This time king White didn’t say anything. He took one of the smallest plates form the tray, put few pieces of meat and vegetables, then added two cookies, paused for a second and took one cookie back. Then slid the plate over to king Red, still without saying a word.

It was nothing new that King White was a foodie, in fact, almost every pirate was. The difference with the king was – he never shared his food. King Red knew that and looked at the small plate in front of her, then picked one piece of meat, then another and then started to gobble down all that was on it. King White glanced at her, smirked in his beard and continued with his own breakfast.

When she noticed that Nick was leaving again, king Red shouted, “Boy, quickly make me some more of this!”

“I’m sorry.” Nick shook his head, “There is no more. But if you join king White for lunch I’ll make sure you’ll be satisfied.”

Then he gave a slight bow and left. Although it was a bit risky, he had to keep his artist’s image.

May be king Red was tired from shouting ‘stop’, or just too shocked, she didn’t stop him this time.

“How can you endure this attitude? I would’ve killed him ten times already!” She started to become angry again, this time at king White.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” The latter shook his head, “Imagine your regular sea trip. It should be around two months, right?”

King Red nodded.

“Now imagine your regular rations – salted meat and cookies with beer or some other shit alcohol. And now imagine eating this instead four times a day, hahaha!” King White started laughing hard while his spit with some food pieces flew around the table.

King Red was stunned for a moment and angrily uttered through her teeth, “I want him!”

“Heh, it’s easier to get Sten to cook for you than this fellow,” King White replied, then realized what he just said and his bad mood returned, “Well, at least it was. Sigh, are you sure it was an accident?”

“Definitely.” She nodded, “Sten was working on ‘that’ project. In fact we must be happy that the whole grotto didn’t explode with him. If there was some mistake and the explosion was set off not at some random city wall or gates, but in the middle of our Paradise city, half of our men would be dead. I should’ve moved him out long time ago. In fact, we were lucky this time!”

“Sigh, right, lucky.” Her opinion didn’t make King White happier, “We need another doctor or rather, alchemist. Now there are not too many wounded, but it can change at any moment.”

“I thought of it already.” King Red said while knocking her fingers on the table, “We won’t wait for Black to send the virgins to the emperor in case he is held back even longer. Since emperor lately is requesting more and more virgins and we urgently need an alchemist as well, I ordered a small crew to take a ship over to Berin already today. They will take the regular route to arrive in Olava where my officers will deliver the tribute and hire an alchemist as well.”

“Good idea.” King white nodded.

Nick couldn’t predict that his little stunt with the alchemist couple triggered an unforeseen circumstance and the girls would be sent out much earlier than expected.

He arrived at the docks, where according to king White’s order the party will take place, only to see five cleaned up and pretty dressed captive girls waiting for the cargo boat. While their faces were covered with veils, it added some mystery to their beauty and the surrounding pirates were barely holding back.

With his heart racing Nick turned to his ‘new aid’ Billy, “What’s going on there?”

“Looks like the tribute shipment to the emperor. Wanna go and watch?” Billy grinned.

Nick was out of ideas. According to his plan, tomorrow night captives would be set free and, even if some of them died, his friends would be safe and they would travel back to Mainland continent. But this changed everything.

“How will they be transported? I saw the pig stall on the ship – there is no way Emperor would want such stinky tribute.” Nick tried to be as scornful as he could. Luckily Billy had the attention span of a goldfish and didn’t notice anything wrong.

“They won’t sail to the capital, in fact, it’s impossible. Olava is not only not a coastal city, but is located in the mountains.” Billy explained, “They will be first brought to Berin and it will take mostly three, may be four days and, of course, during the trip this time they will have decent cabins. After they arrive on continent, they will travel in carriages almost like real princesses, although it might even take a whole month to get to the capital Olava.”

“Let’s go closer and take a look.” Nick said and proceeded to join several dozens of pirates who managed to wake up early enough to send off these young beauties. In fact, it was a really impressive sight. Whether it was because of what Sigrid did yesterday or someone else today, girls were tidied up and dressed in pretty clothes. Their faces were covered, but Nick still managed to recognize both princesses and Kate.

Sisters were dispirited and lifeless, staring in one point with apathetic eyes, but Kate continuously looked around as if searching for someone. Soon she noticed him, coming closer with a grim face while having palm on his chest. Suddenly Kate realized Nick was trying to show something with his fingers. There was no way for them to actually speak at this moment – the theatrics they used in ships cargo hold wouldn’t work here.

Trying to not draw any unwanted attention, she did her best to understand what he meant. After two minutes she noticed some pattern, but the only thing she could discern was that he was probably showing three and zero? Thirty? ‘Thirty’ what? Minutes or days? And what else was he showing?

This was the first time in her life she regretted she didn’t go dive with those kids on the reef in Aurora bay. Back then she noticed how Nick was teaching them some kind of weird signs for them to communicate under water, but didn’t care much. Unfortunately there was no use of regretting now.

The main thing giving her optimism was that Nick has not given up yet.

“Move!” A loud shout woke Kate up from her thoughts.

“F*ck you!” She cursed back staring angrily at the pirate who was pushing girls in the small cargo boat.

“Oh? Please, resist!” Pirate laughed, “Although emperor requires virgins, you have more holes I can use without you loosing your virginity. All of brothers here will help! Still want to resist?”

Kate saw Nick barely shaking his head and jumped in the boat with a red face.

“God, please kill all of them!” She shouted in the sky.

“Hahaha!” The whole crowd of pirates laughed loudly at the curse – they have heard too many of these during the years.

‘Don’t worry, Kate. After fulfilling your wish, I’ll get you back.’ Nick silently swore to himself. For now he only had a plan for the first part, but there was no choice and he just had to do the second even if he didn’t know how to. These girls were his friends.

“Why do you look so gloomy?” Billy distracted Nick from his thoughts.

“I’m thinking on where to put tables and where should we burn torches for better lighting.” Nick instantly pretended to plan the venue again, “Have you had a big feast in the docks before?”

“Not really a feast, but we sometimes drink here all together.” Billy was trying to use all his brain power.

“Alright. Billy, I like you! Therefore I can teach you how to make ‘Omlette Du Fromage’. Do you want to learn?” Nick very seriously looked at his aid.

“Of course!” Billy had no idea what that was, but it sounded incredible for sure.

“Good. I want you to gather ten more friends you can trust. They will help us.” Nick seriously continued.

Overjoyed Billy instantly ran off and returned half an hour later with ten more ‘Billies’ in tow.

While waiting, Nick mapped out the area. Most important thing was to organize feast in the way where most pirates at the same time would start to eat and then drink. It was not possible for him to control if there will be a toast first or they would start to eat first and drink afterwards, but it didn’t matter that much, because delayed activation of poison would happen in any case and the pirates would have eaten enough of elder Jan’s paste at that moment.

Nick had decided to use the biggest possible amount of poison so that pirates would die off even if he couldn’t release the captives and arm them.

After twenty or so days into the trip, he got the biggest pleasant surprise since the attack on “Queen Elizabeth” – the ingredient that could hold back immediate absorption of narcotics into the blood flow were the simplest potatoes! They were common vegetable on every continent and, in additional to necessary delay, the sweet taste and their structure would help Nick’s cause as well.

The next surprise was a pleasant one as well – the best activator was the hallucinogen the grand elder used on his victims and Nick had a whole sack of it. It didn’t have any smell or taste, therefore it was perfect to be mixed in alcohol.

In conclusion, if Nick could mix the poison paste in the food together with potatoes and add the hallucinogen to the alcohol, every single pirate will sample at least one of those and as a result they would be either dead or incapacitated.

To maximize his chances, Nick planned to cook just a really tasty meat stew in eleven big pots simultaneously and when the feast will begin, multiple pirates would pour some of it in their bowls at the same time from each of the pots. He calculated that maximum in three, may be four minutes everyone would already have had some of his stew, may be even sooner.

It was not possible to make exact prediction for this since these people normally ate tasteless food or even food that tasted bad, therefore they might be quite energetic to get their share. Good news was the level discipline around Paradise city was incredible – it almost guaranteed that even because of a good food there won’t be any riot and no one would overturn some pot on accident.

Next part of his plan was to make the food a tad spicy, so everyone instinctively would want to drink more alcohol to quench their thirst. For this purpose the alcohol barrels with hallucinogen inside would be already here, but to not open them prematurely he would submerse them into the water ‘to keep the drink cooler’.

When everyone had their fill, pirates would bring out the barrels and drink to their deaths. And even if they didn’t, they would die anyway, albeit later, because the poison would be already in their bodies.

The big variables were the three kings. They were stronger and smarter than regular Qi masters and might even be able to partially neutralize the poison. There was no other way, but to take the risk and hope that obsessed and hallucinating pirates would attack their colleagues and hopefully kill some their Qi masters, may be even a king or two. The rest would be up to the captives and him. Nick was confident that he, Steven and Clayton working together could take on a weakened king, therefore this plan had a high chance of success.

Considering all of this he brought his ten new Billies up to speed and promoted Billy number one to be their leader. Tomorrow every single Billy will get his own pot to manage and basically would work as a cook. The usually bored pirates got excited to take part in such entertaining endeavor and did their best to complete every single of Nick’s orders. They would cook tomorrow, but they had to start to arrange everything else today.

After giving out few instructions, Nick went back to king White’s residence to cook lunch. He didn’t try anything fancy again, but made a big roast and both kings were happy.

Besides arranging miscellaneous things, Nick changed his blue jeans and the shirt that once was white, to an attire which was more common among pirates. He even grabbed a straw hat to not stand out too much. This way he would have easier time to move around because tonight he planned to investigate location and the condition of the captives.