Chapter 15 Flattering oneself
Seeing the knight accept his order and leave, Roland returned to the table, “You can heal small animals, so why would you think witches are evil?”
“The teacher said, witches can do what ordinary people cannot do, and sometimes it may not look bad, but that would be only a trap, set up by the devil to tempt more people… “The girl trailed off. “I really have not seen the devil, I swear.”
“Of course you haven’t seen him, that’s merely the church’s lie, your teacher was also deceived by them,” Roland soothed.
“The Church lies?” Nana’s jaw dropped down, “Why?”
Roland shook his head, giving no explanation. Even if he explained it, they wouldn’t understand it. Before a civilization develops to a certain extent, these kind of outlandish things always happened always happened. Even when no one benefited from it, people would automatically contribute natural disasters, man-made disasters, or incomprehensible phenomenons as a product controlled by someone behind the curtains – from historical point of view, this was a boulder which in majority women had to carry on their back.
And in this world, witches who owned a feasible power of unknown origin became an easy target for the church. Thinking about it, it was absolutely impossible for the church to ignore this kind of extraordinary appearances, no matter what. They would have to confer all witches as Saints, naming their powers as the gift of God; or kill all of the witches, stating they were the devil’s spokesperson. However, once you choose the former, the majesty of monotheism would receive a heavy blow – as soon as a witch not belonging to the church emerges. In the case of all religions believing in other gods labeling the witches as Saints, they would all be people chosen by God, and so whose god would be the only true god?
Polytheism could only exist on the premise that all gods truly exist, capable of restricting each other. Since God was nonexistent, this was all symbolic crap that someone had created by running off their mouth, so why permit the opposite side to exist and share this world with them? So anyone would claim their god as the true god and believe in monotheism. And when it come to a member of another religion, there was only one way to go – liquidation. In the end, they could only choose the latter option, to spare no effort in killing all the witches.
There was absolutely no relation to the devil; it was only for their own benefits.
A living chicken was prepared by the castle kitchen right away, and then the knight carried it by the wings, while it still fluttered and kicked in confusion.
The next thing made Nana dumbfounded; Roland took the silver knife from his waist and had the knight grab it so that he could stab the chicken’s body. When the chicken was wounded, Roland allowed Nana to come up and treat it, after curing it another stab followed… this way they proceeded over and over again.
After half a day, when the chicken finally took it lasts breath, Roland had a general understanding of Nana’s ability.
She could restore damaged parts, including cuts, tears, fractures and bruises. In case a part was missing, such as a cut off chicken leg, she could not make it grow new one. However, under full use of her ability the broken claw could be reconnected again, allowing the cut to be healed. Ultimately, she could not reverse death, once the chickens died, her treatment was ineffective.
During the entire course of treatment Roland did not see any trace of the “sticky water”, instead, she simply put her hand on the chicken’s wound, and the wounds would heal at a rate visible to the naked eye. After these series of tests, Nana’s physical exertion was not large; she was at least not sweating like Anna after her training.
Only Nana herself was dissatisfied, she felt that the treatment of the chicken was unfair, to such an extent, that at the end of the experiment she widened her eyes and pouted at Roland.
“Well, don’t just stare there, come and have something to eat,” upon seeing her, Roland without any better option had to summon the” afternoon tea” to shift her attention. This move was already tested against Anna; he thought that very few girls of their age could resist the temptation of delicious desserts. As it turned out, Nana’s performance in front of the pastries was not much better than the former’s.
After eating the cake, Roland allowed Nana to leave.
Anna asked, “Why did you allow her to leave? Just like me, she’s also a witch, right?”
“She still has her family, and at the present time her family has not found out, that she has become a witch.”
Anna whispered, “It’s just a matter of time.”
“Right, sooner or later,” Roland sighed, “so, it’s a little late, but… Do you want to see your father?”
She shook her head; no wavering was seen in her lake-like eyes. It seemed that the betrayal of her father had made her completely lose her hope. She didn’t have a family to return to before, at least now she had a friend.
“Nana will always come back, in fact, I’m going to have her come here every second day to let her practice her own ability.”
Hearing this, she blinked her eyes and nodded quickly.
“Do you want to go back to Karl’s college and learn together with the other children?”
Anna did not answer, but he felt that he could understand her inner thoughts.
“These kinds of circumstance are unlikely to last long… As long as I am here, you will one day be able to live like normal people, anywhere you go there would be no one to arrest you, much less send you to the gallows. One day this will be reality, “said Roland stressing every single word ” I promise.”
*
Since Karl took over the city wall project, fourth prince Roland suddenly settled down.
He spent every afternoon in the castle garden, accompanied by Anna and Nana. Now they had no further need to prepare extra clothes for Anna’s training, even if there were leaping flames on each of her fingers, she could still operate them skillfully. Now it was unlikely to be like before when a mishap occurred, igniting her own witch’s uniform.
Nana also changed her clothes into the same witch uniform Anna wore, at first she felt a little reluctant about the practice, but the afternoon tea session appeased her. Seeing the two witches come and wander around in his backyard greatly alleviated the bitterness in Roland’s heart.
Occasionally, he went to the north slope at the foot of the mountain to check the progress on the city wall. After more than two weeks of construction, the wall had already reached a hundred yards in length. In this era where a theodolite to measure the distance didn’t exist, every day, at the same time, Karl would have the craftsmen determine the distance and evenness by using the shadows formed by the sun with the help of a wooden pole. They built a watchtower every ten columns to stabilize the city wall.
Such a large-scale building project was naturally also noticed by the town’s nobility, but in addition to finding Barov and asking him about this project, they took no further actions as if this had nothing to do with them. Roland did not complain, since their possessions were at Stronghold Longsong, they would definitely not stay here and help him guard the Border Town. He could even imagine these people getting together and ridiculing Roland, saying he had overestimated his capabilities.
Not only had the nobility noticed the change, but the merchants as well. In the previous years, the traveling merchants would purchase animal fur, but now it appeared that there was no possibility to purchase it. One after the other, they began to set out and return to the stronghold. Naturally, the anger about their empty-handed return was vented to Roland. The news regarding the fourth prince Roland Wimbledon’s building project to repel the demonic beasts in the Months of the Demons had already spread along the Chishui River, many calling it just stupid and ignorant.
At this point, no one thought that he could hold Border Town; even the majority of locals did not believe it. After all, the impression everyone got from the fourth prince did not include the courage to fight. Regardless what he did, in the end, he would take refuge in the stronghold.
In this manner, while everyone was discussing him, Roland welcomed his first winter after crossing over.