As it turned out, asking about the way to the new city was completely unnecessary. As a reminder: Greenskins were a species that posted complicated spreadsheets in training halls, so everyone could calculate the exact amount of Skill Points they would gain by paying certain trainers for their time. It was a species, that took being excellent extremely seriously. A species, that had sewers, and kept them clean. A species, where one could be an Honoured Redcap by being excellent in sweeping streets.


    Of course, such a species would have well-maintained cobbled roads between important towns, with signposts directing the weary travelers in the right direction. The signs even included distances.


    Something Romans were able to do too.


    If they had rest stops every few dozen kilometers – selling overpriced food and even more overpriced go-juices for the means of transportation – it would be almost like on Earth. Even the quality of the cobbled road was comparable to certain highways back home.


    According to the sign, Sumpfigerort was 162 kilometers away. With Prof''s stats, he would have been able to do it in around three days, even walking lightly. However, he was not alone – and every last one of his traveling companions had a lower Agility than him. Meaning, everyone else was slower. The slowest one was actually Adeltraut with an Agility of only 10. Well, Prof could sleep faster than the Ogre could run. Without any background music, and calculating everyone''s Agility and Endurance, they were stuck with eighteen kilometers a day or so.


    “That would be nine days.” declared Prof, closing his rulebook.


    “No, you are wrong.”


    “Why are you using a rulebook for games to determine real-world measurements?" Mini and Wolfgang said at the same time.


    “Because it is a mostly accurate description of how Arkadia works? And what do you mean, I’m wrong. See, this table here tells me the speed for any given Agility, and this here shows how long you can move with certain Endurance!”


    “First of all, Adeltraut is considered a Large Creature, so her movement speed has to be multiplied by one-and-a-half. At least read the footnotes, if you want to play by those rules!”


    “Thanks, Wolfgang. The second problem is that this road is considered a prepared, well-maintained one, and that would mean, the base movement speed has to be multiplied again.”


    “Yes, also, your Endurance counts as two points higher.” even Theodor chimed in.


    “I don’t think, this would be prepared and well-maintained.” Bianca took the rulebook and looked at the tables. “See, it says here ‘like running tracks’. This could be even a bad road.”


    “No, no. Definitely not a bad road. It is cobbled, bad roads would be equal to a dirt track.”


    “All right, folks. I was wrong. How long would it take to reach Sumpfigerort, then? What do you calculate?”


    “You know, in the real world, almost everyone with average Agility and Endurance could do around thirty-five kilometers a day without a problem. So, four and a half days. Maybe we could do it in four.” Mini wasn’t the best in [Mathematics] for no reason.


    “If you are asking, how long it would take in a game, the answer is as long as the Game Master wishes." Wolfgang was a Wiseass.


    “Right… Let’s move. Oh, would be Mythrillhead willing to play some walking music?”


    Prof had to concede, music magic was an awesome invention, and made a boring walk if not less boring, but at least faster.


    While the Domain was mostly thick forest with a few patches of agriculture, the new land was the exact opposite: a lot of fields with only a few patches of woodland. The terrain mostly consisted of gently rolling hills, with a few higher or steeper ones, but a lot of rocks. Prof wasn''t exactly good in [Agriculture], but supposed, the rocky ground made growing food hard. Probably this was the reason for the over-abundance of fields. One could do only so much with manure and a plow. Obviously, the Greenskins haven''t invented steam engines, tractors, and synthetic fertilizers yet.


    Well, Arkadia was still stuck in Medieval times, so no real surprise there. Obviously, magic didn''t help much either. Probably not many mages, sorcerers, wizards, and such were willing to have a career in the agricultural field. Imagine, you go to the Magical Academy and after graduation, instead of sitting in a comfy tower doing easy magic stuff, you do hard work with manure. Probably not many have that dream.


    What Prof really missed from the view were the classical castles on every other hill. Not, that there were castles on every other hill in the old times on Earth, but the complete absence was glaring. There were structures on a few heights, but Greenskins had a very unique way of building stuff. Was that thing on that hill a castle, a farmhouse, or a forgotten pillbox from the last big war? At least with the Elves you could recognize a hilltop ring fortress and differentiate it from a normal log-house.


    With the Greenskins? Not so much.


    The whole region had a certain rural charm, but after a day, it started to get boring. Good painters could most likely make a fortune out of to-be-famous pictures of, say, Goblin Girls Collecting Paprika, Ogre Hauling Produce, Shepherd and Hogs, Resting Orc Peasants, Folks Doing Things to Plants, or Feeding the Gremlins, but Prof still wasn’t able to draw or paint, and he was missing the picturesque country hovels, that made such works – and regions – noteworthy.


    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    Noteworthy, on the other hand, was the absence of strategically placed rest stops to fleece travelers, who forgot to fill their tanks and pack enough sandwiches. All day they found only one tavern, and even that didn''t offer lodgings, just a quick meal and drinks. Prof suspected it made most of its income from the residents of the small town it was located close to rather than the few travelers on the road.


    There wasn’t that much foot traffic on the road, and just a bit more riders or wagons. Most of the latter probably brought enough cheap food with them, and animals didn’t need to be refilled every thousand kilometers or so at dedicated filling stations. You just found some patches of grass, a stream, or threw a few caged Gremlins at them.


    Surprisingly few people did travel in medieval times, and Arkadia was a medieval world too. There were no commuters, working dozens of kilometers from their living places and causing traffic jams twice daily, and vacation – the few days, where you weren''t doing backbreaking work or starving – was spent at the closest pond. If someone wanted to do some traveling and see spectacular castles and new lands, meet exciting new people, he went to a dedicated travel agency, called the local army recruiter.


    Not counting the army marching somewhere, roads were used only by the odd merchant – and those weren’t exactly frequent either. Why haul cheap stuff to other places, when the same stuff was available there too? Luxury goods didn’t have that large a market.


    Without traffic, there weren’t conveniently placed roadside motels with pools and cable TV either.


    For some reason, the Greenskins weren''t so excellent to copy the Elves'' organized camping grounds, there were just a few unmaintained places, where travelers could rest, make a campfire and pitch their tents. The latter was a commodity, and Prof and his friends were freshly out of it. Again. September – all cultures Prof met so far had a different name for the month, and none were September – was close to its end, and it started to get cold at night. Sleeping in the open would be impossible not far in the future – especially, since their bedrolls were safely stored with the tents and the rest of the camping gear back in Saugarten.


    The first night, they barely managed to make a campfire; the place they decided to camp for the night was basically cleared of firewood.


    The only saving grace was that they made good time on the road that day; walking music, reinforced with music magic enabled them to travel almost seventy kilometers! Without getting overly tired. Prof wondered, if in case music magic were real on Earth, and would work on stored music, would his old car be able to make three hundred kilometers an hour? Not, that there would be any possibility to test it, most highways had a speed limit of hundred and thirty and weren''t built to accommodate anything over two hundred. Or so he heard.


    After an uncomfortable, cold, and miserable night, huddling around a barely burning fire, the new day dawned with cold wind and light rain. No wonder, it was already autumn. Strangely, no fiction (at least those which Prof remembered) ever mentioned such grueling weather. Mostly, it was just comfortable, warm climate, and even if winter came, it was just time to visit a nearby hot spring, or go skiing. Medieval ski resorts were always fully booked.


    Of course, no one is interested in reading about how miserable it is to walk all day in the wind and rain, being cold, and lugging heavy luggage. Without high-performance bags of holding to put said luggage in, no conveniently placed rest stops every other kilometer, and no hot beverages sold on the roadside by cute chicks in short clothes. Or, in the case of the party and the band, even without music – the band refused to play in such awful weather.


    No one is interested in how everyone was wet and cold to the bones, how everyone’s skin tried its best to look like particularly raisiny raisins after just one hour, or how everyone’s clothes contained more water than fabric.


    No one is interested in how Prof’s feet started to dissolve in his wet boots.


    Well, actually, it wasn’t dissolving, only Prof felt like it did.


    There are a lot of things, no one is interested in reading about when it comes to walking thirty-five kilometers in rain, wind, and cold, without modern conveniences like umbrellas, raincoats, or cars. Only a select few are interested in such misery.


    Being miserable all day, because of walking in less-than-ideal weather, while being wet and cold they were getting hungry too. It was one thing, that there wasn''t an overabundance of taverns, inns, restaurants, or eateries present, the more pressing issue was the chronic under-abundance of monetary means to invest into calories. One could even say, the non-existence of finances.


    They were broke.


    It was a contradiction, however. They were sitting on quite a wealth, gems, magical stuff, and a lot of jewelry back in Saugarten, but they were still broke. Simply because no convenience store was able to exchange valuable things for valuable coins. Even specialty shops did not have enough money to take the stuff off Prof''s hands. Everyone agreed, that selling their legitimate salvage vastly undervalue wasn''t a good idea.


    At least for now.


    Sooner or later the importance of feeding seven omnivores, two carnivores, and a Vampire would overwrite the profound need to conserve their loot.


    Selling a gem or a magical piece of clothing for a hot meal and a few Gremlins wasn''t just wasteful, it was an all-out crime. Probably a more serious crime than eating and leaving the premises really fast without paying.


    Despite the awful weather, the traffic strangely picked up around noon. The road still wasn’t congested, with only a few wagons every hour, but it was a marked improvement from the day before. Maybe wagons could use the roads only on some days?


    Whatever the reason was, Prof wasn’t exactly interested in it – being miserable, even in his suba and the lumberjack shirt, was more important to him right now than to make up theories about Greenskin traffic regulations.


    In the evening, they were able to exchange music for some food at the next muddy place that was the equivalent of a run-down truck stop.