TALES OF A WITCHER - Season 2 Episode 65

Lightning traveled back and forth between Border Town and the southern hills, while the parchments in her hands were slowly becoming all the more complete.

This was her newly received task, together with Soraya, she had to draw a map of the Western Border.

Flying together with Soraya, her flying height was significantly reduced, making it awfully difficult to fly over the forest. So she would first paint a rough outline of the topography, and later with Soraya, they would draw a more exact picture. By using her magic pen, the map would look like a view from up in the air, every detail seemingly totally lifelike.

After a parchment was filled, Lightning would then turn around, and fly back to Border Town. Today, after a few months of training, her flying speed had only become faster and faster. According to the calculation method taught by Prince Roland, her full-speed flight had almost reached close to one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour. At this speed, the incoming strong wind made it nearly impossible for her to open her eyes.

Because of this problem, Lightning thought that she had already reached her limit, but the day before yesterday, His Royal Highness had given her a gift. A headband made out of leather, with two copper ring wrapped into it. Embedded inside those copper rings was a pure and transparent glass, allowing her, for as long as she wore the headband, to be immune to the incoming wind.

His Royal Highness had said that this headband is called ‘windproof glasses’, and that it was actually quite easy to manufacture, by melting some glassware. He had also said, that with her wearing the headband she would look even more like a small Ezreal.

Lightning didn’t know who this Ezreal person was, but she realized that even though the headband was only made out of cowhide, copper rings, and glass lenses, it had still needed a lot of effort to put something like this together. The complete piece of leather had a double layered structure to it so that it could wrap itself tightly around the inset copper rings. And also, to keep her from worrying that the leather band would scratch her skin, the headband had something similar to the buckle of a belt on it, with which she could adjust its size. Looking at it, it didn’t give her the impression of something that had been just casually made.

She immediately fell in love with this gift, almost to the extent that she wanted to wear it even when she was sleeping. Now, she only had to had to pull down the glasses, and she could keep on flying faster and faster, no longer needing to take into account the impact from the whistling wind.

It wouldn’t take very long before Lighting would reach the town, she had planned to immediately head back to the castle and hand over the new map to Soraya, but at that very moment a pale figure suddenly swept past the corner of her eye.

Looking sideways, Lightning saw a pigeon with its wings extended gliding in the direction of Longsong Stronghold. Pigeons weren’t very rare birds, but this one was quite different, it was really too big to be like normal pigeon, just the wings alone would be enough to satisfy her stomach for the length of a whole day.

Lightning had to swallow down her saliva, she remembered the time when she had still lived on the island and caught some flying fish by hand later roasting them over the fire.

Now, living under the roof of His Highness, although the food was very rich, having to eat bread with butter and mushroom soup for months on end, the food had started to become somewhat tasteless to her, so if she could catch a pigeon for roasting…

Reaching out to the pack of salt and pepper fastened to her waist, her decision was made.

Turning around, Lightning flew straight toward the pigeon, and the pigeon quickly noticed the approach of the uninvited guest. It immediately folded its wings, diving downward and seemingly wanting to drill into the woods, to rid itself of this menacing hunter.

Seeing this scene unfolding in front of her, Lighting was shocked, she would never have thought a pigeon could be this smart. A few seconds later, a broad grin spread across her face, and with a sudden turn, she followed the pigeon as it dove downwards. Since the Months of Demons had already ended, the little girl had become confident that nothing could escape from beneath her gaze.

For a moment, the pigeon still skimmed over the treetops, but a moment later it lowered it altitude even further, entering the forest and flying extremely close to the ground. But the distance between itself and its hunter only became shorter and short, no matter how fast it beat its wings, it couldn’t throw off Lightning’s pursuit.

The dense forest receded, and the sun would occasionally shine through the branches, becoming alternatives patches of light and shade. Until they finally flew through an open area, and their surrounding suddenly became open and bright. Grabbing hold of this opportunity, Lightning brought her speed up to maximum, instantly hugging the pigeon from behind and tumbling to the ground.

The pigeon struggled heavily, trying to break free from its shackles. Lightning had already pulled out the knife from her waist, ready to finish off the game, but at this last moment, the dove opened its beak, “Don’t, goo! Help me, goo!”

The little girls shock was so heavy, that she almost tossed her knife away. But she quickly regained her rationality, and asked, “You, are you a witch?”

As an answer, the pigeon nodded.

“And I thought I could finally taste another type of flavor,” Lightning sighed in regret, putting her knife away. “My name is Lightning, what is your name?”

The other expanded into a ball, and then turned into its human form, “Maggie, you actually wanted to eat a bird!” the woman complained.

“I have already eaten a lot of them from before.” Lightning just shrugged her shoulder in response instead. She reached out her hand to pull Maggie up. All of a sudden, a bead rolled out from within Maggie’s bosom, bouncing on to the ground twice, only to fall into a small pit. When Lightning quickly went over to pick up the bead, wanting to hand it back to Maggie, but found that the glass-like red bead with some strange letters engraved on it, seeming very familiar to her.

After frowning for a moment, she grasped a string around her neck, and slowly pulled a dark red pendant from her chest. Placing both of it into her hands to compare them, she discovered that the pattern on them was exactly the same.

“What?” Shocking Maggie who was looking over her shoulder from the back. “Why do you have a trace?”

“A trace … What’s that?”

“You don’t know what it is? This thing can respond to a magic stone, allowing the holder of the stone to locate your position.” Maggie suddenly stopped, “No, why should I even tell this to you? Just now, you wanted to eat me!”

“Do you have such a magic stone?”

“There are,” Maggie nodded her head.

“So, can you find my position?” Lightning asked curiously.

“No, it must match the magic stone to be able to locate the corresponding mark.” She replied very agilely this time, “and only us witches can use this. If you don’t know this already, how were you even able to get one?”

“It was my dad who gave it to me,” Lightning returned the bead to Maggie. “What about you?

“I won’t tell you,” Maggie answered grudgingly, but then she stared curiously at the other girl. “You belong to the Witch Cooperation Association, and Ashes said, that you do not want to leave Border Town.”

“You belong to her side?” Lightning curled up her lips in disdain, “And I thought you were a new witch who was attracted by the rumor. Us witches here have a good life, why should we leave?”

“Because of the danger ah, the church may come here at any time, bringing their Army over with them.”

“An explorer will never shrink away from something because it is too dangerous,” When Lightning spoke out aloud, her face turned slightly red, well… the Stone Tower doesn’t count. It is only a matter of time before I visit the ruin again, and by then I must be the first to enter the basement.

“Furthermore, His Highness Roland Wimbledon has a lot of incredible invention, as long as you have seen them once, you will immediately become attracted to them. One can turn a fist-sized ball into a weapon, and when someone is hit by it, they are torn into pieces.”

“Really? Can you take me to see them?” Maggy exclaimed in admiration.

“That won’t do, unless you join the Witch Alliance, and become one of us.”

“But I have to go back with Ashes…” Maggie hesitated.

“Then you can come back later, ah,” Lightning continued her coaxing. “Here you can have a lot of fun. We have machines which move on their own using heated water, there are also weapons which are able to attack over a distance of a thousand meter, uh… are you asking yourself how far a thousand meters is? All in all, it is very far, if you look at people from one kilometer away, they will seem to be about the size of a tree branch.”

Making many gestures with her hands and feet, “and there are even many more possibilities to go play within the Concealing Forest. Things like poking honeycombs, gathering so many mushrooms that you couldn’t even count all of it, and hunting birds and the wild boars are all so very interesting. Peeling off their fur and roasting them over the campfire. You only have to sprinkle a little salt and pepper on them, and you can relish and eat as much tasty meat as you would ever want.”

“Really?” Maggie couldn’t help but start licking her lips.

“Why should I lie to you,” Lightning hooked her arm around Maggie’s shoulder, “On the other hand, we might even go hunt a bird and roast it, right now!”