The battle went on and on and on just like this for a few more days. Prof was either killing Slimes – well, trying to kill Slimes – or was sleeping in the camp, but had no energy, time, or inclination to do anything else. It was like at home: grind, sleep, repeat. At least his files at the office didn''t want to eat him, they only ate his brain slowly. Maybe the files at the office were some kind of devious zombies?


    “Zombies rarely eat brains." Mini informed him after he complained "Well, their preferred food is brains, just like blood is for Vampires, but Zombies are generally very polite about it. They ask you if you still need your brain before eating it."


    “That is comforting. Asking before bashing your head in.”


    “You do know, that if you have a good enough magic user, you can survive without your brain or most of your other organs? Besides, they mostly eat animal or monster brains, Human or Elven brains are a delicacy, and expensive to buy.”


    “What about Dwarven brains?” Cat perked up


    “No, not particularly. They say those taste like warmed-up dirt, with alchemical leftovers as sauce. One of my acquaintances once told me, she would rather starve than eat Dwarf."


    “Figures. Those tunnel-dwellers are indeed quite drab. No proper Deviant can stand them for more than a few days. Go working! Be productive! Those mountains don’t dig themselves out on their own! At least the Gnolls are a bit funny.”


    “What about Gnolls? I heard them mentioned a few times, and…”


    “Prof, stop right there. Don''t ever talk about Gnolls in the presence of Dwarves! Not even Deviant ones! I will tell you later." Mini was serious. As soon as the crazy, careless Vampire got serious, it was time for some legwork, and being somewhere else. The warning came late, though. Cat was already standing, puffing itself up to its full hundred and twenty centimeters, and was glaring at Prof.


    “You want to talk about Gnolls, do you? Pry secrets out of me? If you want to know something, you should go back to the Collective Below the Mountain, and ask your fucking questions there! This discussion is over! If you ever ask me about stuff, you shouldn''t know, I will poison, burn, irradiate, and bury you on the spot. Understood?!"


    Without waiting for an answer, Cat stormed off.


    “What’s its problem?” Bianca asked, beating Prof for the same question.


    “Dwarves don''t talk about the Collective and certainly don''t like if someone mentions Gnolls. It''s deeply ingrained. A cultural thing. Even Deviants react like that."


    “They have to hate Gnolls with a passion.”


    “Hate?!? Hahahahaha! They are best buddies!”


    “Why keep everything a secret, then?”


    “Well, it''s their origins. Or the Dwarves'' origin at least. I think, I already told you, Dwarves were created by some precursor race as cheap labor. It is speculated, that the Gnolls were created by the same species as shock troops. No one knows. A few hundred years ago, no one knew that gnolls even existed. One year, there weren''t any, and barely a decade later, there were Gnolls all over the mountains. The Dwarves were behaving like they knew each other for… forever."


    “Strange.”


    “Yeah. Nosy people were curtly told, no information will be forthcoming, and that they should fuck off. There are speculations, though. Some say the Dwarves dug out an old bunker or barracks, others think, the Gnolls just migrated South for somewhere and invoked an old contract."


    “Migrated South? I thought Forestdeep was located North of the Dwarves'' mountains. How come, even you didn''t notice a whole species migrating through your home?"


    “Well, it is true, Forestdeep is in the North, but even my Estate, which is almost the westernmost, is still East of most of the Collective. I don''t know, what lies West of Forestdeep. Probably not many know."


    Prof consulted his mental map. Without other maps to fill in the gaps (or going there himself), most of Fenria was still just an empty outline, with vague shapes for countries. West of Forestdeep’s outline, there was just emptiness; so large, he could have put a whole empire into it. North of Forestdeep…


    “Actually, what is in the North? Beyond Forestdeep?”


    “Dunno. The deep forest ends a few hundred kilometers North of my Estate. It is said, that it gets sparser and sparser, and finally, you see only mosses and endless ice. Very few venture North, since most never come back or heard from ever again. So, probably there is something even older, more powerful there, than even Forestdeep. Or everyone just freezes solid."


    A wild, untamed land, full of mysteries, and lost treasures, just lying there, free for the taking! Of course, every last true adventurer would just jump on the chance to be the first one, who made landfall on an unknown land, finding – and plundering – ancient ruins, probably making first contact with never-seen-before species! Every real adventurer would embark on an epic adventure to the mist-shrouded North without delay, bards would compose and sing epic songs about them! This was what adventuring was all about, no?


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Prof pitied all those true and real adventurers, who would sail for unknown, frozen lands. First, it was frozen, and even before his accident, that landed him on Arkadia, he wasn’t exactly keen on cold weather. Secondly, exploring unknown lands – particularly lands, where not even the crazy, overpowered Foresteans ventured – was a good way to earn an unmarked grave or lunch with some monster. Where the true adventurer was the main course. And thirdly, there were endless possibilities in the South, a true and real adventurer could occupy himself with.


    Like helping out in taverns, or killing Slimes.


    Prof was absolutely sure, he would never, ever join an expedition to those parts. Probably not even voyages to other parts, that were advertised as ‘no one came back from there’. Once was enough. Even if the Valley made him rich – assuming, he would be able to sell all those gems – it wasn’t worth the hassle. And the danger. And all those critters and people, who wanted to kill him.


    On a separate occasion, Prof also questioned Cat about how magic worked and why there were siege engines, bows, and swords around. He already knew from reading the rulebook, the auxiliary supplements, and designing a few characters for the game they played, that making a pure magic user was possible, but hard.


    Cat wasn''t exactly well-versed with other species – only rumors were heard – but Dwarves had around one percent chance to be "born" with ''Mana Channels'' – everyone else had to buy the Perk later. Not that many did so, Dwarves generally focused on working, not frivolities like magic. Their basic need for geomancers, enchanters, and industrial mages was fulfilled by that one percent.


    As for defending against magic, Prof was told, that opposing elements generally gave the best protection against each other, and adjacent elements either reinforced or weakened each other. Since there were five basic elements on Arkadia, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Energy, how opposing and adjacent elements were defined was, in his opinion, complete bullshit. The best Cat was able to explain, it was a three-dimensional square with five points. Prof wasn''t exactly good in [Geometry], but was fairly sure, a square with five points wasn''t a square, but a pentagon.


    Cat told him, he was an idiot, and the shape was indeed a square with five points, and not a pentagon or a pentagram.


    To complicate things, every base element had a pseudo-element too, Heat, Cold, Darkness, Light, and Force respectively. Those could reinforce or weaken each other or the base elements, depending, on where those five were on the five-pointed square. That could be visualized at this time as a four-dimensional square with ten points. At the time Cat started on where other quasi-elements, like Life, Death, Radiation… and two others were on that impossible piece of geometry, Prof was completely lost.


    There was also a lecture on where Zoomancy, Floramancy, Environmental Magic, Space-Time, and whatsitname-magic, and something-or-other-magic, and whatever-magic and… others were on that square, but Prof was only hearing white noise. Even with Intelligence at 18.


    Probably no magic user, who wasn’t completely bonkers – or had at least 500% in [Magic Theory], but those were the same in Prof’s opinion – could understand the relations in their minutest details, [Magic: Neutralizing] was mostly used. It could completely negate Spells from other schools, if…


    Prof decided it was a very good idea, that he didn''t go down the road to magic and madness. Bashing heads with axes was incomparably easier and less headache-inducing. At least for him. Inducing headaches on enemies was what bashing heads was supposed to do.


    After getting not one, but two infodumps in a short time, Prof was ready to vent his frustration on Slimes. Luckily, there was still enough crawling, bobbing, and undulating around. Unfortunately, every last one of them was the "Run-for-your-life" variety. Even the army was in the midst of a tactical repositioning. Although, running very fast in the direction of the nearest town (Sumpfigerort, one day away), while leaving siege engines and heavy equipment back, could be maybe called a strategic rout.


    But Prof wasn’t that proficient in Arkadian military vocabulary, so it could be indeed just a tactical repositioning.


    There were some, who were willing to mount one of the famous last stands, where every last participant met a glorious and gruesome end.


    Prof and his party weren''t one of those. They weren''t suicidal, so they wanted to commandeer a left-behind riding animal for Bianca, load Sharpclaw and Cat up on Binky and Sleepy, and join the repositioning. With all the clutter left behind, they were almost certain to find an animal – and maybe some valuables too. Of course, they weren''t planning to steal but to rescue. Of course, they would turn in the loot… khmmm… salvage at the first army checkpoint. For a small finder''s fee.


    There were indeed left-over animals, wagons, crates of potions, and stuff lying around. Unfortunately, everything came with a fat Orc sergeant attached. It was the first time, Prof saw a fat Greenskin. Or a fat member of any species – obviously medieval societies didn''t support getting fat. At least on Arkadia. On the other hand, Prof wasn''t exactly moving around in high society, where there was enough surplus foodstuff to get fat in the first place.


    “You there!” the sergeant greeted them “You just volunteered to rescue the potions and the reserve gear! Load up! On the double!”


    Obviously, great minds thought along the same lines. Why leave expensive valuables behind, so scavenging Slimes could devour or slimy scavengers steal them, when you could just as easily liberate… ehhmmm… save everything yourself? How excellent the Greenskins were, they would surely give them awards and money, or they would just gift everything rescued to them. Right? Right?


    Unfortunately, rescuing ownerless items turned into a transportation quest for army stores. Unless they lost the sergeant somewhere on the road, no awards and prize money would be forthcoming. Except for Mini, probably Sharpclaw, and maybe Bianca no one was prepared for accidentally losing a subaltern of the armed forces. There went the money.


    At least they managed to join up with Wolfgang''s band on the road and were able to enjoy some driving music. Audio systems for vehicles were an excellent invention. Especially live music, even if it was played on hog-drawn wagons.


    Strangely, there were a few folks moving in the opposite direction, but judging from the number of quality clothes, exaggerated amount of expensive accessories, and excessive haughty attitudes, those were either moronic nobles or extremely high-leveled people, who made a career of dispatching monsters.