Er Mu - Release that Witch

“Since you’ve explained it so clearly to me,” she nodded, “I’m willing to transport all of my saltpeter to Border Town, and I will only charge you the typical market price of King’s City, but…”

“But what?”

“I do not want to be paid with gold royals, I already have enough of them to fill up a whole warehouse. I heard that you were in possession of some foreign products, if you used these instead of the gold royals, I would be happy to conclude a deal with you.”

“Strange products?” Roland got rooted, it was the first time that he had heard someone say that he didn’t want any gold royals.

“Yes, well. I heard something about a self-running black iron creation,” Margaret leaned slightly forward, “Your servant said, that with this thing, you only need to ignite a fire and boil water for it to become amazingly powerful. In fact, only after I heard him speak about such a creation did I decide to visit Border Town. Otherwise, directly selling the saltpeter to the nobility around the capital would be much more in line with my interests. After all the transportation distance is many times farther, so I have to bear a significant loss.”

This is really a pleasant surprise, Roland thought. Although I don’t know how Barov’s apprentice caught hold of this line, and in what way he had described the steam engine, but evidently this merchant from King’s City was very interested in it.

How incredible the profits and business potential of industrial products were, was all very clear to Roland. Especially since they could be only created by his own mechanical products. He had already worried about that after Border Town had sold all the ore and used up all the Duke’s coins, that they would have no other business opportunities. But he would never have thought that today such an excellent opportunity such as this would be put right in front of him.

“So, that was your reason,” the prince said. “What you had heard of is called a steam engine. It converts water by boiling it into steam, which can be used as source of power. The principle behind it is very simple, but only we her in Border Town are able to produce it.”

“So there exists really such an amazing thing?”

“Of course,” Roland answered, “but it is very complicated to manufacture so the price will be quite high. If you are interested, you can go with me to see the machine.”

“Extremely interested,” she said with excitement.

…

In the North Slope Mine, Margaret saw a large roaring steel monster which pulled several mine carts loaded with minerals out of the mine tunnel, her eyes turned full and round, nearly falling out of their sockets.

“Your Royal Highness, t-this… is incredible.” Margaret whispered, feeling overwhelmed,

“Previously I had thought that your messenger had exaggerated, but even in my wildest dreams, I had never thought that he even understated it… I am afraid that even a dozen of people together don’t possess a power such as this… steam engine.”

Wanting to take a closer look, Margaret took a step toward the engine but was stopped by Roland. “The running is very dangerous, don’t get too close to it. Do you see the white gas spraying out of it? Even if you only get hit by a small part of it, it is still enough to burn your skin.”

“Do you only use it to transport ore?” As the noise was too large, she had to step near Roland and shout into his ear.

“In this mine, we using two, one is used to help the miner transport the ore, while the second one is used for pumping out the water in the mine,” Roland replied, “In fact, until today, Border Town was only able to produce three steam engines. We use them there where they are needed the most. But they can be employed for a broad range of purposes, as you could perhaps imagine. They can replace windmills and waterwheels, to grind wheat. They aren’t affected by rivers or winds, and they don’t need any manpower or animal power. What might interest you, even more, is that they can even be fitted onto a sailing boat, moving the paddles, allowing the ship to move without any sails.”

He knew that their dependence on the wind and its direction was of great significance for the Seafolk. Sure, enough, hearing this Margaret looked with wide-open eyes at Roland, “Just name a price, I will take it with me!”

“That’s out of the question, the mine also relies on it to maintain the production. You can order a few new steam engines and then when you deliver the saltpeter, you can take them with you.”

“What would their price be…?”

Roland lead her away from the entrance of the mine. Being further away from the noise of the machine, it was now much easier to speak. “One steam engine will cost five hundred gold royals,” Roland offered. Even so, the price was a bit exaggerated, being almost equivalent to a knight’s territory annual income. The ore to produce one steam engine cost around twenty gold royals, plus melting costs, labor costs and installation costs it would be another fifty gold royals. However, to get a good price, one always had to have some space for a bargain.

“Then I’ll buy ten steam engines!”

“…” Roland became frozen, ten steam engines were the same as five thousand gold royals! Almost the equal to the five or six years of the Duke Ryan’s savings. Not even trying to bargain, was that the power of a big dog? He cleared his throat, “You’re sure of it? After all, it’s not a small sum, and the machine is also not always available for usage, and even if you bought it, you still have to invest money into it.”

“I know, it’s just like a ship which has to visit the dock every year to clean up the keel of parasites and algae, replacing the sails, ropes and so on,” Margaret did not mind it, ” What later needs to be added, I’ll buy it from you. If it actually becomes impossible to manage by myself, you only have to name a price, and I will pay you for the craftsmen to maintain and operate the machine.”

Roland closed his mouth, there was only one thought left in his mind, being wealthy really must be nice.

At this moment Lightning was flying somewhere across the Concealing Forest.

In her eyes, it seemed that the world had become smaller. As far as her eyes could see, all the details had faded, only a world made out of pure colors was left. Brown was the earth, gray were the mountains, green the forest and blue the river.

Yet it was this green which occupied an overwhelming majority of her field of view.

And not the bright green of the grass fields in Border Town, here the green was mixed with gray and black, turning it dark and condensed. Whether it was to the West or the North, everywhere she looked, she only saw a dark green, with no end to it in sight. Due to seeing it for such a long time, she slowly developed a feeling of falling. So, from time to time, Lightning had to look up at the sky, to disperse the ever-increasing feeling of discomfort.

Behind her, the overcast black clouds were flowing past very low, enclosing the Impassable Mountain Range and Border Town in rain and fog.

She was now flying over the forest trying to find the remains from four hundred fifty years ago, for her, this was undoubtedly a great adventure. Two weeks ago, when Roland had offered her this task, Lightning immediately accepted this mission. Furthermore, there was a big difference between Cara who thought of the ancient book as infallible and the Prince. His Highness repeatedly explained to her, that this drawing could only be used as a reference and that the most important part of the search was her safety, it wouldn’t matter if she could find the tower or not. This gave the young girl the impression that she would have a great time.

She knew that His Royal Highness was right, even in case that it was Border Town’s castle, over the period of more than four hundred years, the plants would have grown almost everywhere and gradually turned into a pile of dust. But she still wanted to find this place, to determine the location of the hexagonal star, it was the equal to determine the position of Taqila. Having heard the ins and outs of the matter, Lightning naturally understood what it meant for her to find Taqila.

That she was helping the Prince find the real cause of the outbreak of the war with the Devils, which the Church was trying to hide with all their might.

If she compared this with her father’s exciting explorations trying to find new sea routes, it was even more exciting!

For her search, Lightning used the chart method. She had separated the map into many small squares, and with keeping a constant speed and counting the time that she flew, she would know how far she had flown. At the same time, she consistently drew out the inside of one of the squares. Every time one of the squares was filled, she also knew that the area had already been searched through.

Now she had already filled half of these squares.

The stormy clouds behind her seemed to be approaching faster than Lightning had previously imagined, the young girl could even faintly hear the thunder rolling in the clouds. To be safe she lowered her height, dropping down towards the forest.

At this moment, a gray shadow flashed past her vision.

Shocking Lightning, who immediately stopped her forward flight. Instead she hovered in the air, looking back through the mass of green.

But she could find nothing.

Was it an illusion? Lightning thought, not believing it, she decided to search the area again.

But this time, she flew at a much lower height. The forest was no longer one solid block of green, instead turning into a collection of mottled tree trunks, bifurcated branches, and all kinds of different leaves… in front of Lightning’s eyes, the details of the world had emerged from a solid block of green.

After several scores of breaths, Lightning suddenly detected a small white stone tower hidden behind the tree branches. The complete upper part of the tower had been cut off, leading to the problem that the trees had grown higher than the tower and had covered it with a layer of green, making it nearly impossible to be seen from up in the sky. If not for her wish to avoid the rain-laden clouds, she would most likely have missed it.

Lightning heart began to beat faster, could it be that this was the location marked on the map?

She slowly flew several rounds around the tower but didn’t discover any unusual circumstances, so she decided to take a closer look to see what she could detect.

After landing, the witch only found out that it wasn’t right to call it a white stone tower.

Its surface was covered with vines and moss, during the passing of time the tower had now become a gray-green. The tower was slightly tilted to the side, giving the impression that it had been hit by a huge force, which had filled the surrounding with scattered stones. These stones were made from the same material and color as the stone tower and must have been fragments from the tower’s former top. The larger pieces were still clear to see, but the smaller ones had already been buried under soil and weeds. The former stone tower was certainly huge. Even now, the bottom area was still as large as Border Town’s castle. Ruins like this would usually have a basement.

Logically speaking, the right thing to do was to record the location of the remains and then immediately return to the Border Town.

The various adventures she had heard also all reminded her, that stepping into an already for hundreds of years sleeping ruin wasn’t the right choice, for example the stale air in the sealed basement could have become toxic and would quickly end her short life.

Knowing all this, Lightning still didn’t move one bit, her own curiosity was constantly nagging her: go in and take a look, it won’t take long.

Once more, she looked up at the sky, seeing that the formerly relatively blue sky had turned a gloomy dark, apparently, a storm was coming.

With this it’s decided, she told herself, flying through the rain would be very uncomfortable, so I can’t help it and have to hide in the tower and if I’m already there, I can also take a quick look. In case I actually discover the basement, I absolutely won’t go in by myself.

After thinking about it, Lightning’s obedience had been suppressed by her curiosity, so she went to the vines and began to search for the entrance. When she found it, she pulled out a knife from her waist and cleaned out a small hole, it was only big enough that she could crawl through it. The door which was previously made out of wood had already been eroded away long ago, thus she could now successfully enter the tower.