Release that Witch

“Demon!” Alicia drew her two-hand-sword and stepped protectively in front of Mira.

“… Demon?” Her voice was cold, didn’t bare any emotion, “That’s the way, you call those orphans and abandoned babies who are sent to the monastery to get raised, from whom you chose your own witches?”

“What are you talking about?!” The warrioress snapped back, “The church shelters them because of God’s kindness. Without the Church’s mercy, how many of them would be able to survive until their day of adulthood? But the pervasive Devil will always corrupt the weakest of them, leading a very small number of girls astray. But as soon as it is discovered that one of them degenerated into a witch, the Church will immediately treat the fallen ones. You are totally turning the cause and effect upside down!”

Hearing the word “treat”, the golden pupil of the witch dimmed by a lot, raising her large sword with one hand she declared. “I’m not too interested in persuading a dead person anyway. So be it.”

Even before her voice had faded away, the owl spread her wings and flew into the sky, and the witches figure rushed forward. Alicia could still clearly remember how her comrades had tragically tried to defend themselves and had instead been split in two, so she decided, I will never retreat, I have to advance forward.

Facing the right-handed extraordinary, she threw herself to the lower right sight just like she had trained in her fencing lesson. Her instructor had mentioned it more than once, if the enemy is heavily relying on their right hand, the bottom right will be the most difficult position for them to reach. After all, their sword grip is limiting their movement, so if they wanted to change the direction of the blade, they would first need to spend an additional half a breath to change their grip.

Closely avoiding the beheading strike with her leopard like dive, she immediately grasped her own two-handed sword and slashed at her the moment she passed the enemy’s body. But the extraordinary reaction was too fast, with a small jump she easily avoided Alicia’s counter swept, and also simultaneously changed the direction of her greatsword.

Until now, Alicia hasn’t even landed yet.

Within a flash, the sword cut through half of her calf, with it sending blood into the sky. Sending a tearing pain throughout her whole lower body, almost making her lose her consciousness. Instinctively gritting her teeth, she was luckily strong enough not shout out on the spot from the pain.

The gap is too great.

She now understood, how hard had Abrams task been to give them so much time to escape, after all he was able to exchange ten or so moves with the extraordinary.

Alicia struggled to turn around, she was just in time to see how Mira removed a hidden hand crossbow from her back, and see her raise her hand and aim it at the body of the unaware extraordinary witch.

This is my last chance, she realized, perhaps, if I’m able to grab her attention!

But before she could even think about what she could say, a greatsword swept over with the force of a whirlwind. She then only felt her throat became tight, and then her world had turned upside down…

No, perhaps it’s I who am flying, and then, she saw how her own body was unable to support itself any longer and fell onto its knees. At the same time, she saw the owl flew over in the direction of Mira. Turning into a girl in midair and severely hitting the official… Afterward, Alicia line of sight quickly began to blur, as she finally hit the ground, falling into a boundless darkness.

…

“That damned stone!” Maggie touched her head while complaining out loud, “You were too careless, if it wasn’t for my help just then, you would have been hit by that crossbow’s arrow!”

“Rest assured, I had already noticed, I was just intending to end this quickly,” using her sword, Ashes quickly dug out a shallow pit. And after plundering their bodies she then immediately threw them into the pit and covered it once more with mud. By putting the plundered God’s Stone of Retaliation and gold royals into her own bag, she now had enough money on her to pay for her way to the Port of Clearwater.

On the body of the woman who had worn the robe she had also found a letter, roughly skimming over it, she had discovered that the contest of the letter only became relevant if Roland Wimbledon, Lord of the Western Territory, was not collaborating with the witches. In this case they had offered to buy baby girls and orphans from him, exactly as they had done previously with Duke Ryan. As long as the woman were still minors they would buy all of them, and also pay the regular “market” price. Furthermore, they could also help him if he wanted to be paid with pills.

Reading the letter Ashes began to sneer in disgust, placing it over the torch to lit it up, burning it one and all.

“Come on, we have still some other bodies left to bury.”

“Goo.” Maggie changed into an owl, then guided Ashes back to the site of their first attack.

Digging, carrying, burying the men… Unable to help with this physically strenuous tasks, Maggie wasn’t too busy. In addition, seeing the disabled limbs, the cut off arms and smelling the air that was reeking of blood made her all feel a little dizzy. So, she was now sitting on a branch, watching how as Ashes kept herself busy.

“For what reason was it so important for you yourself to do this? Wouldn’t it be bad if the Church finds out they are dead?”

“By the time they discover that their messenger group has disappeared, it will already be two or three months later,” Ashes explained, still using her sword as shovel,

“When they usually send out an envoy to investigate a witch incident, in the event that the Lord is cooperating with them, the investigation will still last much longer than one month, in addition to the time they will need to return, it would usually take them almost two or three months long.”

“But His Royal Highness wouldn’t have cooperated with them!”

“As long as you allow the messenger into the Town, the Witch Cooperation Association will be exposed. They don’t need to ask the Prince himself, the can just randomly grab hold of some people from the street and after torturing them they will soon know the answer. So, Roland is only left with two options, either selling off the witches and saying that he has nothing to do with them or kill the envoys by himself. But if the other side was to plan for something like that in advance, as long as even one of them was able to escape. Hermes would soon receive a message about it. After all, they are also carrying messenger pigeons with them.

“Pigeons can’t see the road at night, so I was be able to catch all of them,” Maggie said, patting her bulging pockets, “Just wait until tomorrow, we can go roast and eat them.”

Ashes was secretly shaking her head, previously she had never seen Maggie eat a bird, but now, after the first few days in Border Town, she had actually developed a strong interest in them.

“The moment the Church decides to dispatch their army, he will only have one month left, but for now, as long as his luck is not too bad, he will be able to last for three more months… So, this is the gift I promised him, at the same time I also got my revenge on the Church.”

“So that was the reason, really worthy of you, sister Ashes,” Maggie praised.

There was still something Ashes still didn’t say, with her killing them, Ashes had made the decision for the Prince, and when the Church finds out that they had lost contact with the envoys, they would certainly blame Roland Wimbledon for it. With this, he wouldn’t even get a chance to sell off the witches.

When everything had finally been properly put in order, the horizon had already begun to turn white.

“With this, it’s now time for us to part,” Ashes said.

“…” Maggie didn’t understand what she meant, “What?”

Ashes stepped in front of Maggie, squatted down and touched her small head, “You want to live in Border Town, don’t you? Here you have Lightning and Wendy, so you will certainly be very happy.”

“But…” Maggie lowered her head, a look of hesitation written on her face, “I also like you and Lady Tilly.”

“It’s not the case that you will have to be here all the time,” Ashes laughed, “Roland Wimbledon, unlike Tilly, is an ordinary aristocrat, so it’s hard to be sure that he will always be on the side of us witches. So, your mission will be to fly back once a month, telling us everything that has happened in Border Town. Furthermore, you can also bring our messages to the witches of the Witch Cooperation Association, this way our two sides can establish regular contact. If the town is ever in any danger, you can also help them escape from the Kingdom and Graycastle and move to the Fjords.”

“It’s like that, is it!” Maggie blinked unsure of what to say.

“Yes, it is,” Ashes nodded. “I’m convinced that you can accomplish this.”

Seeing Maggie turning into a pigeon and gradually disappearing with the first rays of the morning sun, Ashes turned around, mounted a horse, and advanced in the direction of the Port of Clearwater.