Er Mu - Release that Witch

“Hey, I came,” the door suddenly squeaked, and the blonde woman dashed into the room. “Hey, are you practicing your ability?”

“Sister Nightingale!” Bell shouted carefreely.

The second piece of iron once again turned into a pile of fine powder.

Lucia sighed and put all the metal debris on the floor into a leather bag, feeling that it might be impossible to train today.

“Here, this is yours.”

Suddenly an ice cream with a rich aroma of milk was handed over to her.

“Thank you,” Lucia said, taking the ice cream, “But shouldn’t this only have been given out during the afternoon tea?”

Nightingale proudly patted her chest and said, “Oh, that’s true. But this is a special reward I requested from His Highness… here, you also get one.” With these words, she handed another one to Bell, which made the little girl immediately burst into laughter.

“Sister Nightingale is the best!”

This guy, as soon as she sees something delicious everything else gets thrown to the back of her mind, Lucia thought helplessly. But the moment the ice cream entered her mouth, and the sweet and rich taste of honey and milk spread through her mouth, together with the cold and refreshing feeling of the ice, further enhancing its sweetness; she also felt that if she had been in her sister’s place she would most likely also have reacted in the same way. Even after completely swallowing it, it still left a slight chill on her teeth and her lips.

No one can resist its deliciousness, especially during the hot summer. No wonder that His Highness only gives out ice cream during the weekend afternoon tea. She was afraid that this unique style of food was actually worth a lot of money, she at least had never heard of this dessert during her life in Valencia.

Thinking until here, Lucia could not help but ask, “How were you able to get if from His Highness?”

“Heh heh,” Nightingale smiled widely, “I ranked third during the exam, second only to Wendy and the Leaves, however, His Highness thought I would be unable to pass the exam at all. Since the actual situation was worlds apart from his imagination, it was only natural that I requested a special reward from him.”

“Actually… it was like this,” she hesitated for a moment then asked, “Then, my?”

“Sixty-eight, but I don’t know your actual rank.”

“Uh, so low.” Lucia was depressed. Altogether there were 120 points, but I was only able to get a little bit more than half of them right, even though I already learned how to read and write long ago.

“That’s pretty good,” Nightingale said while patting her head. “After all, how long have you been following the lectures? It’s only natural that you would fall a bit short in regards to mathematics and nature. But if you ever come across any problem, you can come and ask me if you want.”

“Me? Can I also ask!?” Bell raised her hand.

“Of course,” Nightingale answered laughingly, “You’re welcome at any time.”

“If I pass the elementary examination, is it possible for me to choose my own work?”

“You are still too young, His Highness said, the minimum age to start to work is fourteen years of age, but right now you are only ten years old, so don’t be so anxious.” Lucia stared at her.

However, the little girl was unwilling to give up so easily, “I also want to help you share the pressure. In case you want to get married and have a baby, you will need to spend a lot of money. If the money is not enough, your days will become very painful!”

“Where did you hear this?” Lucia threw her hands in front of her face.

“Daddy said it; he was always nagging that he’d almost been unable to raise us.”

“Pfff, hahaha,” Nightingale couldn’t suppress her laughter, “If you could take a job, where would you go?”

“Chemical laboratory!” Bell raised her hand and said, “I want to become an alchemist, get the title of Sage and receive everyone’s admiration and praise!”

“This… better not,” she shook her head. “The lab is dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” The sisters asked simultaneous.

“Yeah,” Nightingale said while spreading out her hands, “Not only do they often have to deal with acids, but there are also explosions sometimes. Even the chief alchemist Kyle Sichi was unable to avoid accidents. Four of his fingers were blown away last time. I’m afraid that if it weren’t for Nana’s magic, Mr. Sichi would’ve been unable to pick up any jars or bottles for the rest of his life.” She paused, “Furthermore, it seems that His Highness is recently trying to develop a new type of gunpowder. And even he thinks that it is extremely dangerous, so he commanded that it could only be done in a separate laboratory.”

“Uh, in that case, do you have any good suggestions?” Lucia went over and wrapped Bell into her arms, determined never to let her sister go to such a dangerous place.

“Without a doubt, she should enter the City Hall and become a civil servant.”

“Civil… servant?” she repeated.

Nightingale coughed twice, “Cough cough, that was what His Highness called them when he was thinking out loud. Commonly speaking, they are called City Hall Officials. Their job is stable and safe, while their salary is on the upper level. Moreover, their prospects are also good, if you can become a department head, your rewards won’t be less than that of a witch.”

“So, it’s like this,” Lucia said thoughtfully.

“Sister Nightingale, do you like His Royal Highness?” Bell asked in curiosity, “In many of your sentences you say: ‘His Highness said’, my mother said, you’d only talk so much about someone if you liked them.”

When she heard her sister’s question, Lucia’s face became stiff. To hell with it! How can you directly ask such a question, this is simply too rude. At most we can be regarded as friends, so you cannot ask such a question of someone; even more so since that person is my highly-esteemed senior. She felt stricken by panic and hurriedly covered Bell’s mouth, but before she could even start her apologies, Nightingale already gave her a frank response.

“Yeah, I like him.”

While on her way to bring the ore to His Highness, Nightingale’s answer was running through Lucia’s mind.

She had to admit, she was shocked by the calm manner in which Nightingale had revealed her feelings.

Although she wasn’t entirely clear about the feelings of all the people involved, but a witch and a prince… simply couldn’t ever be with each other, right? So shouldn’t she be careful and hide her thoughts at the bottom of her heart, and never let others know about them?

Furthermore, why would she as a simple listener feel so excited and embarrassed?

Coming to a stop in front of the door to the office, Lucia took a deep breath before pushing open the door and entering.

“Your Highness, I’ve brought the ore.”

“Let me see,” Roland answered as he fought the urge to yawn.

The ruler of Border Town seemed the same as always, with his drowsy-eyed appearance it seemed it hasn’t been that long since he’d finished taking his nap and it wasn’t like he was in that much of a clear-headed state yet either. While leaning comfortably against the back of his chair, showing a natural bearing and speaking with an easy-going tone, he was completely unlike the other nobles with their strict and insulting mannerism.

Seeing him like this, Lucia’s former indescribable nervousness loosened by a small amount. She then calmly took out the ore granules they’d found in the Northern Slope Mine and place them on the desk one after another.

After being broken down with her ability, all those granules now seemed to have almost the same look. Their colors weren’t ash-colored, but were silver-white instead, and it was probably only a brilliant person of wide learning like the Prince that would be able to distinguish what these ores really were.

However, even after looking at them for a long time, the Prince still ended up knitting his brow. First, he took them into his hand one after another in order to estimate their weight. He then went to the window behind his desk to take a closer look from within the sunlight, only to finally wave with his hand and say, “Keke, seems I have no choice but to give these ores to Mr. Sichi to identify them. For now, you can go back to the courtyard at the North Slope and continue the practice of your ability, if there is something you don’t understand you can always go to Anna and ask.”

“…” Huh? There exist something His Highness doesn’t know? Lucia quickly bowed and said, “Yes.”

Just as she was about to leave the office, Roland called out to her again.

“Oh, that’s right, your present test grade is pretty good, sixty-eight ranking ninth in the class. And that’s after just one month of learning. Showing such a performance is not easy, so you must try and keep it up. Also…,” he paused for a moment. “I hope that Bell can also participate in the next exam together with everyone.”

“Yes!” Lucia excitedly agreed.

***

After watching the little girl happily bow away, Roland looked at the metal particles on the table and sighed.

I was too naive, thinking that by breaking them down into one element, I might be able to discover what kinds of ore veins are hidden within the Northern Slope Mine. However, I once again have to acknowledge that there is a great deal of difference between mechanical engineering and geology. If that wasn’t the case, I would have known that these stones would be broken down into three or four different kinds of metals. The most of the still remaining parts of the rocks can be considered as metalloid ores, but they have almost no difference in their color or shape. Such as iron, aluminum, magnesium, potassium when in a high purity state they are all silver-white metals, if I ever wanted to distinguish them by naked eye it will be much too difficult.

In the end, it is still better to give this issue to the chief alchemist to resolve, after all, he can verify the characteristics of the material through observing their chemical reaction, which should be much more reliable than my own guesses.

When he made up his mind regarding this matter, Roland took out a piece of paper and began planning on how to deal with the upcoming Months of Demons.

Seeing that summer was about to end, these three months of fall were his final preparation time. Besides resisting the invasion of the demonic beasts from the West, he had also had to keep an eye on Timothy and the Church who might come from the Eastern side. Unlike last year where he had to pull on his lapels exposing the elbows, Border Town’s population and income nowadays had gone through a substantial growth. They had also gradually increased the iron production, and with the help of more than a dozen witches, he was sure that he would be able to turn the Western Territory into an impassable iron bastion.

Based on to the previous year’s combat experience, the greatest threat to the wall was without a doubt the mixed demonic beasts. Especially so when the enemy had a thick crust, which would be hard to wear down using bullets, and thus could only be killed by explosion at a close proximity, or by sending witches out of the city. However, no matter what kind of countermeasure he used, they both held high risks.

Also, until now he had only faced attacks from the enemy’s cavalry or infantry, so he had never seen this era’s siege weaponry. If the other side could construct a torsion catapult, or the more advanced counterweight trebuchets, he feared that he would encounter a lot of trouble. After all, the process of loading a cannon so that it could fire was very inconvenient. Not only did they have to to raise the cannon chamber each time they loaded, it was also easy for the cannon ball to roll out of it.

These circumstances all meant it was inevitable that he would have to develop a new cannon.

After thoughtfully thinking about it, Roland began to list all of the requirements he had onto a piece of paper.

First of all, it had to have a sufficient shooting distance and force; enough that it could break through the shell of a mixed species that was a thousand meters away. Secondly, it had to be rear loaded, this way the head could freely be lowered or raised, while still preserving its ability to shoot quickly. Finally, in order to reduce the time of repeated research and development, the cannon should also be designed to fulfill several purposes. Meaning that in addition to being used to defend a stronghold and suppress the enemy, it could also be directly pulled onto a ship and be employed as the major weapon for future heavy gunboats.