After dinner, the next step was to arrange rooms for everyone. Fortunately, the lords of Border Town loved exquisiteness and grandeur. Even though this small town was only built for mining, as an early security point, the castle was still built to the standards of a medium sized town. Thanks to this, Roland now had a nine hundred square meter living area spread over three floors, along with watchtowers and arrow towers in the form of pagodas in the four corners of the castle. He also possessed his own vestibule and back garden.
Roland arranged the room opposite of Anna’s room for Lightning while the room next door went to Wendy after her rehabilitation. When Roland saw Nana walk into Anna’s room with a sugar stick in her hand, he could not help but shake his head in amusement.
Back at his office, Roland poured himself a cup of ale. A plan was only good until the first deviation. He had thought that with the help of Nightingale, he would have gotten a batch of new witches, getting a boost in science and technology and upgrading agriculture etc., but he had never expected that the leader of the Witch Cooperation Association would have such hostility towards non-witches. Witches like Nightingale seemed to be a minority. Wendy… after the talk with Lightning he knew that Wendy actually didn’t want to leave the Witch Cooperation Association. She only intended to save Nightingale, but after her intervention, she was treated as a traitor by Cara and the other witches.
After his first drink, Roland poured himself a second one. Even if the ale wasn’t the best, it was still better than nothing.
During the meal, Roland had asked Lightning about her and Wendy’s abilities. Lightning said she could fly like a bird and fly freely through the air while Wendy was able to control the wind. Hearing this, Roland couldn’t think of a good use for a technological upgrade, but for the upcoming war they held great potential.
He also asked her about the abilities of the other witches at the camp and found out that their abilities varied strongly and seemed not to follow any rules. Some effects could hardly be described with science while some were completely bizarre.
For example, Cara the Snake Witch, the founder of the Witch Cooperation Association. She could condense her magic into snakes — these snakes were not illusions, they could be touched and also attack an enemy. The different colors of the snakes represented the different venoms. Lighting herself had only seen two types of snakes, paralysis and toxic.
Roland found that it wasn’t only Anna, but Cara and the other witches could also only use their magic within a small range. For example, when Anna’s Green Fire left a range of five meters, it would suddenly disappear. Cara’s snakes also couldn’t stray too far. For Nightingale, it was an even shorter distance. When she wanted to influence a foreign object, she would have to leave her fog and become visible.
For this reason, they were always equipped with crossbows in case they had to face the Church or any other army who possessed God’s Stone of Retribution. Otherwise, they could only flee in all directions.
Roland worked until midnight, and the fire in the fireplace had already dimmed. When he began to sneeze he thought it was time to sleep.
When he opened the door to his bedroom, he thought that he had gone into the wrong room — it was the already familiar scene again, where a woman was already in the room, sitting on his bed. Her figure was half shrouded in darkness, her shadow reflected by the fire was only displayed in mosaic, like a mural. However, this time there was a big difference to the previous instances, namely that the woman was no longer wearing her body-hiding robes. Instead, she had replaced them with ordinary civilian clothes. Her appearance was no longer hidden from the outside world, and now everyone could directly see her appearance.
Nightingale.
Roland became a little nervous, this kind of battle, would … it be a lucky one?
When Nightingale noticed that the Prince had come in, she got up and slowly walked over. Even only after half a day of rest, her face looked better than how most people would ever look. Her pale cheeks were replaced with rosy ones, and her hair didn’t give her a dull appearance. He thought,
“You worked hard in the past few days.” Roland coughed, breaking the silence and then continued, “Why don’t you rest longer? Lightning has already told me everything.”
Hearing this, Nightingale shook her head, giving a solemn impression. This gave Roland the feeling that something was wrong, and in her eyes he could see an indescribable dedication. Roland realized that she had made her decision and was converging her emotions towards him. This look of determination was difficult to see in many other people, so Roland waited until the other had found the right words.