“So you were also a sister of the Witch Cooperation Association?”
“Not anymore.” Lightning sighed and then continued, “It’s the same for Wendy and Nightingale. Since we left, it is now impossible to ever go back. I’m afraid Cara won’t be able to swallow her pride.”
“Will she survive even though Nightingale pierced through her body?” Roland asked disbelievingly,
“Probably. In the camp we have a witch called the Herb Witch, who can increase the effectiveness of herbs several times,” explained Lightning, “by multiplying the effect of some hemostatic grasses and turning them into a blood replenishing medicine, rescuing Cara’s life should not be a problem, but compared to your witch who has the ability to heal, the effect is inferior.”
Hearing this, Roland thought, this will really be a nuisance, it seems like it wasn’t enough to just worry about to the Church, now I also have to look out for the witches. Fortunately, their purpose is to look for the Holy Mountain, so I hope the trouble of looking for Nightingale is too much for them.
“Previously you had said that you didn’t believe in what Nightingale had said, so why did you go with her and leave the Witch Cooperation Association?”
“Because you have a machine that huffs and puffs black and white smoke, and you can also create stones out of gray powder and even have powder that breaks apart mountains with a thunderous bang.” Lightning repeated the exact same words she had said to Nightingale, “Maybe there wasn’t be a Prince who was good to the witches, but she wouldn’t have lied to me, it is impossible to make up such lifelike ideas — at least this was what my intuition of an explorer had told me, and just seeing the monstrosity in the yard which is capable of ejecting white gas shows me that I was right. This monstrosity? Nightingale seems to call it…a steam engine, right?”
“Explorer?” Roland automatically ignored the last question.
“Yes, explorer!” Lightning emphasized the word, “This is the reason why I choose to follow Nightingale. All explorers are curious about the unknown.”
“…” Roland secretly sighed. What should I do with this witch? Someone like her could only survive in this age if they were born in a rich family. Anyone only had to look at her once to see that she was a tomboy, not only because of her clothes, but also her short golden hair, “Are you sure your name isn’t Ezreal[3]?”
“Who would that be? My name is Lightning.” the little girl proudly explained.
At this point, the door opened once more and Anna and Nana came out.
“How was it?” asked Roland, “Did the healing go well?”
Seeing Nana nod, Roland could finally feel relieved. Generally, a limb needed to be reconnected within six to eight hours. When this time limit was exceeded, the success rate would be greatly reduced. Since Lightning said that they had taken more than one day to travel from the camp to Border Town, the chance to save the limb was actually already very small. It would almost be impossible to reconnect the nerves by conventional surgery. This once more showed how unbelievable Nana’s healing ability was.
Now the young witch was also tired; it seemed that the treatment also cost her great effort. So Roland encouragingly said to them, “You all have worked hard today, so after eating dinner, you both should sleep here with Anna.”
Of course, he thought that would also mean that Sir Pine would also sleep here.
Chapter 62 Oath
Today was such an exciting day with so many surprising matters that Roland didn’t want to continue the boring work with the steam engine. Instead, he had his chef prepare an exceptionally great dinner of black pepper steak and fried eggs without any limit to the amount everyone could eat. After eating, Lightning and Anna had to pat their bloated bellies while Nana, chewing on the last piece of meat, was still full of vitality. In addition to the dinner, he had asked the maid to prepare and deliver a stew out of soft meat and waxy porridge in a heat-preserving porcelain dish to Nightingale. Once Nightingale and Wendy woke up, they could immediately eat hot food.
After dinner, the next step was to arrange rooms for everyone. Fortunately, the lords of Border Town loved exquisiteness and grandeur. Even though this small town was only built for mining, as an early security point, the castle was still built to the standards of a medium sized town. Thanks to this, Roland now had a nine hundred square meter living area spread over three floors, along with watchtowers and arrow towers in the form of pagodas in the four corners of the castle. He also possessed his own vestibule and back garden.
Roland arranged the room opposite of Anna’s room for Lightning while the room next door went to Wendy after her rehabilitation. When Roland saw Nana walk into Anna’s room with a sugar stick in her hand, he could not help but shake his head in amusement.
Back at his office, Roland poured himself a cup of ale. A plan was only good until the first deviation. He had thought that with the help of Nightingale, he would have gotten a batch of new witches, getting a boost in science and technology and upgrading agriculture etc., but he had never expected that the leader of the Witch Cooperation Association would have such hostility towards non-witches. Witches like Nightingale seemed to be a minority. Wendy… after the talk with Lightning he knew that Wendy actually didn’t want to leave the Witch Cooperation Association. She only intended to save Nightingale, but after her intervention, she was treated as a traitor by Cara and the other witches.
After his first drink, Roland poured himself a second one. Even if the ale wasn’t the best, it was still better than nothing.
During the meal, Roland had asked Lightning about her and Wendy’s abilities. Lightning said she could fly like a bird and fly freely through the air while Wendy was able to control the wind. Hearing this, Roland couldn’t think of a good use for a technological upgrade, but for the upcoming war they held great potential.
He also asked her about the abilities of the other witches at the camp and found out that their abilities varied strongly and seemed not to follow any rules. Some effects could hardly be described with science while some were completely bizarre.
For example, Cara the Snake Witch, the founder of the Witch Cooperation Association. She could condense her magic into snakes — these snakes were not illusions, they could be touched and also attack an enemy. The different colors of the snakes represented the different venoms. Lighting herself had only seen two types of snakes, paralysis and toxic.
Roland found that it wasn’t only Anna, but Cara and the other witches could also only use their magic within a small range. For example, when Anna’s Green Fire left a range of five meters, it would suddenly disappear. Cara’s snakes also couldn’t stray too far. For Nightingale, it was an even shorter distance. When she wanted to influence a foreign object, she would have to leave her fog and become visible.
For this reason, they were always equipped with crossbows in case they had to face the Church or any other army who possessed God’s Stone of Retribution. Otherwise, they could only flee in all directions.
Roland worked until midnight, and the fire in the fireplace had already dimmed. When he began to sneeze he thought it was time to sleep.
When he opened the door to his bedroom, he thought that he had gone into the wrong room — it was the already familiar scene again, where a woman was already in the room, sitting on his bed. Her figure was half shrouded in darkness, her shadow reflected by the fire was only displayed in mosaic, like a mural. However, this time there was a big difference to the previous instances, namely that the woman was no longer wearing her body-hiding robes. Instead, she had replaced them with ordinary civilian clothes. Her appearance was no longer hidden from the outside world, and now everyone could directly see her appearance.
3
Roland used name Izawa Riel. Izawa Riel is the Chinese name for Ezreal from League of Legends.