Hypothesis Interpretation

"Whether you truly wanted to persuade your sisters to live in Border Town or helping the camp to process further to the so-called holy mountain, either way, both wouldn't end well."

"If it seemed that you were trying to shake the belief of the witches in the camp, Cara would unmask herself and she would decisively trying to kill you. If you didn't have Wendy around to help, you would certainly die under Cara's snake."

"Even if you skipped the first part and you simply followed Cara to fulfill her goal, what awaited you are still something far more horrible than demonic beasts. Even if there were survivors among you, it would not be more than a fraction of what the original number was."

Roland fluently expressed, each word petrified more of Nightingale. He had time, but he preferred to use the most direct possible talk to save both time and people instead of feeling.

"Are you familiar with the word, parallel?" Roland turned around to look at Anna who had been standing with a strange expression for quite some time.

Roland didn't ask to wait for a response. He lightly dipped his right index finger to one of the filled cups and quickly took it out to make a line in an empty space in the table. He then repeated it once again where he made the next line by its side. Two lines of water droplets were of similar length to each other.

"Parallel is when two or more lines are of the same length, but the parallel is not necessary lines. It could be events, and likewise, two events could also be said parallel when it's similar to each other." Roland explained, but it only invited confusion to Nightingale. Anna, on the other hand, showed a surprising look. Seeing the contrasting reactions Roland merely smiled.

"The reason I know about the future... is because I had read the things in the line parallel of my own," Roland said slowly and concluded quite simply.

"This..." Anna didn't know what to say.

"You're telling the truth." Nightingale softly muttered, her voice trembled slightly.

"And I know you can tell." Roland laughed.

Whether the two witches believed him or understood what he was telling them, the office went quiet for a while.

Roland spent the unintended break recalling some of the thoughts that another him, the Roland he read had. Unlike him, obviously because of different circumstances, he thought he was time traveling. Not talking in depth about the possibility that a world with witches and demonic beasts was more like an exo civilization than a hidden page from the history, it was still an interesting thought to ponder.

From the political structure and even geographical location, it really resembled somewhat of old Europe. The hierarchy, the food they eat, and the way they conducted themselves were something he noted very familiar. Down the south was the Sand nation, based on the people living there and its culture, while he can't be sure just from little things he had seen, it was probably based on Africa more than western Asia.

No, actually Roland already figured out that he might not need to think that hard.

In the first place, the story of this world he read, in the end, was something he read. A fiction, so the place could be the back side of the moon for all he knew since he had yet to read till the latest. Actually, he barely touched the surface of the content now he thought about it. But since it was a fiction when he read that, it was clear that the writer back then was the God.

Then he...

To Roland's surprise, Nightingale was the first to react and broke the ice. She asked Roland, her voice was still filled with disbelief. "So you were basically telling me that you have seen the result of my future action after reading it from that parallel?"

"Yes," Roland replied with a nod, but he realized her awkward wordings and added. "Are you having trouble understanding the parallel example?"

"I'm sorry." Nightingale didn't know why but felt she had to apologize. It was similar to the past when she got to attend a professor lesson, pretending to understand, and got found out.

"I won't bite." Roland chuckled at her meek reaction, he pondered for a bit and decided to elaborate. "For you, it's actually very similar to your ability."

"My ability?" Nightingale felt she was hearing things.

"Your witch ability. You enter what you described the mist, no?" Roland smiled, not knowing it cast a dreadful sense of discomfort that was creeping all over Nightingale. "In it, you could see the world have only two colors, black and white."

Anna at the side looked at the two polar opposites, the slightly excited Roland and the increasingly afraid Nightingale. She then cast her head down and muttered under breath. "It must be like a horror story to her."

Roland didn't hear nor noticed, he was still absorbed in his own retelling of her ability. "The outline of things turn vague, straight lines would be folded and curved, it was abstract like carefree doodles by children?"

"Yes," Nightingale responded after swallowing a mouthful of saliva.

The lines were the key. As the concept of direction was not consistent, the lines would sometimes shift and overlapped, allowing her to travel unimpeded in the mist. That world inside the mist was still incomprehensible even after she had entered into it many times. But regardless of the mystery, she felt at peace inside it, nothing restrained her and since no one could saw her, no one could be a threat. She enjoyed the safe solitary.

She even felt like entering into it when she noticed Roland was about to continue.

"The mist, you could say it's a world on its own." Roland was unsure, but he was calm and happy when theory-crafting. "Your ability allow you to not only stay in our world like the rest but also enter a parallel of our world that is the mist."

"In my parallel, the world was a series of descriptions, and it extended a distance away from my starting point. Through that, I read and technically saw the future, but it's different from you. You are bounded to the present, but no space restricted you."

Nightingale gulped and responded after seeing Roland's inquiring eyes. "I understand."

Actually, she didn't really care about such complicated things. Even if she ended up not understanding it, so long she could achieve what she wanted to get from Roland. But now that he mentioned it in an easier way so that she understood, she became more inclining to accept his earlier words.

But she suddenly found an issue. And it was not just her, Anna too.

The latter didn't falter from the strange possibility in front of her and asked Roland directly. "Are you... something similar to us witches?"

"Nope, unfortunately," Roland replied with a chuckle. "I'm just a one trick pony, and I probably couldn't get an opportunity like that anymore in the future."

"Unfortunately..." His answer caught Nightingale off-guard and she blanked out for a couple of seconds.

Anna, on the other hand, was already used to his attitude towards witches and instead was more curious about his statement of pronouncing an impossibility.

"I don't know how to say it." Roland smiled bitterly. "It's something like a one-way ticket."

Should he just said that Tyre's assassination succeed and he replaced the original Wimbledon, and carrying with him was a knowledge of someone that had read the story of another people that happened to have the same name as him also replacing the original Wimbledon in a fiction he read that became really something he experienced down the line?

Nah, Roland thought he should save the reveal for another time.

Nightingale had many more questions but found out she didn't even know where to start. So she began with the simple and the most important question. "... How much do you know about the future?"

"That knowledge started from the day I saw Anna on the gallow..." Roland took a glance but found that Anna was still looking at him with her ever calm expression. He was about to smile but hastily stopping himself as his mouth continued with his answer. "And end with the retelling of the survivors of the witches cooperation association that was almost wiped out by the horrible beings I said about earlier."

"Survivors?" Nightingale felt her heart becoming erratic. "Who are they?"

"In that story, you came back to Border Town with Wendy and a newly joined young witch with the ability to fly, Lightning." He paused, for a moment he didn't know how to soften his words. In the end, he decided to come out cleanly. "You are injured and exhausted, but Wendy was in worse condition. She almost died for saving you from Cara's snake that bit her instead. Lightning went with you because she thought the place was not suitable for her, and luckily for you, with her help, you could arrive to meet Nana in time."

"You didn't come back to see the witches in the camp, as they had made their own decision while you made yours."

"As for the survivors..." Roland was recalling their names. "It's Leaf, Scroll, Hummingbird, Soraya, Echo, Lily, and Mystery Moon."

"How..." Nightingale wanted to ask how he knew the name of the sisters in the camp, but suddenly remembered the ridiculous story he just told her. Ignoring the question of the story validity, besides Lightning, the names he spoke of was really the members of their group.

"How..." Roland misinterpreted her words and instead thought she was asking how it ended up with only seven of them. He seriously recalling the story of their survival. "It was a combination of luck. The combat-able witches were taken down by the demons, while the supporting witches ran back to the camp, only to unfortunately besieged by demonic beasts and left six people plus Leaf remaining."

Nightingale naturally was able to tell whether Roland was telling the truth of his words.

"It's okay," Roland said with a gentle tone. "Those seven safely joined Border Town later."

"Only those seven," Nightingale mumbled. "How could it be like that? We have more than twenty sisters."