Release that Witch

When Anna opened her eyes, she could feel that Roland had wiped away all her sweat, but his face seemed to be redder than before. She gently nodded to Roland and expressed her thanks.

*

In the next few days, Roland traveled between the castle and the North Slope Mine several times.

In addition to cannons, he also needed to make a sufficient amount of boring tools.

The production method of the boring tools for gun barrels and cannon barrels were quite similar. After their removal from the mold, Anna would heat them up again, so that they could be processed with a hammer. It was quite different from producing an ordinary knife. At first glance, it looked like a blunt iron rod. However, the only difference was that it had a gap on its head, which was used to discharge metal debris. At the last step, the iron was quenched to increase its hardness.

The production method was quite different from modern high precision drills. After all, Roland only needed them to drill into iron. Taking their high wear rate into account, Roland and Anna produced five boring tools within a week. Thanks to this boring tools and the usage of the steam engine for drilling — the production of the gun barrels rapidly increased from 2 each month to ten each day.

After everything was ready, the miners would dig out the two cannon embryos, then clean the scum from the surface and transport them onto the carriage smithy.

For the production of these two cannon embryos, nearly all of Roland’s steel ingots were consumed, a priceless test. So Carter and his whole guard were responsible for the protection of the transport, which let the Chief Knight feel a little superfluous. Who would steal so much inflexible stuff?

According to the requirements of the Prince, the blacksmith began to polish and flatten the appearance of the embryo, after the grindstone. When they had finished it, the embryos were delivered into the castle backyard. At this time they just looked like two solid iron bars with dark gray and rounded appearances, exuding a heavy metallic luster.

Roland couldn’t wait to start the drilling, so together with Carter he brought the embryo to the right place, and placed the tip of the cutter head at the top of the steel bar.

With a face full of expectation, Roland pulled the valve on the steam engine. The boring tool slowly began to operate, but not much later it was already running at a steady speed.

“Begin!” the Prince loudly shouted.

Hearing this, the Chief Knight pushed the sliding base down so that the boring tool came in contact with the embryo. When the tip of the boring tool came into contact with the embryo, a harsh noise which even overshadowed the noise of the steam engine could be heard. As lubricant they used lard, which was packed into the drilling, coming out of the wire as black foam. The onlooking witches withdrew from the wooden shed, and only Lightning insisted on staying. It seemed to her that looking at this machine was much more beautiful than any landscape.

Chapter 70 Spy (Part 1)

“Groundhog” Kohl was somewhat anxious as he looked out of the window.

In this hell-like place, it was snowing without end. He thought that the sky looked exactly like his grandmother’s sheets which she hadn’t washed for years, both of them dirty and gray. Even though he couldn’t see the sun, he still had another way to judge the hour.

That ‘way’ was the militia training; as long as the weather permitted, the militia would run every morning (at 8 am) around the town square. The group of idiots had already started it a month before the Months of the Demons, but they were still doing it even now.

Don’t these people know that it’s most important to save as much strength as possible during the winter so when the time comes that they truly need to run, they won’t need to pray to God to lend them stronger legs?

However, thanks to this bunch of idiots, he could now determine the right time to leave.

That’s right, Kohl wanted to flee this possessed town! Although he was ordered by the 2nd Prince to stay in Border Town to observe everything that the 4th Prince did and then send the gathered intelligence back to Valencia, But now, he had reached a point where he didn’t want to stay any longer.

His thoughts were, I’m afraid that in less than two weeks I, along with this town’s inhabitants will all become the Devil’s sacrifices.

This wasn’t him being paranoid!

Since the beginning of winter, one strange thing after another had happened. Perhaps other people weren’t aware of it — which to him, wasn’t surprising.