"Welcome to the Witch Union!" In the hall, a group of witches of various ages and styles raised their glasses and laughed happily.

"Th-thank you all." Lucia felt her eyes getting hot again. She sniffled, resisting the urge to cry, and raised her glass to take a sip of the ale—it wasn't as bitter as she remembered, but had a slight sweetness in the aroma of the wine.

After meeting the lord, she, with the help of Nightingale, took a hot bath with Ling, and changed into a clean set of clothes. After settling her sister down, Lucia followed Nightingale back to the castle hall. Here, the witches held a welcome banquet for her.

It was the first time Lucia had seen so many of her kind, and the last bit of doubt in her heart disappeared. If the witches were imprisoned here or forced to serve the lord, they wouldn't have such light and bright smiles.

Remembering Nightingale's words, "This is the home of witches," she suddenly felt a sense of empathy. Compared to those witches who exposed their identities and were hunted down and executed by the church, it was so difficult to have a safe and comfortable place to live. Since the attack on Goldenspike City by the mob, she had suffered the hardships of running around for more than a month. The Witch Union's warm welcome finally allowed her to relax a little.

At the same time, she witnessed how magical a banquet initiated and participated in entirely by witches could be.

Black flames instantly roasted the steak to a golden brown, while the wooden basin holding it was unscathed.

A little girl with short golden hair flew around in the air, filling everyone's cups with wine.

A witch who looked like a foreigner simulated all kinds of musical instrument sounds, eventually converging into a beautiful piece of music.

…

Under Nightingale's introduction, she quickly remembered everyone's name, and unconsciously integrated into the group, and the sadness in her heart was diluted a lot.

In the Witch Union, there were mature and steady Scroll and Wendy, there were Leaf and Echo like older sisters, and there were also Anna, Soroya and others who were about the same age as her. No one treated her as a stranger. Lucia was filled with gratitude for this.

After the banquet, she said good night to the witches and returned to her new residence—His Highness the Prince provided the last guest room on the second floor of the castle for herself and Ling. Although Ling was not a witch, he did not order her and her sister to be separated.

"Sister?" Hearing the noise, Ling opened her eyes.

"You're awake!?" Lucia was overjoyed, and ran to the bedside in three steps, "How do you feel?"

Ling looked as if she had taken a good nap, and the pain caused by the plague had completely disappeared from her body. Her eyes were a little dazed, but she muttered, "I feel so hungry."

"Wait..." Lucia quickly took out a cloth bag from her pocket, and the aroma of grilled fish wafted out after opening it—this was dried fish slices given to her by Nightingale, "There's food here."

Seeing Ling sitting on the head of the bed gnawing on fish slices, she patted the little one's head with relief. Her sister was only ten years old this year, and now that she had no parents, she could only rely on herself.

Ling swallowed two fish slices and became much more sober. She looked around, "Where are we? The bed doesn't seem to be this big on the ship."

"Border Town in the Western Region, we've reached our destination."

"Already here?" She touched her cheek, "But I wasn't... sick? Will they agree to let plague patients enter the town?"

"Yes, they certainly won't," Lucia was amused by her sister's dazed appearance, "But the witches under the lord's command cured you." She explained in detail what happened at the pier, "We are now staying in his castle."

"Witches?" Ling tilted her head and asked, "Like you, sister?"

"That's right, everyone is very kind to me, especially a witch named Nightingale," Lucia gently fiddled with her hair, "She even helped you take a bath."

"Well, didn't you often say that nobles hate witches? Why is the lord willing to take them in?"

This question made Lucia pause slightly. She coughed twice, "Well...there are occasionally one or two good people among the nobles."

Ling picked up the last piece of dried fish in the bag, "Then do you need to work for him? Like a maid at home, sweeping, cooking, and serving in bed?"

"What nonsense are you talking about," Lucia pinched her sister's face, "I'm a witch! Of course I use my abilities to serve the lord! As for what the maids have to do, who told you that?"

"Mom..." she pouted, "So she never allowed Dad to recruit pretty maids."

Mentioning her family, Lucia's face suddenly darkened a lot. She didn't blame Ling anymore, but hugged her sister in her arms, and sighed softly.

She wasn't worried about her sister's statement. You could see it when talking to the lord—besides simply asking about her background, his other focus was on her ability. Obviously, he cared more about whether the witch could serve him.

But when she thought of her ability, Lucia felt worried.

She wasn't completely ignorant of the world of witches. There had been many witches in Goldenspike City, but half a year ago, they began to evacuate the city one after another, and heard that they were going to the fjord to find a new residence. She didn't want to leave her parents, so she didn't agree to travel far with them. However, after several contacts, Lucia at least knew that witches were used to dividing their abilities into combat and non-combat types.

Restoring objects can be said to be useless, not to mention using it to fight, even using it in ordinary times will have uncontrollable situations—her father was a merchant, running a paper mill, and the living room was often piled with ready-made paper. The day she became a witch, she accidentally used her ability without realizing it, turning these papers back into a large pile of flying paper scraps and debris. Afterwards, although her parents scolded her severely, they didn't hand her over to the church, but instead told her to hide herself carefully, and wear a God's Punishment Stone when necessary to pretend to be a devout believer.

At first, Lucia was full of curiosity about her ability, and often secretly hid in the bedroom to test restoring various items, but she soon discovered that this ability was extremely difficult to control. It was also paper, sometimes leaving paper scraps, and sometimes black particles. If she used her ability on the same thing continuously, it would only make it less and less, and the final product would be either powder or gravel—which meant that the restoration ability could not be used to redo damaged items, she would only completely destroy the finished products that others had worked so hard to make.

Other witches also thought that Lucia's ability was not very useful. The range of application was too short during combat, and it was ineffective against living things. Not to mention well-trained knights, even ordinary farmers would be difficult to beat. It didn't count as a combat-type witch, and she couldn't think of any use for the non-combat type. It was almost the lowest level of ability.

She had been depressed for a long time because of this.

But now... Lucia was more worried that if His Highness thought she was useless, would he drive her out of the castle?

With a heart full of anxiety, she blew out the candle, hugged her sister who had finished eating the dried fish and was content, slowly closed her eyes, and waited for the arrival of a new day.