Sharpclaw led the band of less-than-sneaky wannabe barbarians back into the ruins. From the remaining eleven Hags she found only six on the way to save Prof, and unfortunately, all but one were the lower Leveled ones. The more experienced Hags were nowhere to be found. Or rather, Sharpclaw wasn''t looking for them previously.


    The nearest one was a Level 7, sleeping in a shack made out of driftwood, vines, and rotting moss. Sharpclaw knifed her (it?) without a problem, a passable Skill in [Knives], and her Perks helped her immensely. Well, the Hag was sleeping, so the Perks geared for a clean assassination were probably overkill, to begin with.


    Prof looked around in the shack but didn''t see anything of worth, and his Scavenger Senses weren''t tingling either. All there was were scraps of fabric, cheap pottery, and unidentifiable clutter.


    They worked and killed their way through the known hiding places, all being crappy shacks, without any loot that had any worth. Prof even checked some of the pottery, but his [Valuation] gave such a low value – a couple of iron bits if even that – that he would have needed a whole wagon full of the junk to buy even a loaf of bread. It was strange. The Hags were obviously living in the ruins for some time, but they had no personal effects, not even cavehag-level trinkets.


    All in all, they dispatched another Level 7, a Level 8, two Level 9s, and a Level 12. To be fair, they took turns in pest control, Prof himself got one Level 9.


    The sneaking, slinking, and knifing took its time, by the time they finished, dawn wasn''t far away. Five Hags were still hiding somewhere, and with them alive and kicking, Prof and his friends were unable to search the ruins for Wolfgang''s book. Normally, they would retire to the woods, wait for the next night, and try again. However, with the weak fabric of space in the Valley, if they left on the land-side, they would never find Dunkelwald again. If they went by the way of the small river, they would present themselves on a platter to the Hags. Those ugly beasts were even more dangerous near the water.


    The only idea they had, was to split the party, do a quick sweep, and hope to find as many sleeping Hags as possible before they woke up and started wondering, where their sisters were, and why their food-slash-breeding stock was running around.


    Naturally, Mini and Binky were one pair, mostly because nobody else could control the scorpionlizard. Bianca and Wolfgang were another pair, and that meant, Prof went with Sharpclaw. The distribution wasn’t ideal, Prof would have paired the two lizards together and mixed up the others, but it wasn’t bad either.


    The exterminated Hags were all living in quite distinct shacks, so they only had to be on the lookout for another shack to find the next evil, loot-stealing monster. Prof was sure, anyone who captured innocent travelers for food and stole their stuff could only be a monster, no matter the official Arkadian classification for them. If a Human captured and wanted to eat him, and appropriated his stuff, he would call that Human a monster too! Loot was sacred!


    Well, knowing what to look for, didn''t mean, it was easy to actually find things to kill off. They were in an overgrown city ruin, and the Hags didn''t put up neon signs pointing to their overgrown shacks, made out of ruins. Prof understood the split in the team when Sharpclaw pointed at an overgrown ruin and declared it to be a shack. The little Kobold had a Perception of 14, while Prof only had 11. It was the same with Wolfgang and Bianca. The gerulian mercenary had a low Perception, but the Orc made up for that deficiency. Good thing, Mini was doing the division and not Prof, he would have paired himself with Bianca and Wolfgang with Mini… Another arrow dodged! He still had a lot to learn.


    The shack housed a Level 11 Hag, fortunately still sleeping. Using [Observe] in every situation was still not ingrained in Prof, in stressful situations he mostly still forgot it. Stressful like being attacked by beasts or a band of Elves or a Hag by the riverside. This time, Mini stressed, using [Observe] was of utmost importance. Without using the Skill consciously, he could only be sure, he indeed saw a Hag (he did not need the Skill for that, being a Hag was quite obvious), but for more details, he had to concentrate. That’s why he mostly forgot the Skill…


    He passed the kill to Sharpclaw, she was still low Level, and despite everyone agreeing, killing stuff wasn''t the way for a higher Level (probably), he thought, it wouldn''t harm anyone.


    Save the to-be-killed Hag, that is, but it made no difference to it (or was it her?), who knifed it to death while sleeping.


    The time they set for the sweep was coming to an end, so Prof decided to abandon the further search and return to the meeting place – a more or less cleared square with a waterhole in the middle. Maybe it was a fountain a well or a decorative pond in the city’s golden age. Or a waterhole, Arkadia was struck in medieval times, and the city belonged to a non-Human species. It could have been anything.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    The other two teams were already waiting for them.


    “Hey Prof, did you find anything?” Mini asked


    “A Level 11. You?”


    “My new boyfriend and the Titflasher didn’t find anything, they were probably just fooling around.”


    “Hey! These are your armored undies, Miss Mini! And you said, my breast aren''t sticking out that much! And I have a shirt, no way I''m flashing breasts! And I definitely don''t fool around with an unknown guy in a skirt!"


    “No bumping happened! Not Boyfriend! Not skirt!”


    “But why? You were alone and barely clothed! You should have bumped like rabbits!”


    “Focus, Mini! Did you find any Hags!”


    “Of course, I found some! I''m awesome! I killed two! An 11 and a 12! I''m entitled to a reward now, and I even have ideas, about what that should be" Mini winked to Prof, Wolfgang, and even Bianca.


    That was bad. Not the winking, that was just annoying, but the Hags. There should be at least two others on the loose, and at least one should be a Level 15 if Wolfgang was to be trusted in the numbers and Levels.


    “Damn. Any clues as to where our stuff is kept? Did they even bring it back?" Prof realized, that he just assumed, the Hags collected everything and didn''t just leave the stuff to rot in the brook. He probably should have asked Mini if she found it previously. But surely, she would have told him already, if they waded through discarded valuables. Probably. Hopefully.


    “There was nothing left at the ambush, just scraps of fabric and remains of mules," Mini assured him. So, the Epic Quest of getting the loot back was still on, and the non-existent tooltip still pointed to the ruins. Oh, and there was the side quest for Wolfgang too.


    “We saw a big building that way” Bianca pointed to the West. “It looked important, maybe the Hags deposited everything there.”


    “Yes, mayor’s office and not-quite-Guildhouse. My book probably there. Should start looking there.”


    The Wannabe-Barbarian Loot Retrieval Squad had at least a point to start retrieving the loot. And find the Orc’s book.


    The building was indeed large and in quite a good condition – at least in relation to the rest of the city. Without extra foliage and detritus camouflaging it, it looked like a concrete bunker, where the architect had the urge to put six decorative columns with a tympanum in front of the entrance. And smaller columns with smaller tympanums for every crenel-like window. And some friezes below the flat roof.


    Prof was sure, those thingies all had some name in architecture, but his [Architecture] was sitting at only 54%, so he did not know the words. What he did know, was that Greenskins built butt ugly buildings... You don''t have to have the Skill to know that, only good taste.


    Inside it wasn’t much better. Columns at every possible and impossible place, tympanums above every door, those decorative thingies at the junction of walls and roof. Was there a clearance sale at the local columns-and-tympanums shop, or was the mayor friends with the shop owner and helped him out with increasing the turnover? Or had the Greenskins just a fetish for hard and erect things everywhere?


    As it turned out, neither the loot nor the book was in the Mayor’s Office. In fact, it was empty of mostly everything, they found only a shitty alchemist station with a lot of raw materials. Those probably were worth some money, but came nowhere near the stuff Prof was missing.


    The only other thing they found was the Head Hag – this time Prof didn’t forget to use [Observe], and he was promptly informed, they were eye to eye with a Level 15 River Hag.


    Eye-to-eye as in Prof bumped into it when turning a corner, and both fell in a heap. If this were an Anime, you would be sure, the falling in a heap would also include some marginally comical almost-sexual hint, a lot of blushing, and hysterical slapping. That situation would also mean, Prof vomited out his last few meals, because, well the Hag wasn''t a cute anime girl, but an ugly hag.


    But, this is not an Anime.


    Prof fell on top of the Hag and was literally eye-to-eye with it. There wasn''t any comical tension, Prof wasn''t anywhere near womanly parts – and was determined to kill anyone, who spread such fake news – and there was definitely no blushing. There was a little bit of nausea on Prof''s part, though.


    His blanked-out brain did manage to fire some neurons up, that is actually why he managed to Observe the Hag. Seeing it was high Level – meaning extremely dangerous – his reflexes and muscle memory took over, and he went stabby-stabby on an old-looking lady lying on the floor. Having Skills and Perks did not help the Hag to escape the millennia-old truth: when quality steel met mortal flesh, the flesh always lost.


    Prof was thankful to the Heavenly Game Master and his System. Without his Skills and Stats and Perks and Whatnot, he would be just an average guy from Central Europe, without any "reflexes" and muscle memory would be limited to clicking with a mouse or typing on a keyboard.


    How different the worlds were! On Earth, he would be hunted down by law enforcement for being a homicidal maniac, on Arkadia he would probably only get a pat on his back. It was a dangerous road to walk, and no wonder the Elves were ready to just kill Travellers off without any question asked!


    Be as it may, there was only one Hag remaining, and that meant, looting was finally not far away!