78 Protection!

"General please rest up, you have worked hard tonight!" The soldier in charge was trying to salvage his relationship with the general when he said this, although, deep down he knew that it was practically impossible, the general was very temperamental and moody by nature, and held grudges easily!

"Thank you, soldier, may I know your name, I seem to have forgotten it. Also, I really enjoy the work you have been doing lately, please keep it up!" Nick spoke with authority.

"Ahhh, m...me?" The soldier pointed his shaky finger at himself as he asked.

"Of course, why, did I misjudge you?!" Nick asked seriously.

"N...no, definitely not!! Thank you for your praise sir!! Also, my name is Lieutenant Derick, but please just call me Derick sir!" The soldier was over the moon with joy! He had to be the first Lieutenant or soldier to have ever been praised by the General!

"Good! Okay then Derick, come to my tent thirty minutes later and brief me on the activities of the mine!" Nick commanded, not forgetting to pat the man on the shoulder as praise.

Derick, who was extremely happy earlier immediately felt his heart sink! So, it was all an excuse huh? An excuse for the general to bring him to the tent and stab him! Tears of betrayal slowly fell down Derick's now red eyes as he walked away.

Nick who saw all this repeatedly glanced at the hand he used to pat the man on the shoulder in confusion. Did he somehow move the soldier to tears without meaning to?!

Shaking his head to get rid of the confusing thoughts Nick then calmly entered the tent which now belonged to him and began rummaging around to see if he could find anything of value.

Soon Nick noticed that besides some transcendence stones and some gathering level weapons there was nothing really precious in the tent. Apparently, the General's most prised possessions had all been destroyed by the explosion.

But then, by the bedside, Nick saw a carefully hidden book, causing excitement, curiosity, and expectation to overwhelm him, Nick hurriedly picked up the book and glanced at the title, and it read.

'Log of all the butts I've stabbed, book twenty-seven!'

Nick almost threw the book in rage, what kind of sick pervert keeps a log of such a thing, and it actually says that this was the twenty-seventh book?!! Did this mean that pervert has filled more than twenty-six other books with this nonsense?!!

'Today, the sun shone brightly, the leaves of the oak tree are falling by my side. All the leaves carried by the wind whisper to me, 'Stab them, Kane! Stab then and show them who you are!' They tell me my calling in life, in this life I swear to humiliate all my enemies! My enemies can go back with their lives, but never with their dignity!'

Nick got even angrier, why did the book open suddenly?! He definitely didn't want to read it...And why in the hell was the man blaming his sick and perverted actions on the poor tree leaves?! Just because they don't have mouths can he really bully them like this?!

Throwing the third journal he has gotten so far into the storage space Nick then began to feel bored and slightly regretted telling Derick to wait for thirty minutes before coming in. So leaving his tent he told one of the soldiers standing by his tent to call Derick over.

A minute later Derick showed up with a downcast look and stared at Nick with emotionless eyes.

"Well then, you know what to do, right?!" Nick commanded and sat down ready to absorb the information he was about to be fed. He needed to understand the amount already mined, that will soon be mined, and the amount left to be mined.

"Yes sir!!" Derick said resolutely and began undressing, he didn't want to ruin his cloth when he gets stabbed!

"Ahhhhhh!!!" Nick who saw the strange bastard suddenly getting undressed shrieked like a little girl and ran out of the tent!

"Pervert!!! Help!!!" Nick was roaring until his throat hurt, he was honesty terrified!

"Sir, what is wrong?!! Is there an intruder again?!!" The two guards by his tent who saw their General running in fear for the first time ever were also terrified! But true to their position and duty they rushed inside the tent to confront the intruder!

But what they found was the frozen Derick who was still standing there in the middle of undressing! He didn't understand what happened, what was going on?! Did a pervert actually walk in while he was in the middle of getting undressed?!! Thinking up to this point Derick hurriedly put back on his cloth while looking at his surrounding vigilantly!

Derick was afraid that the pervert the General was referring to might have come after seeing him get undressed because he had to admit, he was too darn good looking!

Nick then came running back into the tent and hid behind the two guards and pointed his shaky index finger towards Derick as he cried out, " Capture him! The little pervert actually got undressed as soon as I told him to brief me on the mine!!! What kind of mining do you people do around here?!!"

"Bastard, do you know about workplace harassment laws?!! Damn it, where is the boss, I will report this immediately!" Nick was making no sense at this point, but he always tends to feel better after yelling so he was enjoying it!

Listening to Nick's screams, everyone, including Derick, was stunned! But since they needed to follow the General's orders the two guards rushed over and arrested Luitenent Derick, who didn't put up any resistance because the General was the one that gave the order.

Derick, until now was unable to believe what had happened! Did he really get called over to brief the general about the mine?! Did he perhaps mistake the General's professional intentions and got undressed unnecessarily?!

As the guards took Derick away Nick hurriedly walked over to one of the soldiers lying on the side and took away his shoe! Then before the soldier could react Nick had thrown it using all his strength at Derick's head!

Smack!!! Derick immediately fell unconscious!

Only then did Nick feel a little bit better. So, after Derick was dragged away to the camp prison, Nick slowly had a bottle of wine to calm his nerves before ordering the soldiers guarding his tent to brief him instead. But he still didn't dare to call them into the tent, who knows what kind of crazy freak would show up next!

The General was already so crazy, so how can he expect his soldiers to be any different?! So it was better to be briefed in an open area, in front of witnesses!

"Sir, so far we have only managed to mine three hundred and eighty-five tons of the Dark heavenly gold until now! And the nobles and the Emperor are already deciding who will get how much so that isn't our problem, but we have to stop mining about a week later to let the mine replenish itself!" A soldier explained.

"Replenish? How does the mine replenish itself?!" Nick sat down on a stool and asked like a curious student.

"Well you see, every mine has a heart, and as long as a mine isn't overly excavated then that heart can continue to replenish the ore! But if the mine does suffer from over-excavation then the heart will also be damaged and the mine will go extinct!" The soldier felt pride when he taught the General something! This can be something he can brag about for ages to come!

Nick now finally understood why the Emperor didn't just come personally to uproot the entire mine. If he had done that that would be tantamount to burning one's own wallet!

And this was why they tasked experts to do it instead, the experts would estimate how much ore would be okay to mine and then close the mine for a few years before they continue to mine it again!

"So, is the excavated Dark heavenly gold still in our possession?!" Nick asked the most important question.

"Of course, General, are you alright?" The soldier asked as both he and the others listening got confused.

"Oh, I'm fine, it's just that goddamn blast that gave me short-term memory loss, I will probably remember everything in a week but it's still better if I know of these things beforehand, don't you think?" Nick came up with a bullshit story that was believable enough not to raise suspicion until he was finished with his task here.

"Oh...that explains it, General, sorry for the disrespectful question! The storage is beneath General's tent, you had previously requested it to be kept there so you can watch over it personally!" The soldier explained why he was suspicious.

"Oh, that's good, get back to work everyone! I'll be going back to my tent to rest, and no one is allowed to disturb me unless it's a matter of life and death!" Nick roared out his command before walking over to the helpful guard sneakily handing him something!

"You explained well soldier, take this as a form of my appreciation!" Nick whispered.

"Sir, what is this?!" The soldier asked because he honestly didn't know.

"Protection! Trust me, buddy, once you let it slip, a life of misery awaits you!" Nick had said enough as he walked back into his tent.

But no matter how hard the young soldier tried, he couldn't understand what the thing was, and could only read its name.

'C..on...dom! Condom...what is that?! Is this a secret gathering realm weapon, or maybe a pill that can help one breakthrough?!!!'

The soldier got excited about what he received and hurriedly stuffed it into his pocket while maintaining vigilance! He can trust no one, no one from now on!! Everybody was after his treasure! His precious!!!

Nick had already walked back into his tent and found the secret hatch by now, and was breaking the locks binding it shut! And after repeated failure, Nick took out the sword belonging to the lightning sage and dropped it on the lock!

Pssst!

The sword was like a hot knife on butter as it easily cut through the lock and still dived in deep into the ground until only the hilt was remaining!

Storing back the sword into his storage Nick then opened the latch.

Ding! Obtained the Dark heavenly gold from the main mission, three hundred and eighty-five tons out of five hundred tons! Will the host be turning this over to the system?

"Take it away!" Nick said in a commanding voice.

And woosh! It was gone, Nick really liked how the system was always obedient!

Now he needed to get the rest of the ore before he can return to his enjoyable palace life, where he can play Empress lottery, and get to see a different but also crazy Empress every day!

But as he remembered how he would have to sleep with a married woman later he immediately fell into a bad mood!

"Brat, I already said that you don't need to have sex, just in the same room!" The Old geezer again reminded.

"What is the point in carrying out a mission if I don't do it properly?!! Please shut up, I'm mad enough that I have to let a married woman taint my virgin and holly body!!" Nick looked really depressed as he said all this.

"Virgin and holly? Your body might be clean, but your mind is dirtier than the floors in a hundred-year-old brothel!" The old geezer cursed.

"You would know..." Nick replied nonchalantly.

"What do you mean by that you little dirty, dumb, maggot-infested, shit-headed..." The old geezer began to insult Nick nonstop!

Nick felt like this kind of life was the best, with the Old geezer keeping him company he would never be bored...