Misconceptions

After seeing the knight leave with his orders, Roland returned to the table. "If you can heal small animals, why would you still think that witches are evil?"

"The teacher said that witches can do things ordinary people can't. Sometimes it does not look bad, but this is the devil's ruse in order to lure more people..." The girl's voice lowered, "I... I've never seen the devil, I swear."

"Of course you haven't. That is just one of the church's lies, and your teacher was deceived as well," Roland comforted.

"The church lies?" Nana exclaimed, "Why?"

Roland shook his head and did not explain. Even if he tried to explain, they would still not understand. When civilization had not yet developed to a certain extent, these sort of strange things would always happen. Even without personal gain, people would automatically attribute man-made, natural disasters or any unexplainable phenomenon to the invented culprit behind the scenes—historically speaking, the blame always fell on the women.

And in this world, if witches possessed powers of unknown origin, it was even easier to become the target of the church. The church could allow for the witches to be ordained as saints by saying they were the gifts of God or the witches could be hunted, proclaiming they were the demon's advocates. However, once the former was chosen, monotheism would greatly lose its power—because the appearance of the witches had nothing to do with the church. If churches that believe in other deities also recognised the witches as saints, and everyone was the chosen one, which church's God was the true God?

The prerequisite for the coexistence of polytheism was that the gods were real and could restrict each other. Since Gods did not exist and were only hearsay icons, why should the other party share the world? So any faith would claim that they believed in the true God, and the infidels would have to be eliminated. So they could only choose the latter, to spare no effort in destroying the witches.

This was irrelevant to preference, it was all about gain.

There was a living chicken in the castle's kitchen. It was still kicking and fluttering when the knight carried it by its wings.

The next thing left Nana stunned. Roland pulled out the silver knife, and stabbed the chicken once, the knight held it in place firmly, and he let Nana treat it before he tried a different method and continued... He did this repeatedly.

When the chicken finally died, Roland had a better understanding of Nana's ability.

She could restore the damaged parts, including splits, fractures and bruises. But If the body part was completely missing, for example, after the chicken feet were cut off, she could not regenerate claws. But the broken claws could be connected if she used her ability to make the fracture intact. Finally, she could not reverse life and death. Once the chicken died, her treatment became useless.

Throughout the whole treatment, Roland did not see the "sticky water" that she described. She simply put her hand on the chicken's wound, and then it was healed at a speed visible to the naked eye. After several experiments, Nana did not deplete much energy, at least she did not sweat profusely like Anna.

Only Nana was dissatisfied, as she felt it was too much to treat the chicken like this, so she kept staring at Roland even after the experiments.

"Come on, stop staring and eat something," Roland had to resort to "summon afternoon tea" so as to divert her attention. This move had worked several times on Anna, so he assumed that many girls her age could not resist the temptation of delicious dessert. And truth be told, Nana did not fare any better than the one before her.

After eating the pastries, Roland sent Nana away. Anna asked in confusion, "Why didn't you make her stay? She's like me, we're both witches, right?"

"She still has family members, and they have not realised she is a witch."

"Anna whispered," It's just a matter of time."

"Yes, sooner or later," Roland sighed. "So anyway, the later the better. Do you... miss your father?"

She shook her head, and her eyes were like a calm lake with no ripples. It seemed that the betrayal by her father had left her completely disappointed. But even without any relatives, she still had friends.

"Nana will come often, in fact, I intend to let her come every two days to train her ability."

Hearing this, she blinked her eyes and nodded quickly.

"Do you want to go back to Karl's college with her, and learn from the other kids?"

Anna did not answer, but he felt he heard her thoughts.

"This situation won't last too long... As long as I'm here, you'll eventually live like ordinary people, and not be hunted wherever you are or sent to the gallows. This day will come, "I promise," said Roland firmly.

*******************

Since Karl Van Bate took over the project, Prince Roland immediately became idle.

He stayed in the castle garden every afternoon, practising with Anna or Nana. Now Anna's training no longer required additional clothing, even if each finger was in flames, she could skillfully operate them without lighting up her witch hat by accident.

Nana also put on a set of witch uniform. Although she was reluctant to practice, for the sake of afternoon tea, she still poutingly did so. Watching the two witches dangling in the yard, Roland's wicked humour was greatly satisfied.

Occasionally he would go to the foot of North Slope mountain to check on the progress of the project. After more than two weeks of construction, about 100 meters of the city wall had been built. In the absence of the theodolite distance measurement, Karl asked the craftsmen to use a piece of wood at the same time every day, according to the shadow of the sun, to determine the distance and flatness. At a distance of every ten wood markers, a viewing tower was set up to play a role in stabilizing the city wall.

Such large-scale employment naturally caught the attention of the town's nobility. However, other than getting some information from Barov, they made no further movement, as if the situation had nothing to do with them. Roland did not mind this. These people's family businesses were in Longsong Stronghold and would certainly not stay here to help him guard Border Town. He could even imagine the gang of people ridiculing his attempts in private.

Not just the nobility, but businessmen were the same. In previous years in Border Town, once animal fur traders realised nothing could be purchased, they also returned to Stronghold. They naturally vented their discontent about returning empty-handed, on the ruler Roland. The news about Kingdom of Graycastle's Prince Roland Wimbledon's construction before the arrival of Months of Demons, was deemed as simply stupid and ignorant. News of this spread along the Redwater River.

At this point, no one thought he could protect the town, and in fact, most people simply did not consider this a remote possibility. After all, Prince Roland did not give the impression of being a courageous fighter. Whatever he was contemplating, he would eventually have to obediently retreat to Stronghold.

And just like this, amidst discussion by the masses, Roland ushered in the first winter.