They rested for the night, just like Nick suggested, and prince Andrew organized his forces before leaving. The three of them didn’t slack and tried to think of plans on how to proceed in the Lori kingdom, but unfortunately nothing passable came to mind.
“Alright!” After an hour of discussions Nick changed the subject, “Since we can’t think of anything reasonable, let’s make a list of things we will purchase in Selva.”
“Are we going to stack up on healing and antivenom ingredients again?” YunYun asked remembering their experience on the Eastern continent.
“No, I think in that department we are fine with what we have.” Nick smiled back, “What we need for guerrilla warfare is probably my burning powder and explosives. We already have a lot of beast cores, thus it leaves us only with the first part. In addition, we will have to stack up on clothing. Even though we can make a couple of sets like our ‘ninja gear’, we will have to blend in the regular crowd during the daytime.”
Then he looked seriously at his friend, “Zia, there is a problem with your weapon and during our time in Lori kingdom you can’t carry it.”
“Now way! I won’t part with it!” Zia instantly refused.
“Who told you that you’ll have to give it away?” Nick passed her the empty meteorite ring he got from elder Dinnar. He didn’t have time to check the one he got from elder Silvio, but at the first glance it contained mostly books and notes, “Take this, just don’t show off. There are people who can recognize it.”
“Woa! A meteorite ring!”, Zia’s eyes widened, but after she checked it she instantly lost all the excitement, “My sword is too big!”
“Just store it diagonally.” Nick helplessly sighed. This girl was really strong and good with the sword, but geometry was not her forte.
Zia finally managed to store her sword inside, then took it out and repeated it few times. Then looked at YunYun victoriously.
“Hmph,” YunYun snorted and showed her own ring, “He gave me one long time ago together with my engagement gift. In fact, he is giving these things away like candy.”
She wasn’t really upset at Nick for that, but she kind of wanted to get one of his bracers. Unfortunately for some reason Nick always avoided those conversations.
“Oh?!” Zia’s eyes shone, “You have more?”
“One is enough for you. As if you don’t know that it’s worth a city.” Nick decisively shook his head. There was no limit to woman’s ‘needs’ and if he started to satisfy those, he’ll have nothing left within minutes.
Zia didn’t care much, but played around with her ring for a while, then stored all her belongings and put her sword on her back again.
Next morning the four youths departed as planned right at dawn and finally prince Andrew got to experience what it meant to train with these maniacs. Luckily he was few years older and became Qi master before them, therefore at least he didn’t embarrass himself. Even more, he pulled together all his willpower and on the way seriously conversed with Zia about the upcoming Olympic games. They didn’t have that much in common, but he was smart enough to speak about the topics that interested this girl of strange tastes.
While darting through the tree tops they arrived at the road connecting Selva and the Sun kingdom around noon and now they could increase their speed. To his big regret, prince found it impossible to continue the leisure dialog as the sound of air whistling in their ears made it too uncomfortable. Even more, they used Qi to protect their eyes and ears and increased their speed even further.
If few days earlier traveling merchants shook their heads after Nick and YunYun passed by at a high speed, then now they had to hold on to their straw hats to not loose them. Of course, prince not being able to woo Zia was the only downside and all four enjoyed this run a lot and even felt some regret after arriving at the outskirts of capital so soon. To Nick and YunYun this run was especially pleasant experience compared to ten or even twenty times slower speed that they had during the time they crossed the Nestri continent with the merchant caravan.
The three guests were expecting Selva to be some regular tropical or subtropical city, especially Nick and YunYun who thought it will be similar to Beliz or Berin. But even if one disregarded the ugly part of the Nestri continent, the slavery and the general poverty, those cities were not close to being comparable to Nola kingdom’s capital which was almost something from entirely different universe.
The main impression Nick got was that the whole capital was one large park. It was remarkable how the government and people left trees which were several hundred years old to grow all around the city. In addition, it was unbelievably clean.
Nick soon got confirmation that a couple of centuries ago Nola kingdom got Aurora’s architects to design a new sewer system and since then people refused to drop any trash or waste on the streets and had special baskets for that on almost every corner. In addition, special carts patrolled through the city emptying and washing these baskets and even the hot temperatures and humid air didn’t cause spreading of bad smells.
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Of course, the downside were the relatively high costs, but citizens of Selva paid a bit more in taxes than inhabitants of the rest of the kingdom and in general didn’t mind at all, every single one of them even felt proud they lived in such beautiful and clean city.
Andrew watched the astonished expressions on his friends faces in delight, but Nick couldn’t stop thinking about how this place would’ve been a literal paradise for some of the environmentalists he knew back in Stanford.
When the prince brought everyone to the palace, they saw it located on a picturesque spot at the side of a hundred meter wide river. Nick and YunYun glanced at each other – the contrast was unbelievable. Emperor Osman also had his castle built in similar spot, except it was on an island. But if the emperor’s castle caused people to have fear, then this place was built in a way everyone felt invited.
There was no fence or wall around the perimeter, only few inconspicuously dressed guards were patrolling around. There was a beautiful lawn in size of two football fields in front of the main building and many people were sitting around and resting in the shadows of few huge trees.
“Don’t tell me this is all the security you’ve got.” YunYun asked with furrowed brows.
“Of course, not.” Andrew smiled back, “But this is all what regular people see. We had such style of governance for centuries and trust me, no other royalties in the world enjoy as much love of the common people as our family.”
“What about the aristocrats?” Nick asked.
“It might surprise you, but on the outside they act exactly the same way. Of course, many are arrogant snobs, but no one would dare to show it to the general public.” Prince explained.
“I do remember meeting one of those snobs you mentioned.” Nick teased him reminding of their first encounter, but seeing his friend blush, he honestly complimented, “But on the serious note, I must admit, your capital is something else. I’m deeply impressed.”
To hide their identities, all of them wore larger straw hats covering their faces, but when prince approached the main entrance, he took off his hat and the guards on duty only nodded and let the group by without making any commotion. It seemed that being a royalty here didn’t matter and prince Andrew almost didn’t care about his status.
Zia recalled how her eldest brother acted few years ago and could only sigh, but then remembered that now he was fighting at the southern border for years and felt a bit anxious about the upcoming large attack on the Sun kingdom.
Palace’s main building was the only three storey high structure in the whole capital. It was built from white stone and had large windows which accentuated the impression of king being easily approachable.
After entering, Andrew immediately instructed few people to lead his friends to a separate guest house and persuaded them to wash up and rest till dinner.
His words were, “I can’t offer you a pizza, but at least let me show you a bit of our hospitality!”
All three were dirty and a bit tired from the road and decided they should follow prince’s suggestion and rest while discussing the next steps in Lori kingdom. But the plan was instantly destroyed as soon as both girls were offered a bath where pleasantly cool water was enriched with some aromatic herbal oils and decorated with flower petals.
Nick was oblivious to their pleasures and was surprised they didn’t show up after he washed himself, but didn’t mind and spent this ‘free time’ meditating.
Later in the evening Andrew came to pick them up and led to have ‘some light dinner’ that turned out to be another surprise. When the three guests entered the hall that was supposed to be the dining room, they found themselves facing the whole royal family happily chatting and waiting for them. The worst thing was that even if the two girls changed into clean clothes, they felt terribly underdressed compared to the queen and her daughters.
The king didn’t mind at all, he got up and introduced himself and then the rest of his family. He had ‘only’ one wife, but almost as many children as king Alexander had from his four queens, including the one queen Hua was currently pregnant with – Andrew had an elder brother who was the crown prince, a younger brother and three sisters.
If Nick didn’t know he was in the palace, he could’ve taken this to be a simple large aristocratic family. Princesses instantly pulled Zia and YunYun away and started to question them about the life ‘outside’ while king Spencer invited Nick for a light drink before dinner to the side with his three sons accompanying them. Nick refused to drink any alcohol, but gladly accepted a glass of juice.
Meanwhile queen just sat back and watched the proceedings with a happy smile and enjoyed some fruity wine.
The whole situation played out extremely naturally and Nick realized that these people were, in fact, as friendly as it looked from outside. Of course, that didn’t mean they couldn’t show their claws and fangs if needed.
“I’m sorry your highness, we weren’t expecting to meet you, to not speak to find ourselves in the company of your whole family. Thus we didn’t bring any gifts.” Nick slightly blushed and confessed.
“Hahaha! So you think that rescuing the lives of few thousands of our civilians and maybe even my son is not a gift? Not to speak eliminating almost thirty Holy Order’s members, including one of their elders?” King laughed back.
When prince Andrew saw Nick looking at him in surprise he shrugged, “Did you really think I won’t report to my father? Or lie to him? He has intuition better than any other Qi master in the world. That’s why there is an unspoken rule in our kingdom – to never lie to the king! Well … that is actually the law here, but you understand what I mean.”
“How did you predict the eruption of the volcano?” Crown prince Sebastian changed the subject and asked what everyone besides Nick had on their minds.
“I’ve read books describing similar events and it’s a common sense as well.” Nick honestly explained, “You don’t really think there should be a door to Hell somewhere there, right? Thus, when I heard the earthquakes were getting more frequent and stronger, I was already almost certain, but when our friends from the Sword sect reported about steam coming from the ground, I had no more doubts. In any case, I’d rather make a fool of myself and make a wrong guess to evacuate the people than believe in a miracle of a treasure appearing or the door to the Hell opening.”
“So not only you don’t want to take credit, you are ready to take blame as well? Not bad, not bad. No wonder king Alexander likes you.” King Spencer patted Nick’s shoulder and seeing his surprised expression, explained, “We are allies with the Sun kingdom, you have no idea about the amount of information we exchange.”