Chapter 348: Mortals and Extraordinaries
Translator: Meh/TransN Editor: - -
When Elsa woke up again, she was alone in the room. The thick curtains were tightly closed, making the room extremely quiet.
Probably considering the fact that she wasn’t familiar with the environment, someone put a candle beside the front of the bed, which was quietly burning with orange flames.
Elsa turned her head and watched it for a long time, only to find that there wasn’t a single drop of wax overflowing. The candle seemed to be burning forever without any change in the length.
"It may be caused by magic," she thought.
The quilt was so soft that it was probably made of high-quality cotton and filled with light and warm fluff. The treatment was as good as that in the Holy City of Taquila, which made it hard for Elsa to believe that there could be such comfortable beds and bedrooms in Barbarian Land.
She moved her fingers and found that she had recovered most of her physical strength. Elsa rolled out of bed. She drove her power, and chill overflowed from her fingers immediately— "It seems that the prince didn’t play any tricks. He had God’s Stone of Retaliation removed to give me a certain degree of freedom." She went to the window and opened a bit of the curtains. It was totally dark outside. Stars couldn’t been seen, so did the moon. The whole earth seemed to be swallowed by darkness with only a few hazy flare shaking so far away. She could hear the wind roaring outside next to the window, and could occasionally see some snow falling on the glass.
It seemed to be winter now which was a good season for the awakening of witches. In Taquila, this kind of evening didn’t even exist since the whole city would celebrate every day of winter.Bonfires burned throughout the night on the street. When she overlooked the city on the tower, it seemed to be lit by flares shining like stars, which symbolized hope and a promising future. People prayed around the campfires, eager to gather magic power and surmount the mortal world. Whenever a witch awakened, the fate of her family changed as well. They don’t need to worry about food or clothing anymore.
Elsa pulled up the bolt and opened the window. The cold wind suddenly swept into the room and blew the curtains away. The candles in the house were snuffed out as well. The room suddenly was plunged into darkness. When her eyes became adapted to the changes of light, she could see the faint white light reflected by the accumulated snow on the roof of the town. "Judging from the silhouette of the buildings, this place isn’t very big indeed, and is identical with the 'Border Town’ mentioned by the prince."
Ordinary people would be frozen after a few hours if they stayed outside in such cold weather. But Elsa wasn’t afraid of the cold since her body would automatically expel the slightest chill that made her uncomfortable. The last time she felt cold was before her awakening. But now, she had almost forgotten the feeling.
The earlier conversation was lingering in Elsa's mind as long as she closed her eyes.
The Union died and the witch became the devil's minions. Hence mortals were recklessly hunting witches with the help of God’s Stones of Retaliation... According to the diary, Alice and Natalia successfully fled from the Fertile Plains. But if they failed to stop everything, the Union was doomed.
What on earth happened at that time? Why were the two Transcendents defeated by mortals?
She was reluctant to think about that anymore.
"Aren't you cold?" someone behind her suddenly asked .
Elsa was shocked. She turned back and saw a girl sitting by the bed in the dark. Her face was completely hidden in the night. She was like a ghost that appeared quietly. The door was closed at that time, but Elsa didn’t hear any footsteps before she came in.
"If you can close the window, I don’t mind re-lighting the candle," she said again.
There was no doubt that the girl was a witch.
But it’s late in the midnight. What’s she up to?
Elsa nodded without any word. She closed the window and secretly let the thin yet hard ice cover her skin. The girl didn’t do anything dangerous; instead, she opened the first drawer of the night table from which she took out a flint to light the candle. In the candlelight, Elsa saw the her. She had beautiful golden curls and slender eyebrows which made her eyes look very sharp. Elsa hadn’t see her before.
"Nice to meet you... Oops. It's the second time that we meet," she raised her lips and said, "My name is Nightingale."
Did she mean that... she also hid in the crowd before? "Is this your ability?" Elsa frowned and asked, "Are you also the High Awakened?"
Even if she was one of the honorable High Awakened, it was still impolite of her to break in without knocking at the door.
"Ah, you are talking about evolution..." Nightingale shook her head. "I'm not that smart like Anna. She finished the book called ‘The Theory of Natural Balabala’ in a short time. My head is going to explode once I see those formulas and theorems. Maybe I don't have the luck to evolve in this life."
Elsa was absent-minded for a short period because she couldn’t understand half of what the girl said. Honestly, she didn’t expect that "an Original Witch" could say something like that. Besides, according to her facial expressions, the girl didn’t seem to deliberately tease herself. "Is that what the prince called... knowledge?
"As for the book you mentioned, can I read it?"
"Of course. You may read it as long as you join the Witch Union and be loyal to His Highness." She shrugged her shoulders.
"To serve a mortal?" Elsa stared at her and said in a low voice after a while, "I thought I was weird enough, but you are crazier than me."
"Weird? Crazy?" Nightingale tilted her head and asked, "Why would you say that?"
"In the Holy City of Taquila, most of the Awakened Witches only treat ordinary people who couldn’t gather magic as humble servants, inferior people, or ... fertility tools." She said slowly, "but I didn’t think so. Even though they were stupid, they weren’t hopeless. Those people were no different from witches in many aspects as long as they were taught to learn and think. Because of that, many people thought that I was so weird that I had allocated part of the business in the tower to mortals. However, I didn’t expect that you are crazier than me since you are loyal to a mortal and take orders from him."
"His Highness Roland didn’t consider us as servants," Nightingale twitched her mouth and said, "I don’t know what kind of strange idea you have on the word of loyalty, but the fact is that he took in the witches oppressed by the Church, gave us new power, and let us live together with his subjects in Western Region. We are united to fight against the Church and demonic beasts, as well as against the demons in the future
"But this model was proved to be a failure!" Elsa couldn’t help raising her voice. "400 years ago... for you, it might be 800 or 900 years ago, the world was ruled by both mortals and witches. At that time, human beings lived almost throughout the entire Dawn Region. However, when demons attacked, we suffered such a big defeat that we only managed to keep the Fertile Plains."
"Oh?" She raised her eyebrows. "Was that true?"
"You said the history had been buried for 400 or 500 years," Elsa continued, "According to the Union's records, the third Battle of Divine Will is about to break out very soon, yet you have no idea of demons! The east of Barbarian Land is Swirling Sea. So where else can you retreat? Only by rebuilding the Union, uniting witches and improving the probability of High Awakening with knowledge can we seize the final chance to stop demons' attack!"
"Why do you have to say that?"
"What do you mean?"
"400 years have passed, right?" A lot of things could be changed in such a long time. But why are you still restrained by those old ideas? " Nightingale sighed. "His Highness said that mortals could defeat demons when he left. You heard that as well. He is also uniting all the people, including witches. He wants to unite every ordinary person on the continent, because he told me that people across the land are the most powerful group. "
"Wasteland—" Elsa was about to refute this nonsense when she suddenly paused. "The girl is so certain that she seems to know the result in advance. Could 400 years really change everything? Does that prince with gray hair really have such incredible ability to let mortals have the same power as witches?"
"You seem to have realized that," Nightingale smiled and said, "We still have a lot of time, so why not open your heart and to see with your own eyes?'
This time, Elsa was silent for a long time. "... I can see that you don’t like me."
Nightingale didn’t retort.
"The witches of the Quest Association used to see me like that as well— after they knew that I had appointed a group of mortals as experimental assistants in the tower," she said. "Obviously, you don’t like me, but why do you tell me these?"
"I don’t hate you as long as you stop being so arrogant and treat His Highness normally. As for your question... " she paused and continued, "because the prince said he didn’t want to see you abandoned by the times."