“You haven't told me what we're hunting.” Tyr frowned, clenching his gauntlets as they left the city of Leygein behind and stepped into the highlands. Most of the republic was mountainous, with hard rocky soil and sparse population centers separated by many leagues. No scattering of villages, a wild and untamed land of mountains and meadows.

“In Lyra, things are... A bit different. See, we're a new nation, comparatively, a young one, and there are many threats. War and battle can be found here, somewhere, at any given time. In your nation and those like it, those old enough to have scoured most of their threats away over the centuries, it's uncommon to see an unguarded dungeon or monsters free to roam, yes?”

Tyr nodded, Daito wasn't wrong. The Harani countryside had been peaceful for ages, and only one single war had occurred in living memory. Not a very long or drawn out one, either, Rorik had said there were only eighty casualties or so on the Harani side. Which was a lot, surely, but not when you considered what thoughts 'war' usually evoked. As for monsters, what they called a 'class-3' in Amistad was about as powerful as monsters got. A cave bear or your average troll, maybe an awakened beast, nothing like a class-4 scorpicore. Something Tyr was beyond confident in handling if he ever ran into one. If one looked deep enough, you might find something stronger, but they weren't very often of much threat to anyone.

Magical beasts existed, very strong ones, and as intelligent species they avoided man as per the old agreements. Anything else was smart enough to do the same, not making their presence obvious and keeping to the periphery. Mankind were the apex predators on the continent, any sentient creature would run as far and fast as they could from even a simple farmer.

More would come. They always did, the goblins knew that and so did Nala's children, according to her. Attacking a man anywhere was akin to seeing rotten meat and taking your chances in eating it.

“Violence is much more common here.” Daito continued. “States can even declare war on each other legally if approved by the senate. Not total war, you understand, it's not like they're raiding and reaving the countryside, or killing innocents and robbing them of wealth. Moral war, I suppose, if such a thing exists. Because its a dangerous land. walk in the wrong direction and you'll end up in he territory of an orc clan, or Anu reservations, and then you've got a real problem.”

“That doesn't really answer my question...” Tyr mused. He'd asked what they were hunting and gotten another one of the worlds worst info-dumps. What cruel god was writing this shit?

“No, I suppose it doesn't. We're on patrol, billable hours to the jarl. As with all things in the republic...” Daito rubbed his thumb and index finger together suggestively. “All about the money, but it's necessary.”

“Jarl? That's an Oresundian rank...”

“An earl... A count in your consideration, maybe? We have states here, not counties. More akin to vice-provinces where each city has their own elected officials. You could call them a mayor, if it's a more familiar term. The local ruler and head of the state, but they aren't the senator, or senators in the plural based on population. The senator comes from the people, but the jarl's of major cities are appointed by the senate. No relations by blood or marriage, for example, to prevent nepotism. Typically, as in Leygein, there is a separate election held for local legislators, including the jarl, though it is a decision made in the senate rather than by the people.”

“Is he more powerful than a senator?”

“Not always, but sometimes. Jandvik of Aysgarth, for example, is certainly more powerful than most individual senators. But Senator Gillenos of Leygein is within the same scope of influence, or lesser, I have not had the pleasure personally but he has a reputation for being a bit of a joke. They are given a voice in a proxy house that serves as the second senate, alongside the wardens of regions and a few other people... Like judges and elected guild collective representatives, a handful of priests.”

“Sound... Unnecessarily complicated.”

“Indeed. I like this democracy, but there is a great deal of bureaucracy and it's hard to get acquainted with the complexity of it. But, ultimately, it's all for the people – so I don't see a reason to complain. See, the thing about bureaucracy is that all of these people feel so important, right? They stay so busy, closely monitored by their peers, lacking the protection a great house in the empires might give them. Because of that, they behave themselves, for the most part.” Daito concluded, a source of great knowledge in this strange land. Even being so close to Haran, it was so different, one of the nearby nations that Haran had never conquered.

Now, Tyr knew why. The true reason, perhaps. Haran had once been a communal democracy, sort of. A confederacy of tribal leaders until one primus over all others – his great great grandfather – had forged the tribes into one nation and expanded their borders tenfold to become a monarchy, and later a true empire. Every generation, they would expand and conquer their neighbors, typically via one-on-one combat between primus'. Of which, there had been many more in that era, and this process had served dual purpose in spreading mankind across the continent.

People had left the country because of that, forging ones of their own. Oresund, Trafalgar, and the Republic were examples. Hence, they all came from the same relative bloodlines – unlike Varia which had always existed empire longer than any other. “The jarl pays us to spend a certain amount of hours patrolling the outer region and speaking with the citizens that live beyond the city limits. We learn things. If guilds are misbehaving, rumors of monsters, completing little tasks for them which are rated and paid out as bonuses. Sometimes I don't do much of anything at all, but it's nice to get outside the city and breathe the fresh air.”

“Mmm.” Tyr could understand that. This land was colder than Haran, but the winters were milder near the coast courtesy of the warmer currents of the sea. Summer had been fair and not so hot and sticky as it was in the central empire around Riverwood. Here, it smelled nice, the highlands were full of meadows, but the forests on the eastern end of the republic were barely forests at all. Dense clusters of trees all knotted up with barbed nettles and equally thick undergrowth, making passing through them a difficult task to say the least.

Even the cloying stench of cattle manure courtesy of the nearby pastures smelled good compared to the scent of the city. Leygein had been fairly clean, all told, but it was a place where humans lived. He could smell things that others could not, their deeds and sins if he was to be dramatic. That they were alive at all was a smell, and he didn't like it so much. Common, mundane life had a scent to it, mixed in with all their various wants and needs. Too much vice on the wind, or something like that.

Again, the republic existed as a series of states, and inside of those states were a series of dense population centers. The countryside was nowhere near as populated, villages and hamlets were rare. Only walled towns could survive in the inland republic for any length of time. In Haran, a village was typically no more than a days ride away from another. Here, farmhouses and the like were isolated, and it could be days on end until one reached a real collection of residences. The further inland one went, the sparser it got, but Daito and Tyr would never be more than two or three hours from the city. The maximum distance they'd be required to patrol.

Clan holdings existed, usually extended families 40-50 people strong that could protect themselves via whatever means. Operating mostly independently, they didn't pay taxes but were still protected by the guilds considering that they were essentially border outposts. Useful contributions to the wider republic in lieu of levies, and of course they were bound to any taxes of sale if not those of owning land.

“It's boring.” Tyr mused absentmindedly.

“It's nothing more than what it is. Boredom. Peace. Contentment. What else could you ask for? It's a job, and it pays well. The republic is incredibly wealthy, they can afford it, and thanks to that – the Hunter's exist. We were the first, now we're the last. Without this, we would've been replaced by the other guilds long ago.”

“Why?”

“Why? Well, the why behind it is a good question. I don't know, everyone in the republic seeks an identity, but we don't really have one. Unless not having a specific identity is an identity, but that's a question for the philosophers. We're not as attractive as we once were to the young men and women, maybe it's a branding issue. It's just a job, back in the days when the state wasn't so... Unitary, full of nationalism, whatever – fights were more common and our services in high demand. Other guilds didn't want to do it, so we did, earning a pretty foul reputation, truth be told. Not that it ever bothered me.” Daito pulled out a stick of blue chalk that glowed with a pale internal light. Tyr stared at it for a moment, wondering if it was some shaved mana crystal or not – only to have his wildest expectations proven wrong. The other man began to suck on the thing, emitting a lazy trail of blue smoke.

“Is that... Dreamweed?” Tyr asked. He'd heard of dreamleaf being smoked in rolled equivalents of a cigarette, but not like this, there was no paper to it or a filter of an kind

Daito chuckled, holding the cylinder between his thumb and index finger and exhaling a puff of aquamarine smoke. “It's ground frostflower root with mint oil for taste, condensed via alchemy to take this form. Want one?” He pulled a neat paper pack of them out of his pocket and offered it to Tyr. There were few reasons to keep anything outside of a dimensional ring. The fact that he carried them in his pocket must mean that the plants were still alive. Fairly irrelevant though, it wasn't as if anyone cared about the mechanics behind all of that...

“What does it do?” Tyr asked, plucking the offered cylinder away from Daito and taking it into his hands. It pulsed with a deep but calm mana, unlike the leaf. He'd been itching for the latter for hours, feeling its addictive properties clawing at his mind and regretting ever having participating in smoking it. “Is it dangerous?”

“Dangerous?” Daito chuckled. “Is dreamleaf dangerous? All substances are no more than what you make of them. It's not poison, it's a mild stimulant. It's relaxing and it'll take the edge off your nerves without the foul effects of tarleaf. I figure you haven't been on a contract for a while so you might be afraid, or perhaps your junkie hands are all clenched up like that looking for a fix. This stuff isn't nearly as bad, but it is addictive to some.”

“I'm not afraid.” Tyr replied with pursed lips, taking the frostflower cigarette into his mouth and pulling on it. Daito had been right, it filled his lungs with mana the same way dreamleaf did, a cool sensation was added onto it, giving it a much more pleasant flavor. But it burned slower and more naturally in the body, like a filtered and distilled version of the leaf. It took the edge off the withdrawals he knew would come within the next few days and relaxed his knotted muscles.

“Not afraid? No need to play tough with me, big man. Every man feels fear. It's part of who we are and it keeps us going. If you don't feel a healthy dose of fear or trepidation, it's because something is wrong with you.”

“I rarely ever feel it.” Tyr sighed. “I can't die. They call me the 'one eyed prince' for that reason, and the association rated me so highly because I took so many jobs alone, most of which I had no business completing. Adventurers usually roam in parties, but I was always on my own. Because I am... Not immortal, per se, but... Here, look.”

Daito squinted, brows raised at the madman beside him. The latter had plucked a mithril knife from his belt without concern and cut one of the fingers free from his hand. His face remained placid, betraying no feeling of pain after doing such a thing. “Er... That's nice and all, but--” Daito paused. Before his very eyes, the finger held near the knuckle by Tyr was rapidly reattaching to the hand. After a few seconds displaying full faculties with no loss in dexterity.

“Well, well... And here I thought that was just a rumor. What kind of power is that? A spell?”

Tyr shrugged. In truth, he had no idea. It wasn't Thanatos, not after the first time – it was something else, he just could never figure out what it was. “I don't know. It just happens when I get hurt. Otherwise, I'm about the standard of an unremarkable mage, two or three times as strong as a man my size. Nothing special, I guess, but it helps.”

“Nothing special...” Daito clucked his tongue. “You've had a strange upbringing, kid. You can do that with your arms, legs... Other parts?”

“Yes. My body has been near destroyed multiple times before and I've not experienced anything that prevented me from regenerating. Even when... Well – I was destroyed by my 'father', it's hard to describe what happened though.”

Daito knew who he was, so there was no point in hiding that fact in particular. If Daito knew of Tyr's background, and the fact that he was a bastard, it stood to reason. He still doubted Jartor's word that he was his blood father, such a thing was impossible. The child in Charlotte's arms had been a living sun of spira. Definitely something beyond him, even at such a young age, and primus' only ever had the one, none had ever had more than that.

Tyr continued with a downcast look. “I even came back from being destroyed. I've come back from the unbreakable vow, as well, nothing can seem to kill me. For a moment, I was hoping to find something that could. You know, end me forever. I was in a bad place, I guess, I'm not sure what came over me and I really treated a good friend of mine poorly.”

Daito shook his head. Tyr was thick with the stench of self loathing and he well knew that the boy had a 24/7 pity party dancing in his head. It sickened him. Not because he looked down on the child, but because people that young shouldn't possess that level of raw bitterness. “I won't tell you that what you did is wrong. Only that...” Daito snorted. Not in amusement, but in the ridiculousness of having ever said such things to another individual, he was not a people person. Daito had few friends, mostly colleagues and onetime companions. He hated complex relationships, but what Tyr was going through was very real. Something he had felt himself many years ago and could relate to. Hopelessness, maybe. “If you trust me, and behave in a better way, I will try my best to see that your inner self is fixed.”

“...Fixed?”

“Yes. I have no idea what you've done and seen beyond that which is available by record of the various guild masters, but it must've been something bad. It's left you broken. I will try to fix it, but only if you let me in, and commit yourself to success among our organization for as long as you're here.”

“I don't know what you're doing but if it's trying to hug me, I'll cut you open and find how much coins are in that purse of yours.” Tyr warned the older man off, noting the look of disappointment on his face as he'd leaned in for what appeared to be an embrace...