The horses moved at a steady pace along the forest path.

Hod rode at the front of the formation with her gaze fixed ahead and the reins firm in her hands.

Behind her, the remaining inquisitors kept pace in silence, their heads slightly lowered and their shoulders tense.

The horses snorted more frequently than at the start, their steps less steady, and some lowered their heads with a weariness their riders shared but didn’t voice out loud.

Until the tracker moved up along the right side of the formation until she was level with Hod.

"Captain..." she said in a voice that tried to sound respectful but couldn’t entirely hide the exhaustion. "Can we talk for a second?"

"Talk," the white-haired woman replied without turning her head.

The tracker hesitated a moment.

"Could we... stop to rest, even just for a couple of hours?"

Hod didn’t respond right away.

"Captain, the group has gone almost two days without sleep or stopping," the tracker continued, lowering her voice slightly. "The horses are exhausted, the men are exhausted, I’m exhausted... and on top of that we’re moving blind."

Hod stayed quiet for a few more seconds.

"Blind?" she finally repeated.

"Without a trail to follow, Captain," the tracker clarified. "The last footprints I found were over three hours ago and since then I haven’t been able to locate any new ones, the terrain changed and the vegetation is too dense for footprints to leave marks."

Hod let out a short sigh through her nose.

"The fact that we’ve lost the trail doesn’t matter," Hod said in a firm tone.

"What do you mean it doesn’t matter, Captain?" the tracker asked in disbelief.

"Look around you," Hod said, gesturing vaguely toward the trees. "This path is the only passable route in this part of the forest, and the vegetation on both sides is too dense for Alice’s group to have walked through it for very long."

The tracker looked to both sides and saw that Hod was right.

The trees on either side of the path were so tightly packed and the undergrowth so thick that leaving the road to go another way would have been extremely difficult for Alice’s group, and that wasn’t even accounting for the exhaustion they likely had after the fight.

"So even without their trail, we know they came this way."

"That makes sense, Captain, but..."

"So no, we’re not stopping," Hod said with conviction. "We’re too close now to stop."

"Understood..."

The tracker nodded with resignation and pulled her reins to return to her position in the formation.

Hod watched her go, then turned her head to her left, where the short-bearded inquisitor had been consulting a rolled-up map for the past hour.

"Hey," Hod said, getting his attention.

"What is it, Captain?" the inquisitor asked, looking up from the map.

"What’s in the area around this zone?"

The inquisitor unrolled the map a little further and examined it for a few seconds, moving his finger across the surface while muttering to himself.

"Hmmm let’s see..." he said, squinting. "There’s not much in this area, Captain, a couple of small villages to the south, a minor urban center to the east that’s basically a trading post for travelers, and..."

He paused.

"And what?"

"A dungeon," the inquisitor said, raising his eyebrows.

"What rank?"

The inquisitor consulted the map again, running his finger over some small annotations written in the margin.

"According to the map’s information it’s Rank S."

Hod turned her head fully toward him.

"Rank S?" she said in a tone that made her disbelief clear. "Are you sure?"

"Completely sure, Captain," the inquisitor confirmed, pointing to the spot on the map. "It’s marked as Rank S, there’s no error."

"And how is there an unclosed Rank S dungeon?" Hod asked, frowning. "Those dungeons are extremely dangerous, you don’t just leave them like that. Normally a squad is sent to seal them or at least set up a perimeter."

"I know, Captain, but according to the notes on the map..." the inquisitor brought the paper closer to his eyes to read the annotations. "This particular dungeon is classified as practically inactive."

"...Huh?"

"Yes, it’s strange, but..." he confirmed. "Apparently its monsters don’t come out of it, they stay inside without causing any trouble outside, so it was left without intervention since it posed no threat to the nearby villages."

Hod stayed quiet for a moment.

’A Rank S inactive dungeon...’

That was strange.

Rank S dungeons weren’t "inactive" by nature.

Dungeons at that level were generally very dangerous, with monsters strong enough to level entire villages if they decided to come out.

But the white-haired woman decided not to dwell on it further, at least not for now, because she had more important things to focus on.

’A dungeon like that certainly isn’t something you see every day.’

Hod was about to file that information away in the back of her mind when the tracker’s voice interrupted her again.

"Captain!"

Hod turned her head back.

The tracker had straightened up on her mount and was looking ahead with one hand over her eyes to block the sunlight filtering between the trees.

"What is it?"

"About two hundred meters ahead, Captain," the tracker said, pointing forward. "There are two people."

The white-haired woman narrowed her eyes and looked in the direction the tracker was pointing.

Sure enough, in the distance between the trees, two figures could be made out standing on the path.

And seeing them she didn’t need to think very hard.

"Speed up!" Hod ordered, pulling her reins to increase her horse’s pace. "We’re going to talk to them!"

The other inquisitors obeyed instantly, pressing their heels into their mounts’ sides and picking up the pace to match the white-haired woman. The distance closed quickly, and the two figures became clearer with every passing second.

They were a man and a woman.

The man was young, slender, with dark hair, wearing a tattered black robe.

The woman had short black hair, but without a doubt the most striking thing about her was the large hat she wore.

’What are they doing out here?’ she thought after looking at the unusual pair.

Hod pulled the reins hard and her horse braked a few meters from the two figures, kicking up a small cloud of dust.

The other inquisitors stopped behind her, forming a semicircle behind their captain.

With them right in front of her, she looked down at them from her horse for a couple of seconds, sizing them up.

The man didn’t look like a threat. His build was average, he carried no visible weapons, and his posture wasn’t that of someone trained for combat.

The woman was another story. Something about her didn’t quite add up, but Hod couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was.

’Doesn’t matter, I don’t have time to analyze everyone I run into.’

Hod dismounted with a quick motion and walked a couple of steps toward them.

"I’m Captain Hod of the Holy Inquisition," she said in a direct tone that left no room for unnecessary formalities. "I apologize for the abruptness, but I need to ask you a few questions."