Reborn as an Adventurer: I Gain a Skill From Every Monster I Eat

Chapter 31: Chapter 31 — Professor Eldrin’s Offer

Professor Eldrin found him at the quest board on a quiet mid-morning, several weeks after the burrow-wasp contract, peering at Arlen over his wire-rimmed spectacles with the same brisk, distracted energy Arlen remembered from their first conversation months earlier.

”Rank E now, I see,” Eldrin said, glancing at the badge pinned at Arlen’s collar. ”Good. That solves my problem rather neatly, actually.”

”What problem?”

”I’ve a posting suited to exactly your rank, if you’re interested. Rather less ambitious than the middle forest survey — a minor ruin near the outer boundary’s edge, well within territory the guild considers safe for Rank D and E parties. Preliminary survey only. I need an escort, and frankly, I’d rather have someone who’s already demonstrated genuine curiosity about what we might find than another adventurer who’s only counting the silver.”

Arlen felt the old, familiar thrill rise in his chest — the same one he’d felt reading the original posting months ago, back when Rank D preferred had still meant a door closed to him.

”I’m interested,” he said.

”Good. Two days’ travel, three at the site, two back — a week total, all told. Reward’s 25 silver, plus first-viewing rights on any texts we recover, same terms as before.” Eldrin adjusted his spectacles. ”I’ll also need one more escort, given the terrain, but I’ll handle that separately. You focus on preparing yourself.”

Arlen spent the following two days preparing with the same methodical thoroughness he applied to everything now, restocking supplies, reviewing what guild texts existed on ruin exploration protocol, and paying a visit to Torv for a proper set of leather gloves suited to handling old stonework and buried artifacts without risking his hands on whatever hazards might be waiting inside.

”Eldrin’s a good sort to escort,” Torv told him, fitting the gloves carefully. ”Careful man. Doesn’t push his escorts into anything reckless, not the way some scholars do when they get excited about a find. You’ll be safe enough, long as nothing unexpected turns up.”

”What counts as unexpected, on a ruin survey?”

”Anything the guild bestiary hasn’t already documented.” Torv shrugged. ”Rare, this close to the boundary. But not impossible.”

Arlen met Eldrin and the second escort — a quiet, capable Rank D warrior named Halvard, broad-shouldered and economical with words, who’d apparently worked with Eldrin on several previous expeditions — at the western gate on the morning of departure. The three of them set out together, Eldrin’s satchel of maps and reference texts slung across his shoulder, chattering intermittently about the site’s suspected age and origin whenever the mood struck him.

”Preliminary reports suggest it predates the current kingdom’s founding by at least two centuries,” Eldrin explained, as they walked. ”Possibly considerably more. Local farmers stumbled onto it clearing a field three months back — partial stonework, a few carved fragments. Nothing dramatic, on the surface. But ’nothing dramatic’ has a way of turning into something rather significant, once you actually start digging.”

”Have you found anything like that before?” Arlen asked. ”Something more significant than expected?”

”Once or twice.” Something flickered briefly across Eldrin’s expression — not quite unease, but close to it, gone again before Arlen could properly read it. ”Most ruins are exactly what they appear to be. Occasionally, one isn’t.”

They reached the site late on the second day, a modest clearing where a farmer’s plow had turned up the first exposed stonework months earlier — low walls, mostly collapsed, forming what might once have been the foundation of a modest structure, weathered enough that individual carvings had blurred into vague suggestion rather than clear detail.

”Doesn’t look like much,” Halvard observed, surveying the site with a practiced, unimpressed eye.

”Rarely does, at first.” Eldrin knelt beside the nearest exposed wall, running gloved fingers carefully over the worn stone. ”The interesting part is almost always beneath the surface.”

They made camp a short distance from the site, Arlen falling naturally into the same camp-management role he’d handled on Reya’s expedition, while Eldrin and Halvard began the careful, methodical work of clearing debris from the ruin’s more promising sections. Arlen joined them the following morning, once camp was properly settled, learning under Eldrin’s patient instruction how to clear centuries-old dirt and rubble without damaging whatever lay beneath it — slow, careful work, considerably more delicate than anything he’d done on a quest before.

”You’ve a good hand for this,” Eldrin remarked, watching Arlen carefully brush soil away from a section of exposed wall. ”Patient. Most people your age want to rush straight to whatever’s underneath. You’re taking your time.”

”Rushing usually costs more than it saves,” Arlen said. ”Learned that the hard way, more than once.”

Eldrin smiled at that, genuine warmth beneath his usual brisk manner. ”A philosophy well-suited to this work, then.”

They spent the better part of that second day clearing the site’s main chamber, uncovering, piece by careful piece, the outline of what had clearly once been some kind of enclosed room — walls more intact here than elsewhere, protected by centuries of accumulated earth. By late afternoon, Eldrin had grown noticeably quieter, his usual chattering commentary replaced by a focused, almost tense concentration Arlen hadn’t seen from him before.

”Professor?” Arlen asked, noticing the shift.

”Give me a moment,” Eldrin said, kneeling close beside a section of wall he’d just cleared, tracing something carved into the stone with careful, deliberate fingers. ”This carving. It’s not matching anything in my reference texts.”

Arlen leaned closer, studying the exposed symbol — angular, unfamiliar, unlike any of the decorative stonework they’d uncovered elsewhere on the site.

”Is that unusual?” he asked.

Eldrin didn’t answer immediately, still tracing the symbol’s strange, precise lines with an expression Arlen couldn’t quite place — somewhere between scholarly excitement and something considerably more uneasy underneath it.

”Yes,” he said finally, quietly. ”Rather unusual indeed.”