“Get the mages! Now! Emergency! Everyone! To the front!”


    It was almost dawn when Prof was roused by the alarm. He crawled out of their army-issued squad tent – he still hoped to get their own stuff back from Saugarten, and didn''t bought a new tent yet – and tried to understand, what was going on.


    He was almost run over by a squad of Hog Raiders, riding in the direction of the front. That was almost embarrassing: he survived thirty-five years in Central Europe without falling victim to traffic, but on Arkadia the first time, someone was speeding in a populated area, he was almost sent back to the Afterlife Office. Irresponsible Goblins racing around on huge hogs within a camp! Where was the public safety?! The speed traps?!


    Well, Elves probably had those, it was a brilliant idea to fleece foreigners, after all.


    But then again, how would a speed trap without electronics work? There was probably a way to substitute electronics with magic. Or Perks. Alternatively, the constable would just eyeball the speed. It would be fitting for Elves.


    “Are you done with daydreaming?" Cat asked, "Move, already!"


    “I’m not daydreaming! The sun isn’t even up, it can’t be daydreaming.”


    “Yeah, if it is still dark, it’s called sleeping, shorty.”


    “On the other hand, Miss Minerva, if you are already out of bed, it isn’t sleeping anymore.”


    “Ssssleep isss when eyesssss closssed. Ssstabing eassssy.”


    “Argh!?!? Why do I have to put up with you idiots?!?"


    “Because we are experienced adventurers, who already have defeated fearsome and frightening enemies, and your survival is best assured with us?”


    “Cause we are funny?”


    “The answer to that, Miss? Cat is, that the Guild Leadership ordered so.”


    “I have studied years, put almost all my Skill Points into my magic, and I’m still forced to work with morons! I almost want to go home to all those drab workaholics! Almost.”


    After Cat stormed off, Prof slowly got ready too, wondering, what the Dwarf''s problem was. A little bit of early morning bantering never hurt anyone. Probably Cat just wasn''t a morning person.


    Not long after they started to move in the direction of the front, the reason for the alarm started to filter down the grapevine. Some said the strike team had to retreat with heavy casualties, failing to subdue the Goo Pool. Others swore, that a Meteorblitzkrieg was called in, and the surviving Slimes broke through the front. The most likely scenario was, however, that suddenly a few higher-order Slimes – Prof still hadn''t learned the scientific names for those – assaulted the front, and every able-bodied trebuchet fodder was needed on the double.


    If the strike team truly failed, or the site was nuked from orbit, they could not find out, but there were indeed evolved Slimes around aplenty. Non-evolved and barely-evolved ones too.


    Fireballs, firebolts, fire arrows, fire carpets, and fire spells in every other form were also flying through the air, interspersed with lightning, earth, and metal. The latter two were maybe from the catapults, trebuchets, ballistae, scorpions, and wild asses letting loose in the back rows. The Greenskins didn''t hold anything back. It was war. Almost.


    The grunts – that included Prof – were rushed to the front as soon as they arrived. Prof was quite annoyed by this time – a few months on Arkadia, and he was already drafted to fight someone else’s war, without being able to say anything about it. True, the enemy was some kind of eons-old biological weapon of mass devouring, but still. If the pay was good at least, he would be a little bit less annoyed – not by much, he wanted to see the sights, not get slimed. Get drafted into the army, they said. See the world, meet interesting new creatures, and protect alien civilians, they said.


    Well, actually, nothing of those was said, only “get your stuff and go kill Slimes”. Without receiving much in the way of payment.


    As it were, one of his axes wasn''t able to utilize its enchantments to its fullest – Slime variations didn''t wear armor. Their skins… membranes… thingies, that held the Slimes together were somewhat resilient, otherwise the simplest sticks would have poked holes into them, but it wasn''t exactly armor. The lower damage output wasn''t worth the chance to inflict bleeding. Or sliming.


    Actually, causing the Slimes to lose high-pressured acidic fluids wasn''t exactly a good idea, especially, if you were standing around in front of the wound.


    Prof barely managed to evade the first fountain of elemental acid – his [Evade] was good for something, at least. No one told him, Arkadian Slimes were actually Xenomorphs in a different form!


    Actually, it was no wonder, nobody told him. First, that franchise wasn''t known on Arkadia, and no local knew, what a Xenomorph was, and every last local knew, what Slimes were and what they did. Simply, no one assumed, there was someone running around without knowing the most basic things. Prof should have asked not only for a Rulebook but for a Bestiary too. And maybe a summary of races, countries, civilizations, cultures, and so forth.


    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.


    To be precise, he should have asked for the Rulebook, and not a Rulebook. He was lucky, he got a rulebook, that had at least a passing relationship with Arkadia.


    But well, as it is said, hindsight is 20/20, and Prof would have suffered through less awesome and funny adventures. Khmmm… Misadventures. If his new life wasn''t reality, but reality TV or a trashy novel, no consumer would have watched or read his perfect march to destiny.


    If he was acting in a series or his life was sold as a web novel, he at least could have sued the System Administrator for royalties. Of course, if there was an evil interdimensional publishing house or network station behind all this, they probably had an army of lawyers, and were paying every possible judge, so Prof would have ended up paying multiple lifetimes worth of money, because of… reasons.


    Not, that Prof had currently time to think about legal action against a pan-dimensional corporation – of course, there was no such, he wasn’t starring in any kind of serial – since not be melted, eaten or melted and eaten by huge Slime variations took precedence. It was marvelous, how easily Humans could concentrate on survival and leave existential questions – and possible avenues to get money from other people – aside when faced with immediate consumption by Slimes!


    He dodged, evaded, and avoided the Slimes, attacking, when possible, and dodged, evaded, and avoided the jets of slimes afterward. Choosing two weapons, that had chances to inflict bleeding seemed like a good idea at first, but against the evolved Slimes, they were actually a hindrance.


    Well, the bleeding thing did what it was supposed to do, it gradually lowered the Slime''s HP. Probably. Prof''s [Observe] wasn''t high enough to see HP, and, well, he still mostly forgot to use that Skill.


    The loss of HP was, however, too slow for Prof’s and everyone else’s liking.


    Thankfully, most of the work was done by the mages and high-Leveled strike teams, the front-line grunts only had to occupy the Slimes'' attention long enough. Even so, casualties started to mount. Luckily, not in Prof''s party, and the local volunteers weren''t directly in the front, but a neighboring party was wiped out to the last Gremlin.


    The losses would have been higher, if the musical background were provided by anyone but Mythrillhead. Wolfgang and his band gave a hundred and ten percent, they pulled all the stops, playing louder than anyone, louder than anything, shredding their axes and screaming at the top of their lungs. Prof didn''t have time to listen to the lyrics, but he was absolutely certain, he knew most of the songs. The one time, there was a lull, and he could pay attention, Wolfgang was singing about stringing up razors, sharpening blades, tightening up armor, and killing off everything. If he wasn''t mistaken, that song was from that German band, but the lyrics were slightly off. Wolfgang''s honored ancestor probably had to fit the lyrics to Arkadian Greenskins, who weren''t living in medieval times, and certainly weren''t Teutons.


    It was still a good song, and Prof felt an overwhelming urge to jump right back into the slaughter. What wonderful things [Magic: Music] could do in the hands of a Skilled musician!


    Even with Mythrill constantly blaring out of the musicians, by noon everyone was dead tired. Prof lost his HP pool three times over, and was running out of potions – both HP and de-sliming ones. Even with the local volunteers running around and passing everyone the potions they needed.


    Prof even drank two Stamina Potions but was barred from a third – a passing healer literally had to knock the bottle out of his hands. He was then pulled out of the frontline and had to listen to a lecture about drinking too many Stamina Potions in a short time.


    Obviously, they were slightly addictive and could lead to cardiac shock, cerebral hemorrhage, circulatory collapse, issues with the nervous system, pulmonary edema, and kidney failure.


    The Greenskins should have tried putting caffeine into the potions, and not hard drugs…


    Thankfully, around noon an army detachment took over the line, and everyone could take a break. Mini discussed something with one of the healers, and they disappeared behind a tent not long after. Either Mini got an itch, and found someone willing to scratch it, or she was simply hungry… and found someone, who was willing to cater to her special dietary needs.


    Either way, when Mini came back, her hair was tussled, and she looked happy. The healer wasn’t looking sad either.


    Prof didn’t ask.


    He already learned he should only ask questions, he desperately needed the answer to, and when it came to Mini, he shouldn''t ask even those.


    Innocent, polite questions like “How was your night” could lead to a long presentation of… smut. Or the recounting of barely legal – well, almost certainly illegal – escapades.


    Being undead had one serious disadvantage in Prof''s opinion. Potions didn''t work on them. As long as there were corpses and living enemies conveniently lying around, Undead were probably almost unkillable, they just grabbed something to eat and were right back at full unhealth. As soon as the supermarket, a battlefield was to them, missed a few supply trucks, and the shelves were empty, they had serious problems.


    All Prof did before falling asleep was to feed a few bits of meat to Sleepy, pet him a little, and make sure, Binky was all right too. Actually, both mounts were starting to get fat – either the stable hands were afraid of them, and fed them as much as they could eat… or the stable hands were mysteriously vanishing.


    How someone could be afraid of those sweet, half-ton carnivores, was incomprehensible. They were domesticated! Surely, a domesticated riding animal wouldn’t just munch on random bystanders!


    Especially not on nice folks, who gave them munchies.


    Prof rest was quite short, barely six hours later they had to go back to the frontlines. Judging from the cratered, burned, and devastated landscape, either heavy artillery was brought in, or someone brought in a few convenient meteors for a quick bombardment. Well, on Arkadia both could have been the same. Why invest in expensive siege equipment, when you could just take a mage out of your pocket, and point him in the direction of things you wanted to be blown up?


    Since the Greenskin army did bring siege engines, mages (and witches, sorcerers, and others) were probably not the solution to every problem, you wanted to blow out of existence.


    Prof decided to ask Cat about the intricacies of blowing up things with spells and how to defend against such an approach.


    That had to wait, however. There were still a few Slimes around, just begging to be killed off, and a lot of Slimes, just waiting to devour pesky adventurers.


    Mythrillhead was opening up with a song about letting the corpses hit the floor; it was a good time to deflate blobs of slime!