“Are you planning to use a hot air balloon to throw the giant explosive packages into the heart of the imperial palace?” After listening to Roland’s battle plan, Carter struggled to believe his ears. To attack from an altitude of two kilometers above the ground while simultaneously completely disregarding the city walls and the forces of the garrison, ultimately overturned his former concept of what defined combat — and of course, living in Border Town during this last year, his view had already gone through changes many times before.
“As long as the controlling system is fully functioning it really isn’t impossible to achieve,” Roland nodded. “Right now, Timothy is pressing people into service once more, to build up his new militia force. If we cannot stop him, the Western Territory will inevitably suffer another attack from his drugged forces. And even if we force him back again, it won’t give us even one bit of benefit.”
The secret letter that Theo had sent had indicated that Timothy was currently still using the same old routine of trying to consume his strength. However, Roland didn’t know if the team dispatched by Barov could overtake their counterparts and rope in the people and make them come to Border Town.
“Supposing that you can really release heaven’s fury thunder above Timothy’s head, he absolutely will be frightened, not knowing what to do!” Iron Axe said excitedly, “This is absolutely a heaven’s punishment which no one can resist!”
“That’s what I’m hoping for,” Roland said with a smile.
Although Theo had mentioned in the letter that Timothy had most likely figured out the method for making black gunpowder and opened a workshop in the inner city to try and mass produce the dangerous product, after thinking it over repeatedly, Roland still decided that the roof of the imperial palace should be the target of the bombing.
The reason was simple, the palace was the only place which was eye-catching enough.
When looking from a height of two thousand meters, even the most magnificent city of Graycastle was only the size of half a palm. Therefore, they also had to find a good target point to throw off the bomb in advance. And the palace was located at the midpoint of the inner-city district, and was surrounded by a red tile wall. Furthermore, pure white stones covered the roof of the palace, would be particularly eye-catching while they were aiming, which meant it would almost be impossible for them to miss their target.
But the workshop was different.
Roland didn’t possess a layout plan of King’s City, and the ground was also unmanned, and if he only relied on spoken words it would be quite difficult to describe the position of the selected target. Plus, the workshop’s area wasn’t large. If the bomb were to fall on top of a civilian’s house, the gains of their plan wouldn’t make up for the losses they would face.
Suddenly, a white shadow fell straight to the ground, causing a smoke pillar to rise from the test field, followed by the muffling sound of something smashing into the ground a moment later.
“It seems as if the bomb has hit the ground,” Roland put away the mirror, “Let’s go and take a look at the result.”
After a week of training, Lightning had significantly improved her bombing technique. This time, the bomb had hit the ground five meters away from the center of the target. It had drilled its whole body into the earth and the outer shell had been substantially deformed due to the force of the impact.
After Cloud Gazer had landed, Anna used her black flame to cut open the bomb, so that everyone could see that the soil near the detonator has been charred black — this proved that the primer’s temperature was high enough to ignite the gas sprinkled on top of the gravel, which was what they had used in place of black gunpowder, and this showed that the detonator itself was working fine. If they instead filled the interior of the bomb with nitrated starch, it could easily create a four to six meters deep hole, and kill all of the people who hadn’t taken shelter that were within the vicinity of 50 meters.
Now, after having fully trained the air drop, the next step was to organize their combat plan.
Roland let his gaze wander over everyone surrounding him, then opened his mouth and slowly said, “We will execute the surprise raid on King’s City next Monday. First, Iron Axe will lead a group of fifty firearms and escort the witches to the outskirts of Silver City. There is a mountain ridge in the area which can shelter you from detection, and it should be perfect if you want to set up camp or send off a balloon.”
“I hear and obey, Your Majesty!” Iron Axe agreed.
“Why can’t we just fly directly from Border Town?” Wendy asked.
“No, that would be too far,” Roland shook his head, from the Western Territory to King’s City it took at least a week. When traveling with Cloud Gazer or flying directly there, it would still take them around three days, together with the return trip it would be six days. Furthermore, after the installing the dropping mechanism, the basket would only have enough space to carry two people, which meant that Nightingale would be unable to follow them. With the exception of Anna, none of the other witches had any fighting ability, so making them spend six nights in the wild it would be much too high a risk, which was something that would be impossible for him to feel at ease about. “By starting from Silver City, you will be able to complete the bombing in just one day and return even before the sun goes down.”
“Secondly, the witches assigned to the mission are Anna, Wendy, Lightning, Maggie, Nightingale and Sylvie. The latter two are responsible for monitoring the surroundings of the camp, while the attack will be carried out by the first four people according to the training method, especially Lightning,” he looked towards the little girl, “Whether we succeed or not all depends on you.”
“You can leave it to me.” The latter patted her chest.
“In that case, the last thing I wanted to mention was that you should all pay attention to your safety,” Roland said while stressing each word, “I will be waiting for your return here in Border Town.”
Four days later, the first bomb ’Easterly Wind No.1’ was loaded on top of a cart, and under the escort of the First Army, it boarded a cargo ship to Silver City.
Chapter 304 An unexpected but pleasant surprise
May would never have thought that by the time she was about to set foot on the road back to Border Town, her heart would once again be filled with so much expectation.
The woods along the Redwater River had already begun to turn yellow, and the breeze blowing directly in one’s face brought along a trace of chill. The waves of the shimmering river were rolling under her feet, and from time to time she was able to see the fallen tree leaves floating past the side of the ship.
Now, without all of the anxiety and restlessness she had felt on her last trip, the exuberant surrounding autumn landscape seemed like it was something which came out of a poem or painting.
“Miss May,” a voice, full of respect, came from behind. “Your play of the ‘Witch Diary’, is it true that His Highness wrote the play for you personally?”
When May turned around, she saw that a group of actresses had gathered behind her, the person standing in front looked at her with a tense expression. She recalled that this one’s name was ‘Swallow’.
“Aha, sorry,” Irene waved at her, then bowed and said with an apologizing smile. “I wasn’t able to answer this question. So without any better option I had to let them come and ask you.”
This fool… May thought and gave her a supercilious look. If it had been her from the past, she would have only dumped them with a sneer. But now, after having spent so much time together with Irene her patience had unexpectedly grown stronger day by day, and thus she dared to answer, “No, His Highness didn’t write it for me. Rather it was the City Hall’s Minister of Education, Lady Scroll who had written the Witch Diary.“