Second World

The feast lasted till late at night. Kabaka invited Jack to stay a few more days to attend Four Winds' inauguration. Considering Jack helped Four Winds win the tourney, he thought the two outworlders should be close friends.

Jack replied although he would like to, he had many matters to attend to. He needed to go back tomorrow and prepare from his side about opening the border for the orc race.

He figured not many human officers would be thrilled about this. As Kabaka said, bad blood between their countries had lasted for a long time. It would be hard to ask everyone to just forgive and forget. He might need to think of extra precautions to protect the orcs once they started entering human cities, especially the native ones. Otherwise, things might get ugly again and all his efforts were wasted.

Kabaka didn't force Jack to stay. Jack was given one of the best rooms in the city hall to spend the night. He spent the rest of the night sending messages to Jeanny and John, informing them about the situation.

He asked John to start discussing with the other advisors about lifting the ban on orcs and started drafting rules on how to deal with the orcs when they entered their cities.

John said that there was no worry. Jeanny had sent a few helpful players during Jack's absence. The players used to be politicians and legislators in their real lives. John had used his position as the royal advisor to put these players to work in the palace. They had been very helpful in drafting regulations to help keep the players and natives from clashing against one another, especially adventurer players.

This was not a problem in the past because players' level was much lower than the native. Now, there were plenty of high-level players. The average-level native guards were no longer sufficient if all of these players caused a problem. Hence, the regulations were made for these players to keep them on a leash.

Everlasting Heavenly Legends and its allied guilds also helped maintain these regulations, especially those who had joined the kingdom faction. These players helped the native guards if rogue players were causing trouble.

Jack didn't forget to ask John to check with Isabelle and Thaergood about the orc prisoners. If there were such prisoners, they were to be released immediately.

It was way past midnight when Jack was about to sleep. He didn't have enough sleep, though. Because around two hours after he slept, he was woken up in the most uncool way possible. By a vivid nightmare.

He didn't remember what the nightmare was about, but he woke up sweating. In front of him, a literal nightmare was staring back at him.

"Ma'am, are you the reason I'm having a nightmare? If you want to wake me up, just give me a nudge or something," Jack complained.

Pandora started neighing for a reply.

Peniel also came out of her hidden dimension. She was listening to the nightmare intently.

"What did she want?" Jack asked half-sleepily after Pandora stopped making sounds.

Before Peniel could answer, Jack heard a quest notification, "You have been offered a steed's quest, Help Pandora. Do you accept?"

"Ste–steed's quest?" Jack stammered

"You do remember that she gave you a one-year limit for her service, don't you?" Peniel asked.

"Oh, you're right!" Jack uttered. He honestly had forgotten about it. He then made some quick calculations. There was still around one month before their contract ended.

"This is your chance to make her your permanent steed," Peniel said. "Help her. Perform well, and she might consider serving you forever."

"Help her doing what?" Jack asked.

"Her family is in danger," Peniel answered. "She needs your help to save them."

"She had a family?" Jack had trouble picturing a herd of fiery horses with nightmare visions gathered together as a family group.

"Yes. Get ready, she will take you there right now," Peniel said.

"What? Right now? You mean, right this second?"

"Right this second!"

"Why such a hurry?" Jack turned to Pandora. "Ma'am, can you please wait one day? No, half a day! I wish to take care of some stuff first."

Pandora neighed and stomped her feet. The atmosphere in the room turned significantly darker even though it was already dark. Jack didn't need Peniel to interpret the nightmare's answer.

'Damn it, such a pushy,' Jack complained.

Jack originally planned to go back to Thereath first to use the mass pay function to increase the officers' loyalties. Tomorrow would be one week since he last used it. Not to mention, Verremor's grand chief had expressed the desire to send him off tomorrow. Going away now would be so impolite, but he guessed he couldn't argue with an angry fiery horse who could literally give him nightmares every night if she was displeased.

Pandora neighed and stomped again, showing her displeasure.

"Hold your horses! I will help you, but at least give me a few minutes, will you?" Jack said. "I need to talk to someone first."

He accepted the quest and then walked out of the room. He knocked on the door to the next room. Laurent opened the door. Both Laurent and Robinson were given a guest room next to Jack.

"What's wrong, Your Majesty?" Laurent asked.

"Something urgent has come up. I need to leave now," Jack said. "I can't accompany you back to Thereath, but I can give you gold coins so you can use the zone portal to teleport directly."

Jack had planned to use the zone portal with Laurent and Robinson instead of letting them go back on foot with the other prisoners. Using zone portals for natives was expensive, but Jack didn't mind paying for the fees since he had many coins.

"Where are you going, Your Majesty? Do you need my help? I don't mind coming with you," Laurent said.

"Um… That was not a bad idea," Jack turned to Peniel, "Where are we going? Can I bring him?"

"Pandora can only carry one person to where she needs to go," Peniel said. "So, no. You can call Arlcard and your royal agents once you are there, but you can't bring another passenger along the way."

"Oh, too bad. His healing spells would have been very handy," Jack said. He then turned back to Laurent and said, "Well, you hear the lady. Unfortunately, I can't bring you. You should go back to Thereath as originally planned. Here are the coins for you and Robinson."

Jack handed him 240 gold coins. It took 120 gold coins to teleport from Mjiku Maba directly to Thereath. The longer the distance, the more expensive the cost. That's why it was impossible to teleport a whole army of natives.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Laurent said after accepting the coins. He was truly grateful to Jack.

"Hey, can I ask you? Do you mind being my royal agent?" Jack asked. "Or are you planning to go back to the Church of Creation?"

"Even if I want to, they won't accept me back. They made it pretty clear when I chose to help during the invasion," Laurent replied. "To answer your question. Yes, I will be honored if you are willing to have me as your royal agent."

"Sweet! My sovereign level will increase soon. Once it does, I will send you an invite. Please accept it then," Jack said.

Sounds of stuff breaking could be heard from next door.

"Okay, got to go. I have an angry nightmare to attend to," Jack said and hurriedly ran back to his room.

He sent a quick message to Four Winds on his way, explaining his urgency and asking Four Winds to send his regards and his apology to the grand chief for disappearing in the middle of the night.

"Okay, I'm ready. Should we go outside first? We are inside a room, for goodness sake," Jack asked after he was back in his room.

Pandora neighed with impatience.

"She said just climb up, slowpoke," Peniel translated.

"Fine. Let's go… to wherever the hell you want me to go," Jack said and climbed up Pandora.

"Funny," Peniel said. "You are indeed going to hell."