A full day passed while Ludger was inside the labyrinth.

On the surface, the island became a worksite.

Web curtains were stripped in disciplined lanes, wound onto long poles, and stacked into growing rows near the bridgehead. Teams moved faster now, no more squeamish flinching at the thought of where the silk came from. The night had burned that softness out of them. They worked hard and fast with the same shared goal:

Fill the ship. Leave.

Half the island’s webbing was already gone by late afternoon, patches of green showing through again, exposed rock and battered trees emerging where the white shroud had been. The place looked less like a ghost and more like a battlefield being salvaged.

Everyone moved like time was a predator.

Even the wounded pushed themselves to help, sorting, carrying, winding, bundling, anything that didn’t reopen stitches or strain arms. Officers kept rotations tight. Ironhand kept cargo flow steady. Raukor’s forge clanged on and off as bracers were started in batches, the new Lionsguard marks taking shape like proof that last night hadn’t been a dream.

Then Ludger returned.

He came out of the labyrinth at a clear pace, alone, clothes stained, face harder than usual. Not staggering. Not injured badly. Just… visibly done with whatever he’d seen inside.

And the camp reacted instantly. Heads turned. Hands paused mid-wind. A hush spread faster than any shouted order. People felt troubled the moment they saw him.

Because the plan, at least in their heads, had assumed they had more time. That the guildmaster would be inside for days, carving a path, chasing the guardian chamber, solving the mystery.

His early return didn’t look like “mission complete.” It looked like “something changed.”

A few trainees exchanged nervous glances. Some swallowed. Even Ironhand hands slowed, eyes flicking between Ludger and the island interior as if expecting the next wave to pour out any second.

Ludger didn’t give them time to spiral. He raised a hand, calm and flat, and spoke clearly.

“Keep going.”

The simple order snapped people back into motion, almost out of reflex.

“You don’t have to worry,” he added. “Most of the enemies have been dealt with inside the labyrinth.”

That wasn’t a full explanation. It wasn’t meant to be. It was enough to steady hands and restart the rhythm of work.

The poles began to turn again. Web sheets were lifted and wound. Bundles were dragged toward the ship. The camp noise returned, controlled, disciplined, tense, but moving.

Ludger stood for a moment and watched them work, eyes scanning faces for cracks, measuring morale, measuring fatigue.

Then he looked back toward the island’s center, toward the hidden mouth of the labyrinth beneath the webbed canopy. His expression didn’t soften. If anything, it grew colder. Because “most enemies dealt with” didn’t mean “safe.” It meant “temporarily quiet.”

And after what he’d heard in those brick corridors, Ludger no longer trusted quiet to mean anything good.

Ludger didn’t try to clean himself in camp.

Too many eyes. Too many questions he didn’t want to answer while he still smelled like eggs and chitin.

He walked to the beach instead, away from the work lines and the stacked web poles, where the surf was steady and the wind carried salt hard enough to drown out most thoughts.

He knelt at the edge of the water and started stripping gear.

Bracers first, buckles undone with fingers that still felt stiff. Forearm guards next, the inner padding damp with sweat and grime. Then his shirt, peeled off with a quiet hiss of fabric that didn’t want to let go.

The night’s residue came with it, dark smears, sticky streaks, dried spots that flaked when he moved.

He stepped into the surf up to his shins and scooped seawater over himself.

Cold slapped his skin.

He scrubbed with both hands, rough and impatient, raking grime off his shoulders, his neck, his arms. He washed his hair too, dragging saltwater through it until it stopped clumping from sweat. The water foamed briefly around him, then turned clear again as the tide pulled the filth away.

He didn’t feel much cleaner. Saltwater didn’t remove everything. It just replaced one kind of dirt with another. But he felt better.

Lighter. Less like he was wearing the labyrinth on his skin.

He stood there for a moment, breathing, then lowered himself near the shoreline and stared at the surface. The water reflected him in broken pieces, rippling lines, distorted angles, a boy’s face framed by exhaustion that made him look older than he should.

He watched his own eyes for a beat, trying to see whether the labyrinth had left anything behind. Then a shadow fell over the sand beside him.

Viola approached without calling out, boots sinking slightly as she stepped onto the softer shore. She sat down like she belonged there, elbows resting on her knees, and studied Ludger with the kind of blunt curiosity only family could get away with.

Her gaze traveled, not to his face, but to his back.

To the hard lines of muscle that shouldn’t have been so defined at his age, to the shoulders that looked built for carrying too much, to the spine that had learned to stay straight no matter what the world threw at it.

She squinted.

“…What is your mother feeding you,” Viola asked, “to have a back like that at your age?”

Ludger didn’t look at her. He just stared at his warped reflection and let the sea hiss around them.

“Food,” he said flatly.

Viola snorted. “Liar.”

He finally glanced sideways, deadpan. “Stress.”

Viola’s grin flickered, then softened into something quieter as she watched him sit there, half-clean and still looking like he hadn’t actually rested in a week.

“…Yeah,” she murmured. “That tracks.”

Ludger didn’t keep her waiting long.

Viola was sitting beside him now, sand clinging to her boots, eyes flicking between his face and the island’s white-green mess behind them. She’d come over joking, but her posture had that quiet tension it always did when she sensed something serious underneath.

Ludger exhaled once, then spoke.

“There were eggs,” he said. “A lot of them. And webs. Thick webs. Inside the labyrinth.”

Viola’s expression tightened immediately. “Inside too?”

“Everywhere,” Ludger confirmed. “The first section was basically a nursery. The corridors were wide enough for ten people to walk side by side and still… eggs in every corner.”

Viola frowned harder. “That explains the waves.”

“It does,” Ludger said. “The second section had fewer eggs, fewer webs. Bigger space. Still plenty of spiders moving around, but… not the same.”

He paused, then added the part that made her face shift from concern to outright disgust.

“Third section had spiders with human torsos.”

Viola’s head snapped toward him. “What?”

“Lower half spider,” Ludger said, tone clinical. “Upper half human-shaped. Two arms. They used silk like tools. They anchored web lines into boulders and swung them. They knit silk into spears.”

Viola stared at him for a long beat, then looked away at the ocean like she was trying to unsee it.

“That’s…” Her jaw worked. “That’s weird.”

“Yes.”

She glanced back, eyes narrowing. “And you said there was a voice?”

Ludger hesitated a fraction, then nodded. “A voice. It told the spiders to stop. It spoke to me. It wanted me to go deeper.”

Viola’s frown deepened until it looked painful. “Ludger… are you sure you weren’t hearing things? You’ve been exhausted. You fought through the whole night and a day.”

Ludger shook his head once, firm. “I’m sure.”

He stared at the rippling water, at his broken reflection, and felt the irritation return, less anger now, more the cold discomfort of realizing how little they actually understood.

“The labyrinths of the world have more mysteries than we expected,” he said quietly.

Viola stayed silent, listening.

“They connect to unknown lands,” Ludger continued, thinking of the other side, the ruins, the factories, the mana-thick air. “They can house beasts that reproduce like nothing else. They can change. They can build.”

His eyes narrowed.

“And apparently,” he finished, voice flat, “they can have things inside them that can speak.”

Viola’s throat bobbed as she swallowed. “You called it… what?”

Ludger’s gaze stayed on the ocean. “Spider queen.”

Viola let out a slow breath through her nose, half disbelief and half dread.

“…Of course,” she muttered.

Ludger didn’t correct her.

Because at this point, “of course” was becoming the only honest reaction left.

Ludger stood up from the sand and stepped away from the surf. The salty rinse had helped, but he still felt like the labyrinth was clinging to him in invisible layers, egg residue, spider fluid, sweat dried into grime.

He didn’t like it. So he did what he should’ve done in the first place. He lifted a hand, focused, and pulled water out of the air with a simple, clean spell.

Create Water.

A cool stream formed above him and poured down like a controlled shower, fresh, clear, not ocean-brine. Ludger guided it with small motions, washing his hair properly, scrubbing his shoulders, rinsing his arms until the sticky feeling finally started to fade. The water ran off him and sank into the sand, darkening it in a wide patch.

Viola watched for a moment, then frowned.

“You had that the whole time?”

“Yes.”

“…Idiot.”

Ludger didn’t answer. He just kept rinsing until he felt human again.

Viola’s eyes drifted, unhelpfully, down to his torso as he wrung water from his hair.

Then she frowned harder, offended on principle. “You have better abs than me.”

Ludger blinked at her, expression flat. “Train more.”

Viola made a noise like she wanted to throw a rock at him, then huffed and looked away.

Ludger finished the rinse, pulled his shirt back on, and strapped his bracers and forearm guards into place with efficient motions.

Then he spoke, tone shifting back into work.

“The next expedition to this island,” he said, “has to be ready for another complicated battle.”

Viola’s expression sobered instantly. “Like last night.”

“Worse,” Ludger corrected. “It’s almost like a war. Coordinated threats. Multiple fronts. Monsters that change.”

He tightened a strap and glanced toward the island’s webbed interior. “Veterans could do the job. Easily.”

Viola raised an eyebrow. “But you’re not bringing only veterans.”

“No,” Ludger said. “I’ll train the new members until they can do it just fine.”

There was no pride in his voice. Just determination. Like “training them into it” was as obvious as sharpening a blade before using it.

He continued, already building the plan out loud. “If we come back prepared, staying here for a day or two should be enough to clear the place… even if the spiders claim it again.”

Viola nodded slowly, eyes narrowing with the same kind of forward-thinking her grandfather loved, except hers had more teeth.

“You’re already planning the return,” she said.

Ludger didn’t deny it. He looked out at the water, then back at the island, and his expression stayed hard. He didn’t want to stop and rest. Not even now. Not when the Empire was changing. Not when labyrinths were revealing new rules. Not when something under an island had learned to speak and build and breed.

Rest was a luxury. Preparation was survival. And Ludger chose survival every time.

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