Alucard shrugs. "I expect that's on you rather than the monasteries. They were some of my best clients, even if I suspect some of the reasons they sought me out was because I was willing to travel to remote parts."

It had been a good life, all things considered. Requests to look at this object or that one. Determine time period or authenticity or simply make sense of something that has too much mystery to it. A life that wed the academic to his mother's request that both Alucard and Alucard's father see the world rather than remain hidden in their home in Krimnos.

Academics were...fussier.

"I've found that academics fuss over what was and what must remain, even when given evidence that the opposite is true."