“Your Imperial Majesty! For the second night in the row there is no light in your windows, is everything alright?”

The trio heard a low voice of the old female servant behind the door. The faces of both girls turned ugly and Nick felt similar way as well, but after a second, he woke up from stupor.

“Go away!” Nick tried to imitate emperor’s voice while grumbling a short reply in as low tone as he could while slightly infusing Qi in his voice.

“I’m sorry, your Imperial Majesty, I’m sorry! Please rest!” The servant sounded scared and Nick heard her steps rapidly disappearing down the stairs.

Still, he motioned for the girls to stay silent for almost half an hour until they all finally relaxed.

‘We didn’t think of important aspect – not only emperor can see the whole city – these windows can be seen from all over the city as well and the light inside probably is on every night! Should I try to activate the light rune formations on the corners of the bed? But if the light is somehow different than usual, the servant might come back again.’ Nick was wrecking his brain, ‘I guess we should leave things as they are for now. Tomorrow night we will be out of here anyway.’

After the usual preparation, with the two o’clock guard shift he carried Conny down. This time it went even smoother than with Kate, except for both of them felt extremely uncomfortable – one was the wife of his good friend and the other was the good friend of her husband. In the end they still managed to hold on to each other in ‘a very friendly’ manner all the way while Nick kept her warm. Soon he carried Conny on to the shore as well.

When Clayton took her over from him, Nick was about to dart away as usual, but Clayton’s voice stopped him, “Beata has a high fewer!”

“F*ck!” Nick cursed, “Quickly, lead the way!”

‘I should’ve forcefully hugged her.’ He thought to himself. The princess did have some temper and he couldn’t keep her as warm as the other two.

Clayton led him to a very simple house that looked more like a shack where right at the door Beata was lying down on a primitive bed and Kate with a worried look sat beside her.

Nick immediately came over and checked her.

“She became like this right after you left and I think her condition is getting worse.” Clayton said in serious tone.

Nick held one palm on her forehead and the other on her chest while guiding his Qi flow freely inside her, “I think she caught a simple cold while we were in the river. Let me prepare a few things.” He said after brief inspection.

Nick got his mortar and pestle out, then looked over some herbs. Thought for a bit, then removed few and added others. After carefully grinding them, he took out a small furnace and quickly refined a stinky dark paste.

“Feed her a teaspoon of this every hour, diluting it with warm water.” He said.

Then he took out few more herbs and gave them to Kate.

“I don’t have any time now, so you wash the mortar and pestle. Then grind this all up, find a bath tub, pour all of this in and let her soak inside for few hours, just like we did with YunYun. She will be fine.”

Nick barely finished the sentence when he instantly disappeared form the stunned eyes of Kate and Conny. Clayton, of course, saw how he left in a lightning speed, apparently the new engagement of his that Kate told about was quite serious. The young boy couldn’t let his bride wait for too long.

But Nick didn’t even think close to these categories. Without changing his clothes, he ran as fast as he could through the suburbs, but slowed down only when he neared the center. He was in rush, but despite that couldn’t be careless.

Of course, he liked YunYun a lot, but the reason he was rushing back was because if he didn’t make it during this shift change, he had to wait until the next night. He was really worried that she could try something stupid if left alone upstairs and even might think everyone abandoned her. After going through the life and death experience together, he felt she was one of them and didn’t want to let her down, or may be that was just what he kept telling himself.

When Nick finally arrived at the point where he usually started his drift towards the castle, his heart almost stopped. Steven just lit up the second light in the distance. Despite that, Nick slid in the water and few minutes later he was crouching on the rocks below the wall in dry clothes and covered in his ‘stealth powder’.

‘Alright. The guards are just Qi practitioners or may be regular Qi masters. If I’m careful, I should be able to stealthily get in.’ He thought for a bit and decided to go up despite missing the ‘safe window’.

It was mostly needed when he climbed down with a girl on his back anyway and more importantly, the night was still cloudy and no stars or moon illuminated surroundings. It even felt as if rain could start any moment.

Nick began to climb, but this time much slower, while carefully listening to his surroundings. When he was near the top of the wall, he finally realized how important Steven’s discovery was. With a girl on his back it was simply impossible for him to blindly slip between the patrols on the way down. May be a Qi master like elder Sonor or king Alexander Maxwell were capable of something like that.

But since he was alone now, he managed to effortlessly slip by and the next patrol cluelessly walked below him when he was seven or eight meters above the wall. There he froze for few seconds to let the patrol pass and continued his way up. After he got in the room, he saw YunYun sitting in a meditative position near the window and she seemed to have a surprised look on her face.

“Sorry, I’m late.” Nick whispered. He was not sure if the girl was upset or angry – translating girl’s feelings was not his forte.

“I thought you didn’t make it on time, so I planned to practice till tomorrow.” Her smile bloomed beautifully as a spring flower.

“Oh, I thought you might be worried or angry.” Nick felt relieved.

“Why?” She was genuinely confused, “I just had to wait for you to come for me, what’s there to be upset about?”

“You really are special, aren’t you?” Nick smiled back and lied down on the floor to have a nap. Carrying two girls down the wall and keeping them warm for half an hour in the river was quite taxing.

But, of course, the one he just spoke to understood the meaning of his words in much more intimate way than he intended. After confirming he was asleep, YunYun once again curled near him and this time covered them both with a cloth that she prepared beforehand.

This time, luckily, in the morning she didn’t kick him away like the yesterday, although Nick was already prepared for that as soon as he opened his eyes and recognized the familiar smooth hand around him.

They had a light breakfast and YunYun started to practice while Nick continued the inspection of his new wristband. It was almost time for lunch when his eyes lit up.

“YunYun, I think I have something you might like.” Nick smiled mysteriously.

Girl’s eyes lit up as well and she energetically leapt over and sat in front of him.

Nick stretched out both his hands and they suddenly were holding a slightly curved sword, sheathed in a shabby, almost ugly black wooden scabbard. The handle of the sword was covered with visibly old and dark leather strips, although Nick couldn’t figure out which animal’s skin was used for it.

YunYun furrowed her brows. Although it was the right size and form, the thing in Nick’s hands was obviously old and ugly. But her manners were good enough to hold back her displeasure – it was the first gift from her ‘future husband’ after all!

She took the sword with both hands and, to her great surprise, it was much heavier than expected. Her curiosity was instantly peaked as she unsheathed the blade and then … couldn’t help but to hold her breath.

It was probably the most beautiful thing she had even seen. It glowed in dim silvery light and on one side it had engraved a long row of runes. The sword was definitely a high quality legendary weapon! And even she, who was raised in a family with centuries of sword traditions had never seen something so amazing and, what was even more important, she couldn’t tell what metal was this blade made of!

“Do you like it?” Nick smiled seeing her excitement.

YunYun tried to infuse Qi in the sword and it replied her with a soft ‘humm’ and it’s light dimmed, but the blade turned pitch black while the runes turned bright golden and then, after another second, black as well. In her hands now was a black sword that didn’t reflect light, even seemed to absorb it. Nick felt like in some ways it was similar to his Wakizashi.

“Mhm.” She nodded while being unable to keep her eyes off it.

“Good, it’s yours.” Nick nodded while still smiling.

“This … this is ‘Katana’?” She whispered.

Nick shrugged, it was hers so she could name it the way she wanted.

YunYun kept admiring her new sword for almost an hour. Only then she remembered where she was and what just transpired.

“Nick, thank you.” She said while blushing, “This is the most beautiful engagement gift in the world!”

When she thanked him, he was about to just wave her off with a smile, but the second part made him almost choke.

“Sigh, YunYun.” Nick seriously said, “I don’t know what it is, but my guess is that it’s a very dangerous weapon similar to mine. You shouldn’t wave it around for fun and let other people freely see it, although it really suits you.”

“What do you mean ‘you don’t know what it is'? It’s ‘Katana’! You named it yourself and it likes the name a lot, I can feel it.” She seriously replied, but then got curious “Wait, it’s similar to yours? Please, show me!”

“Just be careful, I haven’t seen anything yet that this little blade can’t cut. Your ‘Katana’ might be of a similar nature in some ways.” Nick showed her his beloved weapon.

“Hmm, it’s beautiful as well, although small. What did you name it?”

“’Wakizashi’. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a sheath so I can’t carry it on me.” Nick replied, “But I like the size and it’s very practical. Truth to be told I didn’t want to learn how to fight back then and didn’t want to carry any weapon at all. But after some events I came to understand that in this world I still have to protect those who are dear to me and begun to develop my own Wakizashi style.”

“A nice name, I like it.” YunYun smiled and nodded, “So you practice Qi like crazy person to protect others?”

“Hahaha!” For some reason Nick felt he could relax around her and just be himself, “No, I practice Qi because I love it and it’s a lot of fun. But I train my Wakizashi style to protect others. It has some weak points, but I plan to make up for those with a really high speed.”

“So you want to be fast?” She tilted her head while pondering about what he just said. He was a bit weird – most people practiced Qi and trained in weapon techniques to be stronger than others, but her fiance did it because he found it fun.

“The fastest!” Nick smiled, “We will spend a lot of time together on this trip, so we can train a lot as well. It’ll be fun!”

As usual his thinking and YunYun’s understanding differed a little. Of course, she only heard ‘we will spend a lot of time together’ part and became overjoyed. Young girl was a young girl after all. Her ‘man’ wanted to spend a lot of time with her and thought it will be fun as well! What else could she wish for?

Be as it may, after finding her suitable weapon, Nick could finally practice Qi himself as well, while YunYun played around with her new ‘toy’.