In the time Prof retrieved the loot and did some business, Hajni tended to the elf’s wounds, washed her, and was already cooking, when Prof arrived. Kendrik waved him to the table.
“Whatever happened to her, got her almost killed. If you hadn’t arrived in time and brought her here, she would have died and we could only have provided a nice funeral.”
“Yes." Hajni added "Heavy concussion, multiple cracked ribs, that nasty fractured shin…" she glanced meaningfully at Prof at that "even the stab with inner bleeding would have been enough, but she got sepsis and I suspect the weapon she got stabbed with was poisoned. Or that poisoning came afterward. doesn''t matter. She had hours to live."
“Will she survive?”
“Yes, she will survive. I fed her enough potions, and antidotes, applied enough salves, and did enough other things that she should regain consciousness come tomorrow. She will have to rest for another day, but after that, she will be as good as new."
“Thank you, Hajni. What do I owe you?”
“Just because we are friends, seven silver. Don’t try to haggle, Prof, if it wasn’t you who paid for the treatment, I would ask for fifteen for a job like this!”
“Haggling hasn''t even crossed my mind, Hajni! Here is your money. But, why does it matter that the girl is a Red? And what is a Red”
“Hehe, the girl is at least thirty!" laughed Kendrik "Elves age a bit differently than Humans, and if my guess is right, she is even older than you relatively! She should have a higher Level than you, too. I''m not that good with the Red''s tattoos, but I think that bird means she is a scout for her Clan – and you have to be at least Level 3 if I''m correct. I saw tattoos on her neck and arms too, so, and I say this again, I don''t know much about their ink, I would be surprised if she were below Level 4, probably Level 5."
Prof already knew his martial Skill were fit for a Level 4 or 5, so he had some idea of what was needed to get the Elf into this state. For example a Dire Wolf or the oberboneführer from the dungeon. If the girl – he couldn''t think about her in other terms – had potions too, she was hit by someone powerful.
“As for your question about the Reds," Kendrik continued "they are crazy. They look down on anyone who is not an Elf or outright hate them. They are something like enforcers for the Domain: they hunt everyone down the Elves think offended, crossed, or annoyed them. We have a saying –a Red happened – for unexplained and sudden death. There are a lot of legends about them, but no one knows anything concrete. If someone complains to one of the Princes or even the High King, they just shrug. They can''t do anything, the Reds don''t belong to either Prince just their own Clan. The complainer mostly dies afterward suddenly and in an unexplained matter. A Red happened to them, as the saying goes. The common wisdom is, don''t mess with Elves or they will kick out your teeth. Don''t mention Elves or they may hear about it, get annoyed, and kick out your teeth. And under no circumstance mess with a Red. You may wish someone kicked out your teeth."
“To get it clear: I just brought a psychopathic, speciesist mass murderer into the village?"
“Yes, that sounds about right.”
“Fantastic!”
That was bad news. Who would have thought that bringing the cute little injured neighbor back home was a bad idea? He didn''t even know anything about Elves! If the "Reds" were so bad, why didn''t anyone warn him about not talking about and talking to Elves, and definitely not bringing them home? It was like every Local knew how dangerous they were and assumed, everyone else knew too! Oh, wait. Everyone else probably knew it, just not an Earth ex-pat who just fell from the sky, and who didn''t advertise he wasn''t from around there.
He even read that f******* Rule Book! He had Skills! And still, every day he found out something new that was not covered by the book or his Skills! How was that fair? What would have happened, if he haven’t read that f***** Rule Book?!? Maybe being an Utter Moron but having some nice cheat powers would have been better. Hmmm… Probably not. Still, someone should have warned him about treehuggers and teethkickers.
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Prof resigned himself to a long night of heavy drinking. The joy of having made a boatload of money transformed into utter terror for probably having doomed the village. His depression lasted till the garden gate: as soon as he reached it, a red exclamation mark started to blink in his peripheral view. He opened the new parchment with a thought.
<u>Congratulation!</u>
For working hard and diligently you have amassed enough EXP to be granted a Level Up! You have received 14 HP and 110 Skill Points that you can distribute as you wish! Only the sky is the limit!
<u>Attention!</u>
Because you have paid attention to courtesy and cleanliness even in situations where it could have been waived for all of your life, you have been gifted with the Perk Gentleman. From now on everyone will look upon you neutrally at the worst. Have a nice day, Sir!
Besides the very much appreciated Level Up there were two nice surprises in the messages. First, his Point Harvester Perk was valid for HP too, if his math was any good, he should have gotten only 13. The other was the free Perk. The Rule Book was quite adamant that gaining new Perks was a chore and by no means guaranteed. There probably was a bug in a System, because Prof very much doubted, one month of being polite and clean was enough for a new Perk – it probably measured his whole life (that is his twenty-two years) as it was lived on Arkadia and not his effective life on Arkadia (that is one month).
Or he was just handed a staple isekai Cheat Power ?.
With such an übersupreme mega cheat there was no way he couldn''t abuse it to reach world domination! Not that he wanted it – his idea for his new life was traveling, seeing sights, and earning enough money for a comfortable lifestyle without too much work. He also didn''t forget a very important rule from the Book: it was easier to lose a Perk than to gain one. So, if he wanted to keep his new one, he will have to continue being clean and polite. Not a problem, he didn''t see the gain in the effort of being rude, and he didn''t like being dirty.
As for the Skill Points, he was happy like a little kid for the wrapping of his newest, extremely expensive toy. He had so many plans with Skill Points, so many Skills to raise to an acceptable Level, and so much to learn! He never understood certain Main Characters in novels, why they banked and saved Stats and Skill Points and whatever for the far-off possibility they would need them later to solve a problem – while spending it right now could have prevented the problem in the first place.
Leveling Up was there to spend the points as fast as possible, not to open a bank account for them. No one gave you interest in the Points sitting idle and unused! Prof did remember a few novels, where the Main Character was weak across the board but still hoarded the Points like a Dragon gold – and promptly found himself in preventable situations. Prof didn''t want to get into such a situation: spend what you have gotten right now, free points will do nothing if you are dead.
As it was, he already made plans for the distribution earlier. He raised [Axes] to 175%, and to get the edge of Parvenue his [Convincing] to 77%. To make use of the information he received from Kendrik he put 29% to [Observe], bringing it up to 40%. That still wasn’t much, and probably he would still not get any useful information out of it, but at least he started on the road. Previously he hadn’t decided what to do with his extra point from Point Harvester, just to spend it on something that transpired as a weakness.
After the fuck-up with the Elf (the treatment, not bringing her to the village) he felt it prudent to put a few points into [First Aid] for the simple reason not to kill a patient while trying to save him – 68% will be hopefully enough for that. For his next Level Up he planned to raise his two martial Skills to 200%, and slowly bring [Valuation] and [Looting] up to that level too, and the rest of his Points would go into [Observe], [Etiquette] and [First Aid] till all of them reached 100%.
As a long-term plan, he still felt validated to get a few other Skills up to around 100%, [Wilderness Survival], [Hunting], [Tracking], [Art: Drawing] and [Art: Painting] amongst others. Only after having a solid base, he planned to get back to his chosen four Skills.
He skipped the long night of heavy drinking in exchange for a good sleep. The next day the first task was to visit Kendrik, Hajni, and their new patient.