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Waiting until the Prince put down his quill, Ashes declared: “I won.”

“Indeed, you won.” The other simply acknowledge it with a nod.

That Roland would yield in such a frank and straightforward manner came for her unexpected. She had thought that he would still try to quibble about it, never believing that he would recognize the result so easily.

“But I admit that you have the power to fight against the God’s Punishment Army,” Ashes continued, “The God’s Punishment Army isn’t impervious to sword and spear, their body strength is similar to mine, but they have lost their consciousness and ability to think. Which is also the reason why I can simultaneously cope with three of them at once.

“If during the previous test the Knight’s opponent had been a member of the God’s Punishment Army, I think that they would have just simply rushed forward. Because of this, the God’s Punishment Army cannot be sent out like the Army of Judges can. If my guess isn’t wrong, the Church has to always send someone who will lead them during the fight.”

“Thank you,” Roland smiled. “This information is very important.”

“What was the new weapon your knight was using?”

“A firearm,” Roland explained, “In the future, all of my soldiers will be equipped with this kind of weapon. Even an untrained farmer, as long as they have a gun, will be able to defeat even a well-trained Judge.”

For a moment, Ashes hesitated but then she still asked, “Can you give one of those firearms to me?”

“Unless you join the Witch Alliance that will be impossible,” Roland said determined, “after all, at present this weapon is still very rare.”

Having already expected his refusal, she let go of her anger. “I have to meet up with Tilly as soon as possible, so early tomorrow morning I will be leaving Border Town. If you aren’t able to push the church back, you can always move to the Fjord, asking for asylum.”

Roland nodded, “You too, do not forget to tell my dear sister the news, that at the western border of the Kingdom of Graycastle there is a place which shelters witches.

“...” For a moment Ashes fell silent, “I will consider it.”

As she prepared to leave the office, but the Prince stopped her unexpected, “Wait, I have a gift for you. It is behind the door.”

A gift?

She stared blankly into the air, but when she came back to herself she turned around and saw that there was huge sword placed beside the door and because it had been previously blocked by the open door she hadn’t noticed it when she had entered the office.

“Your sword cannot be used any longer, so I let Anna create a new one for you. This sword, however, isn’t made out of poor quality pig iron, no this is made out of pure steel.”

Indeed, its whole body surface was evenly smoothed, in the light of the sunset, it held an orange-red metallic luster. Stepping forward, she gently stroked the sword, discovering that the blade’s thickness was very uniform. Showing traces that it had gone through a tempering process, there was no doubt that this was a weapon of excellent quality. The only thing which still puzzled Ashes, was its strange shape. Compared with the usual double-edged sword blade system, it only had one blade, while the other edge was about as wide as her little finger. Furthermore, it didn’t possess a tip, instead it end was trapezoidal.

But the most peculiar part of the sword was that within the first quarter of the sword, strange runes had been carved into it. In addition, there was also a half-moon painted at the blunt edge of the sword. The moon was painted in gold, and was thus very eye-catching.

Although she didn’t want show how much she loved it, she still could not stop herself from impulsively reaching out and picking it up.

“Why does it looks so strange...?”

“Because it’s not a normal weapon,” Roland laughed, “it’s called ‘Ashbringer’, and it’s of the legendary rank compared to your previous greatsword of the white rank.”

“...” Ashes decided that she didn’t really need to know what those inexplicable words which had come out of his mouth were supposed to mean, “In that case, I will accept the gift from you and in return, I will also give you something back.”

“Oh? What would that it be?” The Prince’s curiosity was picked.

But Ashes however, didn’t answer, instead, she straight went out of the room.

*

On next morning, when Roland opened the door to his office, he once more saw Nightingale sitting at his desk and nibbling on a dry fish.

“They’re gone.”

“Have both of them left?”

“Yes,” Nightingale answered lazily, “They left the moment it was bright enough for them to see the road, Wendy was also there to send them off on their journey.”

Roland couldn’t stop himself from being deeply moved, after all, Wendy was concerned for every sister, not to mention the witches who had helped her escape from the monastery. Because, of this, he had thought Wendy would follow Ashes when she left, never imagining that she would be the first to refused the other party’s invitation.

With this, the Witch Alliance still had all twelve of their members, which left Roland with the feeling as if his whole body was filled with energy.

“Do you think they’re going to spread the news about another safe haven to the other witches on the other side of the sea?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Nightingale said ominously while leaning back in his chair. “But when they meet a problem they cannot solve themselves, they will definitely think of Border Town.”

Closing his eyes, Roland went through the memories of the former 4th Prince in his mind.

Tilly and he had never been very close, or it could be better said that she had always maintained a certain distance from everyone, even her father, Wimbledon III was no exception to this. In addition to her good looks, she had also shown an outstanding sense of wisdom through her childhood, Roland’s mind did not have any more information about her.

When had the 5th Princess started to secretly harbor witches, or when had she begun to develop her plans regarding the trip to the Fjords, Roland didn’t know anything about this. But this also didn’t matter as much, for now, she could be regarded as a natural ally in the fight against the Church. After all, with both of them resisting the Church they also shared a common goal for now.

As for dispatching Theo and letting him spread the news about the safe haven for witches, this also can’t really be called a futile endeavour either. In the end, the awakening to a witch is still a random event, so it is impossible that Tilly will be able to take in all of the witches. Especially now after her organization is also busy withdrawing, the other new witches will be all the more urgent to find another shelter.

Now that I have gotten the news about the existence of the God’s Punishment Army, the next task I will have at hand is to expand the production scales of those two acids.

More efficient gunpowders or explosives cannot be done without using nitric acid and sulfuric acid. When all the members of the First Army have replaced their old weapon with a runner rifle, by using the rifled barrel and also the new bullet there will be a large improvement in the firing accuracy. Therefore, training was of utmost importance. In a time without fire curtains, an experienced veteran with exquisite shooting skills was worth ten rookies randomly spraying bullets around. But during this time the bullet consumption will also increase by a staggering amount.

Furthermore, there was still the problem of the black powder which remained in the barrel after firing a bullet, causing the rifle to clog and also reducing the barrel’s expected lifetime. Only by using smokeless gun powder can this problem be solved.

In fact, earlier versions of smokeless gunpowder were in fact made out of nitrocellulose, while the later stages of it was made out of a mixture of nitrocellulose and something else. The at present used the sealing method of nitric acid soaked gun-cotton was quite inadequate, not to mention the amount of gun-cotton he would end up needing.

After all, the laboratory production will only be enough for small-scale production, if I want to meet the needs of a whole army, an industrial scale laboratory will also be needed. Unfortunately, the chemical industry is a complete stranger to me, so, for now, I’m unable to think of any usable solutions.

In addition, the education progress cannot be slowed down. It isn’t just important to spread elementary cultural knowledge, no, the ideological transformation also has to be implemented as soon as possible. The original citizen of Border Town have already experienced the ordeal of the Months of Demons, with the propaganda spread by the First Army, they accept the witches to a much higher degree now, but within the outsiders coming in, the indoctrination of the Church will still be present. And right now the foreign population is busy rapidly rising, especially the serfs, they are all still living in their wooden sheds near the Shishui River, claiming it to be the town’s “outer city”. But once they are promoted to free people, they will gradually move into the city, and if I only then start to correct their believes it will already be too late.

So I have to come up with a method with which I can silently start to transform their beliefs, but also something which will be broadly accepted by them.

...

After being lost in thought for a long while, he opened his eyes, only to discover that Nightingale was busy observing him very closely. Their four eyes met for a short moment, but then, she subconsciously turned her head away.

“Ah, yes, there was something I forgot to tell you,” Nightingale began while looking out of the window, as if nothing had happened. “Wendy told me to pass something on to you.”

“What was it?” Asked Roland.

“She said, ‘Thank you.’”