Chapter 101: The Ancient Book and the Relic (Part II)
Translator:Transn
Editor:Meh
"What does that mean?" Roland wondered while stroking that line of the sentence. "Has the author of the ancient book fought against the monsters on Barbarian Land?" As he continued to read, more information came into sight...
"The number of demons increased while ours decreased."
"Even God's Stones of Retaliation failed to stop them. These enemies were so ferocious and frightening that they could easily quash our resistance just with their monstrous, unparalleled physical strength. They didn't even need to summon their magic power."
"Holy City of Taquila had fallen, and we scattered to run for our lives."
"Across mountains and rivers, we strove to stay as far away from the Gates of Hell as possible."
"But where can we take our refuge next time? "
"Nonetheless, I don't need to worry about this problem anymore. I'm dying, Natalia."
"Demons' power is destroying my health. My illness is now beyond any medical treatment."
"I write these in hopes that you can help me with something."
"Alice's experiment of God's Punishment Army is almost completed. It was a great success. These extraordinary warriors are capable of competing against demons. However, she has forgotten that even if the God's Punishment Army wins the battle, the victory won't be ours."
"That's right. God's Punishment Army will bring us nothing but devastation."
"Go stop her, for this is something only you can achieve."
It was not a long paragraph. After skimming it through, Roland sank into thoughts and tried to put himself in Cara's shoes.
Suppose Cara did not know the existence of demons and replaced the word "demons" with "witches" in this paragraph, she would easily make the assumption that the church's army was defeated by witches. Combining this assumption with the afloat rumors that witches were demon's accomplices, whose magic power came from the Gates of Hell, Cara would readily jump to the conclusion that the church endeavored to cover up the fact that the Gates of Hell was the entrance of Holy Mountain. For hundreds of years, witches had been looking for their Holy Mountain for an eternal life. That was why the number of witches increased while the church's army decreased.
Of course, there were quite a few points in this speculation that did not sound plausible. For example, the "monstrous, unparalleled physical strength" was definitely not a faculty possessed by witches. Another peculiar theory was that witches crushed the church's army despite the influences of God's Stones of Retaliation. Roland did not know what exactly made Cara resolve to come to Barbarian Land. Had her fervent eagerness to find Holy Mountain clouded her judgment? Or rather, the real reason behind her decision was actually hidden in the part Scroll had missed?
Roland preferred the latter conjecture.
At least he now knew that the last page of the book was talking about demons, a real foreign race, rather than witches.
But it did not answer his questions. Instead, it created more.
When had the church had a battle with demons?
Roland rummaged the memory of fourth prince's, but could not find anything. The church had established its general headquarter in the north after the Battle of Faiths, for the purpose of preventing demonic beasts from invading the inner land from the ravine. Later, they had built a magnificent stronghold city on the plateau of Hermes and had named it New Holy City. The two connected cities, one high and the other low, were both used to defend against demonic beasts instead of demons. As to the name "Taquila", Roland had never heard of it.
If such stories were true, the church had no reason to keep them from the public. In the church's history books, every major battle the church had won were recorded in great details. The church people would elaborate on each victory they had gained to manifest their glorious achievements. It seemed strange, however, that they failed to mention anything about the battle against demons, for such a fight was absolutely more intense and worthy to be advertised than the ones with demonic beasts or witches.
The last question was in regard to the God's Punishment Army.
Evidently, this church member who wrote the book did not wish to build such an army. So, he asked somebody else to stop the experiment that appeared to be successful. Roland only knew the church had the Judgement Army but had never heard of the God's Punishment Army. Of course, there was also a big chance that the former Prince Roland was too ignorant and had not been provided with such information.
Roland did not understand why the writer thought the God's Punishment Army would bring destruction. From its description, the army seemed to be as powerful as demons. If this was the case, it could but greatly benefit the church.
These two arguments were probably what Scroll felt inconceivable.
"Do you know where Cara got this misleading ancient book?" Roland looked up and glanced at Nightingale.
"By the time I joined them, they had been looking for Holy Mountain already." Nightingale muttered with a mouthful of dried fish between her teeth. "But Wendy once told me the Witch Cooperation Association was initially not an association at all. It was just a small group of a few witches who happened to gather at Seawindshire, among whom were Cara, Wendy and Scroll. They later found a secret meeting spot in the Eastern Forest not far away from Seawindshire, which, unexpectedly, appeared to be the entrance to an underground relic." She swallowed the snack and licked her lips. "But only Cara went down there."
"Was the ancient book found in the relic?"
"Well, that's what Cara claimed." Nightingale twitched her mouth. "After that, more witches joined the group. Someone might accidentally expose their traces during a meeting. So, one day, the church sent a great number of Judgement Army and surrounded the forest. During that raid, more than a dozen witches were killed. It was at that time that Cara made up her mind to go to the Impassable Mountain Range and seek Holy Mountain. From then on, they started to call the group the Witch Cooperation Association and regard the search for Holy Mountain as its members' ultimate goal."
Roland was absorbed in thoughts after hearing the account. His knowledge of mythology was so limited that anything related to histories or folklores just escaped his mind. The ancient book did not specify the year, so he had no idea whether other history books recorded such a battle. As the soldiers in that battle had all passed away, Roland thought the only way to figure out what had happened was to explore the relic in person.
Nonetheless, Roland knew it was impossible. The Eastern Forest was too far. His current priority was to develop his territory rather than travel across the whole Kingdom of Graycastle on a whim.
Roland paced to the window and looked at the garden down there through the French window. The witches were training themselves as he had instructed. Now, he had 12 witches in total working for him, and it was time to formally establish an organization.
He did not plan to set up any guidelines or regulations for the organization, for the organization was essentially founded for an easy management and to help the witches develop their abilities. It would be similar to the industrial unionism in the modern world.
There were only two simple rules for the organization, which were: a) the prohibition of using abilities to violate laws; and b) the prohibition of using abilities to evade legal liabilities.
Roland was initially thinking about following the example of the Three Laws of Roboticsand formulating some rules to forbid a witch to injure or cause harms to an ordinary person by using her power. But he soon realized it was rather unnecessary. Power to a witch was like a gun to a human being. There was essentially no difference between using a gun and using abilities, for both were self-defense. Besides, an overemphasis on the difference between witches and ordinary people would only widen the gap between the two groups.
Therefore, no breach of laws and no evasion of liabilities were the most concise terms a dull engineer could think of.
As for the name of the organization, Roland had had an idea long before.
This brand new organization would be called "The Witch Union".