In the office, she saw Roland Wimbledon again, who was buried in writing something, probably dealing with government affairs. (Pin#……Net)↗, x. At this time, the sun had already set in the west, and the sky was dyed with a golden color. The afterglow passed through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, leaving a long shadow in front of the desk.
It wasn't until the prince put down his quill that Ashes spoke, "I won."
"Indeed, you won," he nodded readily.
His straightforward attitude surprised her slightly. She had thought Roland would argue, but she didn't expect him to acknowledge the result.
"But I admit you have the ability to fight the God's Punishment Army," she said. "The God's Punishment Army is not invulnerable. Their strength and body are similar to mine, but they lack intelligence and the ability to think—which is why I can handle three at the same time. If the knights were to fight the God's Punishment Army in the previous competition, I think they would only charge straight ahead. Therefore, the God's Punishment Army cannot be dispatched alone like the Judgment Army. If I'm not mistaken, the Church needs to send someone to lead them in battle."
"Thank you," Roland smiled. "This information is very important."
"What is the new weapon in the knights' hands?"
"Repeating rifle," he said. "In the future, my soldiers will use this weapon. Even unarmed farmers can defeat a well-trained Judgment Army soldier with a rifle."
Ashes hesitated for a moment. "Can you give me a rifle?"
"Unless you join the Witch Union," Roland spread his hands. "After all, this kind of thing is still very rare."
His refusal was expected. She exhaled. "I must reunite with Tilly as soon as possible. I will leave Border Town tomorrow morning. If you can't hold on, you can evacuate to Fjords."
He nodded. "Same to you. Don't forget to tell this news to my dear sister, the Western Region of Graycastle still has a place for witches to live."
"..." Ashes was silent for a moment. "I'll consider it."
Just as she was about to leave the office, the prince stopped her. "Wait, I have a gift for you. It's behind the door."
A gift?
She was stunned, turned around, and saw a huge longsword placed by the door—she hadn't noticed it when she came in because it was blocked by the door.
"Your longsword is no longer usable. I had Anna cut one for you. This is not a low-quality pig iron sword, but a pure steel one."
Indeed, it was uniformly smooth and refracted orange-red metallic luster in the setting sun. She stepped forward and gently stroked the greatsword. She could see that the thickness of the sword body was very even, and one side of the blade still had traces of quenching. There was no doubt that this was a weapon of excellent quality. The only thing that puzzled Ashes was its shape. Compared with double-edged swords, it had only one side with a blade, and the other side was about the width of a little finger, with no tip, and the head was trapezoidal. The most peculiar thing was the front section of the sword. In addition to being engraved with a strange rune, the unsharpened side also had a round protrusion, which was painted gold and was very eye-catching.
Although she didn't want to admit her fondness, she couldn't help but pick it up.
"Why does it look so… strange?"
"Because this is not an ordinary weapon," Roland smiled. "Its name is Ashes Bringer. Compared to your previous blank greatsword, it can be considered a legendary item."
"..." Ashes decided not to delve into the inexplicable words in his mouth. "In that case, I'll accept it. As a return gift, I will also give you a gift."
"Oh? What is it?" the prince asked curiously.
She did not answer and left the room directly.
*******************
The next morning, Roland opened the door and saw Nightingale sitting in front of the desk with a piece of dried fish in her mouth.
"They're gone."
"Both of them are gone?"
"Yeah," she replied lazily. "They set off just as the sky was getting light. Wendy even went to see her off."
Roland couldn't help but feel a little emotional. Wendy was full of concern for every sister, let alone the witch who had saved her from harm and indirectly helped her escape from the monastery. He had thought Wendy would follow Ashes away, but he didn't expect her to be the first to reject the invitation.
In the end, the Witch Union was still twelve people, which filled Roland with energy.
"Do you think they will really tell the witches across the sea about the news here?"
"Maybe, maybe not," he leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath. "But when they encounter problems they can't solve, they will always think of Border Town."
Closing his eyes, Roland reviewed the memories belonging to the Fourth Prince in his mind.
Tilly was not close to him, or rather, she maintained a certain distance from everyone, even Wimbleton III. Apart from her beautiful appearance and the talent she had shown since childhood, he hadn't retained much information about her in his mind.
Roland had no idea when the Fifth Princess started secretly protecting witches or when she planned to develop Fjords. But in any case, she could be regarded as a natural ally worth fighting for—after all, fighting the Church was the common goal of the two at this stage.
As for sending Tassa to spread rumors, it was not in vain either. Witch awakening was a random event. Tilly could not take away all the witches, especially after organizing the evacuation, the newly awakened witches would be more eager to find a place to live.
Now that he knew the information about the God's Punishment Army, what he had to do next was undoubtedly to expand the production scale of sulfuric acid.
More efficient gunpowder and explosives could not be separated from nitric acid and sulfuric acid. After the First Army replaced the revolver rifles, the rifled barrels, combined with fixed ammunition, would greatly improve the shooting accuracy, so the meaning of training became particularly important—in an era without barrage suppression, veteran soldiers with excellent shooting skills were worth ten recruits who fired randomly. At that time, the consumption of bullets would probably be an alarming number.
Moreover, black gunpowder would remain in the barrel, blocking the rifling and reducing the service life of the barrel. Only smokeless gunpowder could solve this problem. Early smokeless gunpowder was actually nitrocellulose, and later it was a mixture of nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose. Now, even the nitric acid used to soak the sealing guncotton was not enough, let alone replacing all the propellant with guncotton.
Laboratory preparation could only produce on a small scale. If he wanted to meet the needs of an army, industrialized production methods were necessary. Unfortunately, facing a completely unfamiliar chemical industry, Roland couldn't think of any good solutions for a while.
In addition, education could not be ignored either. Not only the popularization of elementary cultural knowledge, but also ideological transformation needed to be implemented as soon as possible. The natives had been tested by the Months of the Demons, and with the First Army's propaganda, they had a high degree of recognition of the witch group, but the outsiders still accepted the concepts instilled by the Church. Now the number of outsiders in Border Town was increasing rapidly, especially the serfs—they currently lived in wooden sheds by the Redwater River, which could be regarded as the outer city of the town, but once they were promoted to freemen, they would inevitably gradually move into the city. It would be too late to correct their concepts at that time.
He had to come up with a subtle transformation method that could be easily accepted by the general public.
……
After thinking wildly for a while, he opened his eyes and suddenly found Nightingale watching him from the side. The moment their eyes met, she subconsciously turned her head away.
"Ah… right, I forgot to tell you one thing," the witch looked out the window, pretending to be nonchalant. "Wendy asked me to pass on a message to you."
"What is it?" Roland asked.
"She said, thank you."(。)