Release That Witch

The appearance of the pill in Port of Clearwater made him feel a strong sense of crisis. Without thinking about why the church simultaneously supported him and Garcia to vie for the throne, just the fact that Garcia's military strength comprised of thousands of soldiers terrified him greatly.     

He imagined thousands of steel-clad warriors charging at cavalry speed towards him in an unstoppable manner. His weak line of volley fire would find it hard to stop them. If one of these warriors charged into a group of soldiers, it would cause heavy damage to the First Army.     

Fortunately, this kind of pill could not provide immunity to its user, who thus remained flesh and blood.     

What Roland needed was higher-speed and more precise weapons, so that he could continually fire at the enemies from an even greater distance.     

He also had to come up with a way to overcome the problem of lacking mercury fulminate to serve as primer. He decided to first manufacture a batch of substitute equipment which would be used to cope during a possible crisis.     

Anna's new ability gave him immense confidence. At present, as long as he could draw a blueprint, Anna would be able to produce the weapon with high accuracy and astonishing efficiency—unlike in the past when he had to rely on the blacksmiths to hammer out the flintlock's components one at a time, Anna could stack several parts together and cut them into shape together.     

The universalization of education and the standardization of weights and measures were intended to prepare for industrial mass production, but that did not mean he would not take shortcuts. Anna's new ability was virtually a goldmine of its own, possessing an endless well of potential to be tapped. In recent days, Roland would go to North Slope Mountain every afternoon to do research together with her on the usage of Blackfire. When he did not have time for that, he would let her practice controlling her ability by carving a few small playthings, such as garage kits of the witches.     

Although, at present, she was still an amateur in sculpturing human figures, Roland believed that there would come a day when the display sections of his bookcase would be crammed with garage kits of witches... perhaps?     

He took out a steel ruler and pressed it down on the parchment. When he had only drawn two lines, he heard someone knocking on the door.     

As his guards did not inform him of this arrival, he could guess that it was most likely a witch. And at this time, most witches would be in the parlor on the first floor, learning how to read words and perform the four arithmetic operations from Scroll. There was only one witch who did not have to attend elementary class and thus had time to visit him right now.     

"Come in."     

Indeed, the person who pushed the door and entered the room was Anna.     

She gently closed the door and walked up to Roland's desk. She was carrying a book that was inlaid with golden edges in her arms.     

That she was able to borrow the Book of Illusions, which Scroll could only reveal once a day, and furthermore to do so before Scroll's lesson, it must be said that although Anna did not talk much, her popularity within the witches' community was evidently yet unexpectedly high. He thought about Nana, who used to follow behind Anna like a tail on her back; maybe Anna was naturally born with a charm that enchanted witches?     

"What's the matter? Did you run into a problem hard to understand?"     

"Yes." She nodded in agreement and opened the book in front of Roland. "Here... Your Highness, you said that all things in this world are made of small balls and that these balls are all different from each other, but you then mentioned that they can turn into... waves?" Anna asked. "What's a wave?"     

"When you throw a stone into water, the vibration created is a wave." The prince coughed twice before continuing. "This is a concept. You can observe it, but you don't have to research it too deeply."     

"Why's that?"     

[Because I don't know more about it myself.] Roland did not know whether to laugh or cry. The micro quantum field was one of the most abstruse theories to him. He suddenly felt that he should not have written this paragraph in the book, but his reply did not match what his brain thought. "Therefore, these balls have both wave and material properties. We're also made up of small balls and thus we're like that too. The only difference is that the quality of our bodies is too high, which makes it difficult to observe fluctuations. As for an even deeper reason, it would take many generations of mankind to discover." He thought for a while before adding. "Because there's a considerably large conflict between this kind of phenomenon and our common sense, it may be very difficult to comprehend. It's like how those of us living in the three-dimensional world find it hard to visualize four-dimensional space. You don't have to worry about these things."     

Anna curled her lips as though she was not satisfied with Roland's explanation. She then asked, "What's the four-dimensional space?"     

"..."     

By the time she stopped asking further questions, the prince had spoken until his mouth was completely dry. He had utterly underestimated Anna's curiosity and thirst for knowledge. If this continued, he would soon have nothing left to teach her.     

Notably, when Roland asked her about her progress in mathematics, she replied with a calm face, "That's much easier than this. I'm currently studying equations and matrices, which are rather interesting."     

[Much easier, rather interesting...] Roland suddenly felt that the disparity among humans was too large. How long had this been? She had progressed from the basic functions of mathematics to equations and matrices in only a week's time, and after this would be calculus. If placed in a school, Anna would be a terrifyingly quick learner.     

And... a very pretty quick learner to boot.     

Roland gazed at the young girl as she lowered her head and flipped through the book. For a short while, he was spellbound. He observed the fine fringes on her forehead and saw as strands of hair fell beside her cheek sporadically. He could not help reaching out his forefinger to gently roll up her hair behind her ears.     

She turned her head and looked at him with a smile in her eyes. Her turquoise pupils were no longer as calm as water, and seemed to ripple. They looked into each other's eyes from this close distance until Anna opened her mouth to say something—she did not make a sound, but Roland could still interpret what her lips said.     

"Nightingale isn't here right now."     

The meaning of these words could not have been more straightforward. Roland felt that he would be stupid if he pretended not to understand. The room was completely silent, such that he could practically hear her breath and heartbeat.     

As he moved closer to her, she closed her eyes and her cheeks started to blush. He sniffed the faint scent on her body and gently kissed her lips.     

A lush and soft feeling spread through his body. Time seemed to freeze at this moment, and it was God knew how long before they briefly separated.     

Without waiting for him to say anything, Anna tipped her toes, allowing the couple's lips to make contact again.     

...     

"Yee... haw... hey!" Mystery Moon sat cross-legged on her bed deep in meditation. She raised her arms high and chanted lines of words.     

"Are you mad?" A frowning Lily asked while wrapping a towel around her damp hair.     

"I'm trying to think of myself as a composition of particles, She opened her eyes and said, "I'm particles." Then she pointed her hand at Lily. "You too!"     

"Nuts." The latter rolled her eyes and climbed into her soft bed.     

"Aye, it doesn't work." Mystery Moon sighed. "I've clearly imagined everything around me to be compositions of particles. Why can't I develop a new ability like Anna did?"     

"Because you don't believe it at all." Lily posited.     

"I do!"     

"You don't." She shook her head. "The only person that we can't deceive is ourselves... Although Anna wasn't clear about Roland's reasons, she trusted unconditionally in him from the very beginning. And of course, she's always been much smarter than you. This is another important reason why she was able to obtain her new ability."     

"..."     

"In any case, don't imagine too much. Have a good sleep." Lily shrugged her shoulders.     

"Don't you wish to have this kind of ability?" Mystery Moon pouted her lips. "I want to be able to do more work for Roland."     

"By developing an ability that'll keep food fresh for a longer time?" She yawned. "I'm not interested. Besides, why would you want to do more work for him? Men are all heartless and capricious. Echo is an example right in front of you."     

"You say you're not interested, but yet you're always so attentive during class," Mystery Moon whispered softly, "and you're the most serious student after Leaf."     

Lily grabbed her pillow and clapped it on the former's face. "Go to sleep!"