Release that Witch

”What do you want to know?” Azima said as she glanced at her.

”Scroll...” Wendy held her hand, looking pretty worried. If what Tilly said was true, these people did not come to Neverwinter voluntarily. Their visit was instead due to internal conflict among the witches from Sleeping Island. If this problem was not properly resolved, not only would the Witch Union be involved in the mess, but would also lose the newcomers’ trust. The would have defeated the whole point of getting the new witches to come here.

”Don’t worry,” Scroll raised one of her eyebrows and then turned to the witch who wanted to return to the Eastern Region. ”You miss your hometown, which means that you most likely weren’t abandoned by your family. Like other refugees who fled to Sleeping Island, you were forced to leave the Eastern Region under the pressure of the church. Right?”

”So what?” Azima cut in.

”Let me tell you about the current state of the Eastern Region.” Ignoring the red-haired witch’s provocation, Scroll replied indifferently, ”That area has not been fully recovered by the King ever since Garcia the Queen of Clearwater plundered Seawindshire and Valencia. The area was first devastated by the demonic plague spread by the church and was then ravaged by the army of Timothy. Farmlands in all surrounding areas are deserted, and people can’t sustain themselves. Many of those people have become refugees.”

The witch showed a troubled look but was not willing to relent. ”If we don’t go take a look ourselves, who knows whether you’re telling the truth?”

”Two years ago, His Majesty Roland started to take in those refugees. Now the population of Neverwinter has exceeded 100,000, 70% of which are from other cities, with the majority of them being refugees from the Eastern Region and the Southern Territory,” Scroll spoke calmly. ”Your family members are most likely amongst them. Can you tell me where you lived before? Name a town or a village, a specific landmark, or a local specialty.”

”Do you plan to find her family only with those clues? She wasn’t born in a big city where each street and alley has its own name and where people in the same community knew each other!”

Scroll did not reply to Azima but instead gently pushed her hair behind her ear. She looked on at that witch encouragingly like a teacher patiently waiting for an answer from her student in the class.

”My village... didn’t have a name,” after hesitating for quite a while, the witch answered in a low voice. ”There were no other villages nearby, and it was very far from Valencia, so far that if you want to sell wheat, you would have to sell them to a merchant traveling there at a meager price. This isn’t official, but some people call the village ’Sixteen.’”

”Six...teen?” Wendy echoed involuntarily.

”Because when they returned from Valencia, it’s the sixteenth village that they would pass by.”

Scroll closed her eyes and asked slowly, ”Let me see... There’s a branch of Sanwan River winding behind that village, right?”

”There’re numerous branches of Sanwan River in the Eastern Region.” Azima grunted. ”How can a village survive without a river to irrigate their farmlands?”

”But that branch is different.” Scroll waved her hand. ”It isn’t wide nor deep enough for boats to pass, and even the riverbed would show in a dry season. That’s why the villages nearby can’t transport food and supplies by ship. But the branch converges into a huge lake at the sixteenth village, which will never dry up even if the river water dried up. Because of this, the wheat in the village always grows better than those in others. Am I right?”

The witch’s eyes were wide open. ”Have you been there?”

”I heard from somebody else,” Scroll answered after a short silence. ”The one who told me this is currently in Neverwinter, but he wasn’t a resident of the Sixteenth Village.”

”What do you mean?”

”You should ask him yourself.” Scroll turned to the City Hall clerk responsible for the registration. ”Bring Watt here. His ID number is 0024578, and he’s a furnace worker. He should be recycling slags in Zone 2 at the North Slope right now.”

”Yes, Ms. Scroll.” The clerk left to carry out her order.

Half an hour later, the clerk and a ruddy man showed up in the residential area.

”I don’t know him...” The witch studied him and shook her head, denying their acquaintance.

”What else do you have to say now?” Azima sneered. ”There’re so many people in the whole Eastern Region. How can you just randomly pick one...”

”Ah, are... are you Tillan’s daughter?” The big man blurted out in excitement, paying no heed to Azima. ”Thank God, you’re still alive and have grown into a big girl!”

The witch was stunned. ”The ’Tillan’ you’re talking about... Is she my mother?”

”Who else could I be talking about? You’ve got her eyes. Especially for the mole underneath the corner of your eye, it’s identical to your mother’s!” Watt cried. ”But you’re much prettier than your mother. Hold on, you don’t remember me? Well, not that it’s your fault. You were just a little girl when I left the village. When I returned, you weren’t there anymore. She called you... Little Orchid back then, right? Tillan loved to call you names after beautiful flowers.”

”That was just a nickname when I was little...” The witch was embarrassed. ”My name is now Doris.”

”I see. Well, that’s a nice name, too. You know, when I dug trenches in the Sixteenth Village, people talked a lot about you. They all thought witches had abducted you, and...”

As Watt rambled on, Wendy started to figure out what had happened gradually. The big ruddy man had been a resident of a neighboring village next to the Sixteenth Village. Based on the naming rule, his village should be called the Fifteenth Village. As the two villages were geographically close to each other, he had kept in touch with his neighbors. As he envied his neighbors for their water source, he had traveled to Valencia to learn trench digging. After he learned the skills, Watt had returned to his village and encouraged some villagers to help him expand the lake toward the Fifteenth village. He had thus lived in the Sixteenth Village for quite a long time because of this project.

”Are my parents and elder brother... still living in the village?” Watt had apparently convinced Doris. After Watt finally finished, she asked hastily, ”Or they’ve come to the Western Region with you?”

At this moment, Scroll let out a short sigh.

The sparks in the ruddy man’s eyes seemed to fade out at that instant. He replied in a sorrowful tone, ”They didn’t make it... The second prince’s army robbed our food stock. By the time we got to the king’s city, starving and thirsty, a huge plague broke out. The nobles in the city shut us out, leaving us crying for help at the foot of the city wall. A large number of villagers from the nearby lands had died due to the nobles’ selfishness. By the time His Majesty’s rescue teams arrived, there were just a few that were still alive.” He paused for a second and said, ”Your family members... weren’t among them.”

”No...” Doris cupped her hand over her mouth. She stood transfixed for a moment before she started to sob uncontrollably.

”I’m sorry, child.” Watt instantly panicked. He wanted to comfort her but did not know what to do. In the end, he came up to the girl and patted her on the head. ”Tillan called your name over and over again before she passed away. If she knew you were still alive and well, she would definitely be happy. So... don’t cry anymore, girl.”

Doris bit her lips fiercely and nodded slightly but cried even harder after that.