Release That Witch

"... devil?" The witch sounded cold, showing no emotion. "What about you church people? You send orphaned and abandoned children to cloisters and pick witches out of them? What should I call you?"     

"Nonsense!" The woman warrior retorted. "The church accepts and raises the kids out of kindness of deities. If it's not for cloisters, how many of them will be able to reach an adult age? Ubiquitous demons corrupt the weak-minded ones and lead a small number of them astray now and then, but the church will solve all the problems at once when finding a devil witch among them. You're distorting reality."     

Hearing the word "solve", the witch's golden pupils suddenly dimmed. She raised her giant sword in just one hand and said, "I'm not very interested in arguing with a dead woman, so that's it."     

Before her voice died away, the owl on her shoulder had flown up, and she had already come up to Alicia, evoking her unforgettable memory of her battle companions being cut in half together with their swords. Instead of moving back, Alicia lunged forward at the witch, aiming at the part under her right arm. Alicia had repeatedly heard during her sword training courses that this part was the weakest point if the opponent chose right hand as a sword hand. If she attacked this point, the right-handed opponent would need several seconds to turn the blade.     

Alicia bounded on the witch like a leopard, evading the strike. When she brushed past the Extraordinary, she held her two-handed sword horizontal, trying to hit the weakest point on the right side of her body, but the witch reacted at a stunning speed. By just a skip, she easily escaped Alicia' attack and swiftly turned around, lifting up her giant sword.     

Alicia, however, had not landed by now.     

It all happened in a split second. Alicia saw half of her calf flying up into the air with blood. A tearing pain down there almost made her faint away. She instinctively clenched her teeth to stop herself from crying out at the scene.     

The gap between her and the Extraordinary was just too wide.     

She finally saw what an excellent fighter Abrams was, who had exchanged a dozen of blows with the Extraordinary, striving for more time for her to escape.     

Alicia struggled to turn around and saw Mira took a hand crossbow out of their backpack, aiming at the Extraordinary when the witch was concentrating on herself.     

This was their last chance. Alicia thought that she must manage to make the witch focus on herself.     

When she was going to say something, the giant sword swept. She suddenly felt a tight throat and then saw the world upside down... No, she thought that she must be flying, as she could see her body feebly kneel down on the ground and the owl dart toward Mira. The owl transformed into a girl in the air and knocked down the priestess... Soon she was bleary-eyed and then all she could see was endless darkness, when her head finally fell on the ground.     

…     

"Damn this stupid rock! Coo." Maggie touched a swollen part on her head, complaining. "You're so careless. If it wasn't for me, you would have been shot by the bolt!"     

"Relax, I saw it. I just wanted to end this as fast as I could," Ashes said. She dug two shallow pits in the ground, dragged the two bodies into the pits and buried them, after she had pocketed all their God's Stones of Retaliation and gold royals. By doing so, she earned her travel expenses on her way to Port of Clearwater. In addition, she found a letter from the priestess. She skimmed through its content. It said that if the priestess found Roland Wimbledon, Lord of the Western Region, was not in collusion with witches, she should request to buy female infants and orphans from him at market price. All the females under age could be traded for golden royals or pills, like what they had done with Duke Ryan before.     

After reading the letter, Ashes sneered and burnt it with a torch fire.     

"Let's go. We have lots of bodies to bury."     

"Coo." Maggie transformed into an owl and led Ashes back to the emissary delegation's camping site.     

As she would get dizzy seeing broken body parts or smelling blood, she alighted on a bough and watched Ashes digging pits, dragging and burying bodies all by herself.     

"Why did you do this? It'll be awful if the church finds out what you've done."     

"Only several months later, the church people will confirm that the emissary delegation is missing. They usually expect an emissary delegation sent out to investigate a lord to return in about two to three months, if the lord is happy to cooperate with the investigation," Ashes said while digging.     

"But His Highness won't be happy to do so! Coo!"     

"Please talk to me in your human form." Ashes sighed and continued to explain, "Once this emissary delegation is allowed to enter the town, witches of the Witch Cooperation Association will be exposed. They even don't need to ask the prince. All they need to do is to interrogate some subjects there. At that time, Roland will have only two choices. First one is lying. He'll contend that he's nothing to do with the matter. Second is to cooperate with the church and arrest all the witches. For a well-prepared emissary delegation like this one, if one of them had escaped from me, Hermes would have soon received the news. They brought carrier pigeons with them all the way. You've seen them, right?"     

"I've already got them all. They can't see their way at night." Maggie patted her bulging pocket. "Let's toast them tomorrow. One for you, and one for me."     

Ashes had never seen Maggie eat birds before. She sighed secretly, thinking how come the little girl became so keenly interested in toasted bird meat after having stayed in Border Town for merely a few days. "If the church received the delegation's report about what happened in the town and decided to send its troops there at once, the prince would have only one month to prepare. But now, he has at least three more months before the church reacts, with any luck... This is the gift I give him and also my revenge on the church."     

"I see. Ashes, you're such a considerate person." Maggie praised.     

In fact, Ashes had another reason for doing this, which she did not tell Maggie. By killing the whole emissary delegation, she had also pushed Roland Wimbledon to the point of no return. When the church failed to contact the emissary delegation, it would impute blame to Roland Wimbledon. At that time, he would not have any chance to betray the witches even if he wanted to.     

It was almost dawn when Ashes finished.     

"That's it. Now, time to say goodbye to each other," Ashes said to Maggie.     

"..." Maggie was surprised. "What?"     

Ashes gently touched her little head and squatted down to talk to her. "Don't you really like Border Town? You'll have a good time there with Lightning and Wendy."     

"But..." Maggie lowered her head and hesitated. "I like you and Lady Tilly, too."     

"I'm not telling you to stay in the town forever." Ashes smiled. "Roland Wimbledon isn't like Tilly. He's an ordinary nobleman after all. We can't be sure that he'll remain on our side all the time. Given that, I assign you a task now. You have to fly back to Sleeping Island every month to tell us the recent situation of the town and then bring our information to the witches of Witch Cooperation Association there. In this way, we'll stay in touch with the Witch Cooperation Association and you'll be able to guide them to the Fjords when the town and Kingdom of Graycastle are no longer a safe place for them."     

"Is it true?" Maggie blinked her eyes.     

"Yes, remember to complete your task. I trust you," Ashes nodded and said.     

After the talk, Maggie transformed into a pigeon and gradually disappeared in the morning sky. Ashes mounted a horse, heading for Port of Clearwater.