Release that Witch

Late at night, Roland drove everybody back to Six Li Pavilion, the estate where Scroll first arrived in the Dream World.

Like the estate of apartments, Six Li Pavilion was an old street that had gone through the ages. However, compared to the former, the Six Li Pavilion was more commercially-inclined. There were several convenience stores, bars for barflies, mass retail KTV and internet cafes; all of them were small stores and the majority of their customers were nearby office workers and students.

Although the environment seemed a little dirty and messy, it was perfect for Scroll to mask her identity.

The passageway of the link was on the sidewalk. From the outside, it looked no different from an ordinary iron door. As for whether that door had originally been there or appeared after Scroll entered the Dream World, Roland was still unsure. But the location was clearly of utmost importance; he was already wondering if he ought to take advantage of the Association’s relationship with the Clover Group and buy both of the neighboring stores.

After all, Scroll could only bring one God’s Punishment Witch with her into her domain; if they were marked by multiple Fallen Evils they would be in a certain amount of danger. As she was an important person responsible for the passing down of knowledge, they couldn’t afford to take any risks. If he could station ten plus God’s Punishment Witches in the area around the link, it would increase her safety substantially.

While there were fewer people than usual around, Roland performed the final test, which tested the interactions between the two Realm of Mind domains.

When the Dream World stopped operating, Scroll would be ejected out of the Dream World and returned back to her tiny Archives no matter where Scroll was.

This was also the biggest difference between her and the God’s Punishment Witches.

Although the God’s Punishment Witches’ consciousness returned to their bodies, their location in the Dream World would be the same as they were when they left. This was also the reason why Roland told them to mainly enter and leave in the Rose Café or the warehouse as much as possible—otherwise when one of them experienced a change, it could result in scenes of a person vanishing into thin air.

Scroll’s situation was clearly more serious.

At least in emergency situations, God’s Punishment Witches could maintain a ‘seamless link’ by entering and leaving at the same time as Roland. Scroll, on the other hand, was unable to do so. This meant that every time she entered the Dream World, she had to start in the Archives, and when she left, she would also end at the Archives.

But this wasn’t something that would be too difficult to solve, considering that all he had to was teach Scroll how to use a phone to ascertain that both of them were in the correct location before waking up. They also had the twenty-four hour surveillance by Faldi’s magical flying insects of Scroll’s district.

It worked the other way round too.

If Scroll left her territory in the Realm of Mind, the God’s Punishment Witches and Roland, who were inside her realm, would also be automatically ejected. Scroll would return to her body in reality and Roland and the God’s Punishment Witches would appear outside the iron door. The experience was very uncomfortable, akin to that of having ridden a roller coaster.

The final thing he discovered was completely outside of Roland’s expectations.

After Scroll left the Realm of Mind, the iron door was still there, but behind the door was not a wall or the narrow gray room, but a red void.

That was a sign of erosion.

According to Garcia, erosion fissures were not something one would normally see anywhere. The locations where they existed were usually guarded closely by professional members of the Association. In other words, this eroded part must have come from the Archives.

As expected, the way the two territories interacted with each other in the Realm of Mind was not simply that one included the other, they were all a part of the Realm of Mind, and used energy from the Origin of Magic; this was probably the most appropriate interpretation. This also fell in line with what Lan said—As long as he got the Dream World to swallow more cores, he would have a higher chance of invading god’s territory.

Following this, another question emerged.

If he let the territories of other high-ranking demons enter the range of his key’s light beam, then what changes would the Dream World experience?

Would they be able to appear in this city like Scroll?

…

The next day, Roland received the most recent news from the front line.

There were two letters inside the envelope. One was from Wendy, it gave a simple description of the recent situation of the witches in the first part of the letter and then made an important mention of Nana Pine in the latter part.

The little girl who had followed the Witch Union until now had finally reached her Day of Adulthood.

Like Lucia, Mystery Moon and the others, her magic also condensed on her Day of Adulthood. According to the categorization of the Union, she was a true high-level witch.

There wasn’t any explanation on the specific ability in the letter. Perhaps it was because they were all too busy, or Nana’s ability was so precious that that they couldn’t allow it to be wasted in testing… But Roland didn’t mind not knowing for a while; to him, the most important thing was that Nana could overcome this hurdle safely.

The second letter was much thicker.

Among them there was a report from the First Army, and a plan that the General Staff advisers handed in—this was also a huge disadvantage in their current messaging system. In order to save transportation resources, the front line would usually wait until the things they needed to report accumulated to a certain amount, and then sent to Neverwinter. As a result, even though it was the same letter, some content would differ in time for several days or even half a month.

When he flipped to the last page, Roland’s brow suddenly furrowed.

“Did something happen?” Nightingale who was guarding at his side asked.

“The demons launched a full-scale attack on the First Army—” he said gravely, “it happened last week!”

…

Gust Castle, Kingdom of Wolfheart.

The shrill emergency siren rang once more over the city’s sky.

This was already the third time since dawn broke today.

“The damned monsters, don’t they ever get tired?” Jodel viciously spat on the ground and dug out a paper bag from the fold of his clothes near his chest. After shaking it for ages, nothing fell out.

“Here.” A hand suddenly reached out from beside him. “You’re looking for this, right?”

Jodel turned to the side and saw that the speaker was Farry. In her hand was a white, round medicinal pill.

“You… don’t need this?” He hesitantly picked up the pill.

“I’m not as weak as you. It’s just not having sleep for a day or two,” Farry replied expressionlessly. “Also I hate these things, who knows what they’re made of! I urge you to try to eat less of it.”

“You might be right.” Jodel gave a long sigh and threw the pill into his mouth. “But at least, it can keep me alive temporarily.”

As the drug melted above his tongue, an incredibly bitter taste very quickly impregnated his oral cavity. At the same time, the piercing cold of the air and the dizzying exhaustion seemed to vanish, even his stiff fingers and limbs became flexible and agile again. He felt himself turn back into the former sharp hunter he once was, and not an exhausted prey waiting to be slaughtered.

This is the feeling—

Jodel raised his long-barreled gun and mounted it firmly on the firing point.

Half a month ago, these pills were delivered into every soldiers hands as basic goods, its official name was ‘Delaying Agent’ but everybody liked to call it the Unfallable Pill. Swallowing one could block out all the pain in one’s body, only after numerous hours would the pain rear its head again.

Although at the start, there were some people from the Sand Nation that were extremely against these drugs, and even connected them to the fabled Pills of Madness. But protests like this very quickly disappeared from the scene. The reason was that the First Army didn’t force them to use these Delaying Agents and actually made warning labels on the packaging cautioning users of the side-effects, saying that it was not to be used repetitively—such ways were polar opposite to the rumors that Jodel heard about the third princess.

Also, apart from the Sand Nation people, the northerners had also received the Delaying Agent, and even the military officers were no exception. This averted the majority of people’s suspicions. There were even some people who said that the drug could have been made sweet and tasty, but in order to prevent people to eat it like a snack, they added the astringent bitterness.

And after the demons launched their relentless attack, this white pill instantly won the trust of all the soldiers—against the attacks of the enemy that lasted all day, Jodel could not imagine how he could hold up for tens of hours in this high-intensity battle with virtually no rest without the pills.

As a veteran hunter, he naturally understood how large the difference was between throwing himself into battle in excellent condition and carrying exhaustion into battles that came one after the other.

As long as he didn’t die as soon as he swallowed the drug, he could accept any side effect no matter how serious they were.