“The event you witnessed tonight was actually not planned.” Nick decided to try to deal with this situation honestly, because if they were to fight, they most likely would loose, if not to this old man, then to the city. Other than that, Nazir came alone and evidently was confident on taking on all three of them, “You probably know that they were people from the Holy Order. They killed my family, in fact the elder Ernest who was present tonight, was one of those who personally did it. There was nothing wrong for me to kill them and I intend to burn down their whole nest when I get back to the Mainland continent.”

“Boy, I admit you are brave, but you were too careless this time.” Nazir sighed, “Holy Order has a tight relationship with the emperor. In few hours the whole capital will be turned upside down.”

“Not necessarily.” For the first time since the start of this conversation Nick smiled, “Emperor entrusted Holy Order to continue the research of alchemist named Sten and provided them not only with the leftover documentation, but flammable and explosive material samples as well. And this alchemist lost his life in an unfortunate accident while doing his research so ... it is obvious that this project was too dangerous and unstable.”

“Oh? Do tell me! For some reason I feel that there were no accidents involved in this matter.” Nazir was interested.

Both Steven and Clayton didn’t know of those things as well. Not because Nick tried to hide anything, he didn’t think this was a noteworthy matter and thought of it as a closed case.

During the next hour while Nick told his story, they all had tea and snacks and the old man became more and more cheerful and laughed heartily at the end. Then he stopped and apologized, because the three girls were still captives and it wasn’t funny at all, but the demise of over two thousand pirates from the hands of a child and disruption of the emperors plans in addition to the death of one of the most important people in the Holy Order made him laugh till tears fell down his cheeks. Steven and Clayton listened with their breaths held since much of this information was new to them as well.

“Elder Nazir! Since I’ve been totally honest, would you mind telling us what is really going on and who you people are? Every person from your group we meet is more extraordinary that the last, especially madam Salma and sir Yakub. And you, you probably are even more amazing.” Nick finally tried to understand what were they dealing with.

“Don’t try to suck up to me or I’ll loose all my respect towards you.” Old man snickered, “Alright, I’ll tell you. Tonight I thought of killing you three idiots, but if there really won’t be any harsh consequences to those killings and arson, you might have helped me in a way as well.”

Hearts of the three skipped a beat while the old man continued.

“Once we were the strongest mercenary group on the continent and, who knows, may be even in the world.” He proudly raised his chin, “In fact, our leader was the strongest man in the empire and loyal to the emperor, but that bastard feared him anyway. When we established the Mercenary guild that you know today, emperor in his greed decided to take it over and tried to kill us in an ambush. The people who you met are some of the survivors of our group. There are few others, but that doesn’t matter in the light of our conversation. Don’t get me wrong, now we are not some resistance group who is going against the emperor from the shadows or something like that. There is no power on the continent to be strong enough to support an uprising and, even if someone showed initiative, it would be uprooted within hours, not days. Emperor Osman has been ruling this continent for way too long.”

In the end old man shook his head and sighed.

“He should be around two hundred eighty years old, that means he is ruling for just over two centuries.” Nick smiled.

“How would you know?” Nazir barked back, “There are no records available, he has removed anything that proves his mortality.”

“Not really,” Nick continued to smile, “Don’t you know he has a brother on Mainland continent?”

“So?”

“Well, he would have turned two hundred and eighty nine this year if I didn’t kill him six years ago.” Nick laughed.

“Boy, I admit that you are quite something, but don’t fool around with me like this. We are having a serious conversation here.” Nazir became angry.

“Sigh, I thought you won’t believe me and it’s fine. Let’s speak about more important things.” Nick shrugged and didn’t bother with old man’s mood.

“Wait, you really did it? Show me the proof! If you really did it, then you’ll know what I want to see.” Nazir got visibly excited and his whole body trembled when he saw Nick pulling up his sleeve and remove the decorative wristband that covered the real thing. Even Clayton and Steven didn’t know the significance of this object and just watched curiously.

“Oh God!” In an instant Nazir was in front of Nick and held his arm with one hand while touching the wristband with the other excitedly, “You really did it! So those bastards can bleed! This is good news, indeed good news!”

“Do you want to hear more good news?” Nick calmly glanced at the old man. He saw such reaction from king Alexander as well, therefore was not surprised.

“I told you to not play with me!” This time Nazir pretended to be angry.

“Emperor will die soon even without me or you doing anything.” Nick sighed, “But before that we need to get our friends out first.”

Then he explained how emperor kept on living and how his technique requires progressively more sacrifices and had to be performed more frequently as well.

“I don’t know what will happen in this empire after his death and I don’t really care. I hope to be on another continent living happily and eating pizza with my friends.” Nick returned to the most pressing matter, “Sir Nazir, is there any way you could help us? I’m not asking for you to personally break in or anything like that. Even a castle’s layout or a guard patrol schedule would help out lot.”

After thinking for a while old man said, “I’ve no idea how could you pull it off, but I’ll try to help you. After all you brought several good news. Just don’t make trouble in the city anymore. The tournament starts the day after tomorrow and you probably should get some rest, albeit judging by your performance tonight, I don’t have any doubts for you to be able win the whole thing. I would advise you against it though.”

“I agree. I was already planning on loosing in the semifinals. Fifth to eight spot sounds good enough.” Nick smiled in response, “On more thing. Elder Ernest was the treasurer of the Holy Order and he had some money on him. I would like you to have it and may be it could help our goal as well, even if a little bit.”

Then he took out the meteorite ring he acquired tonight and passed to the old man. Steven’s and Clayton’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. This boy alone had more treasures than the whole Sun kingdom!

“Aren’t you a smart one, heh!” Nazir snickered and took the ring. After checking it he dropped few heavy sacks on the floor and gave it back to Nick, “I took the Nestri empire’s money for my expenses, you can keep the rest as I don’t have any use for it. And I’ll still make a fortune while betting on you in the competition, just warn me beforehand which fight you’ll loose in the end! Hahaha!” He got up and left while heartily laughing.

The last few hours had ups and downs for all of them, but luckily they were on the same side. The last trick Nick pulled was simply to include Nazir in the crime he performed tonight and to confirm their brittle alliance. And since the old man took the money, he acknowledged their cooperation. More importantly, he took only part of it and gave the ring back that was, in fact, the most valuable thing. It implied that he wanted to keep a friendly relationship, even if it was for the time being.

That night the trio didn’t discuss anything important and decided to rest well. Next day they got up unusually late and were about to have breakfast when Nazir visited them again. He invited himself to join the meal and friends couldn’t really say ‘no’.

“Your suspicions were correct, emperor’s forces did investigation only in the burned residence and then dropped the matter.” He turned towards Nick, “I tried to verify the information you gave me yesterday and it looks like you might be right about the backlashes in emperor’s cultivation as well. Five years ago he still had only four retreats per year, but now the frequency has gone up to eight or even ten. And he stays behind the closed door much longer as well – if previously those were ten days, then now it sometimes can go up to twenty. The amount of girls sent to the castle might also have increased, but I couldn’t verify that yet. Be as it may, after his brother’s death, emperor has become unstable on his road to hell.”

“That is why he is even more dangerous.” Nick added, “From what I saw in the Holy Order, after performing his replenishment, grand elder became full of strength and might be comparable to the strongest on the continent, at least that was what the others said. And now that the emperor knows he will die soon, his actions could become unpredictable. Is there any infighting in the upper echelons of the army or between ministers that can cause his wrath that might affect situation on a bigger scale?”

“You don’t have to worry about that.” Old man waved Nick off, “Just do your best in the tournament and get your girls out as soon as possible. I have a feeling that after this competition emperor could go in retreat right away, therefore I prepared a map with the layout of the castle, but that is all I can do. I was trying to figure out how to smuggle you in during the upcoming days, but I can’t find a safe way.”

“Thank you!” Nick’s eyes shone. He didn’t expect much help and this was a pleasant surprise. If he could prepare his plans before entering the castle, that would be the best case scenario.

He immediately grabbed the map and started to study, “Do you know where prisoners are held?”

“Small prison is in the south west part of the castle, but I doubt the tribute will be there.” Nazir shook his head, “Most plausible spot might be in one of the separate buildings in the castle territory, may be one of these two.” He pointed on the map.

“Is there any information where are the emperors private quarters or where he goes in his seclusion?” Nick didn’t become dispirited.

“The private quarters are in the main building, but he has his retreats in the left tower, although we don’t know which floor. Besides his most trusted people, no one has been in the towers for decades.” Old man sighed.

The information he had was very poor, but there was no particular resistance movement in the empire that would plot against the emperor and their group was not interested in such details as well.

“It’s fine, I’ll found out on my own.” Nick smiled.

“Oh right!” Nazir’s eyes lit up, “I wanted to ask you this yesterday – how did you manage to stay basically invisible? Even I only knew that you were in the house because I followed these two, but had no idea where exactly.” He pointed at Steven and Clayton.

“I have a powder that can hide the Qi fluctuations.” Nick honestly answered, “In fact, it was developed in the Holy Order, I just improved it a bit.”

“In that case you might have a chance in the castle. Otherwise you could have serious problems of moving around even in the darkest night – there should be multiple Qi masters on the watch at any given time.” Nazir evaluated.