Nick continued his report, “My guess is that there were several traps and multiple teams were ready to perform the sealing. Anyway, after our arrival to the capital, we encountered Holy Order’s two deputy elders and elder Ernest. As you know he is the one responsible for finances. They had just received the research materials that were sent to the emperor by the pirates from Paradise city and intended to forward them to elder Jan so he could develop those explosives further. When I killed them, I burned down their estate together will all the research so it doesn’t present further threat to the world.”

“Wait!” Head of intelligence Simon Den interrupted despite being shocked as everyone else, “You killed the elder of the Holy Order?”

“Correct, but he had the weakest combat abilities of all the elders and was, in fact, asleep as well, so it was not that difficult.” Nick explained, but others shook their heads.

There was no such thing as ‘not that difficult’ in killing an elder, a Qi master from the Holy Order. What Nick still didn’t realize was the effectiveness of his ‘stealth powder’ that made it possible to hide any Qi fluctuations. In addition he was never frugal about it and used in large quantities, and that allowed him enter the castle multiple times unnoticed as well.

“From their conversation I would like to guess that there are no copies of that research remaining, but the research subject was extremely dangerous and you might want to keep an eye open. That alchemist pair might not have been the only one and there could be some others doing similar research. Also, in the meteorite ring elder Ernest had, I found some accounting books you might be interested in. I will bring those tomorrow with the rest of things – there is too much stuff and I have to go over many items.”

Nick took another sip of water.

“Already before encountering the emperor I received intelligence that pointed to the fact that he might be the grand elder’s blood brother. My guess is that they were twins.”

“What?” At this point all the men in the study stood up in shock.

“I have no direct proof, but not only they looked very similar, even their bedroom furnishings were almost identical. Also, they used identical cultivation technique that absorbs life force of young girls and the princesses were sent there as a tribute exactly for this reason. The only difference is that emperor was in much worse condition and required more sacrifices and more often as well. After I killed him …”

‘Boom!’

Before Nick could continue king’s table and chair disintegrated in piles of sawdust and the others broke their chairs as well while standing up in shock.

“Sigh, not again.” Nick whispered.

‘Again? Is he killing emperors on daily basis?’ YunYun was shocked from reaction the people in this room had and from the Nick’s remark even more.

In the next instant king was in front of Nick almost trying to pull off his pants.

“Your highness, I am wearing them on my hand’s!” Nick stepped back in a light panic while avoiding king’s grab.

“Show me!” King barely managed to say out in a coarse voice.

Nick pulled back his sleeves and took off the fake wristbands and the two seemingly inconspicuous treasures appeared.

“Heavens!” Old king exclaimed while king Alexander touched the wristbands with trembling hands. The other two men were shocked to the core as well and couldn’t even make a sound.

YunYun looked at these weirdos in confusion. First of all she thought everyone would have told the news of killing emperor to them, but it turns out the rest of the group expected Nick to do the hard job. In addition, for some reason they were amazed by his wristbands which he simply used to move around the hot pots in the galley. Of course, she had noticed them long ago, but thought Nick simply liked those and there was nothing more to it.

Nick sighed again and, while his majesty tried to gather his thoughts, opened doors to order guards to bring in new chairs.

“After killing emperor …” He tried to continue his story, Simon Den interrupted him again.

“You really killed THE emperor Osman of the Nestri empire?”

“You see, it was not that big of a deal. He was weakened. And he was naked while trying to rape me so it wasn’t that hard – you can ask YunYun, she was there.” Nick did his best to explain, but others just got more shocked.

‘Not that big of a deal?’

‘While trying to rape me?’

What in the world happened there?

“Emperor really was weakened and careless. You see, they fed all of us paralytic poison and thought we were helpless, so when Nick killed him his attempt to defend was simply laughable.” YunYun was doing her best to help out these ‘slow old men’ to understand few simple things.

“So you weren’t paralyzed as he expected and Nick could perform a sneak attack?” Old king tried to put the ends together.

“I was paralyzed and, in fact, dying, Nick saved me later. But the emperor thought he was a girl and wanted to rape him. When Nick cut him in pieces, the only thing emperor did in time was to put up his Qi armor, but that is not enough to stop …” At this point she realized she might have disclosed Nick’s secret and stuttered.

“Sigh, his Wakizashi. I was the one who gave him the weapon.” King Alexander received a new chair from the guard and continued, “Well, not really gave the weapon, but gave permission for him to receive it. To think that it was such a good choice at that time.”

“So, after killing the emperor,” Nick desperately tried to finish his report so he could finally go to his cottage and rest, “I didn’t risk to explore his quarters and didn’t let the girls to touch anything as well – the chance of any hidden rune formations existing around there was too high. By the way – the rune formations in the Nestri empire are really well developed, I think they are ahead of you guys. So, anyway, I didn’t explore much, but the reports and the evidence I got will keep you busy for some time. Also I noticed something called ‘Trinity’ repeating several times. In the Holy Order’s books it was mentioned as well, but I never paid special attention. There must be something important behind that term, especially now that we can almost be certain emperor Osman was the blood brother of the grand elder.”

“Alright, if these were the main points, then we can call it for today and continue debriefing tomorrow when you will tell me the full story. At that time you will bring all the materials for us to inspect and I’ll provide you with intelligence analysis we have on ‘Trinity’. Go and rest for now.” King Alexander simply sent Nick away. The amount of information he brought was not that big, but every piece was a bomb bigger than previous.

“May I have a suggestion, you highness?” Nick had one thing to ask.

“Speak.”

“Because of this incident there is an issue with the reputation of the princesses and Kate as well ...” Nick didn’t manage to complete the sentence when king in annoyance interrupted him.

“I’ll just kill everyone who will try to slander their purity. You want me to order execution of that little duke ‘whateverhisname’?”

King really was upset about this subject. While the most people were worried about the lives of those girls, some idiots were spreading ugly rumors.

“No, but I have better idea.” Nick smiled, “You plan to throw a party to celebrate their return, right?”

“Yes, but a small one, only a few dozen of the closest friends as guests.” King nodded.

“My suggestion is to make a grand celebration and, in addition, girls would require a small help from you as well.” Nick grinned.

“Why are you always playing games with me? Didn’t you teach my prime minister that my time is precious?” sometimes king felt helpless around this kid, but after eight months of break this was refreshing.

After Nick told his plan, king accepted it and immediately threw him out. Nick didn’t mind and marched through the palace waving at familiar faces

“Why did the king want to take off your pants?” YunYun asked in low voice still deep in thoughts about the events that just transpired.

“Well,” Nick realized there was no real way to hide his secret anymore and probably there was no reason for it as well, “Years ago when I killed the grand elder of the Holy Order, I took off his treasure and hid it wrapped around on my leg so others would not find out. I was a small child at that time and it was hard for me to think of other ways. Back then king wanted me to show this ‘proof of the kill’ as well and now … for some reason he thought that the treasure from the emperor who was grand elder’s brother will be wrapped around my leg in a similar fashion.”

“So the wristbands are those treasures?”

“Exactly. The two of these things are unique treasures in this world and have similar function to the meteorite rings.”

“Oh.” YunYun finally understood, “I could never figure out where you hid your meteorite ring, but it turns out you didn’t even have one. Those treasures probably have a larger storage space as well?”

“You are a smart girl!” Nick pinched her nose and dashed away to avoid kick on his butt.

Loudly laughing they ran through the palace and soon arrived in the kitchen.

“Nigel – YunYun, YunYun – Nigel!” Nick introduced knowing Nigel’s preference for short conversations. Nigel nodded with barely audible ‘hello’ and Nick took out a barrel from his wristband, “This is a meat of rank five snake. Emperor will have a grand reception and I can only trust you to prepare it so couple of thousand people could have a bite and taste it.”

“Waste.” Nigel shook his head and Nick agreed. It really was a waste to feed oranges to pigs, but this time they had to make such sacrifice.

After few more sentences youths went towards Nick’s cottage and Nick was really longing to get back to his home.

“What do you think?” King Alexander turned to others when Nick left.

“I think that you should order a bunch of new tables and chairs and forbid him to enter your study.” Old king laughed.

“Sigh, but he is one of a kind.” King shook his head, “To kill emperor Osman in his own bedroom! Hahaha! What a story! I would love to not believe him, but he was telling the truth, wasn’t he?”

“Now I understand why we haven’t received any reports from the Nestri continent during the last few months. There is high probability many of our people are caught because of this as well.” Simon Den analyzed.

“If he is like this, shouldn’t we just send him to the Sand kingdom to end the war?” General Sanders half-jokingly suggested.

“A bit too soon, but, actually, that is not a bad idea.” King grinned, but then turned serious, “Simon, I want you to put an expert near the trio they brought back. Notify only Julian Graham, but the rest, including Steven and Conny, don’t need to know. The two small ones are harmless, but I want to make sure the boy will be loyal to us as well. If there is a slightest doubt, you know what to do. But if he’s fine, kingdom might groom another worthy general in just a few years. The influence Nick has on youths around him is incredible and even my girls started to practice Qi – that is abnormal.”

They continued to discuss the situation, while Nick showed YunYun around ‘his’ place.