Er Mu - Release that Witch

The extraordinary had the ability to sense the magic in others, and between two extraordinaries this feeling was even stronger. This was because their magic was connected with one another, like an invisible fetter, firmly connecting Tilly and her together.

“I’m back,” Ashes said softly.

“En,” Tilly replied cheerfully, “Welcome home.”

For a moment, the two of them enjoyed the warm atmosphere, until Ashes’ attention was drawn to a bunch of jewel-like gadgets in front of her, curiously she asked, “What are these?”

“Come,” Tilly patted the place next to her body, “I’ll show you something interesting.”

Ashes followed her suggestion and sat cross-legged next to Tilly, seeing how she put a white silk glove over her hand, which had a crystal ruby embedded on the back of the hand.

“This is… a tracking Stone?”

Tilly didn’t give her an answer. Instead, she just smiled and reached into the open air, suddenly, a flash of lightning jump from her fingertips, hitting the ground, issuing a crackling sound, followed by smoke rising from the ground, finally leaving behind a palm-sized black mark.

Ashes couldn’t believe her eyes, “You have a new ability…”

Tilly Wimbledon was an extraordinary, her magic was only usable on herself, manifesting in her unsurpassed intelligence, making it impossible for her to have her magic manifest like typical witches’ abilities would. The lightning flash just now meant that she now possessed a whole new ability, something which should have been impossible. A witch could never have two kinds of primary abilities, this was common sense that all witches were aware of.

Tilly took the glove off and handed it to Ashes, “It is not that I have a new ability, rather it is because of this stone.” She smiled, “It has the power to change how your magic works, and make your magic to even show an effect totally opposite to your current one.”

When Ashes rubbed the jewel on top of the glove, she became shocked to her core; she immediately knew that Tilly hadn’t lied to her, which meant that from now on, non-combat witches would also have the ability to fight, significantly enhancing the witches’ ability to resist the against enemy. “How many of these stones do we have?”

“There’s only one,” it seemed that Tilly already understood Ashes thought process, “in addition, it’s also not that easy to use. You have to accept magic as something that actually exist; then you have to fill the stone with this magic and only then you can release it.”

For a long time Ashes painstakingly meditative wished for it, but no trace of light could be seen.

“Do you believe me now?” Tilly said teasingly, “We extraordinary have it better than others, we can sense magic, for other witches it is much more challenging, it’s taking our imagination and comprehension to its limits. As a matter of fact, I have already tested a lot of witches, but only two to three out of one hundred were able to comprehend it and release the lightning early enough.

“Are you mocking me for being slow-witted?” Ashes took off the glove and threw it to the side.

“Pretty much,” Tilly raised her eyebrow, “At that time, I merely used…”

To stop her, Ashes kissed her, only permitting her to croon for a bit… when they finally separated, the latter took in a long breath, “Well, not so stupid after all.”

“And what is with those other stones?” As if wishing to continue, Ashes licked her lips. Only in the presence of the 5th Princess, was she able to fully relax, “Could it be that they all possess a different kind of capabilities?”

“Yes, they show a different result,” Tilly confirmed, a blush had still not gone from her cheeks. “However, they still won’t allow the ordinary person to possess witch-like abilities, only people with magic power can arouse it.” She paused, “Which left me with a question.”

“What is your question?”

“What exactly is magic?” Tilly said slowly, one word at a time, “For a long time now, the witches abilities were manifold and varied widely, showing a high degree of uncertainty to it, and in the perception of an extraordinary, witches were also different. But with this strange stones, magic becomes completely be the same, through it, any witch can release the exact the same ability. Therefore, I might have been following the wrong lead previously, magic itself is perhaps one type of omnipotent power, but us witches can merely manifest one of its forms.”

“Then these magic stones?” Ashes asked.

“They can only release, but they cannot gather magic. It is not clear whether they are human-made, or formed from nature,” Tilly said regretfully, “According to legend, they were unearthed from within the relics. At present, the greater part of them have already spread within the folk; I only managed to collect this much… I heard that an ancient ruin lies in the eastern part of the Seawind Region, I really want to go and take a look for myself, maybe I could find more information about magic and some intelligence on the forgotten history there.

Several of the words, Tilly had used, left Ashes unable to make sense of what she was hearing, and furthermore, Ashes also reluctantly had the thought,In the end, as long as we are able to live, who cares about what had happened 400 years ago.

“It is better you don’t. Right now, the Seawind Region is the most dangerous region in all of the Kingdom of Graycastle.”

“Why?”

“Before I set off from Port of Clearwater, I’ve heard the sailors chatting about that Garcia Wimbledon’s Black Sail Fleet being dispatched, with the Seawind Region, which belongs to Timothy, as its destination. Directly hitting his camps from behind the frontlines.” Ashes explained, “When the martial law had finally been lifted, I took the next opportunity to leave the harbor. If my information is correct, I am afraid that the Seawind Region has already been turned into a sea of flames.”

“They are still fighting each other,” Tilly looked a little worried, “This way, the Church will take advantage of it and start an invasion. If we cannot unite, Graycastle will fall. The same as had happened to the Kingdom of Endless Winter, we will be swallowed by the Church.

This sentence started Ashes, and was instantly noticed by the 5th Princess, “What is it?”

“Nothing,” she sent her a wink. “You look just look somewhat similar to Roland Wimbledon. Furthermore, he even said the same thing to me.”

“Oh? Did you see him?” Tilly’s interest was picked. “By the way, you didn’t tell me anything about the trip to the West!”

“I had heard news that the Witch Cooperation Association was in Border Town, but Shadow should have already told you of this,” Ashes embraced her counterpart, “The results that I had discovered, was that the so-called Holy Mountain they had supposedly found, was a hoax created by Roland. He took over the Witch Cooperation Association and was secretly recruiting the witches… “

Afterward, she told Tilly what she had heard and seen during the week she had stayed in Border Town, “And at the end, he also said to me, that we have to unite, if we want to resist the Church. If they ever attacked us here in the Fjords and we could no longer stay, we are always welcomed in Border Town.”

“Well…” Tilly thought for a moment, and then suddenly said, “This man is not Roland Wimbledon. He has been replaced by someone.”

“What?”

“You said he had gathered a great number of witches around him, right?” What I guess is, that among them was a witch who took control of him, or simply changed her appearance to match his.” Tilly said bluntly, ”I’ve grown up with Roland, it is clear that compared with my two other brothers and my third sister, the thing he was always the worst at was to cover up the truth, even if he were to tell a lie, the lies would still be full of a hundred loopholes. It is impossible for him to disguise as another person.

As for the weapons you said they could use to fight against the God’s Punishment Army, they are only proving it… An individual may hide his true character, but he cannot fake scholarly knowledge, the court mentors never taught him those things, so how can he know it?” Tilly stated, “The people that are born into the world aren’t born with knowledge, so he is certainly not my stupid and annoying brother.“

“Is… it’s like that?” Ashes frowned.

“Nevertheless, it is still necessary for me to get in contact with them,” Tilly sighed. “After all, Roland Wimbledon is still my brother. Even though he might be ignorant and incompetent, that doesn’t mean that he is hopeless. Compared with the others, he was the most harmless. So I hope, that the witches of the Witch Cooperation Association haven’t already buried him in the earth.”

“I do not think they’d do that,” Ashley thought of Wendy, “I also left Maggie with him, at the end of the month, she should come back and bring us news from Border Town.”

“That it the only way, after all, our current focus doesn’t lay here,” speaking until here, the 5th Princes freed herself from the embrace and went to the garden, and said, with open arms, “Now that you are back, the cleaning program can finally be implemented. I want no traces of the Church to be left in the Fjords, only then will the Fjord’s truly become the home of the witches.

The sun shone from behind Tilly’s body, making it appear as if she was covered by a layer of gold. Her long gray hair caressed her cheeks like golden threads, her face was full of confidence, as if there didn’t exist any difficulty that could strike her down.

“I wish to devote my life to you, honored Queen of mine.” Ashes vowed, with a smile.

After Timothy’s armed forces had been repulsed, Border Town became calm once again.

Roland selected three people from the City Hall’s Ministry of Education and added another two teachers to form a team, which he then sent, together with some of Soraya’s books to Longsong Stronghold. No matter how much effect they could achieve, he finally took the first step for the assimilation of the stronghold.

Petrov, although he did not excel at commanding a battle, his performance in administration was outstanding. In just one week, two thousand recruited road-workers, escorted by cavalrymen, came to Border Town one after the other. If not for the second batch of ten blast furnaces he’d already put into production, Roland would also never have dared to make the firm resolution to establish a hard road between the two locations. But now, he finally had the opportunity to extravagantly spent a lot of money.

Roland named the road the ‘Kingdom Main Street’, and Karl, the Head of the Ministry of Construction, was fully responsible for its construction. Its structure and the streets’ in the town were exactly the same; a cement-stabilized gravel layer. During this era, where there existed no heavy vehicles, this kind of pavement was already sufficient to undertake every transportation tasks. Moreover, with a good drainage performance, if the circumstances ever demanded, later on, an concrete or even a asphalt pavement could always be added.

To always have enough construction material, four steam-driven milling machine replaced the labor-power that was required to crush the stones, producing dozens of tons of gravel and material each day. It was the too small transportation capacity, which hindered the further rise of the output, so many stones needed hundreds of people to send the stones with carriages to the construction site during the day. For the later generation of roads, one single muck car would have been enough to complete the whole shipment.

With the exception of the four furnaces which maintained the clay brick firing, the rest of the blast furnaces had been put into the production of cement powder. After going through repeated component tests, as well as making sure that the mine provided enough iron powder, Border Town’s cement production, whether it be its quality or quantity, they were both far better than the original batches.

However, the mass transport of gravel and cement powder also brought a large negative impact to the town, of which the most severe problem was the dust. Until the afternoon, there had only been little wind, so that a dense cloud of dust could be seen flying in the sky, turning the street into a light yellow. Although most of the town people did not mind such a situation, for Roland, there was nothing worse than having to shut all of the doors and windows during the hot summer.