Er Mu - Release that Witch

Furthermore, she believed that Heather would not forget her, Heather would make sure that her name would also be recorded in the sacred scriptures.

“You mustn’t come over,” shouted the witch called Nightingale. “There is—”

At this split second, she suddenly raised her elbow to beat against her enemy’s arm, simultaneously bowing her head to avoid being stabbed with her weapon. “When you are talking, it is impossible to always pay attention. Thus there is the saying of ‘holding one’s breath in concentration’,” was what her drillmaster repeatedly taught her. “Instead, regardless whether you are attacking or are trying to escape, the optimum moment to act is when the other side starts talking.”

Within her sleeve she had concealed a mechanism that activated at the first moment of contact. Spraying a white alchemic powder to the rear, which on contact with water would release a lot of heat. In case the enemy got any of it inside their mouth or eyes, they would immediately lose their fighting strength. Even if they were lucky enough not to breathe any of the fine powder in, they would at least be flustered for a while.

Afterward, Aphra immediately pounced towards the four witches at the fire, the witch with golden hair quickly flew up, while the one witch who seemed to be the oldest disregarded her own safety and stepped in front of the other two. Drawing out her sharp dagger, Aphra immediately stabbed directly toward the first witch. Since they couldn’t escape anyway, and all three of them would die under her hand, it wasn’t necessary to differentiate them according to priority.

Just at the moment when her dagger pierced the other side’s body, Aphra saw an incredible scene.

A white shadow appeared in front of her at a place which was definitely still empty a second ago, with two blazing eyes glaring at her from under its hood.

Is… this Nightingale who stood behind me?

At the eruption of the fine powder she was at close range, so why doesn’t she seem to have been affected? Almost disbelieving her eyes, Faceless saw the other side lift her arm and a flame burst out from the silver weapon. And then her body was firmly pushed backward, resulting in her losing her balance, sending her backward to the ground, looking upwards. That’s not good; there are… still two important people I need to dispose of. Aphra wanted to stand up, wanted to draw her dagger and stab at the next witch, but right now, even raising her hand had already become tough, and her consciousness had already began to blur.

What a pity… was the last thought flashing through her mind.

…

After letting off the shot, Nightingale remained at the same place, watching the soldier who had been hit in the chest fall down. Then the body began to twist and shrink, slowly turning back into the appearance of an unknown woman.

This had been her first time killing another witch.

It was not until Lily anxiously called out to her that Nightingale came back to herself.

Suppressing the surging emotion within her heart, she put away the gun, ran back to Wendy’s side.

“Where is the injury?”

“It’s nothing, I just feel a little pain,” Wendy waved her hand, indicating that they should not panic, “She shouldn’t have been able to pierce through.”

“Does that mean the protective suit worked?”

“I suppose it has,” Undoing the bottoms on her chest, she saw the slender dagger hanging on the side of her clothes, the moment the jacket was opened, the knife fell out of the hole and landed on the ground, with no blood held on its tip. Of the protective clothing, only the outer layer had a small hole in it, while the soft inner layer still remained intact.

“Y-you really scared me,” Lily said, releasing a long breath, and then fell with buttocks on the ground. “Next time don’t rush to me to help me resist the sword! I don’t need you to do this for m-m-me…”

“Well,” Wendy gently stroked her head, “Am I not alright?”

Lily pulled her head free and buried it in Wendy’s bosom, releasing a muffled cry.

“I was also scared, merely attending to obstruct her by stepping ahead, totally forgetting to use my power” Wendy shook her head. “If I had sent a strong gust of wind against her, she wouldn’t have been able to thrust towards me.”

“It’s because you are rarely fighting with others, so a reaction like that is quite normal,” Nightingale comforted.

“Fortunately you were wearing the protective clothing,” Echo said, still showing a scared look, “Otherwise, this time would have been much more dangerous than it was.”

Before their departure, His Royal Highness had given each of them a special vest, furthermore, he had demanded that they must never take this piece of clothing off at any time. Even though it seemed a little thick, it was still very light to wear. Seemingly made out of many layers, His Highness had explained that each layer had been coated by Soraya, giving it a high degree of flexibility, but also making it hard to pierce through with sharp objects. It offered excellent protection against swords, bows, and crossbows. If it hadn’t helped her to resist the thrust, Wendy would most probably never have survived long enough to reach Nana.

Lightning slowly landed next to the dead witch and asked, “Why did she attack us? Aren’t we… the same?”

Nightingale stared at the lifeless woman, unable to speak for a long time. With the witch’s eyes closed, the long blue hair scattered on the ground and her peaceful expression, the other doesn’t seem to have experienced much pain. But she still couldn’t forget, that when she had stabbed at Wendy, she hadn’t shown any trace of hesitation in her eyes, only the determination that what she was doing was inevitable and righteous. As if she was not killing a person, but rather fulfilling her life’s philosophy. Perhaps in her heart, this had been the right behavior.

“No,” Nightingale softly sighed. “She’s wasn’t one of us… she was just, a lamentable person.”

“The Fjord possess countless islands. Until now, no one had ever passed the beyond the border of all these islands,” a man with a tall stature and a rough and vigorous appearance told them, “The further east you sail, the more unpredictable the climate will become, and the same also applies to the islands. I really do not know, what degree of strangeness they eventually reach.”

“Even you have never reached the end of the islands?” Tilly asked curiously. “They say you are the most outstanding explorer of the Fjord, apart from you, there are only a few who dare cross the Searing Flame Island and continue sailing eastwards.”

“Ha ha ha,” the man began to laugh heartily. “Your praise is too much. In fact, every year there are brave people of the Fjord who sail eastwards in search for new land, but it’s hard for them to find anything new. With the raging hurricanes and the suddenly appearing fog, it eventually becomes impossible for the ships to move even a single step further.

He is Thunder, Ashes remembered, the first explorer to discover the Shadow Islands. But two years ago, within the perils of the sea his whereabouts suddenly became unknown, and by now many people think that he has already died.She had never thought that he would be on Sleeping Island, and even less that the 5th Princess would come to him with an agreement that he would help to open up new sea routes for Sleeping Island, draw a sea map and search for new ruins, while Tilly would send witches to support his explorations. As for the reason for his disappearance during the last two years, she had never heard him mentioning it, and Tilly had also never spoken about it. But she had the feeling that Her Majesty knew the inside story. Otherwise, they would never have reached such a mutual understanding. This point caused Ashes to feel slightly unhappy within her heart.

“Just like yesterday’s hurricane?”

“That’s right. They appear within the blink an eye and disappear just as quickly,” Thunder shook his pipe, and threw the ashes into the sea then refilled it with some grass leaves before igniting his pipe once more, “If it weren’t for the magical ability of your witch”

“Her name is Molly,” Ashes remind him stiffly.

“Ah, that’s right, look at my memory,” Thunder didn’t seem to mind her, he just scratched the back of his head and began to laugh, “If it hadn’t been for Molly, I am afraid the ship would have been overturned, her ability is simply fantastic. I had already often thought, that perhaps the witches were most suitable to be explorers.

“Isn’t that already the case,” Tilly smiled, “… a witch who had already inherited the name of the most outstanding Explorer?”

“Well…” Thunder took a deep breath through the pipe, and afterward send out a long string of smoke, “I wish for it to be so.”

There it was again; Ashes frowned, they once more said something I cannot understand. She bluntly left the bow, instead going to the stern trying to calm her emotions. Her Majesty seemed to be very urgent to explore the ruins, after cleaning the Fjord of the Church, she had immediately made all arrangements to go out to sea. And to her surprise, Her Majesty unexpectedly also said that she wanted to go in person, regardless of how Ashes tried to discourage her, it was all useless.

Arriving in the stern, she saw Molly sitting there controlling her magic servant who in turn was holding a fishing rod, learning how to fish from the sailors. Even though the sailors seemed to oppose it when the witches first got on board, but since yesterday’s hurricane, everyone’s attitude had turned completely upside down. Molly had summoned her servant and ordered it to rapidly expand, swallowing the middle part of the ship, making it impossible for anything to reach them, whether it was the rain or the wind. Although the ship was hit by one surging wave after another, making it move up and down, the hull still remained as stable as always. Nowadays, each of the sailors treated the witches as their good luck charm, even going so far as saying that in the future they would be too afraid to go to sea if a witch didn’t accompany them.

“Elder Sister Ashes, look at the big fish I caught!” Molly pointed to the barrel behind her, inside there laid a scaleless sea fish with long, sharp, and pointed mouth, looking completely different than the river fishes she had seen in Graycastle.

“What is this?”

“Swordfish, they like to follow and travel together with the ships, but sometimes they will attack the hull with their mouth, and break it apart,” a sailor replied, “But they are also very delicious to eat, especially the belly meat, after you put it in your mouth, it melts like ice on your tongue.” He smacked his lips, “This evening everyone can enjoy the freshly cooked swordfish for themselves.”

“It seems as if I’ve got another fish,” Molly shouted.

Ashes merely saw a dark shadow moving under the dark blue water surfaces, but along with the magical servant’s movement of the rod, the shadow became bigger and bigger, breaking through the water surface soon.

“Th-this is,” the sailor stared blankly, “No, quickly throw away the fishing rod!”

His voice hadn’t fallen yet, as already a monstrous creature jumped out of the water, its broad mouth wide open, directly flowing to Molly wanting to swallow her.

In a moment it would have consumed the whole target, but Ashes was even faster than this monster. She picked Molly up with her left hand while drawing her huge sword with her other hand, directly striking it on the head.

The Monster issued a pained scream as it was sent from the air onto the planks. Then quickly began to move its six-foot-long body, trying to flee back into the water, however, Ashes never let it have the opportunity. She put Molly down, grabbed her sword with the reverse grip and nailed the monster directly onto the deck.

For a moment it continued to twitch, then it spat out a string of white bubble from its mouth soon stopping all movement.

“What is this?” At this moment Ashes finally had the opportunity to take a careful look at the monster before her eyes. It somewhat resembled a fish, yet it also had short crab-like legs. The wide open mouth was almost as big as she herself was and was filled with dense rows of sharp teeth. But the most disgusting thing was the pair of hairy arms growing from the side of its mouths, which was even split up into five fingers, just looking like a human hand in general.