Kyle and Michael traveled back to Starkhold over the next couple of hours.
More words had been spoken at the start of the journey than at the end.
During their journey, they avoided traveling through the towns and cities.
After all, Kyle was carrying a mangled corpse. There would be too many questions.
As soon as they reached Starkhold's western gate, the guards immediately narrowed their eyes and approached Kyle.
"Kyle, what happened?" one of them asked.
"Got attacked by a Late Knight," Kyle said. "Barely anyone survived. Someone else is involved in the attack as well, but I will talk with my Chief first."
Usually, when something like this happened, the person immediately had to tell the nearest guard.
"Go ahead!" the other guard said. "I hope they will execute that other guy!"
Luckily, Kyle was very well known amongst the guards of the city.
Kyle walked through the city with the corpse, eliciting several shocked glances from the citizens.
"Falk already arrived," the Fighter on guard duty told Kyle with furrowed brows. "He seemed pretty angry."
Kyle nodded. "Can I take Michael inside with me? He has more information."
"Go ahead," the guard said.
"Thank you," Michael said from the back.
Kyle approached the Chief's office without hesitation and barged through the door.
The Chief didn't seem shocked when he saw Kyle walking in with a corpse.
A moment later, Kyle dropped the corpse on the ground and pointed at it. "This guy attacked our team. We suspect the commissioner sent him after us."
The Chief wordlessly walked forward and touched the corpse.
"How did you survive?" the Chief asked calmly.
"Two people died, and Michael helped," Kyle said, gesturing at the Sorcerer behind him.
The Chief threw a glance at Michael, who felt it difficult to breathe under the gaze.
"Tell me everything that has happened," the Chief said, walking to the window again.
Kyle reported everything, and Michael also told his side of the events.
"I'm going to put him on the kill list," the Chief said. "If he shows himself in our territory again, I will send someone to deal with him."
Kyle sighed in relief when he heard that.
"Thank you," Kyle said.
Then, the Chief glanced at Kyle for a moment.
"You seem rather calm," he commented.
Kyle shrugged. "What's the point of getting all sad and angry? I'm not strong enough to take revenge, and my comrades are already dead."
The Chief just nodded. "Many people need years of death to develop such a mindset."
"Thanks," Kyle said, "by the way, is it possible to accept Michael as a specialist?"
Michael had already talked with Kyle about this.
"We are still far away from the threshold," the Chief said.
"Thank you," Kyle said.
"Thank you, Chief," Michael said with a polite bow.
In order to be counted as a Fighter Guild, 90% of its members needed to be Fighters.
Not 100%.
Sometimes, some missions needed people from other classes, and many Fighter Guilds had a couple of these members for these missions.
They were called specialists, and they were essentially members of a Fighter Guild who were not Fighters.
"Bring him to Noah," Chief said.
"That was easy," Kyle commented.
"Elaborate," the Chief said emotionlessly.
"No test? No fights? No Momentum test?" Kyle asked.
"Do you believe he needs to undergo further evaluation?" the Chief asked.
"No," Kyle said.
"Then, bring him to Noah," the Chief added.
"Sure," Kyle said. "By the way, what about the corpse?"
"You can strip it of its valuables and send it to the guards. You are free to do with the valuables whatever you want."
"Cool," Kyle said before bending down and undressing the corpse.
After some minutes, he had collected all the valuables on the corpse, leaving it naked.
'That's probably like 30 Ether Stones or something like that,' Kyle thought.
For a moment, Kyle thought about keeping the valuables.
'Nah, that doesn't feel right. I should leave this for the family members of the deceased.'
Then, Kyle walked out with the corpse and went to the closest guard post.
He dumped the corpse in front of them, and the guards asked him about what had happened.
Kyle explained everything and went back to the Guild.
He entered the Guild shop and sold all the valuables to it.
Within the next week, a regular shipment with all the gathered loot would leave the Guild.
The shipment would travel to the Big Bazaar, where it would sell all the valuables.
When it came back, the sellers would receive their share.
"Please donate this to Bormine's and Tracy's loved ones," Kyle said.
The seller sighed. "Another two dead. Sure, I will deal with it."
"Thanks," Kyle said.
Eventually, Kyle found Noah and introduced Michael.
Noah took Michael with him to explain the Stark Brotherhood to him.
"Don't die yet," Noah told Kyle before leaving with Michael. "You're the last one of your batch."
"I'll do my best, " Kyle answered.
'Huh, I'm actually the last one,' he thought. 'Tracy is dead. Horatio fucked off. I killed Dylan. Yeah, only me left. Crazy.'
'Dangerous job.'
Eventually, Kyle entered the cafeteria, and he saw a bunch of people gathered around Falk, who was drinking a lot of ale.
Ale barely worked on Fighters anymore, but it still worked a bit.
'Yeah, I think I shouldn't make some grand and comedic entrance,' Kyle thought as he felt the heavy atmosphere.
As soon as he entered, a couple of Fighters walked over to check on Kyle.
"Are you alright?" one of them asked.
"It's fine," Kyle said. "The other asshole is on the kill list now, but well, you know how that usually goes."
Usually, people on the kill list never showed themselves again, and since the Guild didn't have the resources to send someone out to find and kill the person, they very often never faced any consequences.
"Falk really was right," the other Fighter said. "You're holding up remarkably well."
Kyle shrugged. "What's the point? What will feeling bad change?"
"Not much," the first Fighter spoke awkwardly. "It's just… most people don't recover this quickly."
"Move!"
The next moment, the two Fighters were roughly pushed to the side, and Kyle came face to face with a very serious Wyveria.
"You seem to be in a good mood," Kyle commented with a smile.
Wyveria just looked at Kyle with anger.
"Tell me what happened."
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