Ludger found Yvar exactly where he expected him to be, buried in paperwork.

The scholar sat behind his desk in the administrative wing, surrounded by stacked ledgers and open scrolls, a half-empty cup of tea sitting dangerously close to a pile of requisition forms. His quill was moving so fast it might have been a weapon.

When Ludger stepped in, Yvar didn’t even look up. “If you’re here to add more to my workload, Vice Guildmaster, I may actually defect to the Empire out of spite.”

“I’m not,” Ludger said, though his tone wasn’t convincing.

That made Yvar glance up, brow arched. “You sound unconvinced.”

Ludger scratched the back of his neck. “I just need a favor.”

“Of course you do,” Yvar muttered, setting his quill down. “Alright. How much trouble is this one going to cause me?”

“I need you to take a short trip,” Ludger said. “To the Torvares state. Take this as a short vacation, to do what you like the most, write.”

Yvar froze mid-blink, then leaned back slowly. “…You’re sending me away? That’s… new.”

Ludger nodded. “You’d go there, meet the captain of their city guard, and ask him about their training methods, drills, formation work, daily routines, anything they use to train recruits. Then write all of that down. Make a manual out of it.”

There was a pause. Yvar just stared at him, completely blank. Then he finally spoke. “A manual? For guards?”

“Yes.”

“That,” Yvar said slowly, “might be the strangest idea you’ve ever had.”

Ludger forced a small smile. “It’s an experiment. I’m trying to see if structured written training can accelerate skill development the same way it does for magic instruction.”

Yvar pinched the bridge of his nose. “So… you want me to travel for days, interview armed men who probably think I’m insane, and then compile their techniques into a neat book because you want to test an educational hypothesis.”

“Exactly.”

Yvar stared at him for another beat, then sighed. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“You’ll be paid for it,” Ludger added quickly. “Properly.”

“That’s at least a start,” Yvar muttered, rubbing his temples.

“And while you’re gone,” Ludger continued, “I’ll take care of your paperwork.”

That actually made Yvar pause again, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “You? Handling paperwork

? Willingly?”

Ludger shrugged. “I’ve done it before.”

“Yes, and you complained for days straight,” Yvar said dryly.

“I’ve grown since then.”

Yvar gave him a long, skeptical look, then sighed again, this one half-resigned, half-amused. “You know what? Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll talk to the captain, write your little training manual, and enjoy the vacation. But if I find out this is just another of your ‘experiments’ that somehow involves explosions or political fallout, I’m blaming you publicly.”

“Fair,” Ludger said simply.

Yvar shook his head, muttering under his breath as he began sorting travel documents. “Of all the things you could’ve done with our fortune, you decide to invent books. You really are a weird child.”

Ludger smiled faintly at that. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It wasn’t meant as one,” Yvar said, but he was already packing.

Ludger met Yvar early the next morning in the guild’s archive wing, where the man was already gathering travel supplies, sealing ink pots, and packing a satchel full of blank parchment. The faint smell of wax and old paper hung thick in the air.

Before Yvar could protest about timing, Ludger placed a small leather pouch on the table beside him. It jingled.

Yvar froze. “What’s this?”

“Your payment,” Ludger said. “Half in advance. The rest after you deliver the manual.”

Yvar blinked. “You’re paying me before I finish the job?”

“You’ve earned the trust,” Ludger replied. “And once you’re done, take a week off. No paperwork, no reports, no guild errands. Just rest.”

Yvar actually looked touched, which for him was rare. “…You’re surprisingly generous today.”

“Think of it as hazard pay,” Ludger said dryly. “You’ll be interviewing armed men about discipline and formations. Some of them won’t like talking to a scholar.”

“True,” Yvar admitted, weighing the pouch in his hand. He smiled faintly. “Still… a week off, paid in advance. Almost makes me forget that I’m about to ride halfway across the state to write a book no one asked for.”

Ludger smirked. “That’s the spirit.”

Yvar sighed, shouldering his bag. “I’ll be honest, Ludger, sometimes I question your sanity. You like to punch things, write manuals, and now you’re funding me to write one for soldiers. It sounds like a lot of work for a hypothesis.”

“It’s one of my charms,” Ludger said simply.

Yvar chuckled softly. “Fine, I’ll play along. Just don’t blow up the guild while I’m gone.”

By midday, Yvar was on his way to Torvares, leaving behind a tidy desk and an equally large mountain of work.

Ludger stood in the quiet archive after the door closed behind him, the silence almost oppressive compared to Yvar’s usual muttering. He glanced around at the rows of shelves, the piles of ledgers, and the endless stacks of unprocessed reports.

“Alright,” he murmured to himself. “Archivist, then.”

He rolled up his sleeves and took a seat behind Yvar’s desk. The ledgers stared back at him like a thousand small enemies demanding order. If he was going to take responsibility for this madness, he might as well do it properly.

The Vice Guildmaster of Lionfang, conqueror of monsters and mage of elements, officially became, at least for the next few weeks, the guild’s new archivist.

Two weeks later, Yvar returned to Lionfang looking like a man who had just remembered what sleep felt like.

His posture was straighter, his eyes clearer, and there was even the faint hint of a smile tugging at his lips, a rare sight that made some of the guild members blink in disbelief as he passed by. Apparently, even Yvar, the eternal slave to parchment and ledgers, had enjoyed his one-week exile from bureaucracy.

He carried a small bundle of scrolls under his arm, the completed manual for a guard in training, and headed straight toward his office, mentally preparing himself for the avalanche of paperwork that surely awaited him.

But when he opened the door, he stopped cold. The avalanche wasn’t there. In fact, the entire office was… clean.

The usual chaos of stacked documents, scattered quills, and precarious ledgers had been replaced by tidy order. The desk was clear except for a few neatly arranged forms, and the shelves behind it looked organized by category,  something Yvar hadn’t seen since the guild was founded.

And sitting at his desk, of all people, was Ludger. The boy looked utterly calm, but his movements betrayed fatigue. He was finishing a set of forms, stamping them with the Lionsguard seal, then setting them precisely into a “completed” pile. As soon as the last document left his hands, he leaned back slightly and rubbed the spot between his eyebrows,  the universal sign of someone who had stared at numbers too long.

Yvar stared for a moment before breaking the silence. “…I must’ve taken a wrong turn. This can’t be my office.”

Ludger glanced up without missing a beat. “You’re back.”

Yvar blinked. “You cleaned. You actually cleaned.”

“I reorganized,” Ludger corrected. “You had three redundant ledgers for the same transaction records and two overlapping inventories of the northern supplies. I merged them.”

Yvar stepped closer, eyes wide. “You merged them? Do you know how long it takes me to—”

“Seven hours,” Ludger interrupted dryly. “Eight, if you’re distracted.”

Yvar opened his mouth, closed it again, then slowly exhaled. “I don’t know if I should thank you or file a complaint for you invading my personal chaos.”

Ludger shrugged, expression unreadable. “Whatever makes you feel better.”

Yvar set his scrolls down on the desk and gave a short laugh. “You actually did the work. All of it. I expected to find a mountain waiting for me.”

“There was one,” Ludger said. “Now it’s gone.”

Yvar studied him for a moment, noticing the faint tiredness around his eyes. “You didn’t have to do everything, you know. I was joking when I said I’d defect if you gave me more paperwork.”

“You were being dramatic,” Ludger said. “But you’re good at what you do, and I needed the experiment documented cleanly. Consider this an extra for the manual.”

Yvar let out a slow breath, half impressed, half amused. “You know, Vice Guildmaster, for someone who’s supposed to be a genius in battle and strategy, you really have terrible taste in what counts as a good use of time.”

Ludger gave a faint smirk. “Knowledge is power. Paperwork just happens to be one of its uglier forms.”

Yvar chuckled and dropped into the chair opposite him, pulling one of the organized stacks toward himself. “Well… for what it’s worth, the manual’s done. And I actually had a decent time writing it.”

“I figured,” Ludger said. “You look almost human again.”

Yvar laughed under his breath. “Careful, that almost sounded like a compliment.”

Ludger stood, gathered the last few finished papers, and handed them over. “Welcome back, Yvar. Try not to make a mess again.”

“Can’t promise anything,” Yvar said, grinning as he looked around his now-pristine office. “But I have to admit, it’s nice seeing it like this.”

Ludger gave a brief nod, already heading for the door. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Yvar reached into his satchel and pulled out a neatly bound stack of papers tied with red string. “Here,” he said, setting it on the desk between them. “The Manual of Guard Training. Took me a week to gather, another to write, and I even convinced the captain to review it for accuracy. Don’t say I never do anything for you.”

Ludger’s eyes immediately sharpened. He untied the string and opened the document, scanning the first few pages with the same focus he used when analyzing battlefield terrain.

The writing was crisp and professional, every section labeled and cross-referenced.

Drill sequences, formation rotations, discipline exercises, daily schedules, weapon maintenance, even the psychological preparation for recruits. It wasn’t just well-written; it was structured, better organized than any of Ludger’s own manuals.

Yvar leaned back, arms crossed, watching his reaction. “So? Worth the trip?”

Ludger didn’t answer right away. He was flipping through page after page, eyes darting with quiet intensity. His mana sense even flickered once, a reflexive test, searching for the telltale signal he was waiting for.

But nothing came. No chime.  No faint blue text.  No [New Class Unlocked] notification. Just silence. Ludger’s gaze lingered on the page a little longer, expression unreadable. Then he quietly closed the manual and looked up.

“It’s good,” he said simply.

“Good?” Yvar repeated, raising an eyebrow. “That’s all I get? I practically wrote a doctrine of discipline out there.”

“It’s better than good,” Ludger said after a short pause. “It’s better than mine. You catalogued it perfectly. Exactly what I wanted.”

Yvar frowned slightly, catching something restrained in Ludger’s tone. “Then what’s wrong?”

Ludger shook his head. “Nothing.” He tucked the manual under his arm and stood. “This will do. Thanks, Yvar.”

The scholar leaned back in his chair, still watching him curiously. “You sound like a man who got what he asked for and didn’t like the result.”

Ludger didn’t respond. He turned toward the door, his expression calm, controlled, the same kind of neutrality he used when hiding something deeper.

“Take the rest of the day off,” he said before leaving. “You’ve earned it.”

Yvar blinked, then muttered, “I’d argue with you, but that’s actually a good order.”

The door closed behind Ludger before he could see the small crease forming between the boy’s brows. As he walked down the hallway, the quiet weight of disappointment settled in.

No class unlock. No new insight. Just data — valuable, but inert.

Still, as he flipped the manual open again and resumed reading while walking, his frown softened slightly. He can’t bypass his system like that. He had to learn directly from someone to unlock a new job and class…

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