Chapter 164: Chapter 21: The Chicken in the Foxcoop, Part 6

That was a new one. The local commissar probably had taken part in an exchange program with an Elven multiple-letter agency to come up with such a novel way to fleece innocent tourists.

While Puglamento did get rid of its nobility – just to promote a new noble caste with a different name – how could a foreigner be an illegal noble? From what he heard, the supreme leader wasn't exactly keen on exporting his ideology – the Greenskins would most likely kick his butt to the next multiverse – and no one had any problems with Mini being a noble previously.

“Dönci, how could you be an illegal noble?” Prof asked the obvious question.

“It’s Prince Dönci, peasant. Don’t forget your place!”

“The illegal noble sneaked into our glorious country, and is trying to undermine the wisdom of the supreme leader!” the commissar informed them in more-or-less understandable Gerulian. At least Prof was reasonably sure, this was, what was said. He didn’t know a few words, and some others had multiple meanings. That the commissar spoke in dialect, didn’t help either.

So it was either ‘sneaking in’ and ‘undermining’, or ‘invading’ and ‘abusing’. Prof was mostly sure, it was ‘wisdom’ and not ‘backside’.

However, invading was done mostly with an army or a horde, not alone. On the other hand, a sufficiently high-level individual probably could manage to invade by himself – there were enough precedents for that in the literature! Prof could name at least half a dozen main characters, who did invade other countries just for giggles – or as an ideological crusade. Not counting the genocidal attacks against some 'Demon Lord' or something.

“A true Forestean!” Mini congratulated the rival heir “Rules are there only for the weak!”

“Mini, not helping! Ehm… honored local commissar, the noble in question is a cat. Sneaking around is what they do. Besides, I very much doubt, he has any means to transport identifications. How do you even know, he is an illegal noble?" Since the commissar was the local authority, he most likely could look at everyone's Character Parchment, but it was never a bad idea, to be sure. It was always possible, that Prof missed some important clue, out of sheer ignorance of the relevance.

“Not having identification is no excuse to sneak into a country and ferment discord against the supreme leader! The latter is explicitly against the law!”

“You sorry excuse for a noble, just so you know, I walked up to the border guard, and was sitting there patiently, but that uncultivated imbecile just chased me away! Without even giving me food! Back home, we would have strung him up by his intensities! What a badly run country! Wait, till I'm the Supreme Emperor!"

“HAH! You even continue to besmirch the glorious brilliance of our supreme leader?!? Insolent cat! You will hang for this! The rest of you! Surrender now, and we will be lenient!”

“Sssstab?” Sharpclaw poked Prof in the hip.

“No, not yet." Prof answered, and turned to the commissar "We are actually adventurers, and just met this person. We had nothing to do with invading, sneaking, and besmirching. Can we be on our way?"

“Of course not! Even if I believe you don’t have anything to do with this criminal, I will still check your credentials! You are all under arrest!”

Even if Prof and his party weren't prepared to slaughter their way out of the situation (Mini probably would have liked that, though), Prof was really curious, about how a Level 12 Boss was arrested by a Level 9 Elite – he remembered in time to use [Observe] on the commissar. Even back on Earth, cats, who didn't want to be caught, were mostly not caught; here, on Arkadia, he wished good luck to the local authority.

The answer to that particular question was to throw warm bodies at the problem – as countless generals, and politicians, who wanted to be re-elected found out throughout history. Why commit fraud and think about tactics, when you can simply cart enough people to the action and point them in the right direction?

Maybe, just maybe, the commissar should have brought the army in – those folks were accustomed to being pointed at a pillbox and ordered to block the firing hole with their corpses – but he elected to raise a levy out of common peasants and fox farmers. If a Level 9 Elite had problems with catching an over-leveled talking cat, Level 5 Normals were even less useable.

Using a net would have probably helped with the task, but for some strange reason, villages far away from rivers and lakes had a marked deficit in fishing implements.

The locals weren’t completely moronic, though, and brought a few sacks with them – while those were (probably) good for holding a cat, catching one still wasn’t easy.

“This looks like fun! Can we help?” Of course, Mini wasn’t satisfied with standing aside under the watchful gaze of a local dignitary, who she could have had for breakfast. Literally. Being bored didn’t prevent her from striking poses, though. With her “adventurer clothing”, there were quite a few peasants, who concentrated more on her bare skin, than on catching the elusive princeling.

“Help the locals or the cat?” Prof tried to clarify the question.

“Yes.” pointlessly.

“Look, Mini. If we help the cat, we would be branded criminals, and would have to flee this fine country! Think about the body count!"

“Oh, I’m doing that right now! Imagine a high-speed chase, where you run over pedestrians and army patrols! It would be fantastic! Bodyparts flying everywhere! Blood! Gore! And we would be away from this booooooring plot of land, they call a country! AWESOME!”

“Missssster can’t drive wagon, Misssss. Sssshort chasssse.”

“You are part right, Sharpclaw. Imagine Prof flipping over on the first straight stretch of road! Sooooo funny!”

“Mini, sometimes I don’t really know, what’s wrong with you…”

“Nothing is wrong with me. I’m a perfectly perfect Vampire, just so you know!”

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“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of…”

“You three! Adventurers! Help us catch that illegal noble! Your sentence will be lowered!”

“What sentence? We are just innocent spectators! We did nothing!”

“Poaching Dire Hens, colluding with known criminals, subversive activities, spying, loitering!”

“We were here just to buy booze for the Hogs!”

“Ah! Illegal commerce!”

“Sir, are you by any chance an Elf?”

“Insulting a commissar!”

“If we surrender now, can I have shackles? They are fun!”

“Mini, not now! Sir, what would the Supreme Leader say, if you arrest innocent foreigners?!”

“He would congratulate me for finding a spy network, catching saboteurs, and seizing their ill-gotten means! For the glory of the Supreme Leader!"

That was it. Prof could stomach quite a few things – even porridge – but he drew a line in the sand when folks tried to legalese his stuff away. He worked hard for every last splinter of precious stone, iron bit, and piece of gear! He even paid taxes for most of it! Not even Mini was so cruel as to take his loot away, and she had the Perk for it!

“That’s it. Mini, Sharpclaw, saddle up, we are outa here!”

“Finally! FUN! Let the chase begin!”

“Where do you think you are going?!?! You are under arrest!”

“You are welcome to try to stop us. We are highly trained adventurers!” That was actually a white-ish lie, no one would have used the phrase ‘highly trained’ in connection with Prof’s band of randomly collected people. They were at best ‘almost not completely untrained’. However, their level of incompetentness was benevolently covered by their passable Levels. And two quite well-trained carnivorous mounts.

Well, actually, the party wasn’t that bad or incompetent. They had quite a few Skills on a reasonable Level (not talking about Mini’s [Sex]), and compared to the locals (who were still futilely trying to catch Prince Dönci), they were literal foxes in a chicken coop.

Ehm… Dire Hens in a fox coop.

They had slaughtered their way through… fantasy-versions of dinosaurs, Wolves, and the occasional bandit encampment, escaped the Valley of Torment, and even defeated the one-person cabal of an evil not-Guildmaster in an almost fair fight.

What could a lone commissar do? Looking at the levy, they gave off the impression, they wanted to be somewhere else. Preferably with Mini, doing some other things.

At least, they weren’t whistling or catcalling – probably the folks doing that didn’t get the chance to propagate stupidity and impoliteness.

“COMMISSAR! The illegal noble escaped!" one of the locals informed their overlord. Prof just caught the sight of Dönci making a rude gesture from the treeline, and wondered, how that was even anatomically possible before a more pressing issue surfaced.

“In the name of the Supreme Leader! Arrest these three for… some crimes I will come up with!”

“Three? There are only two of them!”

“Where did the short one go?”

“Clawsssss to the ballssssss.” Sharpclaw displayed some remarkable initiative by sneaking around and displaying her ultimate technique on the family jewels of an evil-doer, threatening to nationalize her bellowed master’s… jewelry.

“Honored commissar, it pains me that it has come to this, and I'm truly sorry. However, I regret to inform you, that this transgression of the law you subjected us to, can't be tolerated and suffered. We will now load up the promised, agreed-upon, and worked-for booze, and we will be on our way. Be assured, that we will expedite our exit from your fine country, not to cause further outcry from the Supreme Leader's finest people. Keep working for the Goal, as the supreme leader commanded!"

Being polite was always a good idea – and Prof had the Perk, so it came to him naturally – even to commissars, who wanted to steal legitimate salvage. Well, especially to those folks. With enough politeness, they hopefully thought about fining other, more rude people. Or people, who didn’t have stealthy Kobolds with them…

Loading up the booze and getting the Hogs sufficiently drunk took only a few minutes after the strangely very pale commissar (very carefully) nodded his agreement to Prof’s proposition.

“See, every situation can be defused with a little bit of politeness," Prof informed his party members. Of course, he wasn't dumb enough not to take Sharpclaw’s ultimate technique into account, but it was good to give a good example for the less… mentally stable.

“Yeah, you are free to think that”. Mini patted his head. “So, we are officially fugitive criminals. Can we do some carnage?”

“No.”

“At least a little bit of reckless driving? A hit-and-run?”

“No! At least not deliberately.”

“Missssster jussssst hit a dog, and drove on. Countssss?”

“Naw… Not really. Maybe we can find some pedestrians or an army patrol, and let Prof accidentally run them over.”

“I'm not running anyone over! Why do you insist I do it anyway?!?!"

“Because you can't drive. We are just stating facts, and are betting, on what you will do to whom in the next hundred kilometers."

“You are betting on some catastrophe I will accidentally cause? Why?!?!?”

“Bored. Missssster makessss travel lesssss boring.”

“See, he just knocked a signpost over! That was less, than two hundred meters! Five points for me! Look, a bridge! Do I get another twenty?"

“Don’t be so cruel, Mini…”

“Hey, it’s in my nature! See, even my Character Parchment says so!”

“Whatever…”

“Miau! Before you morons misunderstand, ‘miau’ means, I require transportation.”

“What do we have here? An illegal noble, who left us to rot in the clutches of a commissar?" Prof was a little bit annoyed with the cat, just sitting on a stump next to the road. Dönci could have been at least polite and asked for a lift. Prof had the distinct feeling, that letting the disgraced Prince join them wasn't the best idea anyone on Arkadia ever had. Having a crazy Vampire and a stab-happy Kobold was most likely enough for any sane person, adding a rude, crazy, and criminal Grimalkin to the party was just inviting trouble.

“You imbeciles took long enough to sort that small issue out. Hop, hop, the road waits for no one!”

“What about asking nicely? A little bit of politeness never killed anyone.”

“Oh, come on, Prof! This will be fun! What could possibly go wrong, anyway?”