head has to be stronger than hesitation,” Ludger said. “That also means a lot of training outside of battle. Drills. Repetition. Boring stuff.”

She stared at him, lips parted.

“Once you get a strong mental image of what you want to do,” he added, “it becomes second nature. Your body moves to match it. You stop tripping over yourself.”

Viola gripped her sword tighter, still panting but her eyes a little clearer now. “Got it.”

Luna watched quietly from the rear, her expression unreadable but her gaze lingering on Ludger as if weighing his words.

Dust drifted through the corridor as they moved forward again, the faint glow of fresh cores flickering in Ludger’s pouch.

By the time the last of the iron elementals crumbled, Viola’s shoulders were heaving and the glow of [Weapon Enhancing] and [Overdrive] around her blade had flickered out completely. She uncorked her small mana potion and drained it, but the faint blue glow at the bottom of the bottle told her it hadn’t done much.

Ludger watched her for a moment, then reached into his pack and tossed her one of his own. “Here. You’re running dry.”

Viola caught it, blinking. “But you—”

“I’ve still got plenty left,” he said simply. “This is your training. You came up with this burst style yourself—if you’re going to refine it, you need the practice more than I do.”

Viola’s lips pressed into a line, then she gave a quick, fierce nod and uncorked the second potion, drinking it down in two swallows.

They pushed on, Ludger leading with his armguards raised, Luna gliding silently at their rear. After a stretch of winding corridors and scattered fights, they found another set of worn stone steps leading downward. The air grew cooler and heavier as they descended, torches hissing with a deeper blue flame.

When they stepped off the last stair, the labyrinth changed.

The corridors opened into wide, jagged tunnels, walls veined with darker ore and strange protrusions like frozen claws. The ceiling arched higher, the light from the torches stretching farther but leaving deeper shadows. Cracks ran along the floor like scars, and the air felt thick, as if the mana itself had weight.

Viola whistled low under her breath. “This is… different.”

Luna’s eyes swept the walls, every movement measured. “More space means more ambush angles.”

Ludger adjusted his armguards, his expression unreadable. Deeper zone. Different terrain. Different traps. He glanced back at the two girls. “Stay sharp. This is where it starts to count.”

The echoes of their footsteps were swallowed by the jagged corridors as they advanced, the next layer of the labyrinth opening before them.

The jagged tunnel bent sharply and opened into a broader passage where the torchlight burned lower and dimmer. Ludger felt it before he heard it—bootsteps, low voices, the metallic clink of weapons moving. He raised a hand to slow Viola and Luna.

A moment later, five figures emerged from the gloom of the next corridor. They weren’t the neat, disciplined parties Ludger had seen like his father’s. Their armor was mismatched—scraps of leather over dented steel—and their cloaks were stained with old blood and cave dust. Each of them bristled with knives, short clubs, and hastily sharpened spears. Their faces were lean and hard, eyes hollow from sleepless nights underground.

The tallest one, a man with a ragged beard and a jagged scar bisecting his cheek, froze when he spotted the three of them. His gaze flicked from Ludger’s red-silver armguards to Viola’s glowing sword to Luna’s blank, watchful stare. His lip curled.

“What the hell…” he muttered, his voice echoing off the stone. Then louder, a harsh bark: “What the hell are a bunch of kids doing down here?”

Another one, with greasy blond hair tied back in a frayed band, gave a rasping laugh. “Lost your nanny? This ain’t a playground.”

The woman at the rear—a wiry type with a crossbow slung low—looked them up and down, muttered something to her companions under her breath, and smirked. Her eyes lingered on Viola’s sword like a merchant eyeing a prize.

Viola’s shoulders stiffened at the mocking tone, her hand tightening on her hilt. The pulse of [Overdrive] flickered at her fingers.

Luna, by contrast, simply shifted a fraction closer to them, her expression unreadable but her hands moving ever so slightly inside her cloak.

The leader spat on the cracked stone floor and took a few deliberate steps closer. “Get outta here before you get killed,” he growled. “This level eats brats for breakfast.”

Their curses bounced off the jagged walls, rough and echoing, making the corridor feel narrower despite its width. The smell of sweat, iron, and stale mana hung between the two groups.

Ludger didn’t flinch. He simply watched them with the same flat, measuring look he gave dangerous animals, already weighing how to respond—mock them, ignore them, or use them.

The scarred man glared at them for another heartbeat, then jerked his head to his companions. “Forget it,” he muttered. “Not worth the trouble.”

The hoodlum-looking party gave the three of them one last sweep of unfriendly eyes and then moved on, boots scraping over the stone. Their curses and low laughter echoed down the tunnel until the sound faded into the labyrinth’s hum.

Only when the last shadow disappeared did Viola relax her grip on her sword. “Rude,” she muttered under her breath.

Ludger rolled his shoulders, the faint glow around his armguards dying away. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said, his voice perfectly straight. “They looked and sounded absolutely lovely. Real paragons of adventuring virtue.”

Viola snorted despite herself. “Yeah. Lovely. Right.”

Luna’s lips quirked the tiniest bit, though her eyes stayed on the dark tunnel ahead.

Ludger adjusted his pack and nodded forward. “Come on. Let’s move before we end up behind them again.”

They started walking, the jagged corridor swallowing their footsteps, Ludger’s joke lingering just enough to break the tension without dispelling the caution in the air.

The air was heavier there, every sound carrying farther. Ludger’s ears picked up a low, steady thrum that wasn’t their footsteps.

Then the stone under their boots began to tremble—faint at first, then stronger, a slow pulse through the floor. Dust drifted down from the ceiling.

Luna’s eyes flicked to the walls. “Something’s moving.”

Up ahead, a patch of wall bulged outward and split open with a grinding shriek. Plates of metal slid free, chunks of ore clattering to the floor, until something massive stepped out into the corridor.

It was an iron elemental, but nothing like the ones they’d fought before. Its frame was squat and bulky, twice as wide as a man, with thick plates of dull steel layered like overlapping shields. Its core glowed a deep red inside a chest of jagged iron ribs, and heavy limbs ended in blocky fists instead of floating blades. It lacked the camouflaging shimmer of the smaller ones—this thing didn’t hide. It simply was.

Viola’s eyes lit up. She adjusted her grip on her sword and grinned. “Finally. A real fight.”

She started forward, mana flickering around her blade.

Ludger’s arm shot out, stopping her short. “No,” he said flatly.

Viola blinked at him. “What? Why not—”

“You’re not using that as a practice target,” Ludger said, eyes locked on the hulking elemental. “That’s not a sparring dummy. That’s a wrecking ball with legs.”

Viola’s smile faltered but her grip stayed tight on the hilt. “But—”

“Stay back,” Ludger repeated. “Watch how it moves first. Then we decide who fights it.”

The elemental’s core pulsed, the ground trembling as it shifted its weight toward them, massive fists scraping sparks from the stone floor. Luna’s hand hovered near her cloak, ready but still. The corridor was suddenly very quiet except for the monster’s slow, grinding steps.

The hulking elemental’s core flared brighter, casting bloody light over the jagged walls. Its blocky fists scraped against the floor as it lowered its massive shoulders, plates grinding. Then it lunged.

The entire corridor trembled as the monster charged forward, each step a thunderclap. Dust rained from the ceiling; cracks spidered along the stone under its weight. It didn’t even try to shape iron bullets or fling shards. This thing wasn’t built for ranged combat—it was built to crush.

Ludger’s eyes narrowed as he stepped in front of the girls, armguards flashing. “So that’s it,” he muttered. “No tricks. Just a battering ram.”

The image of the rough adventurers sneering at them flashed through his mind—their scars, their warning. This level eats brats for breakfast. Ludger understood now. The smaller elementals wore you down with bullets until your guard dropped. This one simply finished the job by smashing everything.

“Stay behind me,” he barked over his shoulder. “It’s coming in for melee.”

Viola gritted her teeth, taking a half-step forward but staying just inside his reach. Luna’s eyes sharpened, already looking for angles.

The monster’s core pulsed like a drum as it bore down on them, the air vibrating with its momentum.

Ludger planted his feet, red-silver armguards flashing as the elemental barreled down on them. Let’s see what you’ve got. He braced, muscles tensing, and brought both forearms up to meet its charge.

The impact hit like a falling boulder. A shockwave rattled up through his arms and into his shoulders, bones singing with pain. His boots scraped backward on the stone despite his stance. Damn… should’ve kicked in Overdrive first, he thought grimly, teeth clenched.

The monster’s massive fists rose again, ready to hammer him into the floor.

“Not happening!” Viola snapped.

Before Ludger could shout at her, she burst past his side, [Weapon Enhancing] flaring bright along her blade. She aimed straight for the glowing core between the elemental’s iron ribs, putting everything into a thrust.

But the creature wasn’t just a lumbering brute. One blocky arm swung across with surprising speed, the jagged edge catching her sword and knocking it wide with a harsh screech of metal on metal. Sparks flew as her blade skidded off its iron limb instead of piercing the core.

Viola staggered back a step, eyes wide, but her grip held.

Ludger shifted his weight, pain still throbbing up his forearms, and lowered his center of gravity, the faint blue glow of mana beginning to pulse along his armguards. “Alright,” he muttered under his breath, “no more testing. Time to break you down properly.”

The monster’s core pulsed again, both of its heavy fists rising high for another crushing blow.

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