Freyra rolled her shoulder, shaking life back into her arm, then finally took a proper look at Ludger.

“You don’t come all this way just to watch him win,” she said, jerking her chin at Kharnek. “So why are you here?”

Kharnek followed her gaze, eyes narrowing slightly.

“Yes,” he rumbled. “Speak.”

“I’m here to increase the froststeel extraction rate,” Ludger said.

Simple. Direct. No explanation attached. Kharnek blinked once, then slowly turned his head and surveyed the camp.

Northerners lounged near fire pits, boots kicked off, weapons resting within reach but unused. Meat sizzled over open flames. Someone laughed too loudly. Someone else passed a horn. No tension. No urgency.

Life was good. Kharnek’s gaze drifted down to his own body. Still powerful. Still broad. But fuller now. His belly had grown rounder, the sharp lines of his abdomen softened by years of steady meals and easy days.

He huffed under his breath. Northerners didn’t need much to be content.

Shelter. Food. Drink. Company. That was enough. Risking life in an ice-choked labyrinth for more metal than they could ever personally use wasn’t high on their priorities. He looked back at Ludger and shook his head.

“My fault,” Kharnek said at last. “It seems they are not helping you as much as they should. After all you have done for us.”

There was no defensiveness in his tone. Just acknowledgment. Ludger shrugged.

“It was never part of the deal,” he said. “I don’t force people into labyrinths.”

Kharnek studied him for a long moment. Measuring. Weighing. Then he let out a low, approving laugh.

“Good,” he said. “If you did, we would have words.”

Freyra snorted.

“So you’re just going in alone?” she asked. “Again?”

Ludger was already turning away.

“I don’t need many,” he replied. “I need efficiency.”

He headed toward the frost labyrinth without waiting for permission. The cold air thickened as the entrance came into view. Stone swallowed light. Frost crept along the walls like a living thing.

Behind him, the camp noise faded. Ahead, work waited. And froststeel, buried in ice and bone, waited to be taken.

Freyra watched Ludger’s back until it disappeared into the pale mist near the labyrinth entrance.

Then she crossed her arms.

“Should we follow him?” she asked. “See how strong he’s gotten.”

Kharnek didn’t answer right away. He picked up his drinking horn, turned it slowly in his hand, then set it down again without drinking.

“We could challenge him,” he said at last. “That is how we measure strength.”

Freyra grinned. “You want to?”

Kharnek snorted.

“There is no need,” he continued. “We are allies. Strength proven once does not need to be proven again.”

Freyra turned on him immediately.

“Oh? That’s not what you said last time.”

Kharnek frowned. “What do you mean?”

She stepped closer, jabbing a finger at his chest.

“You’re just scared,” she said. “Last time you fought him, he broke all the fingers on your hands.”

Kharnek’s jaw tightened.

“That was years ago,” she went on, mercilessly. “And since then, he’s been training like a madman. Fighting labyrinths. Killing commanders. Forging runes. Teaching armies.”

She glanced at his belly, then back to his face.

“And you’ve been drinking. Eating. Enjoying life.”

The silence stretched. Kharnek exhaled slowly, rubbing his knuckles as if they still remembered the pain.

“…The boy hits harder now,” he admitted. “And thinks faster.”

Freyra smirked.

“So?” she said. “Follow him?”

In the end, they followed him.

Not out of necessity. Not even pride.

Just for a change of pace.

The frost labyrinth swallowed them quickly, cold pressing in from every side as the light dimmed. Their breaths fogged. The familiar crunch of ice underfoot echoed through the tunnels.

And then they saw it.

Froststeel fragments.

Small at first. Shards scattered along the path, half-buried in ice, cleanly broken as if peeled straight from the walls. Kharnek slowed, frowning.

“He’s been through here,” he muttered.

They picked up the pace.

More fragments appeared the deeper they went. Not carefully harvested. Not mined. Just… left behind. Pieces Ludger clearly hadn’t bothered carrying yet.

They broke into a run. The tunnels blurred past. Ice-coated stone gave way under heavy steps. After nearly half an hour, their breaths grew heavier, but the trail didn’t stop.

It got worse. They crossed into the second zone.

The temperature dropped sharply. The ice thickened, veins of deeper blue pulsing faintly along the walls. And there, scattered across the ground, were larger chunks of froststeel. Fist-sized. Some bigger.

Untouched. Kharnek crouched, lifting one. The break was violent. Not cut. Not shaped.

Torn free. He stood slowly.

“…He didn’t stop,” he said.

Freyra forced a grin, teeth clenched.

“Looks like he isn’t even bothering stopping to fight the monsters in the second zone.”

The joke fell flat. Because they both knew what that meant. Ludger wasn’t clearing the labyrinth. He was passing through it.

Two hours later, they reached the third zone.

That alone should have been impossible.

The tunnels widened, ice thickening into jagged ridges that reflected light in fractured blues. The air burned cold with every breath. Here, mistakes weren’t painful—they were final. A slip meant shattered bones. A wrong angle meant losing a limb. Or worse.

They slowed.

Not because they were tired—but because this was the zone where even veterans watched their footing.

And still, Ludger was ahead of them.

They found signs of his passage almost immediately.

Shattered frost. Pulverized bone fragments embedded in the ice. Deep gouges in the walls where something heavy had been thrown. But there were no marks of drawn-out battles. No clusters of broken skeletons. No defensive formations.

Nothing suggested he had stopped to take any of it seriously.

Kharnek swallowed.

“He’s not hunting,” he murmured. “He’s moving.”

They pressed on for several more minutes, tension coiling tighter with every step.

Then they saw him.

Far ahead, in a wider chamber where ice curved upward into natural ramps, Ludger faced a frost skeleton rider.

The mount was massive, four-legged, plated in thick layers of enchanted ice, hooves carving trenches into the ground as it charged. The rider towered above it, spear lowered, frost gathering at the tip. 

The beast lunged.

Ludger moved.

He slipped past the charge with a step that barely disturbed the ground, body twisting just enough to let the spear scrape air. His forearm guards flared to life, mana igniting as Blazing Enchantment wrapped them in controlled flame.

Ice met fire. Steam hissed violently. The mount turned, bellowing, charging again. Ludger didn’t retreat. He dashed forward instead, closing the distance in a heartbeat. The beast reared, too late.

Ludger slammed both palms into its chest.

A double palm strike.

Earth Overdrive surged, contained, brutal, and the impact lifted the creature off the ground. The frost skeleton rider and its mount smashed into the wall with a thunderous crack, ice exploding outward in shards.

The chamber shook. Silence followed. Freyra stared, mouth slightly open. Kharnek didn’t breathe. They had seen strong fighters. They had seen champions.

They had never seen someone solo a monster like that, so cleanly, so casually, without treating it as a real threat.

Ludger stepped back as the remains slid down the wall, flames on his forearms fading. He didn’t look impressed. He just kept moving.

Freyra didn’t move for several seconds.

Neither did Kharnek.

They stayed where they were, half-hidden behind a ridge of ice, watching Ludger disappear deeper into the third zone as if the fight they had just witnessed hadn’t been worth remembering.

Years ago, that same monster would’ve been a nightmare.

They both remembered it.

Back then, Ludger had struggled against a single frost rider. He’d needed distance, setup, and timing. He’d burned through mana, baited charges, and finally used his secret technique, compressing mana into a brutal, short-range blast.

The Turtle Shock Wave.

Even then, it hadn’t killed the beast. It had only weakened it enough for him to finish the job.

Now?

Now he didn’t even consider using it. No buildup. No caution. No allies watching his back. He just kept moving, soloing monsters as he advanced, ripping through the third zone without slowing, pushing further than any northerner party had ever dared.

Freyra swallowed.

“He’s past our furthest marker,” she said quietly.

Kharnek nodded. His eyes were dark.

“By a lot.”

They stood there, listening to distant impacts echo faintly through the ice. Not battles. Corrections. Freyra broke the silence first.

“…What if he hadn’t come to us?” she asked.

Kharnek’s jaw tightened.

“What if,” she continued, “instead of treating us like allies, he had bowed his head to the Empire?”

The words hung heavy. Kharnek didn’t answer immediately. He imagined it anyway.

Imperial banners at the border. Orders stamped in gold. Ludger sent north not to negotiate, but to pacify. He exhaled slowly.

“Then we would be gone,” Kharnek said. “Not beaten. Removed.”

Freyra’s fingers curled into fists.

“He wouldn’t have hated us,” she said. “That’s the worst part.”

“No,” Kharnek agreed. “He would have called it necessary.”

They watched the tunnel where Ludger had vanished.

“He fights like a force now,” Freyra murmured. “Not a person.”

Kharnek shook his head.

“He chooses to be a person,” he corrected. “That is the difference.”

Silence returned. Far ahead, something heavy crashed and went still. Kharnek straightened, decision settling into his bones.

“We go back,” he said. “This place is no longer meant for us.”

Freyra hesitated, then nodded. Behind them, the path back felt longer than it should have. Ahead of Ludger, the labyrinth had already begun to empty.

Ludger returned only after his mana finally ran dry.

Not dangerously. Not recklessly. Just… empty enough that continuing would slow him down instead of speed things up.

He rolled out of the frost labyrinth with an earth cart trailing behind him, stone wheels grinding under the sheer weight piled on top. Froststeel filled it. Shards from earlier zones, larger fragments from deeper paths, and at the center…

The third-zone metal. He didn’t stop to rest. Just guided the cart straight into Lionfang and toward the forge. Raukor felt it before he saw it.

The beastman straightened as Ludger dumped the load beside the anvil. Froststeel clattered against stone, the sound sharper than iron, heavier than silver. Raukor crouched immediately, hands already moving.

Then he froze. His eyes locked onto the fist-sized chunks resting near the center of the pile.

They were pure blue. Denser. The mana inside them didn’t leak, it pressed. Clean. Tight. Refined by the labyrinth itself.

Raukor’s pupils narrowed.

“…Third zone,” he said.

“Yes,” Ludger replied.

Raukor picked one up slowly, reverently. The metal hummed faintly under his grip. The beastman’s eyes shone.

“This,” Ludger continued, “is worth taking our time with.”

Raukor looked at him.

“Purity is high,” Ludger said. “Not large. But stable. It won’t fight the forging. It will carry it.”

Raukor let out a low, pleased rumble.

“Good metal,” he said. “Very good.”

Ludger nodded once. He made the trip again the next day. And the day after that.

Each time, deeper paths. Cleaner extraction. More froststeel hauled back on silent earth carts. His mana discipline sharpened with every run. His routes became efficient. Monsters thinned.

On the fourth trip, something had changed. As Ludger approached the northern camp, voices carried across the cold air. Not laughter. Commands.

Kharnek stood near the central fire, posture straight, axe resting against his shoulder. Freyra paced beside him, barking orders with sharp precision. Northerners moved when told. Some grumbled, but they moved.

“We are at peace,” Kharnek shouted, voice carrying easily. “But peace dulls blades!”

Freyra slammed her fist into her palm.

“Keep your axes sharp!” she yelled. “Not for today. For later.”

Kharnek continued, eyes sweeping the camp.

“Death is inevitable,” he said. “That is not fear. That is truth.”

Silence settled.

“But strength decides how you die,” he finished. “And when.”

The northerners nodded. Slowly. Seriously. Ludger passed through without stopping. No words were exchanged. None were needed.

The froststeel cart rolled on, heavy with metal, and with the quiet understanding that in this world, survival wasn’t about avoiding death. It was about earning the right to choose.

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