They walked out of the chamber past the cracked wall where the super-alpha had hit, back through the interior chambers, and finally out through the portal into the late-afternoon gold of Xiltra.
The B-rank guard at the stone portal watched them come through.
She looked at the state of them, dust-covered, sweat-tired in the way soul-bodies could still register that sensation, and quietly satisfied, and her eyebrows rose.
"You found one."
"Three cores," Bruce said.
"Three."
"Three."
She was silent for a long moment. Then she made a longer note than usual on her board.
"Ackerman," she said.
"Yes."
"You did not learn to fight in this realm."
"No."
"Where?"
Bruce considered.
"A place where the beasts were bigger and the fights were more expensive," he said. "This is not the first place I have hunted."
"That is a diplomatic answer."
"It is."
"I will not press. Good hunting today."
"Thank you, guard."
She let them pass.
