NOVPUB“...Well, damn.”
After hearing everything Ludger said, Hans stared blankly for a moment before letting his shoulders slump and releasing a dry chuckle.
“You really do seem to like kids, don’t you, sir?”
“Me?”
“Are you seriously going to deny it now? You keep saying you can’t afford to blow your cover, and yet everything you do draws attention.”
Hans wasn’t oblivious.
He had seen how Ludger’s actions often contradicted his stated purpose.
A man who should be hiding his identity—but still reveals his capabilities. Who takes risks. Who teaches forbidden or dangerous magic without hesitation.
And it was almost always when students were involved.
“For someone who supposedly became a teacher by accident, you sure seem born for it. Not that I’m surprised. I’ve always known how much you care about kids.”
“I don’t do it because I like them. Everything I do is because it’s my duty.”
In his previous life, Ludger couldn’t pursue what he truly wanted.
His mother’s teachings and the path he desired were irreconcilably different.
He never gave up, but the ending wasn’t a happy one.
Things weren’t much better in this life.
He couldn’t even imagine enjoying something to make up for the things he couldn’t achieve in his past life.
At the age when others were living peacefully, he was fighting death.
That was the life he’d lived.
That was the road he had walked.
He simply didn’t want others to repeat his mistakes.
Hans, who knew at least part of Ludger’s past, looked at him with a pained expression.
“...You might not realize it yourself, but the fact that you feel a sense of duty to protect others is already extraordinary. ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) Most people can’t even do that.”
“And it’s just as absurd to look at people worse than yourself and use that to feel content and justify staying stagnant.”
“Still, that’s what most people do.”
“Exactly. Most people do. But I don’t.”
“To me, sir, you’re just naturally a teacher. If you hadn’t been forced to hide your identity, I’m sure you’d have ended up teaching kids somewhere anyway.”
Hans shook his head, thinking how Ludger could be so stubborn in these things.
Then suddenly, a thought struck him and he looked up sharply.
“Wait. Isn’t it kind of weird to call these students ‘kids’?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, by age alone, most of the students here would be considered adults, right?”
Hans had a point.
The average age of Seorn’s incoming class was 18.
Considering that in this world, anyone over 17 is legally an adult, it wasn’t really accurate to keep calling them children.
There were younger students, yes—but by third year, many were already close to 20.
Treating them like children might actually be insulting.
“They’re still younger than us.”
“Sir. Do you not realize that some of the fifth-years are about the same age as me?”
“What? Hans, how old are you again?”
At Ludger’s question, Hans gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
“Didn’t I say? I’m 24 this year.”
“...”
Ludger’s eyes widened in genuine shock for the first time.
“Wait—seriously?”
“Why are you so surprised? You look like you just saw something you really didn’t want to.”
“I just... Hm.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“Sorry.”
“I said don’t apologize!”
Ludger looked at Hans with a faintly pitiful expression.
To be honest, he had assumed Hans was in his mid-thirties, if not older.
But he was actually younger than Ludger.
‘Now that I think about it, he’s always called me “sir” since we first met.’
He had just assumed it was a show of respect for strength.
In this underworld, seniority is based more on power than age.
But now he realized—Hans had been calling him “sir” because he was genuinely younger.
Ludger offered some consolation.
“I get it. A rough life ages people fast.”
“Coming from you, that really stings, you know? You haven’t aged a bit!”
And it was true.
Ludger had lived ten times as dangerously and harshly as Hans, yet his appearance hardly reflected that.
From Hans’s perspective, it was just infuriating.
If aging was proportional to hardship, Ludger should already look like a walking corpse. Instead, the man had flawless skin and a noble glow about him.
People say noblewomen spend fortunes trying to preserve their youth with skincare.
Hans now fully understood how meaningless that really was.
‘It’s not skincare. It’s just genetics.’
Some people are just built differently—strong enough that even age and suffering don’t leave a mark.
This world was filled with that kind of cruel imbalance.
All Hans could do was sigh inwardly.
“Hans. More importantly, how are things progressing outside?”
“I didn’t choose to look like this, you know—wait, what did you say?”
Grumbling to himself, Hans only just realized Ludger had been speaking to him.
“I asked how things are going out there.”
“Oh. Right. Pretty smoothly, actually. That magazine’s gaining traction and looking promising. And that musical thing we talked about? Its first performance was a big hit.”
That day...
Ludger had planted seeds in the damp, forgotten alleyways where no one looked.
Seeds of possibility—things that didn’t yet exist in this world, but inevitably would.
Kirkus, the circus group, had held its first musical performance and succeeded beyond expectations.
The magazine business run by the Old Kids was growing steadily and selling more and more copies.
“What about the others?”
“With the Women of the Black Rose taking the lead, we’ve cleaned up a whole block and turned it into an artist’s district. Cleared out the trash and rebuilt all the buildings.”
“I’m glad to hear it’s going smoothly.”
“Well... there is one thing. Other merchant groups, the ones who were keeping an eye on us, are starting to feel threatened. They’ve begun trying to suppress us.”
At first, the nearby businesses just scoffed.
To them, the efforts of the slum-dwellers seemed like a waste of time and money.
But it didn’t take long for their mockery to turn into unease.
The ventures they had dismissed began to grow at an alarming rate. It was clear now that something real was happening.
The magazine flew off the shelves and gained rapid popularity.
The musical, which they had laughed off as a guaranteed failure, had been a massive success from the very first show.
And now, the “fashion street” project was showing signs of hitting it big as well.
“They’ve started bribing city officials and police to clamp down on us. Probably told them, ‘Don’t care what you do—just shut them down.’”
“And did you handle it?”
“Of course. We knew this would happen eventually. We showed them our permits and that shut them up. It was a good thing we spent big on lobbying early on.”
But then Hans added, frowning.
“Still... it’s been awfully quiet since. I get the feeling they’re planning something. Those bastards aren’t the type to back off after one jab.”
“Warn the others to be cautious. Just in case.”
“I’ve already started doing that. Oh—and one last thing, sir.”
Hans pulled a vial filled with a crimson liquid from his pocket and handed it to Ludger.
Ludger accepted it naturally.
No one around them noticed the secretive exchange.
“This is...”
“That drug from the werewolf incident. We finished analyzing it.”
The experimental drug obtained from the underground lab of the Shamsus School, after the whole facility had been wiped out.
Even diluted, a small dose could turn a human into a monster. A product of collaboration between the Black Dawn Society and Shamsus.
“Bellaruna had a hard time with it, but she pulled it off in the end.”
“What’s the result of the analysis?”
“One particular ingredient stood out among all the black magic-infused compounds. They used a hallucinogenic narcotic extracted from the Pelluma plant.”
Pelluma—a herb once used as medicine due to its intense painkilling effects.
But now, due to its high addictiveness and hallucinatory side effects, it was effectively banned.
"Sir, as you already know, this Pelluma has a famous trait that those in the know are well aware of.”
“That it only grows in very limited locations.”
“Exactly. And there’s only one place in the entire Exilion Empire where Pelluma can be harvested. A thorny forest near a city called Baltanung. It’s the only place where this plant grows.”
Baltanung was a nearby city, adjacent to Rederbelk.
Ludger gave a nod.
“If we investigate that area, we might be able to catch the tail of a secret Black Dawn branch. If we’re lucky, we might even find a hidden base nearby.”
“Once the current business stabilizes, I’ll go check it out then.”
“Yeah. It’s not urgent anyway.”
After all, the fire that needed extinguishing immediately was much closer at hand.
“I heard you uncovered the identity of First Order Esmeralda.”
“Yeah, I did. Not that I intended to.”
“Should I ask how that went? Judging by your expression, I guess it wasn’t exactly a pleasant discovery?”
Ludger nodded.
Hans and Ludger stood side by side, watching children laughing and playing with mini-golems.
While standing there, Ludger told Hans the truth he had uncovered.
Everything about Esmeralda’s identity, and how she had come to be that way.
“Huh.”
Hans let out a deep sigh after hearing the whole story.
“Never would’ve guessed she was hiding her identity like that. I guess it’s better to have learned it now than never at all?”
“Better to know than not.”
“So what about you, sir?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, have you made up your mind?”
Hans’s pointed question wasn’t something Ludger could answer lightly.
“...Sir. Just asking, but... you’re not seriously still thinking this over, are you?”
“......”
“Whew. I get it. I really do. It’s not easy. You might end up having to kill a fellow instructor you’ve been close with all this time.”
Hans turned his head and caught sight of the festival, still in full swing.
Beneath the bright lights, people laughed and enjoyed themselves without a care in the world. The contrast made Hans glance up at the sky for no reason.
The sky was disgustingly clear, as if it couldn’t care less about their situation.
“But you know. If you don’t do it, you might die.”
“True.”
“Innocent casualties will always happen. Not that I’m trying to justify that. It’s a damn shame. But sir, you’ve experienced it too. No matter how careful we are, there’s always someone who gets hurt.”
And even when you try to fight it, you can’t save everyone.
Hans’s words overlapped with memories in Ludger’s mind.
Beneath the playful children, he saw a boy lying in a pool of blood, dying.
He walked toward him slowly and lifted the boy’s upper body in both arms.
The boy’s body, nearly drained of life, was cold as ice.
—Mr. Moriarty... Please... take care of my little brother...
With those last words, the child closed his eyes.
A boy who had trusted him, who once dreamed of becoming a great scholar someday, had disappeared like dust in the wind.
Only the blood—proof that a life once existed—stained Ludger’s hands and fell in thick droplets.
“Sir?”
Hans’s voice pulled Ludger back to reality.
Ludger looked down at his hands. They weren’t red. There was no blood.
“Are you alright, sir?”
“...Yeah.”
“Anyway, here’s what I’m trying to say. If it’s something you have to do anyway, don’t hesitate. You know how it works in our line of work.”
“In the world of violence we live in, we always carry the expectation that things like this will happen.”
“Bitter truth it may be, that’s reality. If you don’t kill, you die. And if that’s the case, then we have no choice but to kill.”
Hans opened his mouth to say more, then stopped.
This guy always puts on a strong front, but inside, he’s more sensitive than anyone.
He acts like a butcher when it comes to dealing with villains, but he worries too much about harming the innocent.
‘Well, that’s exactly why people like me—and everyone else in the organization—follow him. Because of that deeply human part of him.’
Still, watching Ludger sink into his own head like this wasn’t comfortable.
Hans decided to cheer him up.
“Haha! Come on, what’s with the nerves? You’ve pulled through every time before, haven’t you, sir?”
Maybe he overdid it trying to be upbeat.
Hans smacked Ludger hard on the shoulder with his palm.
What was meant to be a comforting pat ended up being way too forceful.
“Ah.”
The mood instantly froze.
“......”
“Uh, well. I didn’t mean to do that. I just... you looked a little down, so I was trying to help...”
Hans trailed off.
One moment he was all fired up, and the next he was shrinking in fear like a scolded puppy. Ludger couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle.
“I know.”
“H-haha. Of course you do, right? I knew you wouldn’t keep something like this bottled up.”
“More importantly, Hans.”
“Yes?”
“There’s a small wildlife sanctuary in Seorn that protects endangered species. Would you like to pay it a visit sometime?”
Cold sweat formed on Hans’s back.
So much for not bottling things up.
* * *
The third day of the festival had arrived.
Ludger couldn’t follow his usual patrol schedule.
‘How did I end up here?’
White tablecloth-covered tables and chairs spread out across a spacious outdoor area.
A feast laid out across the tables.
And nobles from all over exchanging drinks and laughter.
He was currently in the outdoor banquet area—accessible only to those with permission, even during the festival.
“Hahaha. Day drinking really is the best.”
Heibach Kadatushan laughed heartily beside Ludger.
‘And why does this man keep sticking to me?’
This is why Ludger didn’t like festivals.
