Release that Witch

Four days later, the merchant fleet set sails leaving the docks.

Theo and one hundred members of the First Army went along with the ship, setting out to King’s City.

During these days, Roland and Margaret had come to an agreement, Theo could come to her shop to request any amount of gold royals. The amount would then be deducted from the price of the steam engines, in addition, Roland also needed to pay an additional one percent of interest.

This time the amount of saltpeter and ore was two times that of the previous transport, but with the deposit for the transformation of steamboats, Roland had still received more than 2200 gold royals. Which was a monthly sales income Ronald almost wouldn’t even dare to dream of during the Months of Demons – even by selling one month of ore, he would also only have gotten an income of three hundred gold royals.

When the caravan had left, Maggie’s day for temporally leaving Border Town had also arrived.

In accordance with the agreement made with Ashes, she would travel to the islands in the Fjords, bringing them news about the West.

Roland wrote an especially long letter which Maggie had to take along. In addition to expressing his wish for cooperation, he hoped that the 5th Princess could dispatch some auxiliary witches who could come and help him. In the letter, he did not address himself as her brother but as the Lord of Border Town and now after killing Duke Ryan, Lord of the Western Territory. Although the possibility that the other side would go along with his requests was minuscule, he still wanted to give it a try – anyway, spending some time writing a few more words wasn’t an effort at all.

The farewell took place in the castle’s backyard, all of the witches were present.

Nightingale gave her a small bag of dried fish; while Lightning gave her a package of ground pepper.

The other witches were also reluctant to part, they all stepped forward to caress and stroke her feathers, and hugged her goodbye – acting the same as if it was time for a battle and they could be parted forever.

“Rest assured, goo,” Maggie said, raising her head. “I’ll be back soon, goo!”

“What if Tilly does not allow you to come back?” Lightning asked worriedly.

“Goo…” The pigeon shrank her neck and pondered over it for a while, then shook her feathers. “In that case, I’ll just sneak back, goo!”

“Then we have come to an agreement,” the little girl promised earnestly,

“If you come back, I’ll personally catch a bunch of birds and roast them for you to eat. There is also the honeycomb we discovered last time; I will wait for you to come back so that we can pull it out together.”

“Goo!” She nodded again and again, “has reached an agreement goo!”

What good words could I say? Roland standing at the side was also overtaken with emotion. It has only been a month, but Maggie has already become one of us. Well done, Lighting!

“Well, Good-bye everyone goo!” Maggie flapped her big wings, after running a few steps she slowly rose up, circled them two times then gradually disappeared into southeastern horizon.

“She will reach the island smoothly.” When Roland saw the small point slowly disappear, he couldn’t help but worry about her.

“Yes, there won’t be any problems,” Lightning agreed without hesitation, then crooked her head, “there shouldn’t be… right?”

After sending Maggie away, Roland quickly went back inside, busying himself with the daily work.

This time, he wanted to draw the complete set of plans for the conversion of the two ships for the Crescent Moon Bay Caravan – they would be the world’s first steam-powered paddle-ships.

Due to them using a single power source, it was not needed to change the trunk, directly connecting the steam powered paddle to the wheel. Using some roots to control the intake of the air pipeline, and with that also controlling the ship. To slow or stop the boat, it would only be needed to close the inlet pipe, while the excess steam would leak from the exhaust port. During the stopping procedure, the fire would still continue to burn, making it very easy to drive forward again.

The principle behind the plan wasn’t complicated, so Roland was able to draw out a rough model fairly quickly. In case he wanted to get an accurate production drawing, he would have to go to the dock to measure the precise size of the boats.

At this time, Anna entered the office, carrying a book.

“What’s going on?” Roland put the goose writing brush down while being unable to restrain a smile.

“I finished this book,” with this words she put the book with the title “Theoretical Foundation of Natural Science” down on his desk.

Seeing this, Roland’s smile suddenly became somewhat stiff; this was simply too exaggerated! Just within a few months, she was able to read the complete mathematical and physical knowledge of high school level? He didn’t even need to ask if his counterpart had understood everything, because when Anna spoke of reading she meant complete understanding, or she would certainly take another look, or simply come to ask him.

“Are you drawing the blueprints for replacing the sail with a steam engine as a power source?” Anna’s attention was quickly attracted to the sketch laying on the table, “But…”

“But what?”

“Are these two wheels similar to rowing puddles? When they rotate, they can produce a pushing force, but half of them are exposed, which is a huge waste of power. So why not just completely immerse them in the water?”

“…” Roland stared at her with his mouth wide open, not knowing how to reply. Since people who are born with knowledge do not exist, does that mean, that just by looking at the scratches she was able to make this judgment within these few moments? Thinking about this possibility suddenly rose his interest, “Then can you tell me how you would improve it?”

For a moment Anna pondered about it, then she raised the brush and began to draw on the paper.

Roland supported his chin with his hand while appreciating with keen interest her carefully drawing attempt – her bangs fastened with his hair clip swayed back and forth with her every move. Her long slender eyelashes beat twice and her white cheeks revealed a natural rosy tint to them. Although, from this angle he could only see the side of her face, but in contrast to the bright background, her profile from the bridge of her nose to her chin and on to the neck formed a perfect and gentle curve.

“Do you want to eat some fish?” Nightingale scrambled over and put her hands between the two.

“En,” Anna nodded and took the offered snack. “Thank you.”

When his line of sight was blocked, Roland coughed twice and then had to look back to those paintings on the desk once more.

Initially, Anna had tried to completely embedded the wheel in the water. However, this way meant it would become difficult to observe the wheel’s position when it came close to the shore, making it easy for it to hit the pier or the dock.

She then put the wheel at the back end of the ship – which was the standard practice, but with this the transmission setting became much more complex, after all, the bulky steam engine was not suitable to be placed at the end of the hull. In that way, the drive shaft and gearbox would end up occupying quite a huge part of the hull.

When Roland saw drawings of her newest concept, he once again couldn’t help himself from exclaiming in admiration for his counterparts keen thinking capability.

The sketch Anna was currently considering came infinitesimally close to the single-axis propeller layout; the steam engine was set at the bottom of the hull and the drive shaft extended out of the hull to below the waterline. To its end, she had connected four square blades, which gave it an appearance that was similar to a windmill.

“I do not know if it can be done this way,” she hesitated. “but, it’s reasonable to say that by keeping the paddle at tilt, it can produce horizontal pushing force. However, by reducing the wheel to our blades, I do not know if it can generate enough power to move the ship.”

“Of course it would be possible, it just needs a slight modification.” Roland took the quill out of Anna’s hand, and draw the propeller’s original design, “Compared to a windmill shape, this shape of the blade is more suitable for rotating within the water. Your train of thought is entirely correct, but the contractual requirement is to transform the ship into a paddler, so we will still keep with the first method – this has nothing to do with technology, it is simply a business strategy.” He paused and then asked,” I’m going to measure the hull, do you want to come with me? ”

Anna blinked her blue eyes, “Uh-huh!”

Mastering the theory and then putting it into practice, is the best way to learn.

…

“Nightingale?”

When Anna followed the Prince to the door, she saw that Nightingale was still looking at those blueprints on the table, making it unable for her to not open her mouth.

“Ah, you can go first, I’ll come around immediately.”

While holding the sketches in her hand Nightingale repeatedly compared them, coming to the conclusion: Didn’t they just change the position where the wheel is placed?