Judging from the sound and visual effects later the day, coming from the battlefield, the fancy people were indeed high-Level individuals. Moronic nobles don''t just call meteor showers… meteor storms and don''t just set fire to the ensuring craters. Probably. Well, technically, they could do all that – by ordering competent people to do it.


    Not, that nobles – and politicians – couldn''t be competent, but especially the latter mostly just put all their points into Charisma, [Con], and [Convincing]. However, on Arkadia high Level inevitably also meant competent. Not necessarily in useful Skills, but competent nonetheless. While on Earth everyone could say, he was competent in, say, history or science, on Arkadia you could actually prove your competence, just by showing your Character Parchment. Less chances for charlatans. Well, [Con] and [Convincing] were still valid Skills, so a competent conman could still win any election.


    But, that only proved, he was indeed competent.


    Morons, on the other hand, tended to die early because of… well, incompetence and stupidity.


    Be as it may, by evening, the horizon was aflame, and the khm… tactical repositioning turned into a hasty parade of victorious troops. Obviously, it was better PR to position yourself as an army, marching in an orderly fashion after fighting deadly Slimes for a week or so, than as a demoralized horde running away from an ancient weapon of magical mass devouring.


    Prof''s and Wolfgang''s wagons also joined the parade, Mythrillhead providing an epic march – it was actually the Mythrill version of the most well-known movie from Earth. Instead of military walkers, there were walking military, but it was still a valid song. Prof''s party, on the other hand, was enthusiastically waving, and in the case of Mini, throwing kisses. And trying to chat up random passers-by.


    The whole parade would have been even more epic if there was a crowd to watch it, not just a few people. Obviously, spontaneous parades needed thorough advance planning, including informing the populace, attendance is recommended, and distributing correct flags to wave and banners to hold high. Either the Greenskins didn''t know that the time was too short, or the person responsible for the planning had a very low [Parade Planning] Skill. If there was such a Skill. On the other hand, Greenskins was too fixated on excellence to allow someone un-excellent to do important things.


    To finish the epic transportation quest – and hopefully receive monetary accolades – Prof’s wagon soon left the impromptu parade for the barracks. The home of the local military might was probably located in the local castle – it was probably a castle since there were soldiers there, but Prof still couldn''t tell Greenskinian military and civilian architecture apart. Both looked the same to him – they had the same bunker look, with the same narrow windows and the same ugly decorations.


    Wolfgang once tried to educate him on the differences but gave up soon. Obviously, a Perception of 11 and a… very low [Architecture] Skill wasn''t enough for the mythical task of spotting the three differences.


    Prof found out, that "being excellent" didn''t include monetary compensation for rescuing military stores from certain destruction (or the consummation by Slimes), because that was regarded as "being excellent to the military". Meaning, everyone had the duty to do their utmost to preserve or rescue said stores. Instead of some hard cash, they only received a long and pompous speech about how excellent they were. At least the garrison commander promised to inform the Adventurer''s Guild about their excellence.


    If not for that Sergeant, they could have stolen the cache and sold it on the black market! Or hold on to the potions themselves! Ehmmm… Of course, they wouldn’t have done that, they weren’t some common thieves! They would have turned in the crates even without the Sergeant’s meddling! Well, they would have turned in most…


    The only positive result of the whole quest was, that they didn’t need to walk back or ride on the double. Plus the live audio system from the other wagon. Arkadians really should invent portable music. Maybe train Gremlins to play instruments?


    On the way back to the Guild and their lodgings – they were still unable to secure a room or two elsewhere – they started to hear interesting rumors.


    “The General slew the President!”


    “Saugarten is burning!”


    “The Army joined the riot in Saugarten!”


    “The Hog Raiders have mutinied!”


    “Some Elf killed a whole garrison at the border!”


    “The Mages’ not-Guild cut communication to the outside!”


    “Dunkelgrünen invaded Ostwaldland!”


    “Dunkelgrünen came to help the rioters!”


    “Dogmeat prices rise everywhere!”


    “There is no paprika to buy on the market!”


    “Franz Bettw?rmer was caught cheating on his wife with Lotte Heissblut!”


    “Wait, isn’t Lotte his first cousin?”


    “No, she is his second cousin. The one you mean is Lotte Heissgetr?nk.”


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    “You are both wrong. The Heissblut girl is not related to him at all, and the Heissgetr?nk woman is his aunt, and she’s old.”


    “No no no. His aunt is Linde Warmwasser, I''m sure about it, she is my neighbor. Heissblut is…"


    Of all the rumors, the last was the most interesting. It was an interesting insight into local relations and conventions. Prof was reminded of certain TV dramas. He was almost certain, in a short time it would come out, that Franz was actually innocent, and it was his long-lost twin brother, who was in a convenient coma for two Seasons, who did the sleeping around. That would be hilarious and cliché.


    But then again, cheating folks were around everywhere. Cheating with close relatives, though. Well, at least it stayed in the family.


    The other rumors hinted at some serious problems in the capital, and Prof wondered a little bit, what that was all about. Just a little bit, since it was the Greenskins'' internal problem, and he didn''t have anything to do with it. He was absolutely sure, he and his friends were completely unrelated to the troubles. He would even swear on it.


    “I think, we should expedite our relocation to the South," he told the others. Winter was coming, after all, and they planned to relocate to begin with. The troubles in Ostwaldland – and the party''s non-relations to them – had nothing to do with the pending journey.


    “I thought, you wanted to earn more money first," Bianca replied


    “Well, I think we are good, we’ve got twenty marks for the gems. Plus, we still have to sell the loot from the last dungeon. Oh, and I hope, at least a part of the stuff from the warehouse could be sold. With all those earnings, we should be able to buy a horse and supplies and maybe even a wagon.”


    “They don’t have many horses in Greenskin lands, mostly only hogs and a few goats.”


    “Fine, we could buy a hog or two.”


    “Don’t forget tents. It’s really getting cold at night.”


    Prof started to write a shopping list. If everything went right, they could flee… ehmmm… leave Sumpfigerort within a few days, a week at most. Just as he started to wonder, why no Level-Up notification popped up after days of slime liquidation, the long-awaited red exclamation mark started to blink in his peripheral view. It really was time, after all of his epic, legendary, and mythical quest of… organizing the first Mythrill concert ever, neutralizing a dangerous troll, kitchen work, weapon testing, escorting army stores, and killing slimes.


    He definitely needed to figure out, what made a Level-Up happen. Just stumbling through life without having a clue wasn’t that entertaining. Even if the Arkadian locals did the same.


    Distributing his Skill Points was easy this time too – after all, he had enough time to think about it. First, he needed to "learn" the languages of the South. There were quite a few warnings, that his current languages wouldn''t mean much outside of Greenskin lands, he needed to learn Gerulian, Western Common, and Fellarian. From the sparse information Prof could gather, the latter two were variations of each other, but what exactly the difference was, no one could tell him. Not that he asked around that much.


    Twenty-five Points were allocated to each. It wasn''t much, but at least he should be able to understand and speak some. If they were staying in the South for a longer time, he could always learn more. Or throw Skill Points at those Skills. No Points were spent on the respective [Culture], [Etiquette], or [Laws]. A hundred and ten sounded as much, but it wasn''t. How everyone else, with fewer points, could reach high Levels in any Skill, Prof couldn''t exactly understand. They probably trained day in and day out.


    Or there were still secrets about Arkadia’s System, no one told him yet.


    Ten Points each were thrown at [Parry], [Block] and [Acrobatics], simply to round out his martial Skills. He still needed around thirty Points each to reach the minimum of 100%, which his trainer told him was necessary.


    The last five Points went into [Convincing].


    Every little bit helped to convince Traveller-Hunters, that he wasn''t one. He at least hoped the Skill worked that way.


    While he didn''t feel the difference between the Skills, he put a few Points into it – Humans were notoriously bad at noticing gradual change – his three new language Skills flooded his brain with new information. Western Common and Fellarian were indeed quite similar, but there were clear differences too. If Prof had to judge, Fellarian was the more refined, pure one, while the former was riddled with loanwords, new phrasing, and different syntax.


    If he had to make a comparison, he would have used Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin.


    Of course, he had the learn another alphabet too. Although the Garuli used the same one as the Bergians, Fallerian, and Western Common used a different one. The alphabet for classical Fallerian used runes – different ones, compared to the Greenskins – that looked a little bit like Akkadian… Babilonian… some Mezopotamian script. Prof wasn''t exactly interested in them back on Earth and had no clue, which one was which. Probably the Fallarian script had nothing to do with them to begin with, so it made no difference to him.


    Western Common, though… Since it was a bastardized version of Fallarian, it was meant to be written in the Fallarian alphabet, but Prof learned enough to know, that using one of… many other scripts was also valid.


    Of course, he didn’t learn any of those many other alphabets.


    Unfortunately, there wasn''t a new Perk there this time either. He probably had to do something noteworthy to get one or do something repeatedly.


    “Hey, Cat! We are planning to visit the Southern lands. Do you want to come? We could use a good witch who knows so much awesome magic!"


    “No, thank you. You idiots are irritating, and I constantly have a headache, just from listening to you. Besides, there are some archaeologists, who found a tomb of one precursor species or other, and they are hiring adventurers for security. And to help them loot the place. It pays well.”


    “Oh, tomb raiding?" Mini chimed in "That''s a fun thing to do. All those people you meet down there! Most are locked in for millennia and just want to have a nice talk, or play games. Those poor undead are so lonely on their own!"


    “You think, there will be undead there?”


    “Of course, there will be some! It’s a tomb! What else would be there? Desiccated corpses? Duh. Don’t forget to bring fresh blood and some booze, most undead can be bribed with those, and you could have a chat with them. Oh, and learn [Ancient Language: Deadian]. Most ancient undead don’t speak modern languages. ”


    “Well… thank you?”


    Prof was happy, they weren''t roped into some crypt-delving. His first dungeon was enough of that, and if the local undead wanted a chat, it could be even more dangerous, than pasting Slimes on rocks. Although he was well-equipped and had good Skills and Perks to deal with undead, he had enough of fighting for the foreseeable future. After reaching the sea, he would go look for a bar on the beach, and chill out for a time.


    “You there! I was looking for you pesky kids!”