The next morning saw the four adventurers back on the road again. They had carefully dried their clothes and boots by the fire, which was a huge relief to Edwin even though it had left his cloak smelling like smoke. The dark clouds had been replaced by a blue sky, and while the path was still wet and dotted with puddles, the sun seemed determined to boil away even the last remnants of yesterday’s downpour.

They walked in silence, as they usually did, each of them lost in their own thoughts but keeping one eye on the surroundings. The wanderer who didn’t pay attention to his surroundings was the one who didn’t reach his destination, especially this close to the Clawed Woods. Edwin’s mind wandered back to the fight against the beetle. The thought of its gigantic, insectoid face still gave him the chills, but the memory of it cracking under his strikes was even worse. It had felt satisfying in the moment, but now all he remembered was the sound of chitin giving way to steel and the smell of the blood that had coated him afterwards. Walter had known what being an adventurer meant, of course, but the few times he’d had to kill, he’d done so with magic from afar. Delivering death with his own hands, feeling the life leave the body, was quite different than he had imagined. Becoming an adventurer hadn’t been a mistake, of course, and Edwin didn’t consider stopping. But the idea of protecting Harvand’s citizens from evil monsters had lost the last of its glamour. It was a job. An important one, certainly, but brutal and dirty.

Maybe that’s why adventurers get along better with soldiers than with guards. Edwin realized. Adventurers and soldiers are both killers. We don’t kill because we enjoy it or because we hate the thing we fight. We do it because it’s the only way to protect those we’re sworn to, and because the alternative is to die ourselves. Guards don’t understand that because they only kill as a last resort.

Edwin rolled the idea over in his mind a few times, testing to see if it held up. The train of thought soon led him to other ruminations about the necessity of killing to live, the ethics of taking a life and the deeper meaning of life and death in general. While Walter had technically already died once, twice depending on one’s definitions, the experience hadn’t really given him any new insight into the topic, meaning his philosophical musings got him absolutely nowhere. His feet, however, unerringly delivered him to the next stop on their journey.

--- ----- ---

“Do ye want to head out before dark?”

The question caught the adventurers by surprise, but then so had the entire reception in Rellick’s Rock. Where usually the arrival of adventurers caused smiles and relief, here it had been barely worth a glance. While the two villages with the similar names were fairly close to each other, it was still quite late in the afternoon – and nobody wanted to fight monsters after dark.

After sharing a confused look with his compatriots, Bordan turned back to the village headman, a surprisingly young man with wild hair, broad shoulders and a bored look on his face.

“Do you think there’s still enough time? How far is it to where you last saw it?”

The headman snorted. “I can do ye one better than ‘where we last saw it’. I can show ye where it lives. Don’t know how long ye need to kill it, but if ye don’t fall asleep while doing it we should be back by nightfall.”

Bordan’s eyes widened, then he laughed. “Of course! It’s a direbeaver, so it probably has a dam, right?”

The headman gave them a pitying look, not bothering to answer. “So, ye wanna go?”

“Give us a moment to discuss, we didn’t expect to hunt today.”

With that, Bordan turned to the rest of their small party. “It would shave a day off our journey and give us a little more leeway with the next requests. What do you guys say? You still up for a fight?”

As always, Leodin and Salissa didn’t feel particularly rushed to speak up.

“I’m good to go.” Edwin answered, because of course he was. While he had been looking forward to some time off, maybe some sparring and then a more or less comfortable bed, walking for half a day had been as taxing to him as sitting had been for Walter. He was just as fresh as he had been when they stepped out of the town gates in the morning, though he wouldn’t mind the chance to either lie down or go for a run to burn off the stagnation of marching.

“Sure.” answered Leodin next, and Salissa simply looked away and shrugged in response to Bordan’s expectant gaze.

“I guess we’re up for it.” Bordan told the headman. “Give us a few minutes to sort out our gear and we’re ready.”

--- ----- ---

Not thirty minutes after the adventurers had arrived at the village, they left it the same way they had entered. This time they were accompanied by the headman and almost a dozen villagers whom the headman had quickly gathered up. Like the hunters that had guided them in Henkerton, they intended to skin and butcher the direbeaver after the adventurers killed it.

“If I may ask, why are you so relaxed?” Bordan queried the headman while walking. “Isn’t the monster aggressive?”

“Sure it is.” The man answered nonchalantly. “Will rip ye limb from limb if ye get close.”

“Then why the carefree attitude?”

“Because it’s predicable.” The headman shrugged. “The only time it was a threat was when it had just moved in. As soon as a hunter spotted its dam, we knew exactly where not to go. It’s bigger than a wolf, but its slower and doesn’t range far from its home.”

The group continued in silence for a few moments, then Edwin spoke up. “If it’s not a danger, why are we here?”

The headman shot him an annoyed look. “Didn’t say it’s not a danger, did I? What if it has pups and we end up with a horde of them? Or if it can’t find food close to its dam and comes looking at our village? I bet it can bite right through our palisade.”

Edwin considered his words, then shrugged. In the end, it didn’t really matter. They were adventurers, and their job was to kill monsters. So, that’s what they would do.

After half an hour, the headman stopped. “If ye continue that way, ye’ll find a river. Turn left and follow it till ye find a dam. If the army stops ye at the border, ye’re blind and walked past it.”

It was at this moment that Edwin decided he didn’t like the man. He considered reminding him that they had called for the adventurer’s help, not the other way around, but he stopped himself. There was no point getting into an argument. Still, the sooner they moved on, the better.

“Alright, remember what Mennick told us about amphibious monsters.” Bordan told them, forming one last huddle before they left in search of a fight. “Keep it out of the water. We’ll try to lure it out, and if it wants to flee into the river or dam, we need to stop it. Let’s try it like this: We pull it in until I give a signal. When I do, I move left and you move right, Edwin. Once we’re clear of the line of fire, you two” he nodded at the marksman and the mage “give it everything you’ve got. At that point it should either rush you or run away. Either way, we get between it and where it wants to go and stop it. Then just hit it until it stops moving.”

With the plan ready, they moved out. They found the river quickly, and not long after they spotted the dam. It was hard to miss. Impossible, really.

“Wow.” Salissa breathed, and Edwin quietly agreed.

The dam was massive. It was as tall as a two-story building and blocked the entirety of the river. The area around it was almost completely devoid of vegetation, as the direbeaver had chewed through all of the trees, piling them on top of his home, branches, leaves and all.

“How big exactly is this thing?” Leodin asked, his voice nervous.

Edwin hefted his shield and gripped his mace tighter, fanning out to take his forward position.

“We’re about to find out.”

The party circled away from the water while keeping their distance from the dam. They reached a spot Bordan was satisfied with, but still hadn’t seen so much as a whisker of the beast. After a minute of tense waiting, Bordan turned to Edwin.

“We need to lure it in somehow. Or at least check if it’s home, maybe it’s out getting food or something.”

“How do we do that, walk up to the front door and knock?”

Edwin saw an evil smile spreading on Bordan’s face and returned it with a flat look.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Thanks Edwin.”

Edwin scoffed and slowly approached the dam. Standing right next to it, it seemed comically large. There was no reason for such a massive, disorganized pile of trees to exist. Also, how was he supposed to check if the beaver was home? It’s not like there was actually a door he could knock on. He couldn’t even tell where the entrance was. Scanning the dam, Edwin gripped the leather-wrapped handle of his mace tighter. He stopped his searching, instead looking down at his weapon. He didn’t really need a door to knock on, did he?