Release that Witch

Should he buy slaves? Not to mention, he didn’t know from where he could buy so many slaves, adult slaves would cost a lot of money, and they would have little sense of culture. Buying slaves under the age of ten and teach them would take too long, granted that he would allow child labor, so he would have to wait for many years.

Recruit talented people? To this borderland, how many people would be attracted to this town? And for them he would need to spend even more than for slaves.

Encourage his people to increase the birthrate? Forced marriages? Forget it…

He also couldn’t hope to get more people from Longsong Stronghold, the kingdom was in a steady state, so if he tried to lay his hands on the surrounding lords, he would become a joke in the future. For the same reason Duke Ryan didn’t dare to face Roland openly, he could only take actions in secret.

But now it was different, after Timothy took over the throne, he would be eager to have all his competitors disappear, all this could be seen from the recall order. Duke Ryan apparently was able to see this point, once the old King was gone, and he had the control over the west border, so if he didn’t try to enforce his rule it would be strange.

This was a long-awaited opportunity for Roland.

Longsong Stronghold was already for hundreds of years the business center at the west border, with nearly ten thousand residents. But behind the stronghold lay the big cities, without any strong defense. He would just have to beat Duke Ryan, take over the city, and get a large number of freedmen and at the same time he could accumulate a lot of wealth

What would be easier than the annexation of the population? What way would be faster to get wealth than to plunder it?

This message was just like a beacon to dispel the mist, illuminating the future path of Roland.

He definitely would not miss this golden opportunity.

Chapter 56 Between the Mountains

Nightingale was slowly moving forward on the mountain path.

The path under her feet was only shoulder width. On either side of her was a huge rock wall, separated by ten feet. But between them was a bottomless ravine and the shoulder wide path she was walking on, so directly next to Nightingale’s feet was a steep cliff and a huge wall out of rock. When she looked into the deep ravine she could only see darkness. While traveling on her shoulder wide path, Nightingale was always carefully leaning on the rock wall next to her, trying to avoid losing her footing and falling into the ravine.

When she looked up, only a thin shimmer could be seen from the sky, like a silver thread hanging in the night sky. However, she knew that it was just a little after noon — even during the day, she still needed to hold a torch. The light coming down the cliff was not sufficient enough to illuminate the road ahead. Walking on this path for a long time even gave birth to the illusion that she was walking in the mountains.

The only advantage here was that not much would fall down the gorge, despite the cold wind whistling through the mountains and lifting up the fallen snow.. Occasionally there were a few natural snowflakes that fell on her head from, and landed on the mountain walls or on the trail, turning into water vapor. Down here, the temperature wasn’t the same as it was in the outside world, occasionally she could see the hot air rising up from below the cliff.

If it weren’t like this, she wouldn’t dare to pass the Impassable Mountains during the Months of the Demons. She could hide herself in her own world of fog, but there, it would be still the same temperature. If she were to brave her way through the snow, she estimated that she would freeze to death after an hour of walking.

Nightingale didn’t want to spend an extra minute down here — she could always feel something in the dark, always watching her, making her blood run cold.

If she could, Nightingale would stay in the fog the whole way, but it was a pity that her strength wasn’t enough to do that. When she used her ability for a long time, she would quickly become exhausted.

Nightingale raised the torch and let it illuminate the opposite cliff. In the faint firelight, she could occasionally see dark shadows on the walls. Nightingale knew that those were caves, which were so deep that light couldn’t reach the end of each cave. They looked like orbs of darkness. But on the other side, nearly at the same position, was also a deep hole. It reminded her of the North Slope Mine’s rumors, which said that the mine used to be a monster’s underground lair, with many forks in the road that extended in all directions, dug out by monsters. The Northern slope was part of the mountain range, but it was so far and wide with so many caves, who could say that the caves weren’t connected to the mine?

The idea made her shiver.