Next, Stan touched the corpse with his bare hands and dug into its chest.
He widened the gap in the chest and saw the broken Center.
Then, he grabbed some device that measured angles and checked the broken Center.
“Not Sparkly Bear,” he said.
Then, he looked at Nervon for a bit before looking at Kyle.
Finally, he focused on Kyle’s hammer and saw the blood on the end of its pick.
“Ah, seems like you got the last hit,” Stan said.
Nervon looked at Kyle in shock.
The superior also looked at Kyle with narrowed eyes.
Kyle shrugged. “He was not dead, and he was recovering. I’m not going to carry a guy that wanted to kill me to the town. What if he pulls out a knife and slits my throat or something?”
“I mean, I could’ve also just left him there.”
Nervon took a deep breath.
Nervon was an extremely experienced hunter, but he had never killed a human before.
At this moment, he felt bad for Kyle.
Killing a human couldn’t be easy.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” the superior ordered while Stan went back to inspecting the corpse.
Kyle did just that.
He basically told him everything exactly as it happened.
“Why were you shouting in the forest in the dark in the first place?” the superior asked after the first three sentences.
“Training,” Kyle said. “I can deal with most wildlife. Dealing with controlled danger is not as deadly as dealing with uncontrolled danger. If I learn how to deal with this kind of danger, I might survive a bad incident in the future.”
Kyle basically just repeated Theodor’s reasoning.
“That’s reckless and foolish!” Nervon shouted. “You are not a Warrior or Fighter. You’re a hunter!”
Kyle just rubbed the back of his head.
’I also didn’t want to do it, okay?’ he thought. ’It’s fucking Theodor that makes me do this shit!’
“But that’s what I did,” Kyle said.
Nervon snorted.
“Continue,” the superior said.
Then, Kyle told him about his conversation with the assailant.
“Baron? Are you sure he said Baron?” the superior asked with narrowed eyes.
“Definitely,” Kyle said. “He was also very angry when he realized that I didn’t know no Baron. Guess he thought I was one of his allies or something.”
Kyle continued narrating everything.
When he came to the part where he made the assailant stumble, the others became surprised.
“Why didn’t you just escape?” the superior asked.
“Because fuck him,” Kyle answered. “The guy was infuriating me with his constant arrows and running away. The guy hit me with like five arrows or so. I was quite angry.”
“Also, what if he escapes? He knew what I looked like, while I didn’t know what he looked like. That guy could have stalked me in the city and killed me and anyone I’m close to.”
“I’m not about to risk Samson and his family.”
Nervon grimaced.
This was not a good situation.
It was just sad that Kyle had to kill someone to get out of it.
“Continue,” the superior said.
Then, Kyle talked about his last conversation with the assailant.
“Why did you talk to him?” the superior asked.
“I wanted to know which asshole keeps putting Tar Golems into our territory, and I was pretty sure that this guy was related to it. Why else would an Adept archer be inside our forest in the middle of the night?”
As Kyle told them about the conversation, the superior narrowed his eyes.
“Finally,” Kyle continued, “I just rammed my hammer into his Center and carried him back to town.”
“Why did you choose this particular method to end his life?” the superior asked.
“Well, I usually just crush heads with my hammer, but you probably need his face to identify him. If he became unidentifiable, I might get into trouble,” Kyle said.
The superior looked at Kyle for a while. “You were quite methodical with everything. Is there something you didn’t tell me?”
“Nope,” Kyle answered.
Silence.
Then, the superior asked several questions about the timeline of events, and Kyle just gave quick and direct answers.
He also had to correct the superior a couple of times.
“I’m done with my examination,” Stan said, putting the corpse into one of the cold steel cases near the wall.
“What’s the conclusion?” the superior asked.
“Everything checks out with his story,” Stan answered. “His cape is missing. He has a sprained ankle. There are a lot of wood splinters stuck in his clothing on his back. There are small irritations on the inside of his right index and middle fingers, suggesting he fired several arrows.”
Stan added a couple more details, and Kyle was quite surprised at how much Stan had found out just by looking at a corpse.
Kyle felt relieved that he didn’t lie.
The superior nodded and turned to Nervon. “You may leave. I will keep your friend here for the day. If everything works out, he will be released by the end of the day.”
Nervon sighed in relief, said his goodbyes, patted Kyle on the shoulders, and left.
Then, the superior led Kyle into an interrogation room and told him to wait.
Kyle just looked around in boredom for about 30 minutes.
Finally, the doors opened, and two people entered.
One was the superior from earlier, while the other person was an averagely sized, blonde man.
He wore armor, but his armor was a deep silver with two wings inscribed on it.
“My name is Roland Holstein, and I’m the captain of the guard,” the man in the luxurious armor said.
’Oh shit,’ Kyle thought. ’The actual captain. He’s the leader of all the military in the town. I heard of him!”
“Tell me what happened,” Roland asked while the superior left the room again.
Kyle nodded and recounted everything again.
When Kyle was done, Roland nodded again.
“Now, tell me about this Tar Golem incident,” he said.
Kyle did just that.
The Tar Golems all appeared near the Great Anaconda’s territory, and the hunters believed that someone was after the Great Anaconda’s Life Water.
“Thank you for your valuable information. It has helped a lot,” Roland said. “We will investigate further.”
“You will not be punished for killing the assassin. Fights happen, and you were supposed to be there while he wasn’t. He was the intruder while you were the occupant. You were in your full right to end his life. Especially after he tried to kill you.”
“You may go to the local infirmary and get your injuries checked. Tell them that I told you that it’s on the house.”
Kyle nodded and sighed in relief. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you,” Roland said with an affirming smile. “You helped us uncover something important.”
“With your statement, the evidence, and the corpse, we can finally advance in the investigation into the Tar Golems.”
“Your name is Kyle, right? No family name?”
“Just Kyle,” he answered.
“Well then, Kyle. You did well today. Get some rest.”
Finally, Roland stood up and led Kyle out of the door.
