Release that Witch

The next morning, Roland opened his eyes as the first ray of sunlight shone into the living room.

The fan had kept blowing hot air all night, and cicadas were shrilling their familiar songs outside the window.

Now he had confirmed that the sleep in the Dream World would not get him back to reality, and Roland thought that he could rest during sleep.

Although this may sound a bit weird... Who cares. It doesn’t matter if it works.

Yawning, he got off of the couch. When he was about to go to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, he heard Zero screaming in the bedroom.

After a moment, she appeared at the door, her face blushed. She pointed to Roland, stammering. ”Yesterday I... You...”

”I slept on the couch last night.” Roland shrugged. ”Please, you’re sweaty and unwashed. I would certainly not sleep with you.”

The little girl pulled her collar to take a sniff and then she blushed even more like a ripe apple contrasting with her long white hair. In a flurry, she ran back to her bedroom, fiddled for a while, and rushed into the bathroom with clean clothes.

Soon came the sound of showering from the bathroom.

By the time she came out, Roland had finished preparing breakfast.

Today’s breakfast was much heartier than the usual ones. Fried bacon, salt pepper egg, roasted dried fish, and a plate of fresh grapes.

Of course, they were all made of what he had taken from Holy City behind the iron door.

”You bought meat?” Zero asked in surprise, her hair wrapped in a wet towel. Roland could see her throat slightly stirring, apparently swallowing.

”Yeah, I bought a lot and put it all in the fridge.” Roland handed her a pair of chopsticks. ”I found a new job.”

”Did you?” she asked suddenly with an excited voice, seemingly forgetting what had just happened.

”Yeah, I’ll get paid soon.” Roland laughed. ”These were bought for celebration.”

The little girl was relieved. ”I thought you finally crossed your bottom line and did something irreparable.”

”What does she mean by ’something irreparable’?” he thought inwardly, ”Did she really think I would steal or rob? Uh... Robbery doesn’t seem a big deal in the Dream World.”

”So the reason that you had heatstroke was due to staying out in the sun too long looking for a job yesterday?”

” Probably...” he said as he threw a grape into his mouth, ”In short, there’s no need to worry about money anymore.”

”You’re so weak,” Zero curled her upper lip and said, ”When will I be able to stop worrying about you?”

Roland was almost choked by grapes as Zero said that. He retorted. ”You make me feel like you’ve been worrying about me all the time.”

”Uh...” This reduced her to silence. After a while, she glared at Roland. ”You’ve really wasted ingredients when cooking breakfast. You added salt to the salty bacon!”

”She seems really good at changing the topic,” Roland thought as he picked up a slice of bacon and place it into his mouth. ”I think it’s quite good except some corners of it were not well fried.”

”You should leave it to me in the future.” Zero complained, but she quickly gulped down the food on the dishes. Then she took her bag and was about to leave. ”You just leave the dishes there. When I come back, and I’ll wash them together with dishes for dinner.”

”Wait,” Roland stopped her and asked, ”Is there a secondhand bookstore nearby? Do you know where it is?”

...

This time he had stayed in the Dream World for three days before detaching from it. When he woke up in Neverwinter, the sun had risen high in the sky.

It seemed the speed of time in the Dream World was eight times faster than here, which meant a night in Real Word would count as two days in the Dream World. Moreover, if he delayed his departure until the third day, others would just think he woke up late in the morning.

The first thing Roland wanted to do after getting up was to find a gold royal and clench it.

It turned out that the gold royal did not change even a little bit, but his fingers ached.

Roland sighed at the fact that the inexplicable power seemed to only exist in the Dream World as expected. He put the gold royal back to his pocket, slipped on a coat and sat at his desk.

Roland intended to copy out the key knowledge he had reviewed in the Dream World while his memory was still clear. It included the missing parts from every basic subject, as well as detailed designs for some large industrial equipment.

He had made the best of the last three days in the Dream Word. Selling those goods he stole from the campsite behind the door went quite well. He found a local second-hand goods forum where he posted the armor pictures and claimed that he had a number of imitated medieval crafts to sell at low prices. Before long, some buyers who were attracted by its absurdly low price and exquisite craftwork started to contact him.

In the end, armor, 500 yuan each suit, crossbows and daggers, 100 yuan each, were all sold out. The prices were incredibly low in the eye of others, but since Roland did not pay the cost of these goods, he was not distressed when selling them. However, he did not expect that gold royals would be much more difficult to sell. Even if he kneaded them all into round shape, the bank still would not accept the gold that was not traded in a formal way, whether it was gold bars or gold jewelry.

Roland could not manage to sell them to a gold shop nearby either, where they only accepted the accessories they had sold and the customers also had to pay an additional fee. A salesman was kind enough to give him an address of an old pawnbroker that accepted unidentified gold at half the market price. When thinking that he had only a dozen gold royals with a texture far from solid gold, Roland simply threw them all into his wardrobe.

He might as well move more suits of armor out of the campsite instead of wasting time on selling gold.

Meanwhile, Roland had no idea of where to sell three glittering gemstones. In the end, he just left them unsold.

With money in hand, he immediately swept through the secondhand bookstore near the apartment, buying all the textbooks he had ever read. Those he had not read were completely blank except for the covers. Obviously, the Dream World did not exceed his range of awareness, so it seemed impossible for Anna to cover all fields now.

However, thanks to his wide range of hobbies, he had browsed a large amount of all kinds of knowledge on the internet. And now he could get any detailed answers to any designs that he had ever run through, even something he had only just glimpsed upon.

In addition to those that were essential to quickly boost the technology in City of Neverwinter, Roland also bought two new sets of clothes for Zero, as well as a set of winter camping equipment for himself. As a result, he spent all of the money that he had just earned.

Roland could still remember how shocked Zero was when she received the new clothes. She tried to turn down the offer several times before accepting them, unlike any other girl of her age that should not worry about so many things. Roland learned the reason for her behavior after he asked about it. Strangely, this was the first time for Zero to receive a gift, which was something she dared not crave, as her parents beat her at home.

As the creator of the Dream World, Roland felt a strange sense of guilt.

Roland had been busy until noon when Nightingale quietly showed up in the room.

”Didn’t you go down to have breakfast?”

”Yeah,” Rowland said without looking up, ”please fetch lunch for me. I’ll eat it in my bedroom.”

”Is that what you’ve been doing all morning?” Nightingale said as she surprisedly weighed the stack of papers at the desk, ”How did you come up with so many ideas in such a short amount of time?”

”They’ve always been in my mind. I just forgot them temporarily.” Roland rotated his wrist. ”Take a look. What do you think?”

”Describe the electromagnetic field in... a certain volume... mathematical model using the form of... integral?” Nightingale put her hand to her forehead and said, ”Your Majesty, I felt a little dizzy. I’ll go and bring your lunch first.”

Roland could not help but smirk before saying, ”Go then.”

”By the way, don’t you have to go to the office today?” she turned to look at him and asked when she reached the door.

”Why?”

”Barov has business with you. He said there were two letters for you to read personally.”