By the time the ship was stable enough to sail and the crew began the slow journey back toward port, the air on deck had shifted from excited chaos to wary quiet. The captured fgship cut through the waves with a heavy groan, its repaired hull humming faintly from the reconstructed mana channels. Rathen’s men kept a respectful distance from the prisoner chained at the center of the deck, the monkey beastman, bound in thick runic shackles that wrapped around his arms, legs, and torso like constricting metal vines. Ludger leaned against the railing, arms crossed, watching the scene unfold.

  Rathen stood in front of the beastman, papers in hand, expression strained with equal parts frustration and duty. He asked questions, one after another, one after another. About their employer. Their backers. Their trade routes. Their expected shipment. Their long-term goals. The underworld connections. The man behind the runic cannons. The one who taught the beastman about Ludger.

  The beastman barely blinked. He wasn’t defiant. He wasn’t afraid. He simply… didn’t care.

  He slumped zily against the mast, one leg bound at an awkward angle, breathing slowly through half-healed ribs. Ludger had only healed him enough to stabilize his organs and bones, but beastman vitality did the rest. He wasn’t in good shape, but he was alive and fully aware. And entirely uncooperative.

  Rathen tried again. “If you talk now, I can guarantee—”

  The monkey beastman yawned.

  Wide. Lazy. Loud. It echoed across the deck like an insult. Rathen’s eye twitched. His men looked away, pretending not to see their leader slowly losing patience.

  Ludger watched the exchange. He’d expected the interrogation skill, the job reted to extracting information. Interrogator. Inquisitor. Truth-Seeker. Something like that. But it was clear Rathen didn’t know the proper methods or have the right techniques for this. He approached questioning like a bureaucrat, not a psychological specialist or combat interrogator.

  Ludger sighed internally. Another skill he’d have to unlock on his own someday. But what puzzled him more was Kae, standing a few meters away, pretending to be uninterested, watching the horizon with her arms crossed.

  Kae, who was very good at interrogation. Kae, who could twist sound and air pressure to terrifying effect. Kae, whose mere presence could make criminals talk.

  And yet she wasn’t stepping forward. The beastman yawned again, louder this time. Ludger turned his head, raising an eyebrow at her. A silent question.

  Why aren’t you helping?

  Kae met his gaze without missing a beat. She raised one hand, just enough so only Ludger could see, and pressed a finger gently to her lips.

  Shhh.

  Then she smiled. Not her pyful grin. Not her mischievous smirk. A tight, knowing smile. The kind that meant:

  I know how to do this. I could make him talk. But we’re not showing that to outsiders.

  Her wind magic wasn’t something she wanted spreading through Ironhand rumor mills either. Word of her… talents reached the wrong ears, and suddenly she was every noble’s nightmare interrogator-for-hire.

  Ludger understood immediately. She had power she didn’t want Rathen or his underlings knowing she could apply so casually. He gave the faintest nod.

  Which she returned, barely perceptible, before turning her gaze back to the sea, letting Rathen struggle through another round of pointless questions. Ludger pushed off the railing and walked a few steps closer, eyes narrowing. If the beastman wouldn’t break from fear… or threats… or pain… then there were only a few remaining options. And Ludger was very good at exploring options.

  Ludger finally stepped away from the railing and walked toward the center of the deck.

  Rathen’s questioning sputtered to a stop as the boy approached. Maurien turned slightly. Kae didn’t turn her head, but her eyes flicked in their corners. Even Renvar straightened, sensing the shift in atmosphere.

  The monkey beastman lifted his gaze. For the first time since they dug him out of the wreckage, he looked serious.

  The zy slouch faded from his posture. His half-lidded eyes sharpened. He straightened his shoulders as much as the runic chains allowed, meeting Ludger’s stare head-on. It wasn’t defiance exactly. It was something closer to pride.

  He had lost to Ludger, fair and square, brutal and clean. Even broken, and bound, he refused to avert his gaze from a twelve-year-old kid. To him, looking away now would be more humiliating than the broken bones or the shattered weapon. Beastmen valued strength, and he acknowledged Ludger’s openly.

  Ludger stopped in front of him. Silence settled over the deck like a bnket. He didn’t speak immediately. Instead, he tilted the beastman’s chin upward with a single finger and studied him. Calmly. Methodically. As though he were trying to understand the structure of the man’s soul rather than his body.

  Internally, Ludger weighed his options. He wasn’t above inflicting pain. A broken finger here, a compressed fracture there, he had seen much worse in the byrinths, dealt much worse in the underworld bindings. But torture… the kind done for cruelty… the kind done for entertainment… the kind that crossed the line from necessity into sadism…

  That wasn’t him. Not now. Not ever. He would do what needed to be done, but he would not enjoy it. That was where Ludger drew his line.

  He didn’t have to hurt the beastman physically. Breaking his spirit, his pride, could be far more effective. Beastmen weren’t like humans. Their honor, their physical capacity, their social structure… it all fed into dominance and hierarchy. The right pressure, the right words, the right posture could shatter even the most stubborn mercenary. But he also wasn’t alone.

  They were standing on a ship belonging to Ironhand, surrounded by Rathen’s crew. Ludger may not have cared about politics, but he cared about what the Lionsguard looked like to their allies. He had become the face, however unwilling, of the guild’s growing influence.

  He couldn’t publicly humiliate or brutalize a prisoner in broad daylight. Not unless he wanted the Ironhand Guild to field compints and investigations from the Empire, Velis League, or the beastman cns.

  So he held the beastman’s chin and stared into his eyes. Long enough for the pirates watching to swallow nervously. Long enough for the beastman to feel the shift in power again. Long enough for Rathen to realize Ludger wasn’t approaching as a child, but as the vice guildmaster of a rising force.

  Then, very quietly, Ludger spoke.

  “What’s your name?”

  The beastman’s jaw clenched. But he answered.

  Not out of fear. Not out of pressure. Out of the simple, undeniable truth:

  He had already acknowledged Ludger as stronger. And Ludger Graves was about to use that acknowledgment to get what he wanted.

  The beastman held Ludger’s gaze for several long seconds before finally answering.

  “…Vorak,” he muttered, voice hoarse but steady. “Vorak of the Iron-Cw cn.”

  Ludger nodded once, acknowledging the name, the tribal pride behind it, and the defeated dignity the man still clung to. He lowered his hand but didn’t step back.

  “Vorak,” Ludger said quietly, “you and your people are in our hands now. Lionsguard and Ironhand.”

  Rathen’s men stiffened, watching the exchange with growing unease.

  “Right now, you still have options,” Ludger continued. “Cooperate, give us the information we need, and you’ll be treated like prisoners. Fed, guarded, questioned, but not harmed.”

  Vorak’s jaw tightened.

  Ludger leaned in slightly, not threatening, simply closer. “Refuse… and you won’t stay with us.”

  He let the words sink in.

  “You’ll be handed over to the Empire.”

  Rathen inhaled sharply. Maurien’s eyebrow rose. Kae’s faint smile sharpened at the edges. Even Renvar swallowed audibly. Vorak’s pupils constricted.

  Ludger spoke evenly, calm, cold, and matter-of-fact. “And the Empire doesn’t interrogate pirates in daylight on the deck of a ship. They don’t ask polite questions. They don’t give second chances.”

  He raised one finger.

  “Your trial, if they bother with one, will be public.”

  Another finger.

  “Your sentence will be drafted long before that.”

  A third.

  “And your interrogations… they’ll happen underground, in stone corridors with no windows. A pce where the guards don’t stop. Ever.”

  Vorak’s breathing hitched, but he didn’t look away.

  Ludger continued. “Beastmen aren’t exactly cherished worldwide. Not with how some cns raid caravans.” He gestured lightly to the ruined ships around them. “And now? Now some of your people just delivered a massive blow to the Empire’s economy. Trade, security, taxation, merchant confidence, this incident damages all of it.”

  Rathen winced. Kae nodded approvingly.

  “The higher-ups won’t risk looking weak,” Ludger said. “They won’t hand out mercy. They won’t tolerate silence.”

  The boy’s voice didn’t rise. It didn’t gain venom or threat. It stayed calm, too calm for someone his age.

  “So decide carefully. Because what you choose right now…” Ludger tilted his head, eyes narrow but steady, “determines whether you spend the next few years behind a locked door…”

  A pause.

  “…or the next few hours wishing you talked sooner.”

  The deck went silent.

  Vorak finally looked away. Not out of shame, out of calcution. Out of survival instinct. Out of the realization that Ludger wasn’t making threats. He was expining reality. And reality was something even beastmen couldn’t fight their way out of.

  Ludger didn’t let the silence linger for long. He stepped back just enough for Vorak and the surrounding pirates to see him clearly, then spoke again—this time with a colder edge threading through the calm.

  “Your group killed a lot of Ironhand members,” Ludger said. “Your operation burned their ships, sabotaged their routes, ambushed their patrols. Families lost fathers. Crews lost captains. Merchants lost everything.”

  Vorak’s jaw twitched.

  “But I also know,” Ludger continued, “that you and your crew suffered losses today that are far greater.”

  He gestured at the ruined fleet. At the kneeling pirates. At the shattered cannons and the broken runic cores.

  “Your allies kept you in the dark. They used you. Fed you incomplete intel. Threw you at the front line. And now they’re nowhere to be found while you bleed for their greed.”

  Vorak’s nostrils fred, his instincts tugging between loyalty and rage. Ludger leaned in just slightly, voice dropping into something colder.

  “If you give us what we need,” he said, “then they, the ones truly responsible for all these deaths, will suffer the consequences.”

  He straightened.

  “Unless you want to suffer for them instead.”

  A ripple of tension spread across the deck. Several pirates swallowed. A few others looked away, shame or fear flickering through their eyes. Vorak didn’t respond. But his breathing shifted, slow, measured, like he was evaluating the weight of every consequence id before him.

  Ludger turned then, facing Rathen. “You said you can’t risk Ironhand’s reputation,” he said. “So if they give us the information we want… what are you willing to do?”

  Rathen blinked, caught off guard by being pulled into the negotiation directly. His crew paused mid-task, waiting for his response. Even Maurien turned his head slightly, recognizing the gravity of the question.

  Rathen exhaled through his nose, folding his arms. He wasn’t impulsive, he never made promises lightly. So he stood still for several seconds, weighing the cost and the potential gain.

  The information Vorak could provide wasn’t simple gossip. It wasn’t a list of pirate hideouts. It was intel involving underworld guilds, Velis-run engineering, rogue nobles, and international smuggling networks connected to both the Rodericks and Verk.

  Information worth armies. Worth money. Worth political leverage. Finally, Rathen looked at Ludger.

  “…Half,” he said.

  Ludger raised an eyebrow.

  “If the information comes out,” Rathen crified, voice steady, “I’m willing to let go half of the prisoners.”

  A murmur spread through the captured pirates, shock, disbelief, hope, fear.

  Rathen continued, expression turning stern. “We’ll report them as deceased. Lost in the battle. Bodies unrecoverable after the explosions.”

  He repeated it so there was no misunderstanding.

  “Half of your people,” he said to Vorak, “walk free.”

  Ludger watched Vorak closely. He wasn’t done.

  Rathen added, “The other half will be released once we confirm the information is accurate. But I promise,” he met Vorak’s eyes, “, no executions if you cooperate.”

  The deck fell silent again. This time, the silence was very different. Hope. Fear. The smell of shifting loyalties. The beastman’s gaze dropped, not in submission, but in thought. The chains clinked softly as he exhaled.

  Ludger didn’t push. Didn’t threaten. Didn’t force. He simply waited. Because Vorak now understood something very clearly: The next words out of his mouth would decide whether half his men lived… or whether all of them died underground with no graves.

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