Er Mu - Release that Witch

“I have the same feeling,” Tilly laughed, “Perhaps the life in Border Town is quite good.”

Back at her house, she tore open Roland Wimbledon’s letter. Within, she discovered that besides a sheet full of written content, the more than a dozen remaining pages were unexpectedly some vivid and lifelike pictures.

“What are those?”

Ashes’ question exactly reflected Tilly’s own puzzlement. She shook her head, took out one of those painted sheets and spread it out — the content on top was somewhat hard for her to believe: The background resembled a wasteland in the evening. Under the bloody red light of the setting sun, two atrocious shaped monsters could be seen in a close quarter fight against a group of witches. The witches were clearly in a disadvantageous position; their best abilities didn’t seem to show any impact, no matter if it were vipers or fireballs they none were able to stop this enemy. When she came to the last picture, she saw that several witches had fallen, forming pools of blood.

Tilly frowned, the scene was undoubtedly drawn by a witch, only magic would be able to create such a lifelike image. But… in the end, were these merely simple pictures, or were they a reminiscent of something which had happened in the past?

With a feeling of being on a knife-edge, she immediately snatched the letter and quickly skimmed over its content.

Soon, Tilly felt her stomach tighten, and her hands began to shake as she saw one word appear in the letter again and again: ‘Devil.’

“What happened,” Ashes asked in concern, grasping Tilly’s tight to support her, “What did the letter say?”

“It’s the past of the Witch Cooperation Association,” She patted the back of Ashes’ hands, indicating that she was alright, “They were looking for the Holy Mountain in the wilderness… You should remember the Holy Mountain, right?”

“Yeah, it’s the legendary destination of all witches. At the Holy Mountain, they can find real peace and serenity, but this is merely a vague rumor, there’s nothing genuine about it.” Ashes couldn’t accept it as correct, “Here on Sleeping Island, we can also live in peace, moreover, the demon bite is nothing more than a lie of the Church.”

“But Cara was convinced that the Holy Mountain did indeed exist. In addition, she had also found an ancient book within the ruins inside a forest of the Eastern Region, fully believing that it could lead her to the gate of an uninhabited land in the forbidden area. She went so far as to lead the Witch Cooperation Association over the Impassable Mountain range. However, after entering the wilderness, they didn’t discover the Holy Mountain, but instead met with a terrible monster.” Tilly said in a small voice.

“The one from the painting?” Ashes gasped.

“That’s right,” Tilly confirmed, showing a somewhat dark expression. “The letter said, that they possess extraordinary strength, moved nimbly and can control demonic beasts. One of them could even release lightning from its hand… Just like a witch. From the more than forty witches in the beginning, only six people survived. Then in their desperate situation, they decided to rely on the help of the Lord of Border Town.”

“Unexpectedly it was originally… like this.”

“Furthermore, the point that puzzles me the most is that the ancient book contained one paragraph which looked like a slovenly written essay, however it was written in the language of the Four Kingdoms.” Tilly turned her attention back to the letter, “Within, it mentions the Holy City, a fight with the Devils, and Alice’s experiments of a God’s Punishment Army. It should be the story of what happened four hundred years ago, but since they know the language of the Four Kingdoms, why should they use a very different language to record the documents and books?”

As she was still unable to get any results after thinking about it for a long time, the 5th Princess just put all these things aside and instead took out Sylvie’s letter, intending to learn what the examination of the Lord of Border Town has shown.

In the end, the first sentence of the letter had already left her dumbstruck, even more so than the shock when she had seen the word ‘Devil’.

“Lady Tilly, I was unable to find any sign of camouflage or magic on Roland Wimbledon’s body. Also, besides the witches of the Witch Alliance, there are no other witches hidden in the town. So I think… he may be your genuine older brother.”

Genuine older brother.

Genuine… older brother, how can this be?

Tilly held the letter in a startled fashion with both hands, her mind not able to focus in the least, all the thoughts in her mind were tumbling up and down like the tide.

Her father, King Wimbledon III had five children. Gerald, Timothy, and Garcia, due to their earlier birth, could be considered as the first circle. By the time Roland had been born, the previous youngest Garcia was already six years old and would naturally not take him along to play with her. By this reasoning, she and Roland should have formed another circle, but… this hadn’t been the case.

Her brother was always yearning for their two elder brothers’ approval, and tried to integrate into their circle, but the only result was that they would often bully him. In the end, this caused Roland’s character to become twisted and irritable. Of course, he never dared to release his anger at Gerald or the others, and instead had come to vent his anger on her.

For example, he had once tried to persuade her to steal father’s crown with him, and when he was met with rejection, he inevitable flew into a rage out of humiliation and began insulting her; it would sometimes even go so far that they exchanged blows. Later, when their father found out about this, Roland had been taught a ferocious lesson. After this incident however, he restrained himself a lot, but his bad habit of threatening her in all different kinds of ways was still as strong as before.

At that time, she had still been unable to understand these matters; but in retrospection, Tilly only felt that it was rather ridiculous and… childish.

The year she became ten years old, she discovered some cut in half earthworms had been placed into her favorite shoes; it finally became unbearable for her, and so she finally decided to fight back. She called Roland to come over, and as he opened his mouth to threaten her once more, she directly threw one of those earthworms into it — ever since then, he’d never dared to provoke her again, and she in turn, had stopped talking to him.

After becoming an adult, Roland still hadn’t changed. Instead, it had even become more severe. She often heard about his dandy deeds, and among the nobles, he was always referred as being violent, mean, and without any learning or skills. To sum it up, he was the worst image of a noble among all nobles. Except for his identity as a member of the royal family, he had nothing at all. Regarding this evaluation, Tilly fully agreed with it… Furthermore, she also knew, that the reason he had the outward appearance of being violent and irritable, was because he was doing everything to cover his greatest weakness — being timid and afraid.

However, can such a person unexpectedly stand up and side with us witches? Giving asylum to a group who are known as ‘the Devil’s minions’, in the end even becoming an enemy of the Church without any hesitation?

For a moment, Tilly didn’t know what to say.

“Tilly, Tilly?” Only after Ashes had shaken her two times was she finally able to come back to herself.

“I’m all right; everything is just a little… hard to believe,” she shook her head. “Sylvie said that the Lord of Border Town is very probably the real Roland Wimbledon and not a puppet controlled by a witch or replacement.

“Oh, that stupid one who tried to grope me in vain — Keke, that animal?” Ashes coughed twice, “After not meeting for a year, he truly changed astonishingly. Apart from his appearance and impression which were still almost the same, I felt like I met someone completely different.”

“Can you speak a bit more clearly?”

Ashes crooked her head and thought for a long time before she found the right words, “I think… the biggest difference, was that he appeared to be cleaner.”

“Clean?”

“No matter if it was his style of dressing… or the feeling he gave to other people. None of it resembled a noble. He didn’t wear any ornament, no matter if it was gold or jewels there weren’t any on him.” Ashes recalled, “Even his clothes were all utterly of common style, they seemed to be relatively simple, without lace, added decoration or golden threads. If not for his hair color, which was too eye-catching, there was almost no difference between him or a commoner, and… yet, at the same time, he didn’t seem to be an ordinary person.”

“He resembled a nobleman?” Tilly asked.

“No, not like a nobleman,” Ashes curled her lips, “Those aristocrats are unclean. Not like a pool of stagnant water, but unclean like the muddy silt underneath the pool of stagnant water. As for him… I’m unable to come up with a precise description, in short, he let people feel good.”

“It’s quite difficult to believe that you can say something like this.”

“Uh, I merely want to answer your question seriously, nothing more.”

Tilly breathed out deeply, it seems that brother has changed quite a lot, but in the end, what might have led to his transformation? Or is it because of a reason he himself isn’t aware of; and thus, unconsciously caused him to change into such a different person?

The 5th Princes suddenly remembered the content of Roland’s first letter — “Therefore, I have to destroy the entire Church, and turn their statement that the witches are the Devil’s messenger into dust. However, rescuing the people from their ignorance and stupidity will be a long and slow process. For this, I will need even more help from you.

“Concerning, what would lead to this decision, what caused me to no longer be as indifferent to everything as in the past, are all trivialities that can slowly be elaborated on when we have the time. The ability to express oneself in a letter is limited, so I won’t say any more than necessary.”

Perhaps only by meeting him in person will I be able to discover the real cause.

To regain her train of thought, Tilly turned her sight back to the letter.

The latter half reported on what Sylvie had seen and heard during her stay in Border Town.

Originally Roland had chosen her for the purpose of verifying the natural mineral resources in the North Slope Mine. However, in the end, they had instead discovered an enormous amount of God’s Stones of Retaliation — it turns out that the stones with the ability to suppress a witch’s ability, comes out of the ground; just like any other mineral. So, in conclusion, the New Holy City at Hermes must also be in control of such a vein, which allows the Church to continue to produce the God’s Stone of Retaliation.

Once again further down, she came across another piece of news which attracted her attention.

That he possessed a type of weapon which could release iron balls and arrowheads from an iron tube, which contained a great deal of power, and was accompanied by a deafening roar… Even though Maggie and Ashes had already mentioned this kind of thing, but it was the first time that she had ever seen such a detailed description. Sylvie had even attached a hand-painted diagram to the paragraph.

“Oh? As it turns out, that thing which caused my injuries looked the same,” Ashes, reading the letter by looking over Tilly’s shoulder, remarked. “Since we are allies now, you can ask him to send a large batch of weapons to Sleeping Island with your next letter, and tell him that we need them to guard against the Church. If he doesn’t want to… Humph, this ally might not be as reliable as you thought.”

“Being allies doesn’t mean that you won’t guard against each other at all,” Tilly said laughingly, “This weapon is clearly the foundation he used to build his home, so how could it be so quickly handed over to others? This kind of test would only destroy the trust we worked so hard to build — I also excluded Molly and Wind Reader from the list I gave him about our witches. And this winter, we will go and visit Border Town anyway. At that time, we will be able to speak from face-to-face, don’t you think that that would be a better time for it?”