They didn’t speak of what he’d done. Hirrus did his due diligence and buried the second body for the day. Adventurer corpses never lasted as long as villager corpses (and he didn’t know why), but when the body didn’t immediately vanish he knew he couldn’t just leave it there for someone to find.

He tried to not feel guilt for murdering the adventurer, but Dahlia’s silence on the matter made his heart heavy.

It made little sense, regardless. The adventurer shouldn’t have died from one hit. While he had a statistical mismatch in his ability scores, he was still only level one. He shouldn’t have been capable of the amount of damage he put out. If stats were more important than level, a thing he’d always been taught the opposite of, then what would happen when he was level five?

Twenty?

Fifty?

Hirrus had no way of knowing. And so he buried his shame and confusion with the adventurer’s corpse and set his sights on their destination.

There was nothing left for them in Yenon. A burned out husk of a town, it held no answers and no satisfaction. Hirrus set their course across the countryside. Inoha was far away along the Hari Path - the trade route that ran the length of the Kingdom of Hari - but the well-maintained road meant that the trip was safe and easy. They walked at first, but it was slow and required a lot of stops for rest.

When they arrived in Sheta after the first third of the trip, Hirrus was able to approach the citadel there and requisition a cart to transport a “vulnerable prisoner” to her destination. No one questioned why his prisoner was unbound, and they supplied him with a cart for no charge.

“Are you comfortable?” Hirrus asked as she settled herself in the back of the cart. It was a smaller vehicle, and he had to walk alongside it, leading the mule rather than riding in the cart himself.

“It’s fine.” Dahlia looked across the horizon, back where they had come. “I really should be back in Yenon. It’s where I belong.”

He brushed off the complaint. It was her decision tree talking, insisting that she couldn’t leave Yenon. His concern was that she wasn’t in discomfort or pain. At least, any more than usual, with how far along she was in her pregnancy.

“Well?” Dahlia asked after she stopped adjusting how she rested. “Are we going or not?”

He tried not to be amused by the contradiction of Dahlia’s behavior. She was struggling with her decision tree after a traumatic experience. It would be wrong to make light of it. He knew firsthand how oppressive the decision tree could be.

Hirrus clicked his tongue at the mule and started to lead the cart along the road to Inoha.

He had his own internal conflict to work through as well. But where hers was full of duty to a system that cared little for her safety or wellbeing, Hirrus’ was more... visceral. He spent most of the trip pointedly not thinking about how good it felt to smash that adventurer down back in Yenon. The violence had been a moment of vicious satisfaction, a welcome break from the grief at his core after losing Julissa.

He told himself that the trip to Inoha, and his pursuit of Last of the Strong, was out of a desire for justice, rather than revenge. And beneath that, he told himself privately that the shameful reason he was trying to lie to himself about was indeed revenge, rather than another surge of that violent satisfaction.

It was a convenient lie.

With the mule’s help, they made their way to Inoha in record time, compared to the first third of their trip. Inoha was the capital of the kingdom of Hari, home to the royalty and nobility that ruled the country. As such, it was a large and opulent city. There were certainly unseemly elements within the city’s walls, but the presence of the nobility meant that the city itself had to present a clean appearance for the sake of their delicate sensibilities.

Dahlia became visibly tense as Inoha came into view on the road ahead. Hirrus pulled up short as soon as he heard her reaction to the sight.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I know this is uncomfortable for you, but I have no choice.”

When he looked back, her lips were pressed into a thin line. It was the most discomfort he’d visibly seen on her face since her husband died.

“This city is the only clue I have,” he continued. “The people responsible for what happened to Yenon are here.”

“I know. It’s just…”

“Memories.” Hirrus nodded, as if the word explained all. “If I ever return to Yenon, I fear facing the same.”

“But it must be done. If they operate out of Inoh-” She coughed on the name of the town. “If they operate out of this city, this is where you will need to be, if you’re seeking them. What do you know of the adventurer’s guilds?”

“Enough,” Hirrus said, firmly. He scoffed and shook his head. “No. Not enough. I know the basics from encountering adventurers often as a guard, but I have only a passing knowledge of anything beyond that.”

“Groups of adventurers band together in order to take on larger challenges than they can face alone. While those bands are often temporary, those who find they work well together can form an organization - a guild - so that they can more easily find each other when such challenges arise.”

Hirrus looked towards the gleaming city just up the road. “Right. I know that much, at least.”

“A guild has the ability to pool their resources and establish a base of operations,” Dahlia said, slowly working her way through the words. She was finally moving towards information Hirrus didn’t know. He could tell from her furrowed brow that she was recalling information learned long ago, that she hadn’t needed to call up in years. Either that, or she was fighting her decision tree to be able to convey this to him. “They can build strongholds in the wilds - fortresses, castles, or even whole towns of their own - but the most frequent base is a plush manor set safely within a city’s established walls. My family-” she grimaced at the word so hard she interrupted herself.

“It’s alright,” Hirrus said. “You don’t need to push.”

“Thank you.” Dahlia took a moment to compose herself. “Because buying land, building a manor, and maintaining the political clout to hold it within a city is so expensive, guild homes are heavy on security, and often secrecy. It may be a challenge to even find these people, let alone breach their defenses.”

“Hm.” Hirrus found himself grimacing.

This was going to be complicated. Even when he did find a way into the Last of the Strong’s base, he was just one man. While a guard was more than a match for any one adventurer, a group of them all together would have little trouble overcoming him.

He needed a plan. Justice would have to be patient and methodical, if it was to happen at all.

After Dahlia seemed recovered from the initial shock of facing her former hometown, Hirrus clicked his tongue at the mule and they resumed their trip into the sprawling city.

Despite the challenges before him, the most pressing matter was Dahlia’s protection. She needed to be kept safe until a longer term solution could be found. Eventually, the kingdom would respond to the attack on Yenon. They would rebuild, and then Dahlia could return home. The Kingdom of Hari took great pains to maintain its infrastructure, and Yenon was an important stop for trade caravans along the Hari Path.

What the Kingdom didn’t take great pains with was justice, particularly against adventurers. Even his decision tree as a guard explicitly outlined more lax handling when it came to them. With only rumors, and no eyewitness accounts connecting them, the only way any punishment would be meted out would be by someone untethered from a decision tree that would issue only a slap on the wrist for even the most terrible of transgressions.

But he couldn’t do even that if he had to keep Dahlia close at hand. He needed a safe and comfortable place for her. Since he’d arrested her, he could have put her in the local prison, but there wasn’t a cell in the world that was a fit place for a woman as far along in pregnancy as she was. It was within his ability to confine her elsewhere, though, and to that end, he approached the nearest guard when they reached the city gate.

“Hail,” the guard said, slapping out a brief salute that Hirrus returned. “What seems to be the trouble?”

“No trouble,” Hirrus said. He paused as the guard glanced past Hirrus and at Dahlia, sitting in the small cart behind him. “Or, rather, no trouble for you.”

The guard gave Hirrus an unconvinced look. Hirrus knew, from his own experiences, that the guard could tell that Dahlia had been arrested. He also knew from familiarity with his own decision tree that the guard wouldn’t be permitted to press the issue as much as he might want to.

“I need to get to an inn,” Hirrus said. “Where is one located in the city? Preferably close.”

The guard grumbled slightly, looking back and forth between Hirrus and Dahlia. Hirrus himself had a brief moment of vertigo, having been on the opposite side of the interaction many times, usually at the hands of adventurers who thought his mere existence was beneath them.

“The Lethal Frog is just around the corner to the south, in the Temple Village,” the guard said at last, pointing in that direction. “But that’s just an inn alone. If you need a place with an attached tavern for food and drink, the Violet Plate Tavern is in the Ford Village to the north about a dozen blocks, with cheap rooms upstairs.”

“Thank you,” Hirrus said, “and sorry to bother you. I know these are strange times.”

“And getting stranger,” the guard grumbled, waving Hirrus away.

Hirrus headed north towards the Violet Plate Tavern. As much as a simple inn would have been a quieter, more low-profile location, Dahlia still needed to be provided for. Without an attached tavern, she might be in real danger if Hirrus' investigations led to an untimely demise before she could be sent safely back to Yenon.

Despite his concerns, the Violet Plate Tavern was a quiet venue. The Ford Village was a small neighborhood between the city’s outer and inner walls that appeared to be housing for the city’s middle class of merchants and other skilled workers. The tavern itself was a relatively small building with few rooms for rent, which meant the price was higher than he expected. He secured a room just the same and took Dahlia up.

“You will be confined here,” he said, exerting his official capacity as a guard. “Until such time as I deem otherwise.”

Dahlia grumbled quietly, but he could see relief in her eyes as she sat down on the side of one of the beds. As soon as he left the room, she would technically be free to attempt escape. But he believed she was smart enough not to use that as an excuse to run back to Yenon by herself.

The accommodations were simple, but more than adequate for their needs. It was an L-shaped room with a bed at either end, which would offer some amount of propriety for them to share the room at night. At the middle of the room was a small table with four chairs, and would allow them to take their meals up here rather than the common room downstairs.

Dahlia was watching as he surveyed the room, and from her expression, she clearly wanted him to say something. He felt a stab of regret as his decision tree had no input to help him guide the conversation. All it kept telling him was that his dishes were still on the floor back in Yenon.

“I’m sorry,” Hirrus said.

It was the first thing that came to mind.

“For what?” she asked. “You’re only doing your job.”

He found himself staring down at his hands. Technically, he was protecting all of the people of Yenon. It was only that Dahlia was all that remained. All their friends and neighbors had been killed.

His fellow guards. The baker. The grocer. Their families. Their children.

And Julissa.

All dead.

“Last of the Strong,” he said at last. “They did this.”

Dahlia nodded.

“They think they’ve already gotten away with it, too.”

She nodded again.

“They’re here somewhere.” He turned back to the door. “I’ll find them.”