Soon after they sat down the general arrived as well and few minutes later, YunYun. Prince almost had to bite his tongue. She didn’t come back ‘empty handed’. She had a person over her shoulder, obviously a town guard.
When the three looked at her in confusion at the strange sight of a beautiful girl carrying a dirty person, YunYun threw the man on the floor and explained, “I questioned a couple of them in Ugul, but just to be sure I brought one back so we can question him in more traditional style. Using the ‘truth serum’ left and right is too much of a waste.”
“The truth serum?” Prince asked in confusion.
“Ye, the potions Nick gave you yesterday. We call them the ‘truth serum’. Although they are very effective, it is really hard to make them and the main ingredient, amobarb root, one can get only in Xian – it doesn’t grow on Mainland. And that thing is so expensive! Not only it takes for us almost a whole day to brew one potion, the materials cost more than three hundred gold!” YunYun shook her head and sighed. Then smiled at Zia and sat besides her.
“You made those?” Prince’s confusion grew.
“Mhm. Nick and I. Mostly Nick, but I’m already quite good and helped a lot so it definitely counts.” YunYun said.
“Nick is an alchemist? And you too?” General asked in surprise.
“Hahaha! They just practice it for Qi control. He does that since he was eight years old.” Zia laughed and then said imitating master Marozzo, “What a waste! Imagine what he could’ve achieved if he had taken up the sword!”
Prince loudly gulped. What Zia said was fine – many people started to practice at a young age, but YunYun’s explanation made his mind go blank. Last night he lavishly spent a thousand gold without battling an eye! Why didn’t he ask more detailed information about those potions after receiving them? Even though he was royalty, after living a soldier’s life for years he couldn’t stand to be this prodigal. He could’ve easily questioned those people without wasting such treasure or even brought back one, just like YunYun did, and then question them here.
“Any results?” Zia asked YunYun while offering her some snacks.
“Not really. Those bastards passed the town few days ago and that was all I could find out.” YunYun answered in a sad voice.
“I know, right! Helio got lucky and they are all still in Sethalia!” Zia pouted, but then her expression immediately changed into a happy one, “But he missed his opportunity and tonight we’ll get to stir up their nest.”
“That is if Nick comes back on time.” Prince said.
“Why wouldn’t he?” Zia got confused.
“Is it even possible to get to Ilianara, do the investigation during the night and then come back before noon?” Prince asked.
A moment of silence filled the room and only Zia munching on dried fruits was disturbing it.
Suddenly YunYun’s eyes lit up and she laughed, “You can ask him yourself! Hahaha!”
Even before the general and prince could furrow their brows in confusion, the person in question huffing and puffing almost stumbled in.
“What are you so surprised about?” Zia grinned looking at the two weird faces, “They are doing this all the time. They say it’s some kind of special connection or something.”
But general Grant and prince didn’t even think about how YunYun knew Nick was coming. Their faces changed when they saw Nick, who similar to YunYun came in carrying a person, except he was carrying two.
“Oh? Someone else had the same idea?” Nick said while catching his breath and threw both people on the ground.
“She did. No wonder she picked you as her husband, you even think like her.” Zia commented with full mouth and even threw in another dry fruit in.
Neither Nick nor YunYun did pay any attention to how she formed the statement because they didn’t care much, but both prince and general couldn’t because their minds went blank staring at the two people Nick brought in.
Seeing their reaction, Nick explained, “Ilianara is quite a large city so I couldn’t get much useful information in such short time and ran out of truth serums as well. Therefore I grabbed a couple of people who looked like officers in hopes they could know more. In the worst case scenario you can exchange them for some of your guys who are held captives. Of course, it was a decent practice to run with increased weight as well.”
“Damn it! I also should’ve carried more!” YunYun cursed to herself. She had to practice harder to keep up with him!
But while she was loudly thinking about training, prince still couldn’t pull himself together.
Finally general Grant regained their senses, “Nick! You kidnapped general Blato! That’s general Blato!”
“Oh? Good!” Nick smiled back, “And the other one?”
The casual attitude shocked general Grant even more, “What do you mean ‘the other one’? Who cares about a random squad captain? The general! He has the same status as I do!”
“Even better. That means he knows a lot!” Nick was happy about the coincidence which allowed him to bring back such important person, “Let’s question him. Who has still some ‘truth serums’ left? I ran out.”
“I got one.” Zia said.
“I still have a couple.” YunYun put two small bottles on the table.
“I … also ran out.” Prince said in embarrassment. How could he know it was so precious? It was clear that Nick would be annoyed at him.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll make some more after the delivery from the queen Hu arrives and send few over to you as well. From the looks of it, they are really useful here on the front lines.” Nick said.
“Aren’t those ingredients rare?” Prince asked.
“Oh, they they are extremely rare, but with her influence it shouldn’t be that hard to get more.” Nick answered.
‘I’m not talking about that! Obviously the queen can do anything she wants in her Lethe kingdom!’ Prince almost screamed inside.
General Grant came to prince’s help, “Prince probably meant that it might be too much of a waste to use such an expensive item just to question someone.”
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Nick’s expression turned serious and looked at the general, “Then tell me, how much your life is worth? Or prince’s? Or all those lives in the garrison? If we don’t find out what is the Holy Order up to this time, it’s highly likely all those lives would be lost.”
“But we could interrogate him like … well, like we usually do.” Prince defended himself.
“We could. But. General, please tell me, if you got captured and someone interrogated you – how long it would take for you to break?” Nick asked.
“You have a point. But how does this thing work?” General Grant asked. While the prince already saw the results last night, general was curious what exactly the effect of feeding someone three hundred gold looked like.
Nick grabbed one of the potions YunYun passed over and fed it to the unconscious Sand’s general. Then he put the man on the chair so everyone could better observe the process and fiddled with some herbs under the general’s nose. Few moments later general’s eyes slowly opened and he started to stare in front with an empty gaze while saliva oozed from the corners of his mouth.
“Blergh!” Zia theatrically shuddered.
“There are some minor side effects, but I can’t do anything about that.” Nick said apologetically and then turned to his captive.
“What is your name?” Nick asked.
“Lenta.”
“It’s his first name. General Lenta Blato.” General Grant explained.
“Alright, Lenta. Who are you?” Nick asked.
“I’m a … huggybear.” General Blato answered and a stupid smile bloomed on his face.
The three men in the tent stared at him with stupefied expressions while Zia and YunYun started to laugh uncontrollably. Obviously the drugged general was reliving some perverted fantasy.
“Khem. What is your job?” Nick coughed and asked another question.
General’s face turned serious and, while he still continued to stupidly stare somewhere in the distance, he proudly said, “I’m the third in command under his majesty, king Canute!”
General Grant, seeing that the serum really worked, immediately asked, “What are king Canute’s plans?”
“King Canute will rule over the Mainland continent!” Came the answer.
“General, you had to be more specific with your questions. He is currently in a kind of a dream world and doesn’t realize what is going on. He basically has no cognitive abilities and acts based on instincts.” Nick explained. Then turned to the general Blato and asked, “Is the army going to attack soon?”
“Yes!”
“Will someone deal with the Sun’s forces before that?”
“Yes!”
“Will the people from Holy Order help you?”
“Yes!”
“How will they help you?”
“We plan to poison the largest garrison in Ichita.”
“And then?”
“Then without much resistance we’ll take over the south of the Sun kingdom.”
“Is the person from Holy Order elder Jan?”
“Yes!”
“What poison is he going to use?”
“A very strong poison.”
“How the poison will be deployed?”
“We will poison everyone.”
Nick paused. It was obvious he had to change his approach a bit. But the experienced general Grant came to help.
“Where is elder Jan?” He asked.
“Sethalia.”
“What is he doing?”
“Making poison.”
“Do you have a spy in Ichita?”
“Yes!”
“One or more?”
“More!”
“Will they deploy poison?”
“Yes!”
“When will it happen?”
“In two days.”
“How will you smuggle poison in Ichita?”
“Very carefully.”
“Who will deliver the poison to your spies?”
“Our people.”
General’s approach turned out to be more effective, but their captive was living in illusions after all and started giving ‘stupid’ answers again. General Grant paused for a moment and played with his beard while thinking.
Suddenly Nick knocked general Blato out.
To the questioning gazes he replied, “He’s a strong Qi master and there’s a high risk the serum might loose its effectiveness. We don’t want the other side to suspect we have such means to our disposal and we don’t want him to feed us bad intel as well.”
General Grant nodded, sat back in his chair and fell deep in thoughts. His opinions he had about Nick didn’t matter. There were more pressing matters than paying attention to his own feelings. He was a soldier after all.
Nick unceremoniously threw general Blato on the floor and took his place while the rest took their respective seats around the table as well.
“Alright! Let’s brainstorm!” Nick said and the two girls sat up straight, put their elbows on the table as to prepare for something serious to come. The prince and general Grant were confused once again.
“What?”
“Oh, sorry. It’s just a technique we use when we need to solve problems. You could call it ‘a discussion’ as well.” Nick explained, “We got quite a lot of information, but I would like to ask for your help to work out the perfect plan in current situation.”
‘What? He wants to ask for our help? Wasn’t HE here to help? Since when are we working for him?’ Prince’s face turned bitter.
The following hours in the tent were busy. The four people continuously discussed and even woke general Blato up two more times to ask more questions, obviously beforehand feeding the last potions they had. General’s ‘voluntary help’ was very much appreciated and soon the plan was made.
‘How is this even a military plan? I can’t believe general Grant agreed to it.’ Prince Helio thought to himself while running through the night alongside his little sister.
Theoretically the plan of poisoning the whole garrison had already failed, but the two girls insisted to ‘keep momentum going’ and ‘to press on’, Nick supported them and to the prince’s big surprise general actually agreed.
Tomorrow night was the night when the poison will be passed to the Sand’s army and then stealthily sneaked in Ichita. Contrary to prince’s and general’s suspicion, the plan wasn’t to poison the water supply. In fact, such plan wouldn’t be anything new, although it fit the Holy Order’s cruel style very well.
But Nick came up with even more cruel one and the best part of it – they basically didn’t risk anything besides the four people’s lives who currently sped towards Sethalia’s walls.
‘I wonder, how much my life is actually worth?’ Prince snickered to himself.
He had asked this question in his life countless times, especially during his deployment in the south. But only today he saw that the lives, including his, had actual financial cost. The small fortune Nick spent without battling an eye completely changed prince’s perspective.
Indeed, money was nothing. It could be earned any time, one just had to work hard enough. His people were what’s important! Now he understood what his father meant all those years ago, or at least prince thought he did.