I Found a Door to the Elven Realm-Chapter 72: Old Ruins

My phone is on Earth. I haven’t checked it in weeks. My parents must have realized something is wrong and and Rosa...

The name floated up from somewhere he’d been avoiding. Rosa. His "almost" fiancée of many years.

"Ex Girlfriend-Almost official Fiancée but never got the ring ceremony partner...."

She had a lot of titles now that he thought about it.

He didn’t even know what they were anymore. The last time they spoke it was a fight about money. About his dead-end job. About how she was moving back to her parents’ place.

What did she do when I disappeared? Did she call?

He stared at the dark ceiling. The weird thing was that thinking about Rosa didn’t hurt the way it used to. Old Eren would’ve blamed himself for an hour and then texted something pathetic. But old Eren was a broke overweight guy with self-esteem problems.

Now I’m a half-elf married to the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen and I have a baby coming and I can punch through trolls and buildings. What the hell happened to my life?

Can I even go back to my old job?

Emily shifted in her sleep and pulled his arm tighter. Her breath was warm against his collarbone.

He closed his eyes and woke up to the sound of claws on wood.

[Dungeon Heart Fragment: 588 / 1000]

The bedroom door swung open and Rury padded in like she owned the place. Which she basically did at this point. The village had gotten used to two oversized wolves wandering around. Most people treated them like Eren’s extremely dangerous pets.

Rury’s nose went straight for the marble on the nightstand. She sniffed it once and her ears went forward.

[This smells different than last night. Sweeter.] Her tongue came out.

"Rury." Eren’s voice was dead serious. "If you eat that thing a thousand mana will explode inside your body. You understand what that means right?"

Rury froze mid-lick. [... Explode?]

"Boom. Rury chunks everywhere." He just made up this lie but she was really believing this!

She took one step back. Then another. [What about licking?]

"Also dangerous. Probably." He had no idea if licking would actually do anything. It probably wouldn’t. But he wasn’t about to let the most impulsive wolf in Evon put her mouth on his most valuable item.

Rury gave the marble one last look. Then she turned around with her tail between her legs and walked out.

Emily’s voice came from under the blanket. "Did you lie to her?"

"A little."

"Good." She smiled and kissed his cheeks.

[I HEARD THAT!] Rury hrrled from outside but she didn’t come back.

Eren stepped outside into the morning air.

The village looked the same as it had every morning since the attacks started. Cracked barricades on the north side. Tired elves taking shifts on the half-built eastern wall. Thadric was already at the ranch feeding the yaksha. Oldir hauled firewood past the well without looking up.

[Dungeon Heart Fragment: 621 / 1000]

Still not full. But getting there. If he spent the day in the forest where the ambient mana was thicker it would fill faster.

Today he’d take Emily and the wolves and clean the area around the village as wide as they could. Kill everything. Trolls, slimes, strays - all of it. If he was going to disappear for a day or two the perimeter needed to be as clear as possible.

He walked toward the center of the village to find Emily and nearly passed the totem without stopping.

But his right palm went hot.

It wasn’t painful maybe a little warm. Like someone had pressed a heated thing into his skin for exactly one moment then pulled it away. He stopped and looked down at his open hand.

What was that?

He glanced back at the totem. It was the most harmless and normal miniature tree he could imagine. Just a young tree in the middle of the village square like it had always been.

Its lowest branch twitched. But Eren had already turned away and was walking.

..

Emily woke up after Eren kissed her body in random places. It was fun.

"Get dressed. We’re clearing everything today." He whispered while blowing his breath on her body.

She twitched and almost kicked his face with this torture wake up style. But she wouldn’t because she was the one invented this maybe a week ago.

Eren still hold the marble and it was glowing faintly.

[Dungeon Heart Fragment: 621 / 1000]

It was still filling but now that he was awake it would be faster. But today wasn’t about the marble.

Today was about making sure nothing with teeth or claws was within striking distance of the village after he left.

If I’m going to disappear for a day the least I can do is make sure my pregnant wife doesn’t have to fight trolls.

Emily was already dressed in her hunting gear and strapping the katana across her back. She looked ready to kill something and it wasn’t even 9 o’clock yet.

"Where first?" he asked.

"Breaksfast?" She tilted her head to the side, creating a very cute image.

Emily probably already figured out he loved that image and she was still tormenting him.

He almost lost control but they had to go and work.

I will get back to you. Just wait. I will kiss you for hours but won’t do anything on purpose. Maybe I could use her feet and....

Rury and Fury met them at the northern tree line after everyone got their breakfast in different ways. Wolves were still eating that dungeon reward meats. Both wolves looked alert, well-rested and happy.

[Morning Dwarf.] Rury’s tail did one wag before she caught herself. She still used that name when Emily wasn’t paying attention.

They moved north past the barricade and into the dense part of the forest. Emily led because she always led and because her instincts for danger were still sharper than his despite everything his stats said on paper.

The trees got taller and the undergrowth thinned. They reached the old riverbed, mostly dry now with just a trickle of water running through cracked stones and Eren saw something he hadn’t expected.

Buildings.

Not buildings exactly. Eren changed his mind. It was mostly ruins.

Stone foundations poking through dirt and moss. Crumbled walls that had once been chest-high, now barely reaching his knees. The remains of wooden structures had rotted away completely but you could see where they’d stood from the gaps between the stonework.

"Emily. What is this?"

She’d stopped walking. Her hand was on the katana grip but not because of danger. She was looking at the ruins with something complicated on her face.

"I told you before. The village used to be bigger." Her voice was quieter than usual.

"My mother said our people once had something closer to a kingdom in this forest. Settlements scattered through the area, connected by paths and river trade." She stepped over a collapsed wall and ran her fingers along the stonework.

"She said time was the biggest enemy, I already told you that but she was saying that sentence more than necessary. It was a bit creepy...

But she said that something kept shrinking us every generation. These buildings could be from my grandmother’s era. Maybe three hundred years ago or more."

Eren walked through the ruins slowly. Most of it was just rubble and root but then he noticed the archway of what might have been a door, still standing between two half-collapsed walls.

Inside the remains of a structure the ceiling was long gone and moss covered everything but one section of wall was still clean enough to show carvings.

"Emily. Come look at this."

She crouched next to him and studied the marks. Old elvish script cut deep into the stone. Even Eren’s perfect elvish didn’t work on this. Maybe it was a different elvish or completely old dialect. He and Emily had no idea.

"This isn’t my generation’s dialect, probably. Not even my grandmother’s generation used this type of words." She traced the lines with her fingertip and squinted.

"I can maybe guess three words among this many. This one means ’tree’ or ’heart’ - We still use these symbols for both. And this..." She moved her finger to the next cluster. "Wake’ or "awakening" maybe... I may be just making things up now. And this last one is similar to "grow" or "eat". Hard to tell with how worn it is."

Tree-heart. Awakening. Swallow. Yeah it is creepy as hell!

Eren didn’t like those words together. He didn’t know why exactly but something about them was making him wish to take Emily and everyone else with him to Earth.

"Could be anything." Emily stood up and brushed the dirt off her knees like she didn’t feel bad like him. "Old prayers or warnings or just decoration. It could be anything, so don’t worry."

She was probably right. But Eren looked at those carved symbols for a few more seconds before turning away. They stayed in his head longer than they should have.

Thuc!

A branch cracked behind the far wall.