After parting with Ash, I headed back towards their hideout to find that man again. I ran towards there as fast as I can to catch them before going somewhere else. I reached there in a few minutes and carefully made my way in. Luckily I was in time and they were about to head out. I got back out and started waiting for him. After a short while he got out with a few people wearing hooded cloaks. I waited until I can no longer see him. This was my plan to follow him. To follow his Haki instead of him. I focus on the air and saw his area of Sense Haki. I quickly followed.

For some reason his Haki keep stopping on the way and kept changing directions. Even tough he should have no way to know I am following him, he nearly shook me of his tail a few times. He failed though and that got me in front of a building in the residential part of the city.

I waited for a while to see if he will go anywhere but he didn't. After a while his Haki shrunk considerably telling me now he is in fact asleep. I slowly climbed at the side of the building and got in from an open window. House was very easy to sneak in, considering they are wanted criminals. 'I guess they have high self esteem.' I crouched and got closer to source of the Haki. I looked at him, after making sure he was really asleep I went to find others. It took a while to find them since they didn't have Haki, but that meant they won't be able to notice me, so I got up and started searching for them. I found them sitting around a table talking about something I couldn't here from my current position, so I got closer to them. There was no need to hide so I walked towards them and sat on one of the empty chairs next to table. I leaned back and started listening.

“When are we going to get rid of him?” Man1 said.

“We need him. We can't just kill him, not when our opponents are this powerful.” Said man2.

“We still have boss. I am sure he can deal with them easily.” Man1 countered.

Man3 shook his head. “He doesn't want to show himself until we managed to take the Kingdom. If we go to him now, and say he has to fight, he won't take it well.”

Hearing this they started to think silently. After a while Man1 talked again. “We can give Leo some man with good personal power and send them after the blacksmith. That way, if we are lucky, he can kill them and he himself would be weak enough for us to take him down.”

Man2 sighed. “That's a good plan with a good possible outcome but he won't accept. He will see through it easily.”

Man1 chuckled. “He might see it but what if he was forced to do it?” Other two man looked at him, expecting an explanation. He continued “He doesn't like his loyalty to our cause be questioned. If we spread a rumor that he is in fact a spy, do you think he can reject that attack?”

Man3 put his chin at the back of his hand. After a while he shook his head again. “He killed the King. He just have to say it, and the rumors will loose all their power over him.”

“He might have killed him, but since then he didn't fought with anyone. He instead sent other people in his stead. What if his killing of King was a ruse to gain Boss's trust?” Man1 countered. “Wouldn't it be logical to expect him to prove his loyalty again after all this time?”

“What if he is really a spy? He might just kill the people we gave him as support and come after us instead. We are short on people, especially after today's fiasco. We can't let him kill anybody else.” They all fell silent then. There was a few more proposition but one of them moved his body and smiled.

“What if we had our man from before? We know they are alive and in Marine Outpost. If we can free them, we will be strong once again. If we do this without Leo, our peoples respect towards us will improve. Then we can force Leo to fight against them.” Man1 finished with a smile.

Man2 shook his head. “Even if we assume we can free them, we know that most of them in no fighting condition. If we were to act on your plan, we need to wait for them to get better enough to fight. That means time, which is not something we should give them.”

Man1 scowled. “Then what are we going to do? Sit still and wait for them to fail again? We all know the blacksmith this time is much more talented than before. We all saw what kind of steel she forges. We can't let her try reforging that sword! Lest she succeeds.” They all nodded that.

Man3 coughed. Other two looked at him. “Maybe we can reach an agreement with her.” Man1 gestured him to go on. “If we make a good offer for her to not reforge the sword, she might agree.”

Man2 shook his head. Sigh “Old hag gifts the forge whoever reforges that blade. We can't make a better offer to her.”

Man3 smiled. “But we will make the same offer and more. We will offer her the forge and guarantee we will buy all swords for our men from there. She should like this proposition. After all she is a blacksmith first and a merchant second. We all know merchants like their money more then anything. The fact that they turned in our man for money rather then killing them too supports this possibility.”

Man2 looked at Man1 who was scowling and said “Is there any other ideas? Then we will go with Rickie's proposal. If it doesn't work we will talk about this again.” They both nodded to that. “Now to more pressing matters. What are we going to do about the fact we fucked up big this time? We lost two thirds of our fodders. What are we going to say to Boss when we see him?”

After the question asked, fear was evident in the face of all three of them. They looked at the table, seemingly without options. Then Man1 talked “We can push the fault to Leo. We can say it happened because he didn't fight. That for all our protests he didn't listen us. That should save our positions.”

Other two man seemed thoughtful. Then man3 talked. “We need a better excuse than that. If we say just that, Boss will see through it. If that happens, we all know what he might do to us from experience.” He turned to man1 “But still, your idea has merit. We can't let Leo climb further. If he isn't a spy it would be bad for us. I don't want to take orders from a man like that.” He spat. The others nodded.

Man2 lightly palmed the table and got up. “Well then, we will call it a night. We will discuss the rest in the morning, with Leo.” They nodded and followed along. I went to a corner and waited for them to get in their rooms. Then got out of the house and went to report to Ash.

After we finished with the bounties, we got back to house and I started counting the money we made. All those bounties netted us a sum of sixteen million Beli with a good quality thirty two bags. It was a great night overall if we keep out the fact I had been kidnapped. When I told her the amount of money, Sophie jumped with happiness. She quickly partitioned for the six million Beli for to make trade which I gave her readily. With the remaining ten million I opened follower menu and looked at the Talents I readied.

[TALENT] DIMENSION TUNNEL 1/9999

Bigger on the inside. Increase length by (Talent Level)*30 cm

[TALENT] ENCHANTED VISION 2/10

Increases general visual acuity by ((Talent Level)*10)%

[TALENT] FIT 1/1

User will never lose their fitness.

[TALENT] GENIOUS:AIM 1/1

User has a chance to gain a Skill Level every time they use Aim Skill and relevant Subskills.

[TALENT] MIND EXPANSION 1/10

Improves INT every level by (Talent Level)

[TALENT] PHYSICAL POTENTIAL 1/1000

Increases max physical stats gained by (Talent Level)*50 and training rate by ((Talent Level)*25)%.

[TALENT] WILLFULL 2/10

Increases will related skill acquisition and power by ((Talent Level)*20)%

I accept the Talents and saw someone appear before me. She had short black hair with light purple eyes. She has good body. 'Meh. Nothing great.' She looked at me and smiled. “Hello.” I nodded to her, went closer and told her to lean down. After she did I gave her four kisses to four different part of her. She chuckled then asked. “So, where is my gun?” 'I hope she doesn't end up doing it with guns instead of me. Oh well.'

“I don't have guns for you yet.” I gave the clothes I readied before and gestured her to wear. She wore the clothes with quick motions and looked at me expectantly. Knowing what she has in mind I found a bow that was here when we moved and arrows I made for this moment. I gave them to her and pointed to a straw mannequin. She nodded and started her practice. I turned to Emerald who was watching everything happening on the side.

She came closer to me while looking at Aiko on her shoulder. She then pointed to her. “I don't know how something like this possible but I have some doubts about the way you treat your followers. She started existing just now and you already gave her a job.” I looked at her quizzically not understanding what she wants to say. She sighed and continued “Just let her tour the city for sightseeing, buy some good food. Something like that.”

I raised one of my eyebrows. “You want me to take her to a date.” She nodded. “Then I will, in the morning, before I went to see this royal blacksmith. She nodded again and took my hand. Seeing this, my son tried to act first but I came victorious thanks to being free of clothes. I took her hand and let her lead me towards bedroom, then we slept.

I woke up at dawn and went to check on Aiko. She was still using her bow. I looked at her hands and noticed something I didn't think through. Her elbows and fingertips were red. Her skin seemed to be damaged by the bows string. I went there quickly and stopped her. Thankfully there was no blood. “Didn't you notice your hands condition?” She shook her head, looking her hands oddly. I sighed. “Did you get the Focus Skill?” She looked at me and gestured for me to wait. Then her eyes unfocused. She looked at me again and nodded. Then made a five with her hand. I nodded. “Its enough training for today. We will go out for some time.”

She nodded and sling the bow across her shoulders. She then looked at me and asked “Where are we going?”

“We are going on a date.”

She chuckled. “Master, that's not necessary, we are beyond that.”

I smiled at her. “Thanks. But I think we should. I will go with the others too when they are not busy. “ She nodded at that. Right when we were about to get out I saw Merideth approaching. She seemed tired. Well that was to be expected since she didn't slept at all.

She came closer to me. “Where are the others?”

“I don't know. They are probably asleep. What happened?”

She recounted what she saw to me. “What are we going to do now? Do you want me to keep following them?”

I shook my head. “You don't need to follow him anymore. It seems like they will eventually get rid of him. But you should keep an eye on those three. They are perfect to learn things about their organization. If we are lucky, we might even find their boss.” She nodded to me. “You look tired, you should go rest. And good job Merideth. Thank you.” She nodded again and went towards stairs. I turned to Aiko and gestured her to follow. When we were outside I headed towards outer part of the city where most establishments exist.

I looked around while walking. People were waking up and going about there business. There were a few kids running around too. I saw a few cats together. I tried to touch them but they ran away. 'Its your loss. Hmph.' After asking few others for directions, we reached to a shop with tables set outside. Inside people were running around doing things here and there. We set on a table and waited. After a moment a young man about sixteen years old approached us and asked for what we would eat. Then I asked what they have and he hit me with the words I even didn't know existed. Seeing my face Aiko chuckled. At the end we gone with what he suggested. It was like the others had an odd name but when he put the plate on table I saw what it was.

It was a fish that cooked probably with steam. I nodded at the teen and started eating. Aiko looked at my eyes. “Master, tell me something.” I nodded. “Do you love us?”

I was surprised. It was an odd questioned but not unreasonable. She had every right to ask this question. I thought carefully about my answer. Trying to make sure I don't lie to her. At the end of it I answered, albeit a bit reluctantly. “Yeah. I think I love you.” She nodded and smiled but didn't say anything. 'I hope I didn't hurt her. Why didn't I think about this myself? I focused too much on what they can do for me rather than what I can do for them. Yeah, got to be more thoughtful.' We ate the rest of our dinner in quiet. After we are done, we made our way towards Reena's house.