I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution

At the border between the Kingdom of Shaluo and the Britian Empire

A squad of Shaluo soldiers, under the cover of night, drove a carriage draped in black cloth to a location near the border. They were clever enough not to advance any further and instead stopped on the spot.

This place was still about 800 kilometers away from their target, Boster City, but that was already sufficient.

As the black cloth covering the carriage was lifted, one of the soldiers asked curiously, “Hey, I say, what kind of weapon is hidden in this carriage? Releasing it here can hit Boster?”

“Don’t talk nonsense. It’s not about hitting—it’s about killing. What’s inside is a living monster!” Another soldier, seemingly recalling something, turned slightly pale.

“Hah, stop bragging. Boster City has over a hundred thousand people, and nearly twenty thousand troops stationed there. Just one thing going over—people could drown it in spit.”

“You… anyway, you’ll understand when you see it. This was a gift from the goblins to our prince. His Highness was very satisfied.” The soldier felt displeased at being accused of bragging, but since he himself didn’t fully understand, he let it go.

The inner and outer layers of black cloth were both removed, revealing the true form of the carriage compartment. The material of the compartment was no different from ordinary wood, but it was almost entirely covered in densely packed silver rune inscriptions.

The complex silver patterns overlapped layer upon layer, making anyone who looked at them feel irritated and unsettled, as if they possessed a special ability to disturb the mind.

The soldier who had been laughing earlier was quite bold. After unlocking the chains on the door, he directly opened it and leaned his head inside, wanting to see the monster’s true form.

Inside the dim carriage, a petite figure sat curled in the corner, arms wrapped around her knees, head buried. She wore no shoes, and her delicate, snow-white little feet were exposed in the air.

A flash of heat appeared in the soldier’s eyes. He didn’t think she looked like a monster at all—this was clearly a cute little loli.

He let out a strange laugh. “Heheh, little cutie, why aren’t you wearing shoes? Aren’t your feet cold? Come here to uncle—uncle will warm them with his mouth.”

Hearing the voice, the petite figure slowly raised her head from between her knees. On her fair and delicate face, a pair of watery black vertical pupils looked at the soldier in confusion, while a pair of black cat ears atop her head twitched back and forth.

The surrounding soldiers, hearing his strange tone, also gathered over curiously to see what was going on. Seeing that it was just a harmless-looking little loli, they too began to laugh strangely.

None of them noticed that the silver rune inscriptions on the exterior of the carriage were rapidly fading away.

A faint red light gradually lit up within the girl’s black vertical pupils, instantly spreading to cover her entire eyes.

Her tightly pressed lips suddenly opened wide, revealing serrated, razor-sharp teeth. Before the first soldier could react, her cheeks split apart as she bit down on his head.

With a ‘crack,’ brain matter splattered everywhere. The four soldiers watching nearby were splashed and immediately fell backward onto the ground, wailing in terror, while the sound of gulping echoed clearly.

The horrifying scene of her gnawing through a skull alive had nearly scared their souls out of their bodies. Their limbs went weak as they trembled, trying to get up and flee.

With a creaking sound from the carriage, a blood-red figure appeared at the doorway. There was no longer any cat-girl loli—only a cat-shaped monster formed from blood-colored threads, holding the still-twitching corpse of the soldier in its mouth.

Soon, the corpse stopped twitching and shriveled at a speed visible to the naked eye. Finally, it fell to the ground and shattered into a pile of powder, leaving behind only an intact set of armor and a helmet missing a large chunk at the top.

“My god!!!”

“Help!”

“Kill it! Draw your swords!”

Before they could make any further moves, a series of ‘puchi’ sounds rang out, and the scene fell silent. The giant cat lifted its head, sniffed the air, and flew toward the direction where the scent was strongest.

Behind it, several mummified corpses skewered on its tail dropped to the ground under gravity.

In Boster City, the city lord tossed and turned restlessly in bed. Beside him, his wife gently patted his back in comfort. “I know you’re annoyed by those wretches outside the city, but you still need to rest well if you want the energy to deal with them.”

The city lord complained, “Sigh, who knows what that little prince is thinking—he insisted on driving so many people out. With just a word from him, all of us city lords have to run ourselves ragged.”

“Tens of thousands of beastmen are gathered outside the city, with no food or water. Who knows when they’ll start attacking the gates? How am I supposed to sleep?”

The city lord’s wife covered her mouth and smiled. “You’re worrying too much. Do they even have the guts to attack the city? That’s a capital crime. If anything, it would be better if they did attack—it would make things easier to deal with.”

The city lord cast her a sidelong glance, a hint of disdain flashing in his eyes.

“Easy for you to say. If tens of thousands of starving beastmen really fight to the death, my twenty thousand troops would lose at least thirty percent. Are you going to have your family pay for the compensation?”

Did she think killing them was as simple as slaughtering pigs? He wasn’t afraid of regular armies, nor of organized uprisings.

Formations were easy to deal with. What troubled him were these unorganized, aimless masses—because no one could predict what they might do.

Moreover, the saying that a desperate army fights best wasn’t baseless. As the lord of a major border city and a marquis, his soldiers were all his trusted subordinates. Losing even ten or eight would pain him deeply—was he insane enough to smash gold against stone? Not only was it dirty, it was also revolting.

Knock knock…

“City Lord, something’s happened! General Valak requests your presence in the meeting room immediately.”

Hearing this, the city lord hurriedly got out of bed and began dressing, grumbling, “Great, you jinxed it. I don’t care—your family has to cover at least half the cost!”

“Alright, alright, just go.”

But when the city lord finished dressing and arrived at the meeting room, he saw no one there. His heart skipped a beat, and he quickly ran toward the city walls. Could the attack have already begun?

Standing atop the gate tower, General Valak listened to the piercing screams echoing from outside the city, his expression extremely grim. Seeing the city lord arrive in haste, he didn’t bother greeting him and instead instructed the messenger officer beside him, “Keep casting illumination spells. We must find the enemy.”

Only then did he turn to the city lord. “Marquis, something is wrong. Please immediately gather all your personal guards and soldiers!”

“What happened?”

Valak shook his head. “I don’t know. We can’t see anything. But through detection spells, the life sources outside are disappearing rapidly.”

A mage’s detection spell directly sensed a person’s life energy and was extremely precise. The disappearance of life sources meant that people were dying. Normally, there was no need to use it, since the outside of the city had always been packed with refugees—scanning would be no different from not scanning at all.

But now it was different. With each update of the scan, an area that had been filled with life signals one second would turn completely blank the next. It was deeply terrifying.

Faced with such a situation, Valak did not dare to rashly send his own men out to investigate. No matter what kind of danger it was, the sturdy city walls, covered in various magic arrays and rune formations, always provided a greater sense of security.

The city lord responded decisively, “Alright, I’ll follow your lead. I’ll go right now.”