As Prof found out, he did something right the first time since coming to Arkadia. As he found out, the locals usually put half their Skill Point per level into the language of the foreign country they frequented or found themselves in. Taking language classes was mostly reserved for rich people, everyone else just threw Skill Points at the problem. That was cheating in Prof's opinion. Back on Earth, he had to learn two foreign languages the hard way (without those languages, he would be hard-pressed to find a well-paying job, no foreigners cared to learn Central European), here, on Arkadia it took only a second to become proficient.

Of course, he forgot, that he had to hike through the Valley of Torment, get captured by Hags, kill Hags, loot and plunder, free a guy, find a lost treasure, and return the guy and the treasure to their home country. It took time to get EXP and level up on Arkadia too.

Yes, you are right. It took less time to level up even so than to learn a new language from scratch.

It took another half an hour for the Squad Leader to return. It was time for their interviews. First was Prof – because he was the only male, was considered the party leader, or for any other reason, he did not know. He was led to another building, probably the keep – the Greenskin architecture was still new to him, and every building seemed the same. Blocky, with useless columns and ugly decorations. The building was probably the keep, but could also be an apartment high-rise.

“Welcome, welcome. Please take a seat." the President greeted him. Prof realized he knew enough of the culture, to point the Goblin's position out. That was convenient. The other Goblin was the General and the Hobgoblin the Chief. Or at least those would be the titles in a civilian settlement. In a military installation, like a castle on the border? Prof wasn't sure.

“My name is Klaus-Jürgen Apfelbauer, the mayor of the surroundings, with me are Dietrich Schafhirt, the colonel, and Harald Schiffszeichner, the chief. Let us begin!"

Prof tried to flaunt his newly acquired language Skills, but the three leaders reassured him, that they could continue in Bergian, they were all more proficient with it than Prof Greenskinian. First, Prof had to identify himself – he still had all the papers from the Elves, so this part wasn't hard. The leaders were surprised, he had identification papers at all, only the Elves were hung up on those, and most other species had only a "passport" at best. Although Greenskins and Elves hated each other, the former trusted the latter to be proper bureaucrats and only hand out papers, where the contents were correct. Especially concerning non-Elves.

If the papers said, Prof was Santa Claus (or the Heavenly Game Master), everyone, everywhere on Arkadia would assume, it was correct and true. Bow to the power of bureaucracy!

The only issue with his identity arose when it came out, he was technically the Leader of a Red Elf Clan. It caused amusement, when Prof recounted, how exactly he became the Deputy Leader (all three probably though, he was a moron for saving a Red), and all-out laughter at the end.

Prof recounted their journey from Willowflower to castle Seeblickstein as truthfully, as he could. He was aware, there was mind magic on Arkadia and was almost certain, there were overt or covert lie detectors too. Even Mini warned him not to lie in the interview! It was not a lie, that he "forgot" to mention, he was a Traveller, and no one asked explicitly. After the truth came out about Foxy, he was wary of anyone knowing, he wasn't even from Arkadia. He was accustomed to being alive, thank you very much. The only question that came near the truth (and probable execution) was regarding his strange spread of Skills. He answered truthfully, he put all available Points into Skills he felt were the most important at the time, without much diversification.

Since he was in the Domain and the Valley for a good time, the three Greenskins came to assumptions.

When Prof told the investigators about the treasure in Dunkelwald, the interest was intense. Prof was asked a few very pointed questions about certain pieces and was able to either confirm or deny their presence in the hoard. Those were obviously lost legendary national treasures, or at least important items. Prof also confirmed the watercourses weren't impacted by the wonky nature of space in the Valley. What the Greenskins would do with the information, was of no interest to Prof. He was definitely not going back there, not even for his lost bags full of gems. He hoped the looted jewelry was enough for the short term.

Loot was just laying all around, after all, if and when he ran out of money.

At the end of the interview, he was escorted to another room and told to wait for the others.

First to arrive was Bianca, next Sharpclaw, and finally Mini. They were all asked the same questions, no surprise there. The whole thing had the feel of a few officials going through the motions without real interest in the outcome. Prof hoped, the fact, that they brought back a Redcap and long lost national treasures (or the information about those), and they weren't sitting in very small private rooms with a deficit of windows (but in a medium room with small windows) meant, they were in the clear.

If they were in the Domain, he was sure, he would never see the rescued items again. Either the original owners would come forward (with how long Elves lived, there was a chance, he was still alive), someone would be proclaimed the rightful owner or the artifacts would be just placed into a museum, where they belonged. With the Greenskins, though… Prof didn't have enough experience with them yet. Being excellent to each other hopefully also meant "don't steal legitimate salvage from the Barbarian Cosplay Brigade."

After they were escorted back to their living room, they were given the chance for a bath – to be fair, Prof also needed a haircut and a shave. Finding a hairdresser and a barber in a country, where everyone was bald and didn't have facial hair proved impossible, however. The best he could do was to borrow a pair of shears from the stables and a very sharp knife from the kitchen. Soap he could pilfer from the bath, even if it wasn't foaming, it was better than nothing. Shaving himself with makeshift equipment costs him fifteen HP in total…

Letting Mini give him a haircut cost him more. In patience and brain cells. Who would have thought, [Hairdressing] was a Skill and Mini was bad at it? You may answer the question.

Prof a least was surprised.

He shouldn’t have been surprised by the result of giving a funny but completely crazy Vampire shears and free reign of his head. She tried to give him three different hairstyles. All of them traditional somewhere, and allegedly looked good on him, but judging by the barely contained laughter from everyone (that somehow included Binky too) it was on the funny side of "looking good." When his hair was an unsalvageable mess, he had finally enough and just shaved the rest.

That cost him another fifteen HP.

The Greenskins were nice enough to bring The Chopper and a strange-looking chicken back in the evening, so Prof could "donate" the daily amount of blood to it, but they were left alone otherwise. To spend their free time, they started to discuss what to do with their share of the loot. In the planning it was assumed, they would get only half of the stuff back. The problem was, Prof didn't exactly remember, how many and what kind of gems he put into the largest bag (it should have been around one kilo, mostly larger stones), and had only a passing idea about the value of the non-magical jewelry. No idea at all, how much the magical thingies cost.

They went with an extremely conservative assumption and halved that amount. Assuming just an average of one thousand coppers per carat and five thousand carats, that would be around five hundred gold total or one hundred per head. An insane amount, truly!

As for the jewelry, his own Traveller's Headband was valued at 125 silver, with all the thirty looted pieces looking much more expensive. Without knowing, what the effects were, there was no way to put an exact value to them, but Prof was certain, not one was worth less than two to three gold, and probably no less than five. They went with two and a half gold per piece for a total of seventy-five. "Only" fifteen gold per person. Assuming taxes, previous owners showing up and small finder's fees for national treasures, each of them had fifty-seven gold and some change to plan around. That was not counting selling the liberated clothing and armor, which would most likely net them some income too.

The most important thing was to ditch their mismatched and ridiculous clothing and armor. That would amount to around five gold or so for a non-magical but good set, clothing included. Planning with mundane gear was because even low-level magical stuff would cost around ten times as much, and Bianca was actually right: parading in expensive magical gear while low-Level would point every low-life in their direction. Food and lodgings for a year were next, they reserved a full two gold for that, so had something like fifty gold left to play around. Everyday equipment wasn't expensive, the leftover change was more than enough for it.

They (mostly Prof, but the others didn't say no to the idea) needed personal trainers to shore up their weaknesses and gaps in their knowledge. For example, something easily overlooked like [Cooking]. Walking around the Domain and the Valley for two months or so, without the possibility of just visiting a roadside family restaurant and eating the same barely edible dry food hammered the need for a dedicated cook forth. Prof was already told to bring his weapon Skill up to at least 100% and had a very long list for other needed Skills.

Let's see… With around a silver an hour for a good trainer and six training hours a day for half a year (that allocation included holidays and other activities too), that came out to… eleven gold. Manageable. Prof was baffled, about how "cheap" it was, and that he indeed could afford such intense training.

The only question was, how much they would be able to get good teachers – Mini and Bianca agreed, one silver per hour was probably on the low end, and neither had much experience with paying for lessons. One was a trusted vassal and a low-Level Vampire noble, the other a mercenary. Both were provided with training for free by their organizations. Even if the real cost was double the one silver, they still were safe and still had enough money to upgrade their wardrobe and gear.

It was good to be rich!

Now, they only had their loot returned and themselves let free. What could possibly go wrong?