Release that Witch

Lorgar stared at the circles drawn by Andrea on the ground for a good while before she voiced out her thoughts. ”But if you want to keep this circulation going, you’ve got to keep investing money... so, there’s still a large amount of wealth that isn’t in the hands of the great chief.”

”That’s it... This is what makes His Majesty different from all those other nobles, and it took me a while before I could figure out this point.” Andrea then drew a larger circle around the small circles. ”From the very beginning, he’s regarded the entire Graycastle as his own domain. Given that, no matter which city accumulates the wealth, it still belongs to him.”

”But he’s the king, so shouldn’t it be natural for him to think that way?”

Andrea retorted, ”When Wildflame was the strongest clan, were you able to lord over clans in the Silver Stream Oasis? I’m guessing you couldn’t even control the other clans inside Iron Sand City. It’s the same for the Four Kingdoms. The nobles are like your clan chiefs. They won’t let anyone else intervene in the affairs of their land and neither would they consider any other noble’s domain as their homeland.”

”...” Lorgar remained silent for a while. ”We can’t control our subjects simply by thinking them ours.”

”Yes. You’re much smarter than Ashes. Stay away from her in the future or your brain will be slowly filled with mud, like hers.” Andrea patted Lorgar’s shoulder. ”The key lies in the combination of military might and the implementation of His Majesty’s policies. The former can discourage the nobles from having any second thoughts, while the latter will gradually help to centralize the kingdom’s power. This is a brilliant innovation. What’s even more amazing, is that the king had already put this into practice since the beginning. Only having stayed in Neverwinter for so long can I now recognize the intricacies of this plan.”

”It’s indeed a bit... complicated.” Lorgar scratched her head, and she was a bit surprised. She never expected that this blonde-haired girl who usually distanced herself from the others would answer her question so enthusiastically and in such great detail. Her guess was that Andrea might have been eagerly looking forward to sharing her findings and thoughts with someone else, but had failed to find a person to talk to.

”Of course, politics is 10,000 times more complicated than fighting.” said Andrea, proudly, ”and that’s just one part. The other part is that the king is going to acquire more than just wealth—he’ll also have you guys. ”

”Us?”

”This principle is much simpler. When Mojin immigrants get food and houses through working for the king, they would become part of this circulation. You’ll gradually get used to this lifestyle of using your wages to buy all kinds of goods and comforts produced by Graycastle. In the end, you’ll never be able to stop living in this kind of a comfortable manner and will eventually become a genuine citizen of the kingdom.”

Andrea impaled the wooden stick into the ground, wiped her hands clean, and stood up. ”This is inevitable. The oases are shrinking, and the survival of the Mojin clans are being threatened. Under this circumstance, the king has offered you a way to survive without fighting each other for water, so more and more Mojins will choose to leave the desert. Meanwhile, there are many deserted lands lying in the Southern Territory. It’s only natural for the king to bring the Mojin people there to reclaim those lands—and create wealth for him.”

She paused for a moment and asked, ”Now do you understand? By doing so, 20 years later, His Majesty Roland will not only get all the Blackwater that he desires but also an accumulated wealth as well as most of the Mojins of the Southernmost Region. Do you still think that buying Blackwater from the Iron Sand City would be a better option?”

Lorgar did not answer but instead faintly felt her heartache. As compared to the answer itself, what shook her more was Andrea’s attitude—She believed that Andrea revealed all the reasons behind the king’s arrangements probably not out of trust, but because no Mojin could reverse this situation.

Lorgar admired this intelligent blonde witch who could actually figure out the king’s true intentions. However, she respected the great chief himself even more. He always thought of the bigger picture and was able to become an irreplaceable figure in his subjects’ hearts through meticulous planning. Not to mention his revolutionizing ideas. She believed that if he had been born in Iron Sand City, he would have definitely become an outstanding warrior.

Perhaps he was the example she should chase after.

”Thank you for your guidance, I feel my fighting skills have been further enhanced!” Lorgar said while making a fist.

”My pleasure, as long as you can understand... wait, what? Did you just say fighting skills?”

”Yes. I’ll go practice now, so please excuse me.” Lorgar said before she turned around without a moment to spare and hurriedly ran for a nearby dune. There just happened to be an open and gravelly ground that was suitable for combat training.

”So you turned out to be just like Ashes... an idiot.”

After running for more than a hundred steps, the Wolf Girl still could hear Andrea call her an idiot, but the blonde witch did not sound as cold as she had been before.

A week later, Echo informed Lorgar that the Wildflame clan had officially decided to move to the Southern Territory. As agreed by both parties, this immigration plan would be carried out in three phases to reduce Graycastle’s burden, and the lands the clan was granted with were the most fertile fields near the estuary in the old town, which were located between Clearwater Bay and the port.

The whole migration process would last more than a year, and the first batch of immigrants would arrive in several weeks. In order to properly settle the former ruling clan, the Osha Princess, who was missing Neverwinter the most, volunteered to extend her stay in the Port of Clearwater. Her decision was approved by the king, but Ashes, Andrea and Hummingbird would still leave as planned, taking ”The Roland” to the Western Region.

As for whether Lorgar would leave with the witches or stay behind to wait for her clan, Echo allowed her to choose for herself.

The Wolf Girl did not think twice before she chose to leave with Ashes.

She believed that her father and brother could properly handle inter-clan affairs without her. The Southern Territory was no longer a place where survival opportunities needed to be won by force and duels. In this place, even small clans could manage to get their stomachs full, not to mention the Wildflame clan. More importantly, she did not want to cause any misunderstanding by meeting them shortly after she abandoned her right of succession. As she had to leave sooner or later, she decided to leave earlier with the witches.

The things about Neverwinter and the Witch Union which she heard from Ashes and Andrea, filled her heart with wild expectations. Be it the legendary combat witches, the formidable enemies in the wilderness hiding under the cloak of the Red Mist, the great chief who did not have enough strength to strangle a chicken(according to Ashes), she looked forward to meeting them all.

The next day, Echo sent them on to the steel ship with a smile.

Standing on the deck, Lorgar felt that those large Concrete Boats were nothing as compared to this steady steel ship. The amount of metal used to build the hull for this ship might already exceed that of all the Mojins’ weapons and armors. With mixed feelings in her heart, she held the railing on the deck and dropped her fluffy ears as she nodded to Echo to say goodbye.

With a deep whistle from its horn, ”The Roland”, carrying the witches and Princess Lorgar of the Wildflame clan, slowly but steadily sailed towards the Western Region.