Chapter 128 Pill Test
“Then, she picked up the Judge’s sword, stabbed Farisa, and split the other Judge into two halves, even cutting the guard’s sword in two. However, the whistle had alerted the whole monastery, many guards carrying oil lamps were on their way to us. She then peeled off Farisa’s clothes and wore them herself, then took another man’s weapon and walked in the direction of the rushing guards by herself.”
“I sat in the room full of a bloody mess for a while before I finally recovered. I discovered that one of the dead men was in charge of the keys to the entrance of the monastery, so I went over and dug out the keys from the scattered clothes. At the same time, I also stripped the stones around their necks. I didn’t know what effects they had, I only thought I might be able to sell them for a little money with their crystal clear appearance. The nuns of the monastery, the guards, and the Judges were all attracted by that other woman, and so I could get to the hidden back door without being noticed. There, I had to try several keys before I finally found the right key to open the door and flee from the monastery.”
“Later, I was only able to sell one stone because the rest of them were snatched away from me. Thus I had to rely on the ten silver royals I’d gotten for the one stone during my journey. Two years later, I reached the Seawind Region and had to stop; it was also the time of my awakening,” Wendy paused for a while. “That’s my whole story.”
Nightingale just silently held Wendy’s hands for a long while, until she asked, “What happened to the other women in the church?”
“Perhaps they all died, or they were able to escape just like me. I had asked around, but I only learned that the Church had said that there was a fire in the monastery and that they had to shut it down. Now one knew it and even more, no one cared what had happened to the girls. They had all just been abandoned.”
Nightingale used a soothing voice while holding Wendy in her arms, “Now you have us. Everything will become well, so sleep, Wendy.”
After a long time, she finally heart a gentle, “ah…”
*
The next morning, Roland entered his office while yawning, there he saw Nightingale as always sitting by his table, but this time she had a serious expression on her face.
“Well, what happened?”
“Have you ever heard of something called an ‘extraordinary’?” She asked.
Seeing the Prince shaking his head, Nightingale repeated the story she had heard yesterday from Wendy. “If she hadn’t had her awakening, I can’t imagine a young woman who could so easily decapitate a heavily armed Judge.”
“A witch who isn’t influenced by the God’s Stone of Retaliation…” after listening to Roland thought for a while about what she had heard from Wendy, he started thinking about his own categorizing of the witch abilities, “Maybe she belonged to the type of self-enforcing witches?”
“What, type…?”
Roland took out a piece of paper from his drawer and handed it over to her, “I made a basic classification of your abilities based on the way you use your magic. A self-enforcing type witch constantly consumed her magic power and strengthens herself. Although all witches gets their physical fitness improved due to their magic, the self-enforcing type witch is much more powerful in this aspect. If I have it right then Scroll should also belong in the category of extraordinary in the eyes of the Church.”
“Scroll?” Nightingale couldn’t believe it, “But she…”
“She is not good at fighting, true,” Roland finished her sentence amused, “This classification doesn’t judge the personal strength of a witch and also isn’t necessarily correct, they are only my personal thoughts and speculations. As a self-enforcing type witch, she really could cause a lot of trouble to the Church. Without the protection of the God’s Stone of Retaliation, she could easily kill a squad of Judges, or single-handedly destroy the church of a small town. But in the end, a person’s power is still limited, and the ratio of witches awaken to a self-enforcing ability is much smaller than the other two types, otherwise it would be witches who would be hunting the believers of the Church.” Though he had spoken with ease, but when thinking about the red and black pills, he still had a vague feeling of unease.
There were clearly only a few extraordinary class witches, during the last hundreds of years, there can’t be more than a dozen, right? As long as there were two or three self-enhancing types, they could easily cause great chaos for the Church. For example, they could easily take advantage of the annual Months of Demons. During this time the Church would focus all of their energy on defending Hermes, so they could attack the church’s facilities in other cities such as churches, priests, nuns and then kill all of them. So after repeating it for several years, the church’s number of followers would have been greatly reduced.
However, in addition to Wendy encounter with the extraordinary, Roland had never heard of a witch counterattack the church, moreover, the home during Wendy’s childhood was set on fire and the whereabouts of all the nuns and women were unknown.
The Church would never sit still, he thought, perhaps they have already discovered a means against the extraordinary class, and maybe those two pills were part of it.
Now matter what, he had to test those pills first.
Coming to this conclusion, Roland called for one of his guards, sending him to the jails and get one of the prisoners together with Carter.
He placed the test site outside of the city walls.
Just in case, Roland transferred over four members of the First Army, to surround the test site, fully armed and always alerted.
In addition to him and Nightingale, there was also Anna and Nana on station by the wall. As long as the other one didn’t have a God’s Stone of Retaliation, Anna’s wall of green fire would be enough to guarantee their own safety while Nana could provide the most efficient kind of treatment.
“You won’t have any problem, right?” Roland leaning forward over the edge of the wall, asked Carter, who was standing at the bottom of the wall, “Don’t look down on your opponent.”
“Your Highness, my rank as a knight isn’t only for show,” Carter said before placing a helmet on top of his head, “Furthermore my opponent only has a wooden sword, he can’t hurt me at all.”
The test subject was a murder and robbery and for this sentenced to death, even so, Roland didn’t like to use him as a test object. So, he bluntly offered the prisoner that in the case that he took part in the test, his family would get five gold royals as remuneration. The other side hesitated for only a moment, before he immediately agreed to the condition.
Carter had hoped that the other side would also put on an armor and would also pick up an iron sword so that he could have a fair contest, but Roland had refused without any hesitation. If the murder had a sharp weapon, the danger would be multiplied, and if he was to cut off Carter’s head, even Nana would have no way of saving his life. As for the reason that he wasn’t wearing any armor, it was to test if the black pill really enhanced tolerance to pain.
The prisoners swallowed the two pills, and the expression on his face quickly changed, the veins on his forehead and arms all turned blue, while his skin turned a deep red and his breathing started to race. He grabbed the wooden sword, calmly waiting for the knight to react, then suddenly, he dashed forward. His speed was comparable to a running wolf and every time he stepped on the ground, small pits would be dug into the soil.
Seeing this, even Carter was clearly shocked, but he still unhurriedly stepped to the side, while at the same time delivering a cross cut. This move forced his enemy to change his direction, otherwise, his rib cage would be cut open.
However, his opponent was still just a very vicious murderer, he hadn’t undergone any combat training. So, he was caught by surprise, getting a deep cut in his chest area, out of which a huge amount of blood started to pour out. Such injuries were enough to affect the activity of half of his body, but he still didn’t show any sign that he cared about it, he just turned into the knight’s direction. He tried the same tactic as before, yet this time he changed it a little, the moment they passed each other, the prisoner stretched one arm towards the knight’s sword hand, in this awkward position he was unable to use much power, but the moment Carter swept out with his sword he could only see the shadow of the murderer, he subconsciously moved the sword into a parrying position, and was immediately hit by a strong force, which pushed him two steps back. The moment the wooden sword crashed into the iron sword, it immediately shattered into many pieces.
“That only took a little more effort of me,” Carter shook his numbed hand, “give him another sword so that he can come again.”
The prisoner did not take the offered sword, instead, he suddenly turned around, and directly rushing in the direction of the Concealing Forest, in the blink of an eye he was already out of Carter’s reach, his speed was comparable with a galloping horse, and he was unable to be caught by an ordinary person. The murderer stretched his arms in front of himself, running directly into the body of a soldier who was prepared to shoot, and pushed him to the side.
The soldier let out a wretched cry and was sent flying. At this moment, the other soldiers were finally able to pull the trigger, the prisoner was clearly hit and also left some blood behind, but his speed was still not reduced in the least, he quickly broke out of the encirclement, and after a few seconds he had already covered a distance of several tens of meters.
“Do not let him run,” Carter shouted, “Get me my horse!”
Before Carter had even the chance to jump on his horse, the prisoner suddenly stood still, and stared with an incredulously look at his abdomen, there a horizontal cut had cut his abdominal cavity wide open, and his intestines started falling out.
He slowly turned his gaze to his back, only to see a woman completely in white standing behind him, holding a silver dagger in her hands. He had no idea where she suddenly came out from.
TN: I changed self-strengthening into self-enforcing