RELEASE THAT WITCH

Chapters 321-330

Chapter 321 The Law of Border Town

Early in the morning, the cold woke Roland up. He climbed out from under his cold blanket, put on his wool coat, then immersed his feet into the warm water bucket.

This was one of the corrupting privileges which he could only enjoy as a Prince – every morning, a maid would put out a basin of hot water beside his bed, as well as a clean towel and a cup of warm milk which would warm up his body almost instantly.

Of course, compared to the powerful nobles who had other methods to constantly keep their beds warm, he felt that this was good enough. The former 4th Prince had always attempted to invite Tyre over with exactly that thought in mind, but unfortunately, he wasn't able to enjoy it before his death. However, the new Roland didn't enjoy this practice, so when the position become vacant he had filled it with an elderly but experienced maid instead. In fact, this choice proved to be the right one. Since nowadays there were so many witches staying inside the castle, but she still managed to keep the inside and outside of the castle in good order.

The fire in the fireplace had gone out long before, leaving only white flying ashes behind. Through the cracks in the open window, the cold wind blew into the room, it was so bone-chillingly cold that it was hard to believe that it was still autumn. Roland dried his feet, then washed the rest of his body with another tub of hot water before going over to the window and closing the small gap he had opened through the night.

Even though open fireplaces were very common in this era, he was still worried about the issue of carbon monoxide poisoning and thus he always left a small gap open before he went to bed. This way, with the fire burning the temperature could be kept all the way through the first half of the night, but, after the fire went out there was no difference between the temperature inside and outside when morning came.

I have to come up with an idea to solve this problem, Roland thought, or I won't be able to sleep in the future.

After eating breakfast, Roland took Nightingale, his Chief Knight, and his personal guards on a routine inspection of the city walls.

The vast expanse of grass between the new city wall and the old city has become a vast expanse of white. As they walked over all the thick snow the soles of their shoes made crunching noises.

Lifting his head, he saw a pale gray sky and falling snowflakes that occasionally came floating into the gap between his coat and his neck, bringing with it traces of coldness. He knew that it was very likely that this kind of weather would continue until spring next year... or it might even be longer.

"How is the situation at the defense line?"

"It's much better than the last time," Carter Lannis said, looking relaxed, "Most soldiers of the First Army have already gathered experience on the battlefield. Furthermore, now that we have these revolving rifles, ten guards are already enough to protect about one hundred meters of the city wall, and suppress all the demonic beasts that appear at the feet of the wall. In addition, compared to the old stone wall, the new wall is about half a meter higher, which is a height that is very difficult for a wolf to reach. Due to this, the defense has turned into mere shooting practice for the soldiers. As long as no mixed species appear these monsters won't ever be able to step one foot past the defense line."

"It seems everything is well."

As Roland boarded the wall, all the soldiers he came across gave him a salute, standing straight with their head held high and their chest out. Just by looking at their spirits, it was already clear that the soldiers had completely changed from the time they spent as part of the militia. At that time, although they stood side by side on the wall, seemingly uniformly stabbing with their pike, it was in truth nothing more than a conditioned reflex formed after repeated training. The expression in their eyes was war numb, their movements were all stiff, and when someone took a closer look they would immediately see that most of them were trembling slightly.