Instinct told him to engage. To destroy this arrogant adventurer and everything she held dear.

There was a fire burning inside his chest, fueled by the memories of Julissa’s cooling corpse in his arms. By the memory of his town being leveled by flame.

But he hesitated.

There was a chance - however small - that Juri was actually strong enough to present a challenge to him in a fight, even one-on-one. It was possible that his efforts would be better spent trying to question her than fight her.

But if he wasn’t going to fight her, what was he going to do? Let everyone in Last of the Strong get away with a warning?

No.

He was here for justice. Revenge.

Juri was the first step in what would likely be a long line of high-level adventurers in his path. If she was strong enough to overcome him in combat alone, then there was no way he was going to accomplish his goal to have revenge against any other ranking members.

So before he engaged - win or lose - he had to know. To see if there was some admittance of guilt. Of regret.

Something.

Hirrus stood still, axe in hand still dripping with the blood of her bodyguards. “Do you know what happened to Yenon?”

“Of course I do,” Juri said with a curious smirk. “What of it?”

“I am Hirrus Callabryn, guard of Yenon.” He drew his axe and leveled it at Juri. “I am here on behalf of those who fell victim to your antics there. Last of the Strong will be made to answer for their crimes.”

Juri looked bored. “You’re the strangest sidequest anyone’s ever seen.” She waved her free hand through the air, dismissing his words. “Nobody knows what you are. I don’t expect I can get a proper explanation out of you, though. I can deal with you now and wait for the dataminers to get a more thorough explanation up on the wiki.”

“I’m not here to give you a quest. I’m here for justice.”

Juri narrowed her eyes at him again. “I suppose you’re going to make me get up, then,” she said. “I did warn you that you would regret that, right?”

“I’ve been offering your underlings the chance to sell out your position in exchange for safety.” Hirrus smiled thinly. “I’d offer you the same, but it would be a lie.”

Juri let out another sigh, this time with a childish exasperation marring her sculpted features. She heaved herself to her feet.

Despite the casual gesture, the grip she had on her blade didn’t waver or shake.

Hirrus prepared to charge across the room at her, but didn’t want to immediately vacate the doorway. If she intended to flee, he needed-

There was a whoosh and a blur.

Juri crossed the room in the blink of an eye, employing some manner of Arcana. If Hirrus hadn’t just seen the attack speed boost Arcana in the previous group of adventurers, he might not have even realized how she’d done it.

He didn’t have time to react before her free hand flashed. A corona of purple energy shaped like a four-petaled flower surrounded her hand, and she slapped Hirrus' chest with it.

A debuff entered Hirrus' awareness. The touch hadn’t dealt any immediate damage, but he gained a poison debuff from whatever Arcana she’d used on him.

His hit points started ticking down from the poison, at a rate that would have been alarming, if not for the size of his health pool.

Juri didn’t allow him to rest, however. Her sword was moving, and he just barely managed to slip to the left of a strike.

The blade carved into the broken doorframe behind him.

Before he could even retaliate, she danced away, taking up a defensive stance.

She obviously expected him to come back at her swinging, and he didn't intend to disappoint her. Lunging at her with his axe, he feigned low and swung high. Shockingly, she believed the feint and tried to parry to protect her midsection instead of her shoulder. His axe smashed against the dark grey metal there, leaving a dent in her pauldron, along with twenty-four hundred and ninety-five damage.

Juri hissed in pain and darted back away from him, her lips peeled back in a snarl.

Not wanting to give up any pressure he could present against the adventurer, Hirrus charged her again. He swept his axe in low, this time not feinting. She responded appropriately this time, her weapon dropping to meet his and turn the blade aside. Juri tried to use the momentum to counterattack, but Hirrus kept his axe in contact with the sword. He used the point of contact to push the blade away from its path to strike at his gut, letting it pass harmlessly in front of him.

With a snarl, Juri stepped back, swiping at him again to discourage him from lunging at her again. He started to move towards her despite that, but she slipped aside quickly, leveling her weapon at him. She circled around to his left, keeping out of reach.

“You’ve made a critical misjudgment,” Juri said, glowering at him over her sword.

“I don’t see that it was any worse than yours.” Hirrus tracked her, ready to trade blows again. As soon as she gave him an opening.

Juri smiled, slow and easy. “No, see, it’s true that you hit like a dungeon boss. But unlike the unwashed masses who you’ve encountered before me, I’m in raid gear.” She grinned, and it was an ugly thing that split her face in two. “I solo mobs like you twice a week for fun.”

Hirrus was unmoved. “You’re the one who thought wiping out an entire town would go unpunished.”

“Nobody cares about Yenon,” Juri said with a cackle. “It’s a backwater nothing halfway between here and nowhere.”

It was obvious she was trying to goad him. To make him act impulsively.

But had she known Yenon, she wouldn’t have tried.

Hirrus was a guard of Yenon. A man with integrity. Who had trained to be stoic in all things.

Who was free of his decision tree, yet heard its song in the back of his mind.

It reminded him, ever so gently, that he had new abilities.

Hirrus used an Arcana. Gaining the status effect from Iron Typhoon was a rush that filled his whole body. It was an almost painful sensation that ripped through every limb.

He lunged at Juri before she could process the difference in his movements.

His axe felt like it had been replaced with a handful of clouds. It flicked through the air as if he was swinging an empty fist. Juri couldn’t even start moving before the axe crashed into her ribs for twenty-five hundred and two damage. He didn’t do anything special, but a double strike occurred, and Juri was sent reeling by a sudden second hit, adding half as much damage again to his spent energy.

The speed offered by Iron Typhoon meant that his weapon came around again before Juri could swing hers a single time.

She did have time to activate her dash Arcana again, though.

Juri flicked away from him with blinding speed. His axe met nothing but air, even though it seemed to physically pass through her form. She didn’t just dart straight away from him, though. Instead she circled around behind him, and her sword carved into him from behind, dealing forty-three hundred damage to him.

Whirling, Hirrus caught her on the upper arm of her right side with his axe, hitting her for a seemingly paltry twenty-five hundred and nineteen damage in return. Another double strike didn’t happen, but the attack speed meant his axe blurred around her defenses and carved into her clavicle, leaving a gash in the decorative purple velvet, and a huge scrape up the side of her gorget. She turned her head before the blade could carve up into her face.

Juri brought her sword up to bear against him again, and Hirrus was happy to allow her to strike him in exchange for another blow against her. Her sword slashed a gash in the side of his face, from just below his cheekbone all the way up across his ear. There was a sense of wet heat as the blood ran down from the wound, but despite the grisly wound, the strike only actually dealt four thousand eight hundred and thirty-six damage.

Even if it was more damage than he would deal back in return, his large health pool meant he could afford the expense.

His axe came down on her gorget again, and the metal cracked under the blow. Twenty-four hundred and forty-two damage sent her stumbling away. Juri clutched at the cracked armor. There was a clank as a piece of the gorget fell away and hit the floor, and when she turned back to face him her porcelain-white neck was exposed.

Hirrus could sense how close she was to death. However, despite her low health total and vulnerable jugular, there was no fear in her eyes.

Only hate.

Juri rode that white-hot fury like a stampeding mount. She charged, turning to the side to present a smaller target to him. It was a duelist’s stance, and one his axe was ill-suited to a fight against.

Hirrus found himself wishing he’d kept the scimitar he’d discarded earlier.

Despite the poor relative reach of his weapon to hers, however, he had more than enough skill with it to use it to parry the web of steel Juri was threatening him with. The tip of the blade slipped through his defenses only once, and he suffered forty-two hundred and thirty-three damage for it.

The Iron Typhoon effect faded from Hirrus, and he feared for a moment that control of the fight was slipping away from him. Juri had approached him with a cavalier attitude at first, but now she was fighting smarter. Approaching him with this degree of seriousness now meant she might have further tricks up her sleeves that she had deemed him beneath.

What if she was actually a match for him?

Hirrus cast that thought aside. He wasn’t just a man, was he? No, he was the embodiment of Yenon. He was justice given form.

He would not be denied by a single adventurer.

He would not be stopped on the first step.

Hirrus opened his mouth and blasted Juri with fire.

Four thousand nine hundred and eighty-seven damage washed over her. She screamed and stumbled back. Hirrus charged forward as soon as the Peppered Breath Arcana had run its course, and his axe caught her forearm. There was a vicious crunch, alongside another two thousand four hundred and ninety-one damage and her sword clattered across the room.

Like that, it was over.

Her corpse landed with the clattering crash of her armor hitting the floor.

For a moment, the body just smoldered slightly.

“Hm,” Hirrus said, feeling a strong sensation of satisfaction. It felt good to bring her to justice for her part of the atrocity the guild brought down on his home.

But that’s all it was. A moment of bliss.

Just as quickly, it was gone.

Now that she was on the floor, battered, burned, and broken, he realized he didn’t know where to continue his hunt. Juri had told him nothing, and now she never would. He’d finally found a place to grip onto Last of the Strong, and he’d ripped out his own handhold by the roots.

Of course, Juri probably would have lied to him. Her underlings had lied to protect her as easily as breathing; it would have been foolish to assume she wouldn’t do the same for her commanders. Not to mention he had nothing to bargain with her for. Even if she’d given him names and addresses for every single member of the guild, he wouldn’t have been able to stomach letting her live.

Juri hadn’t been a step on his path to revenge, she was a name on his list.

And now that name was crossed out.

Hirrus had other names he needed to cross out.

But first he had to find them.

He needed to find a real source of information.

And with armor that Juri herself had called “raid gear”, it didn’t seem impossible that he could violently coerce a third party into telling him what he needed to know.