Release that Witch

Roland fell silent and thought, when thinking about safety, I ought to refuse her request. But there is also a different meaning to this request — if I give her the chance to save more witches, she will happily follow my orders and take any risk. But if I refuse her, she might still be willing to follow the orders, but I may lose the possibility to gain more witches, and she will forever carry a scar on her heart.

“I’ll allow it,” Roland finally nodded, “but you will still have to wait for two months until the end of the Month of the Demons. You also won’t travel alone, Lightning will go with you. I will also give you firearms for self-protection, as well … a God’s Stone of Retaliation. Lightning can give you long distance support, and when you wear the God’s Stone of Retaliation during your meeting with Cara, her or any other ability won’t be able to hurt you.”

“Your Highness, please also let me go with her!” Nightingale pleaded.

“No, Veronica. His Highness’s safety is much more important than mine, he is the hope of all of us witches,” Wendy disagreed as she shook her head and laughed, “Take good care of him.”

Chapter 80 Artillery

A week after the concrete ship was placed in the curing room, it was finally the day to launch the vessel.

All the workers were stunned when the Prince ordered to put the oversized bathtub into the water, making everyone wonder whether they misheard him.

However, they hadn’t had misunderstood him.

His subordinates had to dismantle the temporary shed, and then they had to dig a slope at the bottom of the concrete ship, leading into the river. This part had to be handled with great care because of the weak tensile strength of cement products, even a small knock on the ground was enough to create small cracks that could destroy the whole vessel.

The ship was placed on top of logs, and the speed at which it slid was controlled with ropes. When everything was prepared, the workers let the wrist-thick rope slowly slide through their hands, careful so that the vessel would always be pointed in a straight line. While the workers shouted their slogan in sync, the ship slowly slid over the logs, creating a harsh sound of friction.

Fortunately, everything went well, and Roland could see how the ship got slowly lowered into the water. The ship sank nearly half a meter into the water, with more than one meter still above the surface. The workers were totally surprised to see that this massive construction made out of stone and metal didn’t directly sink into the riverbed with a loud bang, but instead peacefully floated above the surface.

“Hurry, take the ropes and put them around the bollards and then tie them tight!” commanded Roland loudly. If the vessel wasn’t tied quickly to the bollards, the water current would carry the ship along with it southwards.

Although Nightingale didn’t show herself to the public, but after seeing this shocking scene, she couldn’t help herself and ask with a voice full of wonder: “Why does the ship float?”

“Well … it’s quite simple. The ship’s average density is lower than that of water, and as long as this is the case anything can float on water,” explained Roland and after a moment of thinking, he added, “That the ship is built out of iron and concrete doesn’t matter. In fact, you should have already seen a huge sailing boat, those also weigh much more than several stones.”

Since he didn’t hear the voice of Nightingale again, Roland assumed that the other was still comprehending what he had said. Even Anna wasn’t able to immediately understand the concept he had explained. Discovering this, Roland smiled and continued to direct the workers next task.

The subsequent hardening of the concrete took a lot of time, and every time it began to snow heavily, the work had to be stopped. Only when it didn’t snow for more than one hour, were they able to continue their work. The most time consuming task was the construction of the deck, which was built out of many wooden planks, and supported by many small stakes which were placed between the bottom and the deck. Although this was a waste of space, but taking into account the primary purpose of the concrete ship, this didn’t matter so much.

Afterward followed the rot-proofing. The carpenters knew very well how to do it. First they brushed a layer of oil with a pungent taste onto the deck. When the oil had dried, they repeated this procedure several times until it was finally coated with a red paint. Once the deck construction was completed, the installation phase of the upper building was started.