After breakfast, Ludger stepped out into the Torvares estate garden, craving a bit of movement. The air was cool and clean, brushing against his skin as he worked through a series of slow stretches. His body still felt battered, but the worst of the pain had faded into something dull and manageable. Healing Touch had closed the wounds, yet the lingering stiffness reminded him that almost being vaporized by a mana blast wasn’t something you simply walked off.

  He rolled his shoulders, twisted his torso, and leaned forward until the tension along his back loosened. Each controlled motion helped his body remember what it was supposed to do. It felt good, grounding, familiar. After everything in Coria, this quiet moment almost felt unreal.

  He was midway through a deep stretch when footsteps approached. Viola appeared beside him, arms folded, gaze dropping to his forearms.

  “You know,” she said, tapping lightly on the battered leather, “those armguards of yours have seen much better days.”

  Ludger straightened, then glanced down. She wasn’t wrong. The reinforced plates were a mess, scored with long gouges, warped along the edges, and speckled with faint scorch marks. Some areas still held tiny, sharp fragments of rune-metal embedded deep in the material.

  “Blocking Verk’s attacks did more than I expected,” he admitted.

  Viola knelt slightly, inspecting a tear along the side. “I’m honestly surprised these aren’t rubble. That armor he wore according to what you said… it wasn’t normal. Whatever he hit you with, it went through reinforced steel like paper.”

  Ludger rotated his wrist, feeling the stiffness in the material. “I used Weapon Reinforcement with earth-aspected mana. That’s the only reason they didn’t break outright.”

  Viola stood and brushed her hands together. “Which tells us something important. His gear wasn’t just advanced. It was the kind of thing even our highest-ranked smiths would struggle to replicate.”

  Ludger nodded slowly. He had already known that, but hearing it aloud cemented how serious the situation truly was. Verk’s armor had been pushing the limits of what runic engineering could do, thrusters, self-repair units, accelerated mana cycling, reinforced blows. Against that, his own gear barely held.

  He exhaled and returned to his stretches, though a bit less smoothly than before. “I’ll need new armguards,” he said. “Better ones. Maybe something using the new alloys Dalan and Linne were experimenting with.”

  Viola smiled faintly. “Good idea. Because the next time you face him… you won’t want your armor failing on you.”

  Ludger didn’t respond, but his silence carried a very clear agreement. Ludger paused mid-stretch, glancing down again at the shredded armguards. Something tugged at him, not guilt, exactly, but a question he hadn’t voiced until now.

  “…You don’t mind?” he asked quietly.

  Viola, who had been brushing a leaf off her sleeve, turned. “Mind what?”

  “The armguards,” he said, lifting one of the ruined pieces. “They were a gift. From your family. Mostly from Torvares. For helping you in the tournament years ago.” He tapped the faded emblem on the side, a silver and red bull, the Torvares crest. “I thought you’d be bothered that I destroyed them.”

  Viola blinked once, then shook her head.

  “They were a tool, Ludger. A good one, yes, and meaningful at the time. But they weren’t meant to sit on a shelf. They were meant to protect the user.” She nodded toward the torn plating. “If they broke while doing that, then they already served their purpose.”

  That was it. Simple. Practical. Exactly like Torvares himself.

  Ludger absorbed her answer and finally relaxed his shoulders. The garden was quiet around them, just rustling leaves, distant guards, and the faint morning breeze. Then, as he scanned the open space, an idea flickered in his mind. His eyes landed on a wide empty patch of ground near a fountain.

  “What if…” he said slowly, “I sculpt something here?”

  Viola raised an eyebrow. “Sculpt? You’re making statues now?”

  He shrugged. “Not as a hobby. Something to boost morale. For the guards. The servants. For everyone working in the estate.”

  Viola considered him, arms crossing loosely. She wasn’t dismissing him, just… intrigued.

  “Are you sure you aren’t secretly bored?” she asked. “Because that sounded suspiciously like a hobby.”

  “It’s not a hobby,” Ludger insisted. “Just thought something nice in the garden might help. People could use the morale boost.”

  Viola tapped her chin. “Well… as long as you don’t carve something hideous, my grandfather probably won’t order it demolished.”

  She smirked. “And if it’s decent, maybe he’ll pretend he approved it first.”

  Ludger huffed quietly, the closest he’d come to a laugh since arriving in the capital. He glanced around the garden again, mana stirring faintly in his fingertips. A sculpture, huh? Maybe it was time to give the capital a small reminder, that even in enemy territory, the Lionsguard wasn’t beaten.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Ludger stepped onto the empty patch of garden soil, inhaled slowly, and let his mana sink into the ground. The earth responded like a loyal beast, quiet, patient, waiting for his command.

  “Alright,” he murmured. “Let’s try something… impressive.”

  He pressed a hand to the ground. The soil trembled. A low rumble spread outward, making leaves shiver and dust rise. Viola took a step back on instinct, eyes widening as the earth swelled beneath Ludger’s feet. The formation began small, like a mound pushing upward, but then surged higher, splitting and rising in jagged chunks.

  Mana flowed through Ludger’s fingers, shaping the rising mass. Clusters of stone fused together, smoothing as the earth folded into itself. What began as raw, uneven rock started to take purposeful form under his control.

  The front legs emerged first, thick, solid, and braced with weight like pillars designed to support a fortress. The hooves were carved to sharp precision, slightly angled forward as if digging into the ground for leverage.

  Then the chest expanded outward. Massive. Broad. Coiled with the suggestion of power ready to explode. Stone muscles rippled under his shaping touch, corded lines etched with intent, each one flowing naturally into the next. He sculpted the shoulders thick, as if the creature could plow through a line of armored knights without slowing.

  Next came the head. A block of stone lifted and separated from the body, slowly turning as Ludger refined it. He chiseled the muzzle with clean edges, strong and square. The nostrils flared slightly, giving the impression of breath despite being carved from earth.

  Then came the horns. Twin curves of solid granite spiraled upward, smooth and deadly. They weren’t overly long but thick, sharp, and angled forward like weapons made for piercing through shields. Ludger spent extra mana reinforcing them, giving them a subtle sheen that made them look almost metallic. The face took shape last.

  He narrowed the eyes, two carved slits set deep beneath a ridge of stone that resembled a permanent frown. The expression was unmistakable: defiant, proud, and ready to charge at anything foolish enough to provoke it.

  A symbol of power. A symbol of stubborn, immovable resolve. A symbol of the Torvares bull. The tail curled behind it in a lazy but tense motion, as if flicking with barely restrained aggression. The stance was low, front legs bent, body leaning forward. A beast seconds away from launching into a devastating charge.

  When Ludger stepped back, the sculpture stood nearly three meters tall and twice as long, its entire frame radiating raw physical strength. Every line and angle conveyed motion, despite being unmoving stone. It looked alive in the way a storm cloud looks alive, solid, imposing, promising destruction.

  When Ludger stepped back and let the mana settle, a familiar blue shimmer flashed at the edge of his vision.

  A system alert hovered in the air in front of him.

  He blinked once, then focused.

  Object Created: War-Bull Monument (Stone, High-Quality)

  Grade: Rare

  Range: 500 meters

  Effect:

  — All individuals who look upon the sculpture receive +8% Strength and +5% Endurance for 6 hours.

  Note: Quality of effect determined by craftsmanship, mana stability, and emotional intent during creation.

  The window faded, but the afterglow of surprise lingered.

  Ludger exhaled slowly.

  “…Huh.”

  Ludger studied sculpture again. He hadn’t trained his Sculptor job much. It was one of those passive, background roles that popped up once in a while when he shaped terrain or carved something small. He hadn’t put serious effort into it because, well… he had enough classes to deal with already.

  He’d discovered only recently that some of the more deliberate pieces he created, sculpted with intent and mana, could produce effects. Buffs, calming auras, little boosts. Nothing crazy.

  But this… A six-hour stat boost from a single glance? That was far more than he expected from a spur-of-the-moment idea.

  “I guess sculpting has more potential than I thought,” he murmured.

  When Ludger finally tore his eyes away from the fading system window and turned around, he almost flinched.

  Viola was standing behind him, arms crossed, brows furrowed in a deep, analytical frown. Not angry, just… suspicious.

  “That,” she said, pointing at the towering bull, “does not look like something an amateur sculptor puts together on a whim.”

  She tilted her head, studying the detailed muscles, the aggressive stance, the precisely carved horns. “I’ve seen guild-sponsored monuments that look worse than this. A lot worse.”

  Ludger followed her gaze and noticed something else he hadn’t paid attention to before, guards and servants from around the estate had paused in their duties. They stood scattered across the paths and balconies, staring at the sculpture with genuine awe. Some whispered quietly, others just looked energized, standing a little straighter than before.

  He rubbed the back of his neck.

  “I’m not a skilled sculptor,” he said. “Really.”

  Viola raised an eyebrow. “Then explain that.”

  He shrugged helplessly. “My control over earth magic does most of the work. If I can move mountains and repair buildings, shaping stone into a specific form isn’t that different. I just… focus the mana and let the earth flow.”

  Viola stared at him for another long moment.

  “…So you’re telling me this wasn’t talent,” she said, gesturing at the incredibly lifelike bull, “it was just you throwing magic at the ground with good posture?”

  “Pretty much.”

  She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Ludger, do you have any idea how infuriatingly unfair it is that your ‘not a sculptor’ work looks like something we could put in a royal plaza?”

  Kaela snorted from the side. “I think that’s called being gifted.”

  Maurien added, “Or cheating with mana.”

  Ludger shrugged again, looking at the sculpture with a small, unintended bit of pride.

  “Earth magic has precision,” he said simply. “I just used it.”

  Viola let out a long sigh, half exasperation, half admiration.

  “Well… whatever the method,” she said, “it’s already working. Look at the staff.”

  Ludger glanced again. The guards standing nearby looked alert, motivated, ready for action. A pair of servants walked past the statue and visibly straightened, their tired expressions lifting almost immediately.

  “It’s giving the estate morale we desperately need right now,” Viola added.

  Ludger folded his arms, satisfied. “Good. That was the point.”