Er Mu - Release that Witch

“It is normal for it to snows during the last month of autumn?: He looked at Iron Axe, but the latter wore a serious expression and said, “I have been in Border Town for seven or eight years, and until now I have never experienced something like this.”

Once the snow began to descend from the heaven, it meant that the Months of Demons had arrived, and the sun would be buried behind a wall of clouds until its next brilliant bloom. During this time, the entire Western Territory would face the threat of demonic beasts. Not to mention the First Army, even when using a hot air balloon, the witches would still be in danger — at this time, the Concealing Forest was full of savage demonic beasts. So leaving the protection of the wall was an incredibly risky matter.

For now, he was forced to call a stop to the rescue mission and wait for the sky to clear up.

At the bottom of his heart, he felt that the early snow was likely an accident and would soon end. After all, the temperature was still at the average level of autumn and it also hadn’t dropped by much.

However, three days later, the town was wrapped in silver, the distant mountains and woods were covered by a layer of white gauze. A beautiful scenery like this was definitely a rare view in his past, but Roland wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the landscape.

Although the snowfall had weakened a lot, there were still some snowflakes falling from the sky. The First Army had also entered a state of full alertness, and has established regular patrols along the new wall. Furthermore, they had also erected a temporary camp at the foot of the new city wall, so that the soldiers would be able to quickly enter into battle. The temperature had changed almost overnight, forcing Roland to change his clothes from his unlined garment to a knitted cotton coat.

On the fourth day, hearing the news from the front made Roland’s heart drop.

The western city wall had suffered an attack from demonic beasts.

The Months of Demons had arrived more than one month ahead of time.

Fjords, Sleeping Island.

“I never expected that the first guest of the ‘Sleeping Spell’ would actually be you,” Tilly smiled and said as she handed over a cup of boiling hot fish soup, “It was only due to your help that we could explore the Shadow Islands.”

“You are too polite,” Thunder answered as he received the fish soup, “Regarding the Mysterious Sea, even if I don’t receive any more commissions from you I would still like to go there a few more times for myself. To be honest, without your witches’ support, exploring the sea east of the Shadow Island would definitely be very dangerous for an explorer.” He sipped his fish soup, then let out a sigh, “Ah… it’s boiled black-tailed fish soup, it’s really delicious.”

In the Fjords, black tea and barley wine from black tea were considered to be unpopular, she was used to the custom of eating a bowl of ice cold frozen fish during midsummer, while here they drank a bowl of boiling hot fish soup when it got cold. They used a different method to cook the fish so the taste was not at all the same, this was something Tilly had gradually come to understand after arriving at Sleeping Island.

“Therefore, you were impatient to come and visit the Sleeping Spell?”

“The right thing to say would be that I can’t wait to go on the next expedition,” Thunder straightforwardly stated. “The scene I saw last time when I looked through the observation mirror left me stunned — what is there on the land and for what reason is there a stone gate embedded inside that overhanging cliff? I wish I could fly there and go take a look.”

“Is that it…” Tilly also poured a cup of fish soup for herself, “You should already be aware that I’m planning to personally go to Border Town. One reason is to personally speak with the feudal lord and Witch Alliance, another reason is so that I can increase my knowledge by experiencing the Months of Demons in Border Town. You… don’t you want to come with us and take a look?”

For a moment Thunder was silent, but then he said with a broad grin, “Not yet. She should be having quite a good time over there. The way it is right now is also good… After all, the thing with exploring is, an accident can always happen one day. I already lost her mother, I really don’t want to also lose her. When that time comes, I ask you…”

“I will,” Tilly nodded, “After all, she is also one of our members.” Speaking until here she stopped and showed him a smile before continuing, “But business is business. Even though you have helped us a lot, you still have to take the costs to employ our witches on the table.”

“Of course, business is business, that is the way of the Fjords.” Thunder drained his bowl of fish soup before he laughingly agreed.

…

“So, who did he hire?” As she saw that Thunder had left the palace, Ashes entered the hall from outside, sitting cross-legged before Tilly.

“’Magic Servant’ Molly, ‘The Door of Random‘ Orbit, and ‘Puppet’ Remote Shadow.” Tilly spread out the contract, “In the end, the fee was set at four thousand and eight hundred gold royals. The payback is very generous, right? “

“Four thousand…” Ashes’ eyes became big, “Where did he get all the money from?”

“Don’t forget, Thunder is the most famous explorer in the Fjords,” the 5th Princes said laughingly, “No matter if it is the discovery of new routes or finding treasures when exploring new areas, all of it can bring in plenty of money. It was only because of this that he was repeatedly able to recruit such a large group of experienced sailors who would be willing to follow him to explore those mysterious and dangerous zones. But, with witches, he can greatly reduce the risk, and ever since ancient times it has always been thought as a good bargain when one can offset risk with money.”

“However, is that really okay?” Ashes asked unsure, “The establishment of a bounty guild will indeed bring a lot of wealth for Sleeping Island, but, at the same time, the abilities of us witches will be exposed; if this ever spread to the Church’s ears… “

“Sleeping Spell” was a new guild that Tilly had formed. From it, explorers could hire suitable witches to help them complete their expeditions. Of course, in addition to the main project, they would also provide many convenient services, such as repairing damaged items, producing exquisite works of art, quickly constructing houses, providing insecticide for growing flowers and so on — as long as the witches don’t use their ability to do anything evil, ‘Sleeping Spell’ will come to be accepted.”

Of course, all this was only possible under the premise they announced their abilities publicly.

Tilly took Ashes’ hand, “Didn’t I already tell you? I do not care about those gold royals, but I hope that through the bounty guild more people will learn about Sleeping Island, and thus reach out to us to make a deal. Thunder has a saying I agree with, ‘Fear comes from the unknown’, the same is true for the witches. The fear of the people of the Fjords and the Four Kingdoms is nothing more than the slander of the Church and the result of their own ignorance.

“I can’t force them to take the initiative to come in contact with us and try to understand us witches. Therefore, we can only step forward and actively go and promote ourselves. Telling them again and again that we witches aren’t the Devil’s messengers and that our abilities aren’t strange and unpredictable — that they awaken from ordinary people, and that our essence is still that of a human being. ‘Whenever there is a complete understanding of each other, there will no longer be anything left to fear’.” She paused for a moment, then continued, “As for the Church, they have never cared what we are capable of. They simply send out their Army of Judges to capture us, they even occasionally send out the God’s Punishment Army. Furthermore, regardless of our abilities, in front of the God’s Stones of Retaliation, they are all the same.”

“I hope you are right,” Ashes whispered, “I only know how to fight and kill, but regarding this matter I’m unable to help you.”

“You have already helped me a lot,” Tilly said showing her a reassuring smile. “If we want to further develop Sleeping Island, the most important thing for us will be to associate the Fjord’s inhabitants with us witches from the island. The creation of mutual understanding will be a slow process, and I’m only doing all this in order to shorten the process as much as will be possible. In addition, the bounty guild can also play a special role in achieving our goal,” she stuck out her tongue and revealed a sly smile before saying, “That’s to find new uses for the seemingly useless abilities, so that support witches will no longer be discriminated against or think of their abilities as useless.”

Hearing her reasoning Ashes began to laugh, “There are always so many reasons for your actions, whenever you reveal so many layers one after another it makes it hard for other people not to come to accept them.”

“That’s because I’m always saying the correct thing,” Tilly said before changing the topic. “Maggie has not returned to Sleeping Island yet, could something have happened?”

“Perhaps something has delayed her travel,” Ashes pondered about her next words, “Or…”

“What?”

“She might no longer want to come back,” Ashes said, while shrugging, “Compared to the Fjords, the living condition in Border Town is much better. In the past, I already told you not to send witches there. What will we do if Honey or Lotus also don’t want to come back?”

“Then we should head over there at once,” Tilly said.

“Oh, well, I will immediately get ready… what?” For a moment Ashes froze before she recovered enough to ask, “W-We are going to travel to them?”

The 5th Princess curled her lips, “Didn’t we reach an agreement that we will help them resist the demonic beasts, and, while doing this, we can also conventionally pick up the other witches. If we don’t have Lotus, the people coming with the Crescent Moon Bay immigration next year won’t have any houses to live in.”

“But right now, there is still one month left to the beginning of the winter, do we really have to go so soon?”

“We will have to spend a lot of time on the road. And if Border Town happens to encounter any trouble along the way we might have to help the witches as soon as possible, and…” She winked at Ashes, “I also want to go see what kind of person my disgusting older brother has turned into.”

Early in the morning, the cold woke Roland up. He climbed out from under his cold blanket, put on his wool coat, then immersed his feet into the warm water bucket.

This was one of the corrupting privileges which he could only enjoy as a Prince — every morning, a maid would put out a basin of hot water beside his bed, as well as a clean towel and a cup of warm milk which would warm up his body almost instantly.

Of course, compared to the powerful nobles who had other methods to constantly keep their beds warm, he felt that this was good enough. The former 4th Prince had always attempted to invite Tyre over with exactly that thought in mind, but unfortunately, he wasn’t able to enjoy it before his death. However, the new Roland didn’t enjoy this practice, so when the position become vacant he had filled it with an elderly but experienced maid instead. In fact, this choice proved to be the right one. Since nowadays there were so many witches staying inside the castle, but she still managed to keep the inside and outside of the castle in good order.

The fire in the fireplace had gone out long before, leaving only white flying ashes behind. Through the cracks in the open window, the cold wind blew into the room, it was so bone-chillingly cold that it was hard to believe that it was still autumn. Roland dried his feet, then washed the rest of his body with another tub of hot water before going over to the window and closing the small gap he had opened through the night.

Even though open fireplaces were very common in this era, he was still worried about the issue of carbon monoxide poisoning and thus he always left a small gap open before he went to bed. This way, with the fire burning the temperature could be kept all the way through the first half of the night, but, after the fire went out there was no difference between the temperature inside and outside when morning came.