Release that Witch

”Hey, Roland...” Nightingale’s voice jerked Roland out of his thoughts. ”Are you OK?”

”Er, is anything wrong?” Roland said after a clearing throat.

”You were staring at that paper for a good several minutes, and you don’t look very well either. Terrible news?”

”No, I hope that I am wrong,” Roland said while shaking his head and briefly recounted his theory. ”If that was the truth, what a dismal world we’re living in.”

Another problem that alarmed Roland was how short their lives were. One life cycle was just a fleeting second compared to the history of this planet that stretched thousands of years before the emergence of lifeforms.

Where had human beings and demons been when the radiation people and the tablet men had fought furiously for their survival?

If the Battle of Divine Will was unending, then how does one win?

No matter how fierce the battle had been, there should have been a winner in the end.

Why had both parties disappeared?

Roland suddenly regarded this battle with a sense of evil foreboding.

”I see...” Nightingale mumbled thoughtfully. ”But even if you’re right, I think there’s still a solution.”

Roland looked toward her in surprise and asked, ”What solution?”

”Well, I have to make it clear first. I’m not Anna, so it may be just some random crazy idea. Don’t you laugh at me, alright?”

”I won’t,” Roland promised.

Nightingale shoved a piece of dried fish into her mouth and said, ”First of all, you have to admit that this is going to be a problem that will take at least two generations. So the most important task now was to pass on the information until the time is right.”

”Right... that’s true,” Roland said, nodding. ”Then what?”

”That’s it.”

”Huh?” Roland gaped.

”Because by that time, this battle will have nothing to do with us,” Nightingale replied matter-of-factly. ”We can only live once and already have so much to worry about in this life. Why do we want to let something that will only happen after we die bother us now? Whether our descendents would succeed or not and how they are going to do that are their problems. There’s no point of us doing their jobs for them.”

Roland could not help grinning. So, was Nightingale comforting him? Anyway, this solution was straightforward, simple and overall, very Nightingale-ish.

”Are you gloating over my shortsightedness?” Nightingale demanded while squinting her eyes at Roland.

”No,” Roland denied and immediately put on a straight a face. ”That was very incisive.”

”Hmm, that sounds more or less right,” Nightingale said with satisfaction as she held her head a little higher. ”If you fear our descendents couldn’t do a good job, ask the other races for help.”

”How?”

”Reconstruct the ruin and record the Battle of Divine Will as this is another way to pass on information. Didn’t you find out the existence of the radiation people and tablet men from the murals in the Temple of the Cursed? Build some underground fortresses in Graycastle and carve the wall to inform the later generations who participate in the war. If time permits, I believe there will be one or two races figuring out what they should do.”

Roland was momentarily stunned at Nightingale’s insight. Even if human beings were exterminated in the end, they could still preserve their culture and civilization in an alternate way. If some race in the future managed to terminate the endless wars with the help of this information, they would definitely carve a glorious place for humanity in their history.

Perhaps, Nightingale herself didn’t even realize how important this was for the future generations.

After a long silence, Roland shook his head in amusement, poured her a glass of Chaos Drink, and said, ’I’m very impressed with your idea. I didn’t expect you to think this far ahead.”

”I don’t need to hear the latter half of your comment,” Nightingale said defiantly and snatched up the glass.

Roland admitted that if he failed, this would be his last resort. Although, personally, he would rather be the recorder of history than the history itself.

He then summoned Sean and asked him to send the stones in the package to Celine before he commenced his work. In the afternoon, Graycastle greeted a person Roland had been longing to see for a long time.

He met Camilla Dary, the butler of the Sleeping Island, in the castle.

To Roland’s surprise, Camilla did not came with Tilly. Travel-strained from head to toe, Camilla looked particularly disheveled.

This indicated that she went straight to the castle after the ship disembarked.

It was apparently not a good sign.

”Did you just get here?” Roland asked as he poured a cup of tea for Camilla. ”You’ve had a long journey. How was Thunder’s exploration?”

Camilla drained the cup and nearly choked in her cup. ”S-something went wrong at the Shadow Islands. Joan...Joan disappeared!”

”Disappeared?” Roland echoed, his heart sank rapidly, and he exchanged a dark look with Nightingale. ”What happened exactly? Slow down. Tell me what happened.”

...That was what happened.” It took Camilla half an hour to finish her story. ”We floated on the sea for two days, but Joan didn’t come back. Thunder said only you would know what happened to Joan undersea. Are those floating pillars and the distorted space real?”

”This is incredible!”

Roland rubbed his forehead in a painful sort of way. The more he probed into this world, the stranger it turned out to be. The bizarre phenomena in the Dream World had already confused him a lot, and it appeared the real world was equally mysterious.

The lengthened stone pillars and fishes did not seem to be a result of external forces, the evidence to which was that neither Camilla nor Joan had experienced excruciating pain when Joan’s fingers had elongated.

Both of them were physically fine.

The only possibility Roland could think of was that the space was distorted in the depth of the ocean.

Although it sounded pretty outlandish and there was not a shred of evidence to support his theory, Roland knew he had to provide some reasonable explanation to Camilla. The fact that Camilla directly sought him for advice instead of Tilly showed that she was worried about Joan’s safety. From her bloodshot eyes, Roland judged that she had not slept well for the past few days. Perhaps, she was not only concerned about Joan but also blamed herself for Joan’s disappearance.

So, he had to say something.

Roland had seen even stranger things before, such as a Sealine perpendicular to the horizon, so a distorted space would not be as nearly peculiar as the former.

He mopped his forehead fidgetedly and spoke at long last, ”I think Thunder was right.”

Camilla instantly held up her head and asked, ”Do you also think Joan’s still alive?”

”Yes, and she’s probably now to the east of the Sealine.”

”So, she transported herself somewhere thousands of miles away? Is that... possible?”

”That’s only my guess here, but one thing is certain, that the water level of the Shadow Waters did drop, right? The change in the water level even impacts the tides at the Fjord Islands, which indicates that it’s a great amount of water we’re talking about here. So, where did the seawater go?” Roland said more to himself than Camilla as he picked up a quill and drew a circle on a piece of paper. ”I gather they went to the east of the Sealine.”

Camilla thought for a while and said, ”Thunder did say that the seawater near the Sealine were heading westward.”

”Because if the water didn’t go there, the Swirling Sea would have dried out after two or three tidal cycles,” Roland said as he drew another circle several inches apart from the first one. ”The question is, if the water was transported from one place to another, the tidals should have come at intervals. However, in fact, the water currents are moving continuously. To make this happen, the water must go through these two circles at almost the same time. So, what’s the fastest way to travel from one circle to another?”

Camilla ran her finger on the area between the two circles with uncertainty and asked tentatively, ”Go straight?”

”In theory, yes,” Roland said as he drew a straight line, ”but there’s another possibility.” He then folded the paper, and then the two circles overlapped. ”In this way, the water can get to the other side almost instantly.”

Camilla gasped, ”How... how can that be possible?”

”It is weird, but magic itself isn’t something science can explain. For example, Nightingale can transport herself from one place to another in a second and walk through solid walls, which is not something common sense can explain either.”

”...” Camilla fell silent.

”Also, although it’s now just a hypothesis, one thing you mentioned is quite interesting,” Roland said as he thrust the quill through the circles. ”You see that this quill has traveled from the front to the back. However, in reality, it traveled in a straight line. So, back to the fish. If the fish traveled thousands of miles within a second, what would you see?”

Camilla muttered uncertainly, ”It... shrank?”

”Correct. Things that are far away always look significantly smaller than those close to you. Therefore, the fish didn’t elongate. The reason you saw it being stretched was that its body had been thousands of miles away from you.”

”Oh...” Camilla heaved a deep sigh and looked much more relieved. ”If the other side is also the ocean, Joan should be able to survive.”

Roland nodded.

”Thank you...” Camilla said weakly then suddenly swung sideways and fell to the floor.

Nightingale caught her just in time.

”She must have been worn out.”

”Take her to the Witch Building. I’ll let Tilly know.”

”Yup,” Nightingale said as she carried Camilla under the crook of her arm and vanished into the Mist.