While the healer finished up her work, Simon took a deep breath to recollect himself; he couldn't be spending so much time reacting to every little thing they said—there was important work to be done! From this point on, Simon would steel his mind and carry through to the end of the questioning, regardless of what he heard.

After straightening his papers on the table, Simon started rattling off questions in his usual dry-and-professional fashion.

“Please explain what happened, starting with where you were and why you were there.”

“We traveled to--" “So, it all began at--" “We were in the--"

Gen, Louis, and Lily all looked at each other, patiently waiting for someone else to continue talking. After a few awkward moments of silently gauging each others’ intentions, they all simultaneously decided to——

“We went to the--" “—The southern ste--" “—the steppes to the south--"

… At least he figured out that they were in the Caguan Steppes.

“Please take a moment to decide which one of you will be doing the talking,” Simon said, pinching his brow.

‘... You wanna do it?’ Louis glanced at Gen.

‘I nominate you,’ Gen returned the look.

‘I also nominate Louis.’ Lily stared at him.

Well, that’s democracy. Louis cleared his throat.

“The southern steppes.”

“Indeed,” Simon replied, acknowledging the redundant info. “And what were you doing there?”

“Uhh…” The image of Fenris frolicking through the field of flowers flashed through his mind. “Picking flowers…”

Simon stopped writing and made eye contact with Louis.

“... Sorry, my brain did something weird,” Louis awkwardly adjusted his glasses. “We went to pick foetida herbs.”

“The medicinal herb,” Simon nodded, decidedly ignoring Louis’s first explanation. "What for?”

“There was a request at the guild by some kid named Anna.”

“Annie,” Gen corrected Louis.

“Right. Apparently she needs the herb to make medicine for her mother.”

“... A child submitted a request at the guild.” Simon’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. “How did she afford the reward in the first place?”

Although the question wasn't especially relevant to his current task, Simon was still concerned. Given the dangers of harvesting foetida herbs, there was no way a child would be able to pay for the request on her own; as a guard of Firrstad, it was Simon’s responsibility to ensure that unscrupulous moneylenders were not taking advantage of the vulnerable. Indeed—Simon’s actions were entirely for the sake of maintaining Firrstad’s public order, and definitely not because he was worried about some child.

“I mean… she kinda didn’t. The rewards were pretty bad, actually.”

Although Simon was relieved by this answer for a brief moment, he was now very confused by the implications.

“You accepted the request, despite the lack of rewards and risk of death,” Simon said, his lack of inflection making his words sound more like a skeptical confirmation rather than a question.

The party members glanced at each other.

“... H-ha ha…” “Well…” “I mean…” They stammered, trying to figure out how to explain that they kinda-sorta weren't actually allowed to take the request and therefore didn't.

“You know what—nevermind.”

Whatever they were hiding, it was outside of the scope of the questioning; indeed—it was because there were more important things to ask, and not at all because Simon was strategically avoiding something he sensed was immensely troublesome.

In any case, if these people were harvesting foetida herbs, there was one, very obvious, and completely reasonable explanation why they came back injured, which wouldn't require any further investigation on his part:

“Let's cut to the chase—your party got injured because a goretusk attacked while you were harvesting.”

“W-well…” “That's close…” “It's not wrong…?”

‘DAMNIT.’ Of course it wasn't going to be that simple.

“Explain.” He said calmly.

“We didn't actually encounter the goretusk ourselves; while we were on the way back, some asshole was being chased and used us as decoys.”

‘That's... genuinely despicable.’

Simon certainly wasn't expecting a normal answer, but for someone to do such a thing was… simply terrible. With grave determination, he refocused himself; such a person could not be allowed to walk free.

“Please describe any features you remember about that individual. I will do my utmost to bring them to justice.”

However, Fenris suddenly spoke up.

“No… it’s fine,” he said, his empty eyes staring directly into Simon’s. “They've already… been dealt with.”

“...” Simon’s mouth flapped open as though he was going to say something, but nothing came out.

How was Simon supposed to respond to that? That wolfkin was covered in blood; he had very clearly brutally murdered that man for slighting him. Well, setting a goretusk onto their party was definitely a bit worse than just a ‘slight’—but, regardless, Simon was going to have to arrest him. But how? They were strong enough to kill a goretusk; if Simon tried anything, he would die. But perhaps they would simply let themselves be arrested instead. After all, they had risked their lives to help a child; surely they were the decent, reasonable sort of folk. But, then again, they had also brutally murdered someone, which wasn't especially encouraging.

For the second time that day, Simon froze while he tried to process the situation.

“... Welp, I suppose you four are free to go,” Simon suddenly said, standing up from his seat.

In any case, there was no risk of a monster stampede, so there were no more questions regarding that; the other issue, which will not be named, was dealt with in a way that was basically legal (as far as he and anyone asking was concerned, it was self-defense)—and so Simon decided that the questioning was over.

“Healer—please guide them out and tell the captain that I will be taking the rest of the day off. Goodbye.”

Watching in stunned silence as Simon immediately left the room, slamming the door behind him, Louis hesitantly asked,

“Did… did we break him?”

Fenris, figuring that he was somehow responsible for this, simply replied,

“Whoops.”