25 Secrets Being Kep

-Several minutes earlier-

"How did my level increase so suddenly from level four to level five?" Leo hearing the screen giving him his level up notification, was extremely confused.

"Wait, could creating a squad be the reason that my level had increased without me doing anything? But I would think that Jack and Natalia wouldn't openly kill everyone." Pondering over this, Leo several minutes later heard a screech that sounded like Martin.

"What the hell are they doing?" standing up and preparing to exit the building, Leo now saw both Jack and Natalia entering the room. They looked as if their hearts were extremely cold and they were still filled with killing intent.

"What happened?" Leo asked as Jack and Natalia both bowed towards him at the same time.

"They aimed to kill us, so we had no choice but to kill many of them to set an example. You do not need to worry about the repercussions since we will be heading to the city soon." Jack replied as they stood back up. Natalia was looking closely at her hands as if she was trying to solve an extremely difficult puzzle.

"Natalia?" Leo putting his hand on her shoulder said in a worrisome tone. "Are you ok?"

"That power. So much power. How… how…." showing tears coming down from her eyes, Natalia quickly wiped them before looking at Leo in praise. "Thanks to you, my future has been changed for the better."

"It is true." Jack now cutting in started to explain to the group. "With this new power that we both have, our position within our households will indefinitely change into a more important role. We might actually have what it takes to become executives now!" with a shine in his eyes, Jack started to show several tears moving down his face as well.

"Executives?" puzzled, Leo did not understand what an executive in a household meant, but, it seemed like a high position.

"In each city, a household has two types of memberships. One is the apprentice type, which signifies that a warrior has trained to at least a basic or acceptable level to represent the household. Before this power increase, I was simply an outer member. However, now I might have what it takes to become a core member." Natalia started to explain.

"A core member is a very important role that symbolizes that a warrior of the younger generation is strong enough to eventually become an executive. An executive is a warrior within a household that has reached a certain level of power. Usually, big and well-established households will have roughly two to five executive levels in a generation. This is of course what separates established households to commoners." Natalia said with her eyes shining.

"I was an inner member, which means that I could one day possibly reach the executive level, but I was not strong enough to take on any core members of my household. Now, I think that I can become a core member." Jack sitting down couldn't help but to also comment on this.

"If executives are that strong, I seem even weaker now." pondered Leo as he sat down to meditate for some time. "Let us rest in here for today and leave tomorrow morning. If what Nathan said was true, we might be in even more danger if we leave so suddenly without a plan."

Without criticizing Leo's order, Jack and Natalia began to nod their heads as they began to relax as well.

-Several hour later-

"Your households banned together to kill off two of ours. Not only that, but they had the audacity to do this in the village we were given to oversee and protect!" an elder of Martin's household cried out in the meeting room while slamming his fist onto the table.

"Calm down. If two members of our household were as weak as they appeared before heading out with that Martin, it would be impossible for them to join forces to kill so many people including Martin and Nathan. I demand we remove the death penalty and escort those two back for questioning of the alliance!" an elder of Natalia's household spoke up.

"Hmph, your Sacred Flame household has declined so much up until now. Maybe you were hiding your member's power so that she could strike at the right opportunity?" the elder of Martin's household shouted while crossing his arms.

"Now, now. Your Moon household is known to uphold justice and have a heroic bearing. You should calm down and listen to our reasoning." an elder from Jack's household held up her hands to try to neutralize the situation.

"Oh? Your Mist household is known as assassin types. Are you saying that you did not tell your member to use a killing move to chop Nathan's head right off given the proper opening as well?"

"Silence!" up until this point, the head of each household in their alliance were listening to their elders discussing this situation among themselves. What surprised everyone, was that the Crimson household head was the one who shouted this.

"If justice is to be served, we need to uphold justice as we would in any other scenario. It seems as if the three-person squad hasn't left the village yet, which means that it would not be out of bounds to escort them back here for questioning before we decide. With so many dangers facing our city, we do not have the leg room to make rash decisions, if it means lowering our overall strength!"

What surprised everyone even more, was that the head of the Moon household was who said this! Having such a need to always appear dignified and fair, the Moon household kept its demeanor as the head allowed the squad to be questioned before they were executed.

"It is settled then, we will each send out an executive level expert to ensure the safety of that squad's return. As suggested, once they are escorted safely back to the city, they will be under house arrest until we can properly question them."

With all four households in agreement, they immediately sent out a squad of all executive level experts to the village Leo's squad was in.

-Back at the Moon household's elder hall-

"But patriarch, why would you allow them to do such a thing? With the other three households watching, it will be impossible to slay those three!" one of the two elders of the Moon household cried out in anger.

"As it stands right now, we have much bigger pressing issues to take care of. Now with Nathan gone, our man power will need to be redistributed again so we can continue watching after that village. It is a shame that Martin had to die, but he was only good for a future marriage proposal."

"I do not believe that anyone is onto us yet, and we need to continue keeping it that way. If the grand mage of this city knew that it was us who created a little alliance with the nearby orcs in order to overthrow his rule of this city for ourselves, our household would be destroyed immediately!" the patriarch of the Moon household explained to the two elders.

Accepting the outcome, the two elders retired to their rooms as the patriarch sat on his little throne in the main hall. "Even I am an ant compared to that man. At least, he allowed me to serve him and gifted me this city upon my success." the patriarch thought to himself.