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

Chapter 15: Chapter 15 — Crimson Jackals

The posting was for a gathering quest, unremarkable in every way except for its timing — a request for six bundles of Emberroot, a fire-resistant herb used in burn salves, needed urgently by the guild’s own healing hall after a workshop accident had left two blacksmiths with nasty burns. The reward was generous for a Rank F posting, 10 silver, precisely because the guild wanted it filled quickly rather than left to languish on the board.

Arlen took it the moment he saw it, moving fast enough that he didn’t bother stopping for his usual careful review of the herb guide — he’d gathered Emberroot once before, knew its distinctive rust-colored leaves and the faint warmth it gave off even freshly cut, and trusted the knowledge enough to head straight for the outer forest’s eastern trail, where the guide had noted it grew densest.

He wasn’t the only one who’d had the idea.

He heard them before he saw them — voices carrying easily through the trees, unbothered by the kind of quiet Arlen had trained himself into out of habit. Three figures crouched at the base of a rocky outcrop where a thick patch of Emberroot grew wild, already cutting bundles with the easy, practiced efficiency of people who’d done this many times before.

"Well," said the one closest to Arlen, straightening up as he approached. She was perhaps a year or two older than him, dark-haired, with a short sword strapped at her hip that looked considerably better maintained than his own. "Looks like someone else had the same idea."

"Looks like it," Arlen said, keeping his tone even.

"Bit late to the patch, though." She gestured, not unkindly but not especially warmly either, at the significantly diminished stand of Emberroot behind her — her two companions, a stocky young man with a hand axe and a lean, quiet woman with a bow slung across her back, were already tying off what looked like a full quota’s worth of bundles between them. "We’ve got six already. Guild only needed six, far as the posting said."

Arlen felt the familiar sting of a plan unraveling, though he kept his expression carefully neutral, the way he’d learned to over years of negotiating scraps and coppers in the slum markets. "Fair enough. Guess I’ll check further along the trail."

"Emberroot’s picky about where it grows," the woman said, not entirely without sympathy. "This patch was the best one for a fair distance. You might not find enough elsewhere to make the trip worth it."

"I’ll manage," Arlen said, and meant to leave it there, except the stocky young man with the hand axe glanced up from his bundling with open curiosity.

"You’re the one Mina’s been mentioning," he said. "Slum kid, saved for years to register. Didn’t figure you’d be trying to beat the Crimson Jackals to a patch this early in your career."

"I wasn’t trying to beat anyone," Arlen said. "Just saw the posting and moved."

"Sure." The young man didn’t sound unkind about it, exactly, more amused than anything, the way an older sibling might needle a younger one. "Well, better luck further down the trail. Emberroot’s not the only thing worth cutting your teeth on."

The dark-haired woman — who Arlen gathered, from the easy authority in her voice, was the party’s leader — studied him a moment longer with an expression he couldn’t quite read. "You’re welcome to half of what we’ve got, if you want it," she said finally. "We only needed six for the posting reward. We cut a bit extra out of habit."

Arlen hesitated. Pride, old and stubborn, whispered that he ought to refuse and find his own patch further down the trail rather than accept charity from a party that had beaten him fair and square. But eight years of careful, unsentimental practicality — the same instinct that had once made him take Old Maren’s extra firewood without false modesty — reminded him that refusing a reasonable offer out of pride was its own kind of foolishness.

"I’d appreciate that," he said instead. "Thank you."

She handed over three loose bundles, more than enough to fill out his own quota alongside whatever he might scavenge further along, and introduced herself with the same easy confidence she did everything else.

"Reya," she said. "Crimson Jackals — that’s us, in case you hadn’t already guessed." She nodded toward her companions. "Dorn, on the axe. Fennis on the bow, though she’d rather you not talk to her, generally."

Fennis, true to the introduction, said nothing at all, though the corner of her mouth twitched faintly, which Arlen took as roughly as friendly as she was likely to get on short acquaintance.

"Arlen," he said.

"We know." Reya’s smile was quick and a little sharp. "Guild’s not that big, not yet. New faces get noticed, especially ones who took eight years saving coppers just to walk through the door properly equipped instead of half-starved and desperate. Word travels."

Arlen wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or unsettled that his history had apparently become guild gossip, and settled for simply accepting it as fact. "How long have the three of you been registered?"

"Little over a year," Dorn said. "We’re pushing for Rank E soon, if the guild ever gets around to processing our review."

"You’ll get there," Reya said, with the confident dismissiveness of someone who’d clearly had this exact conversation with Dorn many times before. She looked back at Arlen, something faintly assessing in her gaze — not unlike Mina’s careful cataloguing back at the registration counter, though with considerably more competitive edge behind it. "You’re quick to a posting, I’ll give you that. Beat us here by less time than you’d think, honestly — we only got the head start because our tip came from a healer at the hall directly, before the posting even went up on the board."

"That explains it," Arlen said, some of the sting fading now that the loss made a bit more sense.

"Don’t take it personally," Reya said. "Guild work’s mostly a footrace, some days. You’ll win your share too, once you’ve got a few more contacts feeding you tips before the board does."

They parted ways not long after — the Crimson Jackals heading back toward the guild to turn in their full reward, Arlen continuing further down the eastern trail to fill out the rest of his own quota with what Reya had given him plus a modest amount he gathered himself from a smaller, scrubbier patch another twenty minutes’ walk further on.

He returned to the guild hall that evening, six bundles of Emberroot in his gathering pouch, and turned the quest in to Mina without incident — 10 silver earned, no deductions remaining now that his first ten quests were behind him.

"Ran into the Crimson Jackals at the Emberroot patch," he mentioned, mostly out of idle conversation, while Mina processed the reward.

"Ah." Mina’s mouth twitched, something like amusement crossing her otherwise businesslike expression. "They beat you to it, I take it."

"They did. Gave me some of their extra, though."

"That sounds like Reya." Mina counted out his silver. "She’s competitive, but not petty about it. You’ll be running into them a fair amount, I expect — similar rank, similar interests. Might as well get used to it now."

Arlen thought about that on the walk back to the inn that evening, turning the encounter over the way he turned over most things — not with any real resentment, but with a kind of quiet, useful recalibration. He hadn’t lost anything of real value today. If anything, he’d gained a clearer sense of the guild’s actual shape: not just quest boards and coin, but a living network of rivalries and connections and tips traded between healers and adventurers who’d been building relationships he hadn’t even known to look for yet.

Contacts feeding tips before the board does, he wrote in his journal that night, alongside a brief, honest account of the day. Something to work toward. Not just strength. Connections too.

He closed the journal, blew out his candle, and lay in the dark bunk room listening to Cobb’s steady breathing from the next bed over, thinking that for a quest he’d technically lost the race to, it had turned out to be a rather valuable afternoon after all.