Er Mu - Release that Witch

…

After breakfast, Roland went back to his office and listened to details of what had happened after his collapse, trying to understand what had occurred in the end.

The witches, working hand in hand, had been able to defeat their pursuers then had Lightning and Maggie carry him back in advance.

After coming back to the castle, Nana Pine immediately treated his injuries, healed his torn off arm back to its previous state. However, due to his severe blood loss, he’d fallen into a deep sleep for a day afterward. Thus, this was already the fourth day since their departure.

Thinking back to his actions, he had to admit that he had been somewhat careless. He had never expected that the Devils would actually be able to discover a hot air balloon painted in sky camouflage more than ten kilometers away. Listening to Sylvie’s explanation, it seemed that the massive multi-eyed Devil hadn’t detected anything abnormal in the beginning and had been observing all direction with its eyes. However, the moment she moved her focus to the body of the multi-eyed Devil, the other side immediately responded, instantly turning all of its eyes towards her.

This kind of detection, contrary to what one might expect, was unheard of; it was important to know that at this distance, apart from Sylvie’s Eye of Truth, even when using an observation mirror the view would still be fuzzy. In addition, there was also the red mist covering the spires, making it even more difficult to clearly see the happenings within the Devil’s town. Accordingly, it should also have been difficult for the other side to discover their whereabouts.

That said, even though they had met with great danger during this trip, the harvest of information was just as bountiful.

The Devils were no longer those mysterious and unknown messengers of hell — instead, they also had cities and towns, an organized structure, and thus can be classified as a higher evolved civilization, just like humans were.

Furthermore, the other side’s air force wasn’t powerful at all, at least this was the case for the group of Devils behind the snow-capped mountain. Even though there had been hundreds of Devils which had come out of the ground, in the end, there were only two who had pursued them with flying mounts. This indicated that they could safely assume that flying was still a rare ability among them — whether it was the mounts or the riders that was rare, was still unknown. But to sum it up, this was some good news for Border Town. At least he didn’t have to worry about a group of Devils bypassing the Southern hills and mountains to go straight for the hinterlands of the Western Territory to burn, kill and loot from them.

Also, the news that the Devils’ possessed magic was an important discovery.

According to Nightingale’s report, even though the amount of magic power within the Devils coming after them was sparse, it was still enough to form a cyclone, and was also very eye-catching while in its foggy state. However, their way of arousing magic seemed to be entirely different from the witches. They didn’t perform it by themselves, but instead used a certain kind of mechanism — for example, by using those shining stones to release their force. Therefore, it wasn’t like the witches’ ability which could undergo constant changes, but more like a standard weapon which could be mass-produced.

Of course, this was merely his own speculation. Unfortunately, both of those Devil’s bodies had fallen into the sea, making it impossible for Roland to verify it further.

The last point was their buildings.

Those small and slender black stone spires were not the Devil’s dwelling places. Furthermore, their construction material was also very strange, since it didn’t show any traces of corrosion from the red mist. While the inside of some of the stone towers was empty, others were filled with a red liquid, which let them unexpectedly appear to be storage tanks.

Could it be that the red mist in the sky is actually the gaseous state of that liquid?

And could the reason why the Devil’s aren’t further spread over the wilderness or even further expanded toward the Four Kingdoms be because of the limited amount of this gas?

In any case, after comprehending all of the gathered information, I can conclude that for now, they won’t be a threat to the security of Border Town.

But Roland also knew that since they had already driven humanity out of the wilderness more than four hundred years ago, there might come a day where they would attack again. Which he would need to make preparation for.

…

Due to his severe blood loss, when night fell, Roland decided to leave the unfinished government task for another day and left for bed quite early.

As he was sitting on the bedside looking through a history book and preparing to blow the candle out to sleep, a knock came from the other side of the door and resounded through the room.

After a short hesitation, he still climbed out of bed to open the door, to see Anna standing before him.

This time she wasn’t holding a thick book in her hands like she had been in the past — neither “Intermediate Physics” or the “Theoretical Foundation of Natural Science”, instead she’d come empty handed and wore only a white robe. She stepped into the room. She wasn’t even wearing shoes, so whenever her delicate foot kissed the floor, there wasn’t any trace of sound to be heard.

Stepping aside, Roland swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

After stepping through the door, Anna turned around, closed it, and shut the bolt. Then she took Roland’s hand and went to the bed.

He could see that she had recently washed her hair, and within the candlelight her let down hair also had a golden luster to it. Being so close, an intoxicating fragrance filled his nose — this enchanting fragrance wasn’t originating from perfumed rose soap but came from herself.

Her long eyelashes trembled slightly, her cheeks were flushed, and her blue eyes were as clear as limpid autumn waters. Although she appeared to be somewhat nervous, there wasn’t any trace of hesitation in her. Instead, her eyes, looking straight at Roland, were filled with resolution.

Even someone as he who’d never weathered such a great battle, at this moment, he clearly understood her meaning.

“Cough, this…”

“I do not want to wait any longer,” Anna whispered, “Especially after what we’d experienced.” She paused, “I don’t want to regret anything.”

“I see,” Roland put his hands around her, carried her by the waist and set her gently on top of the bed. This simple action was already enough to make him breathless. He opened the thin blanket, and went to lay on the bed next to Anna with her head nestled on his arm.

The next step should be… foreplay?

Roland discovered that he was much too nervous, it can’t go on like this, as someone known as an “experienced” person, I cannot make a fool out of myself in front of a little girl. Maybe I’ll be able to ease the mood with a light chat and then do the action, for example… maybe some lines from a porno?

As he was still racking his brain, Anna’s soft voice sounded in his ear: “That time in the hot air balloon when you pushed me out of the way, did you ever think about the possibility that you might die?”

Roland felt shocked; he’d never expected that she would ask him this question, “I just did it without thinking.”

“You are someone who will become the ruler of Graycastle, you are also the hope of us witches,” she whispered, “I am unworthy of you doing so much for me.”

“This isn’t a question of worth,” Roland murmured. “I cannot just stand by the side and watch indifferently as you suffer an attack. As a matter of fact, even now, after waking up and thinking about it carefully, I can tell you that in case it hadn’t happened so suddenly and if I had the time to think it over, I would still have acted in the same way.”

“There is nothing I can do to prevent you from doing it again, right?”

“Yes, there is nothing,” Roland said as he pinched her nose with his other hand.

Anna’s eyelashes fell, and after a moment of silence, she opened her mouth once more, “Can you tell me something about your past… I would like to know more about you.”

“Oh, the past,” Roland said, he took a deep breath then searched through the 4th Prince’s memories, while preparing to tell one or two entertaining anecdotes of his life in the palace. But before the words could leave his mouth, he swallowed them back down. His past wasn’t the life he had here, but the life he’d lived in another, very different world; so instead he said, “I used to live in a big city, in a tremendously big city.”

“Yes, Graycastle’s King’s City is several times larger than Border Town.”

“When I was born, I wasn’t any different from any other ordinary person, I was somewhat clever in trivial matters, but not so intelligent that I could do everything at ease. In regards to studying, I could be considered as hardworking, thus I would often receive praise from the teacher. But he didn’t know, that I was the one who had drawn the hard to erase graffiti on the classroom walls.”

“He certainly wouldn’t dare to blame you.” Anna murmured.

“Haha, that’s unlikely. It wouldn’t have been necessary for him to do anything to me, he merely needed to inform my parents,” Roland smiled, then shook his head. “At that time, they taught me to never start off leniently.

“Then, as I grew older, my teachers kept changing, from primary school teachers, to academic advisers, until I finally completed my studies having had neither good nor bad grades. Of course, compared to other people’s children, in the end, I still fell short by a bit…”

He half-closed his eyes, being able to speak about his experiences after altering them a bit and no longer concealing them, gave him a feeling of freedom he hadn’t felt in a very long time since he’d crossed over. Since his arrival, he had been playing the role of the Prince, but right now, he felt as if he was returning to his past. As if he was only lying in a hotel room designed to fit a classic style, together with the girl he liked, making one another feel safe and warm. Thanks to this, his nervous mood also gradually relaxed.

Is perhaps now the time for the next step?

Roland turned his head slightly, only to discover that Anna had already closed her eyes, and her chest, snugly placed at his side, was calmly moving up and down, looking like a kitten which had stepped into the land of dreams.

He just stared blankly at her for a moment, but soon after he couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud.

So it was like this… she was also tired.

Think of it, to conceal their whereabouts; the witches had looked for a small hidden place within the mountain ridge two nights ago. But they still needed to guard against any possible beast or Devil attacks during the night, which had meant that they’d almost gotten no sleep during the night. And then, the next morning, even as the sun had only just lightened up the sky, they’d already continued their race on Cloud Gazer while heading back towards Border Town. At the castle, Anna had also spent the last night in his bedroom, constantly keeping watch over him. Thus, during the last two days and nights she hadn’t even had one moment of rest, making it very easy for her tiredness to overwhelm her the moment she let herself relax. It would be a wonder if she weren’t exhausted right now.

The other side’s reason for coming this day, might be because she was too anxious to wait any longer.

Although it was a pity, Roland did not care about this opportunity passing, after all, there were still many days ahead of them.

He moved closer, kissed Anna’s eyelashes, then whispered, “Good night.”

***

When the morning light fell through the window curtains into the room, Sylvie climbed out of bed unable to suppress her yawn.

The experiences of the last days seemed just like a dream, from the discovery of the Devils to the fight in the air, and lastly their escape back to Border Town, gave her the thought, that even if they had been encircled and chased by the Church’s Army of Judges, she wouldn’t feel as tense and exhausted like now.

“Good morning,” Wendy, having changed her clothes long ago was now carrying a basin of water prepared for washing their face and rinsing their mouth.