All Jobs and Classes! I Just Wanted One Skill, Not Them All!

The first time Ludger touched the water, his brain expected resistance.

Cold. Weight. Drag. The normal rules of “you’re a human and this is the ocean.”

Instead, the sea answered.

It wasn’t a voice. It was a sensation, his mana reaching out and finding something it could actually grab, like finally getting a handle on a slippery door.

Water Manipulation (Lv.1) didn’t come with elegance. It came with authority.

Ludger pushed.

The water under his boots rose into a narrow, dense ridge, hardening into a moving platform like a living board. A thin spray kicked out behind him as the ridge began to slide forward, and suddenly he wasn’t swimming.

He was gliding. From a distance it would’ve looked like surfing, but the motion wasn’t the lazy drift of a board riding foam.

It was cleaner. Sharper. More like skiing down an endless slope that kept changing shape under his feet.

Ludger leaned his weight and the “slope” obliged, tilting the water into an angled plane. He shifted again, and a fresh swell rose ahead of him, smooth and supportive, taking his momentum and turning it into speed.

Wind whipped past his ears. Salt spray hit his face. He laughed once, short and surprised, because it was… stupidly easy. Like the ocean had been waiting for someone to tell it what to do.

He tested it. A quick flick of mana, water curled up in front of him like a ramp.

Ludger hit it and launched. For a heartbeat he was airborne over the wave, sunlight flashing off droplets around him like shards of glass. Then he tucked. And did a backflip. Not careful. Not measured.

A clean rotation, body tight, and the water beneath him rose again right where he needed it, catching his boots with a soft slap and turning it into a landing so smooth it felt preplanned.

He leaned and carved across the next swell, leaving a white line of spray behind him like a signature. Then he did it again. Ramp. Launch. Backflip. Land. The ocean became a playground.

He started chaining movements without thinking, weaving between wave crests, building little ridges to kick off of, making the water “solid” in just the right places so he could bounce and twist like gravity was optional as long as he paid in mana.

It was… fun. Dangerously fun. Behind him, Luna followed, much slower, much more careful.

She’d managed to do the same thing: shaping a thin platform under her feet, using the waves as moving ground. But she treated every motion like it might betray her. Knees bent, arms out for balance, eyes locked on the surface like she was expecting it to turn into a mouth and swallow her.

When she tried her first jump, it was small, just a cautious hop over a wave crest. Ludger, of course, decided to do a double backflip right after, because he had problems.

Luna landed and immediately glared at him, eyebrows twitching in that particular way that meant she was fighting the urge to stab him with something. He could almost hear her thoughts:

He just got that skill. He shouldn’t look like he’s been doing this for ten years. Why does he have that much mana?

Ludger skimmed sideways, spray glittering around him, and looked back at her with an expression that was half boredom and half quiet smugness. Luna’s platform wobbled slightly as she tried to accelerate, and she hissed under her breath, forcing it stable again through sheer will.

She was learning fast. Ludger could tell.

Each minute her movements got cleaner, less panic, more control. Her turns sharpened. Her platform stopped trembling. She started using the wave faces properly, rising on the crest instead of fighting it.

And when she finally worked up the nerve to try a backflip, she did it, slow and careful, like she was rotating through thick air. She landed with a hard splash and a small stumble, but she didn’t fall. Her face flashed with a fierce, brief satisfaction.

Then Ludger casually carved up the next wave and did another effortless flip, landing like the ocean was an extension of his own footwork.

Luna’s eyes narrowed. Her eyebrows twitched again. She looked like she wanted to be proud of herself and furious at him at the same time.

After a moment, she muttered loud enough to carry over the water, “You’re… just what Viola says.”

Ludger didn’t deny it.

He just leaned forward, pushed mana into the sea, and shot ahead, skiing on water like he’d been born on it, because showing off was, apparently, a vital survival skill. And Luna, grinding her teeth, followed, learning faster with every wave, while feeling like a moron every time she compared herself to him.

Ludger arced around Luna in a wide curve, water rising beneath his boots like a ribbon. He didn’t even slow down, just drifted close enough that his wake slapped her platform and made her wobble.

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She steadied instantly, glare snapping toward him. He pointed at her with two fingers like a lazy instructor.

“You’ll get better,” Ludger said. “As long as you actually practice.”

Luna’s eyes narrowed. “I’m practicing.”

“You’re practicing now because you have to,” Ludger corrected, skimming backward for a second just to stay in her line of sight. “I mean later. When you’re not panicking inside a sea monster’s mouth.”

Her eyebrows twitched again.

Ludger continued, tone annoyingly reasonable. “You train assassin skills like they’re the only thing that matters. They’re not. Mobility matters. Control matters. Being able to move through any terrain matters.”

He made a small gesture with his hand and the water under him sharpened into a smooth, fast plane. He shot forward half a dozen meters, then coasted back beside her like the ocean owed him favors.

“Besides,” he added, eyes flicking toward the horizon, “we need to reach the port town soon.”

The coastline was still distant, a low smear of green and stone under the bright sky. But it was there, reachable, and Ludger’s mind had already moved past fun and into logistics.

“We’ve been away a week,” he said. “That’s enough time for rumors to spread about our disappearance.”

Luna snorted softly and corrected him without looking at his face.

“Your disappearance.”

Ludger’s platform wobbled for the first time, just a tiny hitch in the water under his boots, like his mood had tugged on the sea. He frowned.

Then he moved closer again, voice flat. “Did you forget that Viola jumped into the sea to save you?”

Luna’s jaw tightened. She looked away, toward the shore, toward anything that wasn’t Ludger’s eyes.

“Fine,” she said after a moment, the word coming out rougher than it needed to. “At least there was one person who would miss me if I vanished.”

Ludger didn’t tease her for it. He didn’t soften either.

He just said, calmly, “There’s another person who would miss you too.”

Luna’s gaze stayed fixed on the horizon, but her shoulders shifted, small tension, like she was bracing for a name that carried weight. She waited, silent, giving him space to finish the thought.

Seconds passed. Only the hiss of water moving under their feet and the distant cry of seabirds filled the gap. Luna glanced sideways, just once.

Ludger’s expression was unreadable, same stoic face, same practical eyes, like he’d spoken a fact and then decided it didn’t require elaboration.

Her brows twitched. She waited for the follow-up. Ludger simply angled his body toward the distant port and increased his speed, the ocean lifting obediently under him.

Luna stared at his back for a long moment, lips pressed tight, then she followed, still looking away, still quiet, and now thinking far harder than she wanted to.

Ludger skimmed ahead a few meters, then slowed just enough to drift beside Luna again. The water under his boots stayed stable, but his tone shifted, still flat, still Ludger, just… less evasive.

“Kaela would miss you too,” he said.

Luna’s head turned slightly, just enough to show she’d heard.

Ludger shrugged like it was obvious. “I have no idea what you two talk about so much,” he added. “Half the time it sounded like you were arguing about nothing.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

“But you enjoyed it. I could tell. The twins would miss you too, they would get bothered after only playing with Viola when they come to visit.”

Luna didn’t answer. Her platform hissed over the water, steady and controlled now, but the muscles in her jaw tightened like she was chewing on something she didn’t want to taste.

Ludger kept going anyway, because once he’d started, stopping would feel like cowardice.

“Also,” he said, “if you honestly think there aren’t many people who care about you in this world…”

He let the sentence hang for a beat, then finished with the bluntness of someone who had never learned how to be gentle.

“…then you should probably make some changes.”

Luna’s brows twitched again, this time sharper. “Changes.”

“Yeah,” Ludger said. “Like resigning.”

Her eyes flicked to him. “From what?”

“Your job as Viola’s bodyguard.”

Luna’s platform wavered for the first time, a small stumble in the water that she immediately corrected. The reaction wasn’t fear. It was surprise, like the idea had never been allowed to exist in her head as a real option.

Ludger didn’t let her talk him out of it.

“I’m certain Viola wouldn’t be mad,” he said. “She’d probably be happy about it if you found something for yourself. Something that actually makes you happy.”

Luna’s gaze slid away again, fixed hard on the distant smear of coastline as if staring at land could keep her face from showing anything.

“You don’t know what makes me happy,” she said quietly.

Ludger’s expression didn’t change, but his voice softened by a fraction—not warm, just… honest.

“Then find out,” he said.

He leaned forward, pushed mana into the sea, and their speed picked up. The waves split beneath them like they were cutting across glass.

“Because if all you do is stand behind someone else with a knife,” Ludger added, “you’ll wake up one day and realize you’ve spent your whole life being useful.”

He glanced at her again.

“And you’ll still feel alone.”

Luna stayed quiet, eyes on the horizon, riding the water beside him. But she didn’t argue. And that, coming from her, was louder than anything she could’ve said.

Luna let out a slow sigh, the kind that wasn’t just breath, it was weight leaving her chest in pieces. She glanced at Ludger’s profile as they skimmed over the waves. The way he held himself never really changed: shoulders loose, eyes sharp, posture built around problems he hadn’t even met yet. He talked like someone who’d already accepted that caring was a responsibility, not a choice.

He was raised like that, Luna thought. To worry.

Not the dramatic, emotional kind of worry either. The quiet kind that made you count supplies twice. The kind that made you check doors and routes and alliances before you slept. The kind that made “family” feel less like comfort and more like duty.

In that aspect… they were similar. She’d been raised with duty too. Not with warmth. Not with freedom. Stay sharp. Stay useful. Don’t hesitate. Don’t be a burden.

Only… Luna’s jaw tightened as the thought finished forming.

She felt like she couldn’t be further from the truth.

Ludger worried for his family because he had one, complicated and loud and real, people who would shout at him and feed him and pull him back when he went too far.