Helping with Adventurer Party Management - Chapter 295

On one side of the large atrium, what appear to be samples of plants and animals—likely collected by the Baron using all his financial means—are propped up in a cramped space. On the other side, numerous detailed sketches seem to have been made from these samples.

Like the canvases in my original world, they look as though they have been painted on wooden frames with some kind of cloth stretched over them.

“It kind of looks like an adventurer’s guild warehouse,” Sara whispers in my ear.

It certainly feels more like a museum warehouse than an atelier.

After all, there are flight feathers from a bird as tall as a human, claws from some creature as large as a human’s palm, the fur of a small animal that shimmers with rainbow-like hues, and insect legs as long as a human’s leg—strange monster materials are lined up everywhere.

I’ve been an adventurer for five years, so I’ve collected monster materials before, but I can’t even recognize 10% of the materials here.

Then, as if sensing our presence, the Baron, who has been peering into a small box, suddenly shifts his shoulders and looks up at me.

“Anne, who are these people?”

“Baron, these are the people who organized the Adventurer’s Guild warehouse I told you about before.”

“Oh, that’s it! I see. That was quite a feat. I’ve heard it’s made it easier to find materials.”

From the conversation, it seems that by organizing the Adventurer’s Guild’s material storage, we have contributed to the Baron’s collection, and he seems to appreciate it. Indeed, it must have been tough searching through that old storage room, which had become little more than a trash heap.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Ah, Kenji,” I introduce myself.

“Kenji is the owner of the workshop that makes the Cardinal’s shoes, which have been the talk of the town lately,” Anne follows up on my greeting, but the Baron doesn’t seem particularly interested in shoes.

“Hmm. So, what did you want?”

“Baron, Kenji came to see your paintings.”

“A painting! I see. If that’s the case, why didn’t you just say so? Hmm. Would you like to see a sketch of the feathers of a giant bird that lives in a volcano at the end of the southern mountains? Or would you like to see the front legs of insects that are said to have been found in caves deep in the unexplored east?”

As he speaks, he busily walks around, picking up the actual specimens and trying to show me the canvas where he has copied them.

As I stand there, honored by the attention, I realize something: this Baron is no artist.

“Baron, this sketch is very detailed.”

Perhaps sensing my genuine interest, the Baron’s eyes brighten and his voice changes.

“You can tell, huh? The pen and ink were specially made for this purpose. To truly capture nature as it is, the details must be meticulously faithful. Look here, this giant feather is wonderfully done. The feather splits like a tree branch, and the split branches further divide in the same manner, repeating over and over. Isn’t it just artistic?”

He has noticed the fractals—repeating patterns that appear in nature.

People who don’t understand this might dismiss him as eccentric, but I realize: this Baron is not an artist. He’s a scholar.

More specifically, a naturalist—a field of study that has long disappeared in the world I come from.

Natural history, an academic discipline that aims to study all aspects of natural science, also has a taxonomic nature, involving the collection and classification of animals, plants, insects, and more.

I don’t know what kind of academic fields are developing in this world, but here, in the monster world, I can see the early stages of natural history—collecting and classifying monster materials.