Chapter 185: Hey there Dalai

The room was quickly filled with the sound of students scampering out of the room as quickly as they could.

Merlin sat in his chair and watched as Elore blew smoke rings into the air before exhaling a cloud of smoke that quickly took the form of a small dragon. Her little smoke dragon flew through each smoke ring before dissipating into the air.

At that moment, the doors closed and the only two people in the room was Merlin and the instructor.

"Well, since you've decided to stick around, I'll take it that you're interested in meeting this teacher," She said before extinguishing her pipe. "Follow me."

Merlin hopped up out of his chair and made his way down several steps and rows of seats before reaching the stage.

Upon climbing the small set of stairs onto the stage, and making his way over to the teacher who was waiting for him, he found that he was quite a bit shorter than her.

He was previously looking at her from a high angle, and while she did seem rather tall from a distance, he didn't expect that she would be a head taller than him, even without the heels she was currently wearing.

Elore gave Merlin a small smile before making her way to a door hidden behind the stage.

Merlin followed her while taking a glance at his stream once more, only to internally sigh in disappointment at his viewer's behaviour.

Elore led Merlin through the room behind the stage and into another door that led into a hallway. She made sure that he was following her before she started moving again, quickly navigating the building and leading Merlin down a flight of stairs.

Merlin tried to memorise the path they were taking until Elore suddenly stopped in front of a door.

"And here we are," Elore said before tapping her pipe on the door.

A few moments later, Merlin heard the sound of paper being rustled before the clicking sound of a door lock.

Elore took a step back moments before the door quickly swung open, and a woman with messy blonde hair, large round glasses and dark bags under her eyes stuck her head out of the room.

"What do you want?" She crankily asked Elore with a tired tone in her voice.

It seemed as though this person had either not slept for a very long time or was just rudely woken up from her attempt to sleep. Either way, she didn't seem happy.

"I'm here to introduce you to a new student," Elore said in a bright and chipper tone, it was clear that she was trying to annoy the angry teacher, perhaps she was just using Merlin as a reason for doing so?

"They asked me about the ruins in this city, and I thought you were the perfect person to talk to," Elore said, raising her voice before turning to Merlin, "Meet Dalai, you two are likely going to be the best of friends."

Elore said that moments before scampering off, leaving Merlin with the very angry looking Dalai.

'Woooow, that was petty.' Merlin thought to himself.

Dalai turned to look at him, the dark bags on her face emphasised her bright green eyes, they almost seemed to be faintly glowing.

"Are you actually interested in the ruins of this city, or is she just making a fool out of me?" Dalai muttered.

"Probably both," Merlin said, "I am interested in the ruins, but I haven't been able to find much information about them... Actually, I'm most interested in the door frame near the rangers guild, the one that glows during a full moon."

Dalai's eyes lit up as Merlin muttered those words, and as a smile grew on her face, a notification appeared before Merlin.

「You have completed the quest, "Archaeology Club.", rewards have been delivered.」

"You truly do understand!" She remarked, her previous cranky attitude was suddenly nowhere to be seen. "Although, I've got a theory that it's not actually a door frame, but serves as some kind of--"

"portal to another dimension." Both Merlin and Dalai spoke at the same time, causing Dalai's grin to widen even further.

"Sorry, I didn't get your name," Dalai said, reaching her hand out for a handshake, although her hand was barely peeking out from her oversized robe.

"It's Merlin, nice to meet you," Merlin said while shaking her hand.

"Merlin huh? What a wonderful name for a wizard." Dalai said before disappearing into her room. "Come in, I want to show you something,"

Merlin followed her in but found that he was wading through scraps of loose paper that had fallen onto the floor.

"Don't worry about damaging those, they're all garbage theories," She said while running towards a table that had a chunk of rock floating above it.

"Here, take a look at this," she said, pointing to a large sheet of paper spread over the desk and the floating rock. "I traced out the text above that door frame, and this piece of rock is part of a destroyed statue in the abandoned temple in Acacesium."

"I had requested some students go out and retrieve a piece when I read a report from the rangers guild about what happened during their raid." She said, "It detailed that all the statues had been destroyed, and since it's a major sin to destroy the statue of a deity yourself, I figured it'd be okay to take a piece of one that was already destroyed."

"And look at this, the statues used to stand on podiums that had their names engraved in them, some of the letters used in this name match the letters used on the door frame." She said, pointing at the engravings on the rock.

Merlin quickly glanced at his chat when he noticed highlighted text.

┌───────────────────

[MOD] Quinntessential: Hey look, @Atlas, they made you as an NPC.

[MOD] Atlas: Shut up.

└───────────────────

"Unfortunately, I don't know which god this text is referring to, so I'm no closer to mapping out the language or translating the text on the door frame." She said, "So I'm thinking that I'll likely have to visit the temple myself, rather than send people out to collect samples for me."

"The only issue with that is that I'm not very well suited for combat, so it isn't safe for me to enter the wilderness alone." She said, "You mentioned the rangers guild earlier, would it be safe to assume that you're the same Merlin mentioned in the rangers guild report?"

"Yeah, I was there," Merlin said.

"I knew it. Well, I'd like to put a request in," She said, "Would you be willing to guide me to the abandoned temple near Acacesium?"

┌───────────────────

[Hidden Uncommon Quest]

Revisiting the Acacesium temple.

An archaeologist within the wizard college is researching the ruins of Megalopolis. She has discovered that the shattered statues in the abandoned temple near the frontier town of Acacesium may hold secrets that could help her with her research.

Safely guide Dalai to the temple near Acacesium and back.

• Reward: 500 Wizard EXP, 200 Wizard Points, ???

• Failure: ???

└───────────────────

"Absolutely," Merlin said, accepting the quest immediately.

"Wonderful!" Dalai said, "I'd like to set out immediately if that's alright with you?"

Merlin nodded in response, which caused her to scamper around grabbing a few materials and stuffing them into a bag.

"Give me a moment to get ready," She said while grabbing a staff that was slightly taller than she was. 

While Dalai continued searching for items, Merlin swapped his equipment out. Replacing his staff with Ghostsaw's blade and the wolf's fang.

After Dalai finished getting ready, she led Merlin out of the building.

"Oh, by the way. I'm an earth mage who focuses on defence in a fight," She explained as she scampered out onto the street, "so I'll support you as best as I can if we run into any trouble."

"Alright, sounds good," Merlin said while tapping his daggers, "I'm a front liner of sorts, so I'll be fighting in melee range."

The two made their way to the gate leading into the wilderness, and after greeting the guards who were standing by, they made their way through the gate and onto the path to Acacesium.

"Give me a moment please," Dalai said before taking a few steps off the path and kneeling on the grass. She began chanting while rotating her staff, and a few moments later the ground began to gently rumble.

Rocks and dirt began floating into the air before suddenly being compressed into small hardened shapes, those shapes were then crushed against others until the form of two horse-like creatures took shape.

With the tap of her staff, both horse golems seemed to suddenly spring to life.

"Earth golems?" Merlin asked.

"Yes, they'll cut our travel time down tremendously," She said, "You didn't plan on walking there, did you? We'd also have to worry about carrying stuff back."

Merlin didn't say anything in response, he just hopped up on one of the golems after Dalai had signalled for him to do so.