“Then, how about this,” Ludger said, brushing the dust off his hands. “If I ever run out of mana and someone really needs it, can I send them to you instead?”

Aronia blinked, clearly taken off guard. “Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re better at it than me,” Ludger answered simply. “And it makes sense. If I can’t handle it, you can.”

For a moment, her leafy hair shifted as she tilted her head, studying him as though he’d just spoken nonsense. Then she shook her head faintly. “I don’t have any need for money. Healing people would just draw attention I don’t want.”

Ludger frowned. “You don’t need money?”

“Not really,” she said with a shrug. “Food, water, a roof over my head… it’s enough. I can survive.”

Ludger squinted at her, his mind already running ahead. Half-dryad or not, surviving isn’t the same as living. Out loud, he muttered, “With enough money, you could buy a real house in a better part of the city. Or build one outside the walls. Somewhere no one would look at you twice.”

Aronia hesitated, lips parting as though she wanted to respond, but nothing came. Her eyes lowered, and for once, the grumpy confidence that always coated her voice was gone.

It was almost like… she had never even considered it.

Ludger leaned back, crossing his arms. So she’s strong, but doesn’t know what to do with herself. Figures. Half human, half dryad, not really accepted by either side. No wonder she hides in a dirty alley.

For once, Aronia had no retort. Just silence.

The silence stretched between them, heavy and uncomfortable. Aronia’s leafy hair shifted as a breeze slipped through the alley, but she still didn’t answer. Her usual sharpness, her habit of brushing him off with grumpy remarks—it was all gone, replaced by a quiet hesitation that Ludger hadn’t seen before.

He opened his mouth to press her again, but she suddenly turned away. “That’s enough for today,” she muttered, her voice lower than usual. “Go home.”

Without waiting for a reply, she stepped back into her small house, shutting the door behind her with a dull thud.

Ludger stared at the closed door, brows furrowed. Guess I hit a nerve… She really doesn’t know what she wants.

For the first time since meeting her, Aronia had looked less like a stubborn half-dryad and more like… someone lost. Someone drifting without a path.

He sighed, turning back down the alley. “Figures. Adults are supposed to know what they’re doing, but some of them are worse off than kids.”

Still, he couldn’t help but smirk faintly. Not my problem—yet.

Despite being brushed off that day, Ludger returned to the alley the next. And the next. He didn’t push her about money or healing again. Instead, he kept things light.

“Hey, Aronia,” he asked once as she sat outside her doorway, sunlight playing faintly on her leafy hair. “Where do dryads usually live? Deeper in the forests, right?”

She gave him a sidelong glance, clearly weighing how much to say. “…Somewhere greener than this city, that’s for sure. Old groves, where the roots run deep. Where humans don’t cut everything down.”

Ludger nodded, filing the thought away. Makes sense. The more mana in the land, the better for her people.

The next day, he asked, “So… are there other races like yours around? Different from humans, I mean.”

She didn’t frown this time, just tilted her head. “Plenty. Beastkin, elves, dwarves, even spirits who never take solid form. You just don’t see many here. The human kingdoms… they don’t exactly welcome outsiders.”

Her voice dipped, and Ludger noticed she always stopped short whenever her words brushed against something thorny—something that hinted at prejudice or her own hardships. The moment the topic grew too heavy, she clammed up and looked away.

So he learned to let it slide, changing the subject before she closed herself off entirely.

Step by step, he thought, smirking to himself. She’ll tell me more eventually. Small talk’s just the bait. I just have to keep tugging at the line.

And though she pretended to ignore him, Ludger noticed that she never told him to leave anymore.

While Ludger kept up his routine of visiting Aronia, another pair of eyes began to follow him—his mother’s. Elaine, curious about where her son disappeared to almost every afternoon, decided to tail him without announcing herself.

From the shadows of the streets, she observed him slip into that narrow, dim alley where hardly anyone ever went. She expected trouble, maybe even some foolish errand that would get him scolded. Instead, she found him talking with a woman she had never seen before—a strange, half-hidden figure with dust-covered clothes and hair that seemed a little too wild to be natural.

At first, Elaine frowned. Why is my son chatting with a stranger who lives in such a place? It worried her, especially when she noticed the woman never looked friendly.

But as the days passed, Elaine continued her quiet surveillance. She watched Ludger clean trash, sweep the ground, and talk as though the alley belonged to him. She noticed that the woman—Aronia—often ignored him, yet Ludger always returned. He didn’t demand, he didn’t beg. He simply did what he thought was right.

And slowly, it clicked for her.

He’s not here to play. He’s not here to cause trouble. He’s just repaying the debt he feels he owes her.

Elaine’s lips softened into a faint, bittersweet smile. Ludger was still only five, yet he carried himself with a stubbornness and responsibility that no child should bear. She wanted to scold him for it… but watching him sweep that alley as if it were the most important job in the world, she couldn’t bring herself to step in.

So she kept tailing him quietly, day after day, unseen.

It gnawed at her. He hadn’t given her the chance to raise him the way other parents did. She tried to sing to him as a baby, tried to guide him step by step… but Ludger always seemed a few steps ahead, as if he already knew what he should and shouldn’t do.

Most children stumbled and made mistakes. They tripped, cried, and learned. But Ludger? He rarely tripped. He never cried. He carried himself with a strange clarity, as though life had already beaten certain lessons into him before he could even try.

Elaine’s chest tightened as she realized the truth: she wasn’t raising her son in the usual sense—she was watching him grow. Watching, worrying, and sometimes only catching up after the fact.

Too smart for his own good, she thought with a sigh, adjusting the scarf around her neck as she tailed him once more. And that’s what scares me the most. Children who are clever like him… they don’t stay in their mothers’ nests for long.

That fear lingered with her even as she saw him smile faintly at something the half-dryad said. He wasn’t supposed to be this mature, this sharp. She should have had more years of holding his hand, guiding him, teaching him.

But instead, he was already walking his own path—and Elaine could only hope she wouldn’t lose him to it too soon.

Elaine lingered longer than usual that day, her eyes fixed on Ludger’s small figure sweeping the alley with his usual stubborn determination. At first, her chest warmed with pride. But then, as her gaze lingered, pride twisted into unease.

What if one day Arslan didn’t come back? His reckless grins, his endless debts, his habits with women—any one of those things could get him killed on the road. She already knew that much. And what about Ludger? What if something happened to him while he ran around chasing knowledge and strange people in hidden alleys?

Her thoughts spiraled. She pictured coming home to an empty chair at the table. She pictured Ludger’s small hand slipping out of hers for good, not because of growing up, but because fate decided to be cruel again.

Her breaths grew shallow, and her hand pressed tightly against her chest. What would I do if I lost them both?

For a moment, her green eyes clouded with something darker. She wanted to storm into the alley, grab her son, and never let him out of her sight again. She wanted to forbid him from training, from learning magic, from chasing anything that might place him in danger.

But then Ludger glanced over his shoulder, that faint little smirk still on his lips as if the world couldn’t bend him.

Elaine exhaled shakily. That was her son. Too clever, too strong-willed, too stubborn to cage.

And yet, the thought lingered like poison in her heart: What if the world takes him from me before I’m ready?

Elaine bottled up her fears, pressing them down where even she couldn’t quite reach them. She never asked where he went, never pried too much. She told herself that it was better to let him have his freedom, even if her heart clenched each time the door closed behind him.

But then, one afternoon, Ludger returned home with something odd in his hand—a crooked branch, its bark rough and dry, clearly plucked from some forgotten corner of the city. He held it out to her with a straight face.

“What’s this?” Elaine asked, brows furrowing as she accepted it.

“Decoration,” Ludger said, his lips quirking. “Hold it for a second.”

She frowned but did as he asked. And then, without warning, Ludger’s small palm brushed against the branch. A faint, soft glow spread from his hand into the wood, and before her eyes, tiny buds pushed through the bark. In moments, delicate flowers bloomed—soft whites and pale blues, vibrant against the dead wood that had held nothing moments before.

Elaine froze, staring at the blossoms as though they were a dream. Her lips parted, her eyes wide, her hands trembling faintly as she held the once-dead branch now alive with color and fragrance.

“You—” Her voice cracked. “You did this… with your healing?”

Ludger only smirked faintly, scratching his cheek. “Figured you liked flowers. So I thought… why not?”

Elaine’s throat tightened. She brought the branch closer, gazing at it, and for a moment, all the spiraling fears that had been eating her alive fell quiet.

Her son was a miracle she couldn’t explain, a boy far too strange for this world—yet he was hers.

And in that moment, all she could do was hold onto the flowers as if they were proof he was still here.

A few weeks later, Arslan and his party finally returned from their latest job. Dust clung to their clothes, and the smell of the road lingered on them, but they still looked lively enough. Elaine wasted no time—she called them inside, her expression unusually serious.

They all sat around the table, the air thick with unspoken tension. Elaine drew in a deep breath, steadying herself before she spoke.

“I’ve thought about it,” she began, her voice calm but edged with something sharper. “If Ludger really wants to train, then I won’t stop him. You can teach him. All of you. But—” her gaze hardened, sweeping over each member of the party, “—if you let something happen to him, I will hold a grudge.”

The room went quiet. Even Harold, who usually had a snide remark ready, kept his mouth shut under that look.

Then Elaine turned, pulling Ludger into a hug. Her hands clutched at his back, firm and trembling, as though she were trying to anchor him to herself. “You won’t put yourself in danger, right?” she whispered, her smile trembling at the corners. Her green eyes met his, and in them, Ludger saw more than worry—he saw the glint of a woman whose love had grown heavy with possession, sharpened by years of solitude.

“You won’t leave me behind for years like a certain fool, right?” she asked softly, her voice dipping almost too low for the others to hear.

Arslan winced but didn’t speak.

Ludger, still caught in her arms, forced a nervous smile. “Of course not, Mom.”

Inside, though, his thoughts were racing. Yikes… years of raising me alone really didn’t do wonders for her mental health. If she ever snaps, this whole house will turn into a battlefield.

He smiled through it, but deep down, he knew he’d have to tread carefully. His mother’s love was a fortress, but one wrong push could turn it into a cage.

The silence in the room stretched until Harold cleared his throat, trying to cut through the tension. “...Well, that was ominous.”

Selene elbowed him hard, shooting him a glare, but even she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Cor muttered something under his breath about “protective instincts reaching dangerous levels,” while Aleia gave Arslan a look that screamed, This is your mess.

Arslan, for once, had no playful smirk, no careless grin—just a sheepish, almost guilty expression as he scratched the back of his head.

Elaine, meanwhile, tightened her hold on Ludger for just a moment longer before finally letting him go, her smile lingering but her eyes still shadowed.

The air remained awkward, thick with the party’s nervous glances. No one quite dared to challenge her warning.

Ludger forced another small smile, trying to ease the moment. Great. Everyone’s acting like they just walked into a hostage negotiation. And in a way… maybe they did.

As the tension simmered, Ludger made a quiet promise to himself. I need to find a balance. Train, grow stronger, but not so fast that I break her. If I let her think I’m slipping away, it’ll only get worse. And if she collapses under the weight of her own fears…

He glanced at his mother’s worrisome smile, at the way her hands still trembled faintly even as she folded them neatly in her lap.

Then this whole family might shatter before it even gets the chance to stand.

Cor was the first to step forward, adjusting the glasses that always seemed to slide down his nose. “Then let’s make this simple,” he said, his voice steady and calm in contrast to the awkward tension hanging in the air. He turned toward Elaine with a respectful bow of his head. “I’ll train Ludger for only an hour each day. Just the basics—nothing dangerous. That should be enough to guide his mind without putting him at risk.”

Elaine’s grip on the back of Ludger’s chair loosened ever so slightly, though her eyes still lingered with suspicion.

Selene crossed her arms, nodding. “I’ll do the same. An hour’s more than enough to teach a kid his age how to toughen up without breaking him. Anything longer, and he’d be crawling home on all fours.” She smirked faintly, though her gaze softened when it flicked to Elaine. “I’ll keep it safe.”

Arslan raised his hand like a boy in class, flashing his usual grin. “And of course, I’ve got my hour too. Swordplay’s a family thing, after all. He’s my kid—I’ll make sure he gets the basics from me.”

Harold let out a huff, leaning back in his chair. “Don’t look at me. Training him in axe work would do more harm than good. One swing from my weapon and the boy’d go flying across the yard.”

Aleia shrugged. “And if he tries archery now, he’ll snap more bows than he learns to string. Better to leave it until he grows into his own strength.”

Cor adjusted his robes again and looked at Elaine once more. “Three hours a day. That’s all. Spread across three teachers. It’s structured, limited, and controlled. He won’t be overwhelmed, and he won’t be in danger. The rest of the time, he can be… your son.”

Elaine let out a slow breath, her eyes flicking from Ludger to the party and back. Finally, she gave a small nod. “...Three hours. No more. Not one second more.”

Ludger leaned back in his chair, suppressing a grin. An official schedule, huh? I guess even adventurers can turn into teachers when cornered by Mom.