Chapter 219 (2/2)

“Have already arrived?” She touched her cheek. “But am I not… sick? Will they agree to let the plague-stricken people enter the town?”

“You are right, that would be indeed be unlikely,” replied Lucia. Seeing the blank expression on her sister’s face, she began to laugh, “However, the Lord’s witches have already cured you.” Afterward, she gave her a summary of what happened at the docks, “and from now on we should stay here in the castle.”

“Witches?” Bell asked, tilting her head, “Are they the same as you, sister?”

“That’s right. Furthermore, everyone is very kind to me, especially a witch called Nightingale,” Lucia softly poked her head. “She also helped with giving you a bath.”

“Oh, but you have always said that the nobles would loathe witches? Why would the Lord be willing to shelter witches?”

Taken aback by the question, Lucia coughed twice. “This… Occasionally there are also one or two good people within the nobility.”

While taking out the last piece of dried fish out of the bag, Bell asked. “Does that mean you need to work for him? Like those maids at home, sweeping the floor, cooking, and attending upon the Lord?”

“What nonsense are you talking about,” Lucia said, grasping her younger sister’s face, “I am a witch! It is only naturally that I have to help the Lord with my ability! As for maids having to do those things, who told you that?”

“Mommy…” she sadly whispered, “She said that’s also the reason why she never allowed daddy to recruit a beautiful maid.”

Hearing her mention their family, Lucia’s face suddenly darkened a lot. Instead of blaming Bell for bringing it up, she pulled her younger sister into a hug and softly sighed.

She wasn’t worried about her sister’s theory, during the conversation with the Lord, she could see that besides of simple inquiries about her life experiences, the only other thing of interest to him was her ability, making it evident that he cared more about whether a witch’s ability could serve useful to him or not.

But, when thinking about her ability, Lucia felt deeply worried and sick at heart.

She had never been ignorant about the witches’ world; she knew that six months ago many witches had come through Valencia, and afterward the others had one after another left the city. She had heard that they were leaving for the Fjord’s, wanting to find a new home. But Lucia didn’t want to leave her parents and because of that she hadn’t agreed to travel with them. However, with her repeated contact with them, Lucia at least became aware that witches are used to dividing themselves into combat and noncombat types.

Her ability to restore an object to its original state could be said to be useless. Not to mention using it during a fight, even using it during peaceful times it was already difficult for her to control.

Her father had been a merchant, operating the family’s papermaking workshop, so it was often that the living room was filled with the prepared straw paper. But on the day when she became a witch, she unwittingly chanced upon using her ability, turning the paper back into a pile of grass and fine powder. After the event, although her parents severely rebuked her, they did not give her away to the Church. Instead, they repeatedly warned her to hide herself carefully and if necessary, even go so far as put on a God’s Stone of Retaliation, disguising herself as devoted believer.

At first, Lucia was full of curiosity about the ability, often secretly hiding in her bedroom to restore all kinds of test items. But she quickly discovered that this ability was extremely difficult to control. For example, restoring the straw paper again, she sometimes got the same grass bits as the first time, but other times there were only black granule left. In case she would continue to cast her magic on an object, it will only become less and less, and the final product was not a fine powder but rather a grit, which meant that her restoration ability couldn’t be used to restore a heavily damaged object. She was only able to destroy what other had carefully produced.

The other witches had also thought that her ability was useless. In case she wanted to use it in battle, she would have to get too close. Furthermore, her ability was also ineffective on a living body, so not to mention using it to fight against a trained knight, even the average farmer would already be terribly difficult. And so, considering to become a combat witch was out of the question for her, but also as a non-combat witch, she couldn’t think of any uses, it was almost like her ability was on the lowest level.

Coming to this conclusion, she had been depressed for a long time.

But now… what Lucia was now more anxious about was, if His Royal Highness also believed her to be useless, will he cast her out of the castle?

With an uneasy feeling, she blew out the candles, took her sister who was perfectly satisfied gnawing on the finished fish bones into her arms, slowly closed her eyes then awaited the arrival of a new day.