Release that Witch

In fact, there was more than one of those rats, so once again, Iron Axe stood in front of a man they had captured and looked at him expressionlessly, “You are the third person who’s tried to escape by jumping off the ship, the refugees also told us that you haven’t come from the Eastern Region. So, what will be your important last words, will it be a confession?”

The two people who had previously been caught, after using a dagger to cut off a finger, of both of them immediately confessed their origins and purpose in coming. Of course, their corpses were still thrown into the canal afterwards, since Iron Axe had never been a person who had a soft-heart. His experience of struggling for survival in Iron Sand City was that when dealing with an enemy that was hiding the head and showing the tail, the best response was to cut off one exposed limb after the other. However, what surprised him was that the prisoner with his after being pushed down on his knees and getting his hands tied to his back, still looked very healthy, nothing like those other sick people.

Is it possible that some other faction has sent him here to die?

“I’m not your enemy,” were his first words when he opened his mouth, and directly stared into Iron Axe’s eyes. “My name is Hill Fawkes, Theo should know my name!“

…

At this time Theo still hadn’t left the dock. After being called, he came over to Iron Axe, looked at Hill Fawkes, and said: “This man is one of the people who belong to Black Hammer.”

“So, he isn’t your man?” Iron Axe confirmed.

“He has nothing to do with me; he is a street rat who only recently joined.”

“You deceived Black Hammer and also the Skeleton Fingers,” Hill suddenly opened his mouth and shouted, “You are not working for Timothy, but rather the Lord of the Western Territory, His Highness Roland Wimbledon!”

“He knows too much,” Theo said as he made a slicing gesture across his neck to Iron Axe. “The best place for this man is the canal.”

Hill, to stop his death, proclaimed: “I have heard everything the mercenary announced, I believe we can cooperate! I am willing to work for His Royal Highness Roland!”

“His Highness does not need the allegiance of a street rat,” Iron Axe said as he pulled out his sword.

“I am not a street rat, I am… I’m a citizen of King’s City! I’m Timothy’s enemy!” Hill cried.

“Wait,” Theo called Iron Axe to stop and went over to Hill. The latter raised his head and looked fearlessly into the guard’s eyes, with eyes which seemed to burn.

So… This was what I saw in his eyes at the first time, but wasn’t able to understand at the time, Theo thought. His eyes were full of hatred, and the hatred was so intense that even as he was deliberately trying to conceal it, he could not completely cover his burning anger.

“Tell me what it is you want to do for His Highness.”

“It is true that I lived in the northern district of the city and that I occasionally went to the Covert Trumpeter to get a drink, but I didn’t lose all my possession because of gambling. Furthermore, my wife also didn’t run away with someone else…” Hill gnashed his teeth, “The truth is, it was Timothy who caused her death!”

The story really wasn’t that complicated, which allowed Theo to quickly come to understand the sequence of the events.

He and his wife originally were members of the “Dove and Cylinder” an acrobatic troupe, who often performed in King’s City’s inner city. The acrobatic troupe wasn’t that big; they only had seven members, and the atmosphere between them has always been very harmonious. His wife was the only woman in the group, and had also been unanimous pursued by everyone. But in the end, Hill became the victor, finally winning her heart. Afterward, their married life was very sweet, and not much later the both of them had saved enough to buy a house in the inner city. But all this was destroyed by Timothy’s witch-hunting operation. Under Langley’s leadership, the patrol acted like a bunch of mad dogs, recklessly capturing those under suspicion, and his wife just happened to be one of those who had been unfortunate enough to be captured.

Hill Fawkes had thought that as long as he paid the ransom money, he could get his wife released, or if that proved impossible at least see her face to face. However, even though the prison warden accepted the ransom, not only did he not release her, he even refused his request to let him enter the jail and see her. He only tried appeasing him by saying that he only had to wait a while until they confirmed that his wife wasn’t a witch, and she would naturally be set free afterwards. So when the warden informed him that he should come to the jail to get his wife, he never expected that the situation would take a sharp turn for the worse, leaving him to find the scarred corpse of his wife.

When Hill angrily went to Langley to demand an explanation, the final result was, the prison head and his guards had merely been sentenced to ten lashes, and received a fine of twenty-five silver royals, while he was given three gold royals in compensation. This kind of sentencing was totally unacceptable for Hill; he even went so far as finding the highest person in charge, Sir Weimar also known as “Knight Steelheart”, but even this was to no avail. Sir Weimar could only tell him that Langley was Timothy’s cronies and that the new members of the patrol were also all his lackeys. Furthermore, the witch hunt was His Majesty personal order, so even Sir Pail, the Minister of Justice could not speak out against it.

Thereupon Hill decided he would make the New King pay, never anticipating that his former partners in the acrobatic troupe would actually support him. However, as a group of acrobats without any form of combat expertise, wealth, or troops under their command, it was almost impossible for them to carry out their vendetta against the King. The only possible way to harm him that Hill could think of was collecting intelligence about Timothy and giving it to his enemies, like the Queen of Clearwater Garcia Wimbledon. For this, they had all joined different groups of street rats, and decided to collect any clues the could find concerning the new King.

This was also the reason why he secretly monitored all of Theo’s movements. In case that Timothy wanted to get rid of the refugees, he had to try to stop them as much as possible. But he was too slow before he could take action, the demonic plague had broken out, and Theo suspended the transportation of the refugees. But today, Hill discovered that they had started the operation once again. And in order to investigate, he straightforwardly disguises himself as a refugee and succeeded in mixing in with the crowd. Resulting in the discovery that in truth Theo was actually serving Roland Wimbledon, the 4th Prince of the Kingdom of Graycastle.

Who, without a doubt, as a qualified competitor of the Throne of Graycastle, was also an enemy of Timothy.

Probably in the eyes of Hill, as long as it allows him to kill the new King, he wouldn’t even shrink away from working for the Devil.

“Okay, the last question. By mixing into the crowd to make discreet inquiries for news, did it never occur to you that you might infect yourself?” Theo asked with interest, “I never thought that a person with vengeance as his aim would throw his life away that easily.”

“I have the antidote,” Hill confessed. “It is hidden in a pocket in my undergarments. All my troupe’s partners spend most of their family’s possessions to buy it for me from the black market.”

Theo reached out and searched with his hand, fishing out a finger thick transparent vial, which was filled with a blue liquid. He handed it over to Iron Axe, then said, “That should be the Holy Elixir of the Church. I think His Royal Highness will be interested in something like this.”

“This person…” Iron Axe received the vial then asked, “What do you plan with him?”

“Well,” Theo touched his chin, if it were the normal times, without the possibility of verifying the authenticity of his words, we could only choose the safest method and directly sent him on his way. However, at this time, there was someone in the camp who could judge whether he was speaking the truth or was lying, “I want to ask Miss Nightingale to verify his words.”

…

Later in the evening, Theo returned to the Covert Trumpeter.

Black Hammer’s spirit evidently wasn’t very high, with the spread of the recent epidemic, his business had dropped so low it was at freezing point. And if that wasn’t bad enough already, Silver Ring and Pots had also become infected, which intensified his restlessness by many times.

Hill, as if nothing unusual had happened, sat slightly stiff on the opposite side of Theo.

Theo put on a slight smile then threw out a pouch of gold royals in front of Black Hammer. “There really is no reason for you to be so depressed. I have some good news and I also have a business offer for you.”

After counting the coins and putting them away, Black Hammer opened his mouth and said weakly, “Currently we won’t take any business. Now that the demonic plague is running amok, who would be foolish enough to go outside? All this money isn’t even sufficient to buy the Holy Elixir. Don’t you know how much you have to pay to buy even one bottle of medicine from the black market? At least twenty-five gold royals!”

“What a coincidence,” Theo laughed. “As it happens, the business I am speaking of has also to do with buying medicine,” he paused, “…a special medicine to cope with the demonic plague.”