……
“How is it going?” Roland put down the pen in his hand and looked up at Nightingale, who had quietly appeared in the office.
“She's asleep. She just finished a bowl of oatmeal and has a decent appetite,” she walked to the table and sat back in her usual spot. “Sylvie is monitoring her now.”
“Well, that's good.”
“Do you believe what she said?” Nightingale asked.
“Anyway, the God's Stone of Retribution has been removed. You can tell if she's lying when we question her again tomorrow, but…” Roland paused for a moment. “I think most of what she said is true.”
“Why?” she asked curiously.
“Have you noticed that someone from four hundred years ago uses the same writing and the same language as us?” The prince rested his chin on his hand. “Logically speaking, it's almost impossible for this to happen in two regions separated by the Endless Mountains—unless the two places are of the same origin and have very close ties.”
“But she called the Four Kingdoms a barbaric land.”
“That's the key… I don't know what it was like here four hundred years ago. Perhaps it was just a few scattered villages, and some criminals exiled here by the witch world. The kingdom's history also records that the major cities were generally built between two and three hundred years ago, and astrologers appeared from that era.” He said with great interest, “I've always been curious as to why astrologers, who generally have no achievements or research results, are called ‘Sages’ along with alchemists. Now I understand—the Union led the surviving people to flee to this marginal area, bringing with them their language and civilization. These people integrated into the local population, helping them establish power, fortresses, and cities.”
“You speak as if you saw it with your own eyes.” Nightingale shook her head with a smile.
“That's the only way to explain why we use the same language as her,” Roland said seriously. “Because we are of the same origin. And in these four hundred years, civilization has been rebuilding, without any development.”
“Okay,” she spread her hands. “We'll know the answer tomorrow anyway. If you guess wrong… you'll have to give me an extra ‘Deluxe Lunch’.”
The so-called Deluxe Lunch is actually a combination of cream of corn soup, roasted chicken legs, and ice cream bread, which the kitchen only makes once a week.
“What if you guess wrong?”
“You can have whatever you want,” Nightingale tilted her head and half-closed her eyes. The curve connecting her cheek and smooth neck was perfect and particularly moving. If your appearance is perfect, any action is a seduction. Roland has finally verified the correctness of this sentence.
“I'll keep that in mind,” he coughed twice, shifting his attention back to the paper.
Because Agatha had just woken up, Roland didn't want to force her to answer all the questions accurately and in detail. He basically followed her train of thought, asking questions as they came to mind, so the information he got was very chaotic. What he's doing now is rearranging the information in Agatha's words and figuring out the key points to understand next.
Without a doubt, the most urgent question is the demons.
How did the war with the demons start, and why are they now silent? This information is crucial to Border Town. No war is ever without a reason, and the demons' actions don't seem like an invasion launched for resources and expansion: they didn't occupy the Barren Lands, nor did they plunder humans. It seems like a purely murderous act.
Roland also noticed that the other party mentioned the term “War of Divine Will.” Did the two sides start a life-and-death war under the instruction of the gods? But at that time, the church didn't even exist, so there was naturally no unique god they claimed. Without an explanation for this, he couldn't feel at ease.
At the same time, he also needs to quickly figure out the Saint City civilization's food, clothing, housing, and transportation—or what their economic foundation is like. These details can help him measure the level of development of that civilization and indirectly determine the strength of the demons.
As for the Union, Roland doesn't care too much. The small number of witches and the instability of their abilities have already doomed this organization's combat capability to be not very high.
Historical experience has repeatedly emphasized that in the absence of a generation gap, a full-scale war is about attrition. Rare, high-end weapons cannot reverse the overall disadvantage.
The second point is magic stones.
Combined with Tilly's statement, the magical properties of this stone can greatly compensate for the weakness of unstable abilities, allowing witches to exert power that doesn't belong to them, and allowing support witches to go to the battlefield—although in Roland's eyes, this is completely putting the cart before the horse. He can't wait to turn all combat witches into support types and put them into endless production work.
However, what's strange is that the Union, which has many witches, didn't use this method to fight the demons, but chose to create the God's Punishment Army. This is really unbelievable. Could it be that magic stones have some unknown drawbacks, or are extremely difficult to produce?
Fortunately, Agatha is a member of the Exploration Society. This organization is similar to the current Alchemy Workshop, gathering a group of extremely talented witches specializing in the research of magic stones and magic power. Roland vaguely feels that there should be great potential to be tapped here.
The last question is the church.
He circled this column. Obviously, the founding and development history of this organization cannot be obtained from Agatha. What can be inferred from a few words at present is that the church was established after the witches were defeated. They obtained the secrets of the Union, covered up everything about the witches, and portrayed them as the incarnation of demons. If the people of the Four Kingdoms are regarded as the descendants of the natives, then the church is a veritable outsider. In addition, the natives themselves have no civilization to speak of, so it is not surprising that they are deceived by fabricated history and divine prophecies.
Is it all because the witch class used to oppress ordinary people, so the refugees who escaped regarded the witches as enemies, and hunted witches on this continent? Roland frowned. It sounds reasonable, but… something feels wrong.
The Union has many Holy Warriors and Transcendants, even beyond Transcendant… Even if they have God's Stone of Retribution, they can't defeat such an opponent, right?
To completely erase a force much stronger than yourself cannot be done with hatred alone. The information is obviously missing a key piece.
“That witch doesn't seem to like you very much.” Nightingale suddenly said.
“After all, she lives in a world where witches are superior,” Roland laughed. “In her eyes, I'm probably no different from the weeds on the side of the road.”
“You don't hate her?”
“Why should I? She's just a poor person abandoned by the times,” he shook his head. “After sleeping in an ice coffin for four hundred years, she wakes up and finds that the world is completely different. The fear brought by this strangeness will definitely make her build a wall in her heart to defend herself. When she accepts all of this, she should slowly change her views.”
“That's just like how you would answer,” Nightingale smiled. “Don't worry, I won't let her be even slightly disrespectful to you.”
.(。)