As they moved deeper into the frozen labyrinth, Ludger drifted toward the back of the group. Kharnek led the way, meanwhile, Ludger was busy with something far less serious.

He balanced the earth spear on his fingertip, a faint pulse of mana humming through the air. The weapon hovered, steady as if gravity had forgotten it existed. A twist of his wrist made it spin — slow at first, then faster, until it blurred into a brown-gold ring above his hand.

Brynja glanced back once, frowned faintly, then looked away again. She’d learned by now not to question half the things he did.

Ludger tilted his head, watching the spear spin. The motion was smooth, obedient. He could feel the link — the mana thread that tied him to it like an invisible leash.

“Alright,” he murmured, more to himself than anyone.

He flicked his finger outward. The spear darted sideways, floating a few meters away before slowing to a stop, hovering at shoulder height. The pull of mana stretched in his chest, faint but distinct — like a muscle being tugged.

The further the spear drifted, the heavier that pull became. He grimaced slightly, sweat forming along his temple as the drain increased.

Too much distance bleeds efficiency.

He flicked his wrist again, and the spear zipped back, circling lazily around him once before returning to his hand.

He caught it mid-spin and smirked. “So it’s not worth the effort.”

Still, he repeated the motion, just because he could — sending the weapon spinning around his arm, letting it orbit his shoulder like a rock around a planet. It hummed quietly through the cold air, leaving faint ripples of mana that dissolved against the ice.

Kharnek finally looked back over his shoulder, raising a brow. “You playing catch with your own weapon now?”

Ludger shrugged, pretending not to smile. “Call it field testing.”

“Looks like showing off,” Kharnek said, but the corner of his mouth twitched in amusement.

“Maybe a little.”

He launched the spear again, this time letting it spin around him in a tight circle before catching it cleanly. Each pass left a faint trail of earthy mana that quickly dissipated into the frost.

The experiment told him enough — keeping control like this consumed far more energy than a single high-speed throw, but it was good practice. It taught him how fine his control could get, how quickly he could adjust speed, rotation, and pull.

And, admittedly… it was fun.

Ludger tossed the spear once more, let it hover for a beat, then sent it spinning high before calling it back into his hand. The motion felt natural now — like a trick he’d always known, just forgotten.

He rolled the weapon between his palms and fell back into step with the others.

Not efficient, he thought, but satisfying.

And somewhere deep beneath the frost, the labyrinth groaned — as if it had felt his mana experiments and was already preparing its next lesson.

Ludger let his spear rest against his shoulder, glancing around at the gleaming blue corridors that stretched endlessly ahead. Every sound — every breath — echoed too cleanly off the ice. For all the tension the place carried, the fights so far had been… underwhelming.

He exhaled through his nose. “So,” he said dryly, “when does this labyrinth actually get hard?”

Kharnek grunted without looking back. “First zone’s always easy.” His boots thudded solidly on the frost. “That’s how these places lull you in — soft steps, easy kills. Then the ice gets thicker, the walls closer, the mana meaner.”

Ludger nodded slightly. “Makes sense. You’re not the chieftain by accident.”

The big northerner smirked at that, but before he could respond, Brynja’s voice cut through the quiet. “Hold.”

The faint blue glow ahead warped. At first it looked like reflections shifting on the ice — then three shapes began pulling themselves out of the walls, dragging froststeel bones into form.

Kharnek grinned. “There we go.”

The first two formed thick armor around their torsos, jagged shields sprouting from their forearms, blades taking shape in their hands — frost knights, like the ones they’d faced before.

But the third one… was different.

It hunched lower, the blue in its hollow eyes burning hotter. Its fingers stretched, bones elongating as streams of ice condensed into a staff. Runes etched themselves along its spine like crawling frost.

Ludger blinked. “A frost mage?”

Kharnek’s grin widened. “Cute.”

The two knights stepped forward, shields raised in practiced unison, clearly guarding the caster. The mage lifted its staff, the froststeel tip glowing bright as a dozen jagged shards of ice spiraled into being above it.

Ludger’s instincts flared. “Incoming!”

The shards launched forward in a single burst — a storm of glittering blue razors howling through the air.

Ludger didn’t think. His mana surged, and the earthen spear in his hand snapped upward, spinning with a sharp whirr as he released it.

It shot forward, spinning vertically like a saw blade, intercepting the incoming storm. Each ice shard that struck it shattered on impact, scattering harmlessly in glittering sprays.

Behind the improvised barrier, Kharnek was already charging.

“Ulf, left!” he roared.

The burly northerner obeyed instantly, flanking wide. Together they crashed into the two frost knights with all the subtlety of an avalanche. Kharnek avoided the first one’s sword mid-swing, slammed it against the wall, and shattered its skull with a single blow. Ulf’s axe found the second’s spine, cracking it apart in a single downward chop.

“Cute trick,” Ludger muttered, mana flaring in his gauntlets. “Let’s see you try that again.”

The frost mage hissed, runes glowing brighter — but Ludger was already moving, the faint hum of his weapon spinning back to life as he dashed forward through the drifting mist of shattered ice.

The labyrinth was starting to wake up.

The frost mage’s mana pulsed brighter, its broken jaw snapping open with a sound like cracking glass. Shards of ice gathered in front of its skeletal hand, twisting and fusing together until they formed a spear nearly identical to Ludger’s own — slender, deadly, glimmering with compressed frost mana.

Ludger froze for half a heartbeat, a faint, incredulous smirk tugging at his mouth. “You’ve got to be kidding me…”

The monster’s arm jerked back, ready to hurl.

Ludger didn’t give it the chance.

His hand snapped up, and a flash of light erupted from his palm.

The mana bolt streaked through the air and struck the frost mage right between the eyes. The impact detonated with a dull thump, blowing half of its skull apart and scattering fragments across the floor.

The half-formed ice spear shuddered, its structure faltering, and before it could fall, Ludger’s earth spear still spinning slammed through the creature’s chest.

The frost mage shattered completely, collapsing into a pile of glowing shards that hissed and melted into steam.

Silence filled the corridor, broken only by Kharnek’s low grunt as he stepped over the last frost knight’s remains.

Ludger stood there for a moment, staring at the melting puddle where the mage had been. Then he let out a long sigh and scratched the back of his head.

“Well,” he muttered, half to himself, half to the echoing walls, “guess I just outsmarted something with the same strategy as a brain-dead icicle.”

Kharnek barked a laugh from across the room. “Hey, at least you did it better than the icicle.”

Ulf snorted behind him, and even Brynja’s lips twitched — just barely.

Ludger smirked faintly, retrieving his spear as the frost re-formed over the ground. “Yeah, great. New career highlight — tactical equality with frozen bones.”

He gave the spear a spin, shaking a few flakes of frost from it before resting it against his shoulder.

“Still,” he muttered under his breath, “can’t argue with results.”

The others regrouped, and as the corridor ahead began to twist deeper into the cold blue dark, Ludger found himself wondering just how much smarter — and nastier — the labyrinth’s next imitators were going to get.

Before long, the bodies of their fallen enemies left more glitter than ground behind them. Froststeel shards glimmered faintly under the torchlight that Brynja was holding, piling up at Ludger’s feet in uneven heaps. Each fragment pulsed, valuable, but heavy — and after the twentieth fight, the bag slung over his shoulder bulged like it was ready to burst.

He shifted it again, grimacing. “Damn it,” he muttered. “They should start dropping coin pouches instead.”

Brynja noticed the tension in his shoulders as she passed by. “Here,” she said, reaching for the strap. “Let me carry that—”

Ludger raised a hand. “Don’t bother.”

He dropped to a crouch, palm pressed flat to the icy floor. His mana flared — faint at first, then rising until cracks spiderwebbed beneath his touch. The frost resisted, groaning like a living thing. Still, Ludger pushed harder, focusing until a patch of brown earth forced its way up through the ice.

The others stepped back as more of it rose, clumping together in thick, compact shapes. Within seconds, the frozen tunnel was filled with the grinding sound of shifting stone and grinding sand.

When the glow faded, an earthen cart stood before them — sturdy, roughly hewn, and undeniably functional.

Ludger exhaled, dusting his gloves. “That should do.”

Brynja blinked. “You made… a cart.”

Ulf scratched his beard. “With wheels. Underground.”

Kharnek folded his arms, frowning. “You getting tired of walking, boy? Thought we were here to explore, not to play merchant.”

Ludger rolled his shoulder, smirking slightly. “It’s not for comfort. It’s efficiency.”

Kharnek tilted his head. “You call wasting mana on a toy efficient?”

Ludger leaned against the cart, his usual calm tone edged with quiet conviction. “You said it yourself — this is just the first zone. Easy fights, weak undead. But if this place keeps scaling up like you claim, I’ll need the practice.”

He glanced down the corridor — a long, dim tunnel stretching into colder blue darkness.

“I want to see how far this labyrinth goes. How deep it gets. How hard it tries to kill me.” He smirked faintly. “If I have enough time, I’ll clear it alone eventually.”

The air went quiet for a moment. The only sound was the creak of ice settling around them.

Brynja looked at him like she was trying to decide if he was joking. Kharnek, though, just watched him — eyes narrowing, then softening into something between pride and exasperation.

“You’re serious,” the chieftain said finally.

“Dead serious,” Ludger replied, his tone almost casual. “You wanted to see what I could do, right? Then let me push it.”

Kharnek snorted, shaking his head with a rough grin. “You’re a damn lunatic.”

“Probably,” Ludger said, grabbing the cart handle and tugging it forward. The makeshift wheels groaned but rolled, leaving faint grooves in the ice. “But at least I’m a productive one.”

Kharnek laughed — low and deep. “Fine, then. You clear it first, I’ll drink to your ghost later.”

Ludger smirked. “Make it a strong drink.”

And with that, he moved ahead — the cart creaking behind him, his breath misting in the cold air — as if daring the labyrinth itself to give him something worthy of all the effort.

Eventually, the monsters finally started coming in proper numbers.

Groups of five frost skeletons emerged now, crawling out of walls and ceilings like insects from ice. Each group moved with unsettling coordination — two knights advancing with shields raised, two archers flanking the sides, and one mage in the back weaving frost sigils in the air.

It wasn’t chaos anymore. It was formation.

“Now that’s more like it,” Kharnek growled, cracking his knuckles before charging forward.

Ludger hurled his spear again, spinning it horizontally this time — cutting through an arrow mid-flight before impaling one of the archers through the sternum. The creature shattered into glittering shards, frost dispersing into the air like dust.

Then, for the first time, Brynja joined in.

She slammed her staff against the ground, and the mana along its surface blazed with pale light. Whispering under her breath, she drew a circle of frost in the air — a sigil that pulsed outward like a ripple through the ice.

The two knights that had been closing in froze mid-charge, their weapons half-raised. Thin cracks spread across their armor as the frost from her spell crawled over them, locking their joints.

Kharnek didn’t waste the chance — he barreled through, crushing both into fragments with two swings of his axe.

Ludger glanced her way as the fight ended, a faint hum of curiosity stirring behind his steady eyes. Her control over frost mana was… elegant, almost surgical. She wasn’t just freezing enemies — she was talking to the ice, bending it instead of forcing it.

He considered it for a moment.

Could I learn that?

The thought lingered as he wiped frost from his gauntlet. Shamanic magic wasn’t about domination like most spellcraft — it was communion, resonance. It connected to the land, to nature, to whatever spirits or forces lingered in it. He’d heard that much before.

But that was exactly the problem.

They probably treat it as sacred, he thought. A cultural thing. Definitely not something they hand over to a foreigner who barely talks to them.

His gaze flicked to Brynja. She was already turning away, murmuring another chant to stabilize the corridor’s mana flow. They hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words since entering the labyrinth. The chances of her agreeing to teach him anything were slim to none.

He exhaled quietly. “Shame,” he muttered under his breath.

Kharnek’s voice broke the silence ahead. “Alright, listen up. We’re close to the second zone.”

They regrouped near a wide stairwell that spiraled downward into mist. The air here was colder, almost biting, the light dimmer — the mana signature different.

Kharnek rested his axe on his shoulder, his tone shifting to command. “We’ll go down, fight whatever’s guarding the threshold, and that’s it. Then we head back.”

Ludger raised an eyebrow. “That’s it? No deeper?”

The chieftain gave him a sideways look. “We’re not here to clear this place, boy. The alliance’s goal is something else.”

Ludger clicked his tongue softly, looking down the stairwell into the swirling blue fog. “Right. Makes sense.”

Kharnek chuckled, noticing the faint disappointment in his tone. “What’s wrong? Didn’t get enough to punch?”

Ludger sighed, rubbing his neck. “Just feels like quitting halfway through a fight.”

“Then save the rest of your punches for next time,” Kharnek said, starting down the steps. “The labyrinth isn’t going anywhere.”

Ludger let out another quiet sigh and followed, spear resting on his shoulder, breath misting in the frigid air.

He knew Kharnek was right — this wasn’t a solo crusade. Not yet.

But as the second zone’s cold breath swept over them, Ludger couldn’t help but feel that familiar pull again — that dangerous, reckless urge to see how deep he could go before the frost itself started whispering his name.

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