Release that Witch

Timothy hadn’t planned to kill his father. With Wimbledon III’s favor, he only wanted his father to take notice of Garcia’s actions and stop her. His older brother Prince Gerald, on the other hand, would be a pawn within Timothy’s hand.

Timothy had thought that this plan couldn’t go wrong. By controlling Gerald’s mentor, Scholar Ansger, Timothy could manipulate his brother from the dark — Within the Astrologers Association, Scholar Ansger’s status wasn’t high, but when Ansger wrote some letters to Gerald, the 1st prince was quickly hooked. All this went exactly like Timothy had planned. His elder brother was strong in battle but he wasn’t good at thinking, but he still wasn’t willing to hand over the throne.

With each letter they exchanged, Scholar Ansger would increase the ambitions of Gerald, guiding him along the path Timothy had prepared. When the last letter with the astrological predictions was sent, Timothy secretly returned to the side of the King, informing him that the 1st prince may come to pressure him into abdicating the throne. There was no doubt that once this matter was confirmed, the King would immediately imprison the prince out of rage or even sentence him to death or exile instead.

Then, King Wimbledon would have to focus on his other children, and when he saw that Garcia was actively developing her military forces, she would inevitably become a second eyesore for him.

But … who could have thought that when Timothy had revealed the news, the King would only smile, pull out his personal dagger and directly stab himself in his chest!

Everything happened so quickly that Timothy had no chance to intervene, he could only watch his father die.

He slowly sat down beside the bed. In the first moments after the incident he thought that this was all an illusion. His father’s final smile was just like a nightmare, causing his hair to stand on end. Timothy went through the whole thing over and over again, even inspecting his father’s body, but he still couldn’t find a single clue as to why his father had killed himself.

He also thought about the idea that it was simply a double, but he couldn’t find any flaws in the situation in front of him. Even the remnants of his father’s old wounds were exactly the same as he remembered.

Seeing that Gerald had arrived to meet the king, he calmed down. With this he could push the blame for King Wimbledon III’s death onto the 1st Prince, and then he could use his own identity as the 2nd Prince to inherit the throne. After a smooth coronation, he would no longer be restricted to his own territory. Then, he could mobilize forces throughout the whole Kingdom to pressure Garcia, forcing her to give up the Harbor of Clear Water.

It seemed that the ending was better than it could have been, but Timothy still felt deeply uneasy … As if he was led by an invisible hand, who was already able to control the war of Graycastle’s upper nobility, but Timothy himself knew nothing about it.

However, at the moment he could do nothing else besides claiming the throne, so he had no choice. Timothy Wimbledon swore to himself that if he ever found out who was the cause, he would let them know what happened when they angered a King!

Chapter 47 Market Circulation

For the last week, it was fairly calm for Border Town.

Iron Axe and Brian both said that the strength and number of the demonic beasts would gradually grow with the progression of the Months of the Demons. So, taking advantage of the situation where the pressure on the line of defense wasn’t strong yet, Roland once again sent a boat with ore to Willow Town.

Since the steam engine was put into use for mining in the North Slope Mine, the number of miners had been reduced by half, but the production had steadily improved. Now, it had been restored to the level of production from before the collapse. Using a machine to do the job saved a lot of manpower.

Meanwhile, under Roland’s orders the mine production systems had undergone a preliminary reform. The former fixed payment for each day was changed into a variable pay. He let Barov put together a statistic about last year’s average amount of ore produced daily. With this he could set a standard and everyone who mined more could increase their pay. An increased number of gemstones would result in a big reward. This move effectively increased the workers’ enthusiasm for mining, so the mine became a bustling area.

Roland naturally wanted to do more with his ore, now that he had more ore in hand.

In addition to the plan to put a second steam engine into production, he also intended to manufacture a number of manual lathes.

This lathe can be seen as something historical, it was commonly seen as an essential machine for implementing other tools. The anvil can be regarded as the most primitive tool — it was used for manual fixing and creating.