Chapter 254: The Great Witches’ Opinions
Within the mist-shrouded illusion, the Great Witches of Moyland gathered around the round table.
Everyone's gaze was focused on Queen Alice, the only one completely concealed by the mist. This tea party had been personally convened by the Queen.
“Report what you discovered in your investigation, Dorothy.” Alice signaled for Dorothy to speak.
Arachne, seated on the other side, lightly furrowed her brows, vaguely sensing that something was wrong.
“Yes.” Dorothy stood up as instructed, “After my investigation, I have basically confirmed the authenticity of the intelligence I gathered previously. The murderer who killed Count Fry was that man known as Fenrir, whose real name is Leon Set. He serves as an Inquisitor in the Church, has now inherited the title of Viscount of Allende in the Empire, and controls Temple Island……”
“I also investigated that matter. That bastard seems to be producing mana himself on Temple Island and selling it throughout the Count's former territories, stealing our business. I've already begun verifying it, and once it's confirmed, we can take action against him.” Arachne suddenly cut in.
She and Dorothy had both gone to the Empire. She couldn't possibly let Dorothy monopolize the entire report and make it look as though she hadn't investigated anything properly.
“Hehe, as expected of the woman of action among us, your efficiency never disappoints. Fortunately, I didn't report to Her Majesty too late.” Dorothy laughed, then looked toward Alice.
“Dorothy has already reported to me that Fenrir took the initiative to contact the Witch Assembly and submitted a request to trade with us. I am considering accepting it.” Alice directly stated the reason she had convened them.
“Your Majesty!?” Arachne was caught off guard, then immediately realized something. She glanced at the smiling Dorothy and at once understood that Dorothy had been meddling in the middle.
She wasn't the only one surprised. The other Great Witches were shocked as well.
An Inquisitor, formerly one of the Count's officers, had suddenly betrayed and killed the Count, causing enormous losses to all of Moyland. It was even reasonable to suspect that he had been an assassin sent by the Church faction most hostile toward Moyland, deliberately dispatched to eliminate the Count and strike at them.
Under circumstances like that, even simply considering not killing him would require convincing reasons. Yet this man had actually dared to proactively contact the Witch Assembly and propose a trade, while Her Majesty the Queen was even considering accepting it!?
“Why is that, Your Majesty?” Great Witch Isula couldn't help asking.
“Your Majesty, this man killed the Count and caused us such enormous losses. This may even be a method used by the Church of Noren against us. Why should we consider trading with him? He may be a spy sent by the Church of Noren to obtain intelligence from us!” Arachne promptly followed up, trying to persuade Queen Alice.
“Oh, give it a rest, Arachne. You probably have absolutely no idea how much intelligence Count Fry leaked from us to the Empire, do you?” Dorothy suddenly said.
“Shut your mouth! Right now, only you and I are in the Empire. If that bastard wanted to contact us, he could only find you. You actually colluded with our enemy and even tried to bewitch Her Majesty?” Arachne glared furiously at Dorothy.
“Enough, watch your words, Arachne.”
Great Witch Melfisen, seated beside Arachne, reminded her to be careful with her words. After all, Dorothy had not yet finished her report, while Her Majesty had already given her judgment.
“Don't get so worked up, Arachne. You gathered intelligence too. Have you confirmed whether he truly possesses the Blood of the Evil Curse Blessing like the rumors say?” Dorothy asked Arachne.
“From the sound of it, you've already confirmed it?” Arachne suddenly sensed something.
“That's right. I've already used my Chimera to test him. The conclusion is as follows. First, he truly obtained the complete Blessing of the great Moylai despite being a man. His Blessing is the Blood of the Evil Curse, it has reached Tier Two, and his demonkin form is a werewolf.
The abnormality doesn't stop with him possessing Moylai's Blessing. In addition, he simultaneously possesses the Supreme God's Tier One Time Acceleration Blessing, yet from what I detected, his Life Form is complete and he has paid no price. Even stranger……he can use both Blessings at the same time! With the physique of a werewolf, he can withstand the side effects brought by Time Acceleration, and the Blood of the Evil Curse he releases can also be enhanced by the Supreme God's Blessing!” Dorothy finished reporting the key intelligence.
At that, the tea table temporarily erupted into chaos, with the witches beginning to discuss it among themselves.
“Has there ever been such a precedent?”
“Never! Even Her Majesty Isis halted the experiment to obtain a second Blessing when signs of the price appeared, didn't she?”
“A man, and a hateful Imperial at that……how could this happen?”
“Dorothy, are you certain? Deliberately deceiving Her Majesty is a capital crime!” Even Arachne couldn't help doubting Dorothy.
……
“My ladies.” Queen Alice suddenly spoke.
Although it was only a calm voice, everyone quickly fell silent.
“This truly is an unprecedented case. Therefore, I have decided to temporarily maintain contact with this man for the sake of observation.” Alice put forward her decision.
Many of the witches looked at one another, and no one raised any objection.
Such a precious case had never appeared before and might never appear again. As Great Witches who worshiped Moylai, no matter who they were, they would want to understand and study him.
In that case, it truly would be inconvenient to kill such a precious test subject.
And based on this point alone, the possibility that this man had ties to the Church's most anti-heretic hawkish faction decreased dramatically.
Among the Great Witches, some also possessed relatively devout faith in Moylai. If this matter was true, then for them, the existence of a man so extraordinarily favored by Moylai could, to a certain extent, be regarded as an expression of Moylai's will.
Regardless of why Moylai's will had manifested in this form, they shouldn't recklessly defy such a will, lest they bring about irreversible consequences.
However, those words were not suitable to be spoken in front of Queen Alice.
“Then I propose that we directly abduct him, bring him to Moyland for study, and place this precious specimen under our control!!” Arachne suddenly proposed.
She truly hadn't expected that a man could genuinely possess Moylai's Blessing and even enjoy privileges in regard to Blessings.
By now she had clearly realized that killing such a man would probably never receive the support of the others, including Her Majesty the Queen, so she promptly changed direction.
This man had killed the Count and cut off her path, and now he actually wanted to establish a new trading route with Dorothy. How could she possibly tolerate that?
Arachne had always been someone who repaid grudges without fail. She had long been sharpening her knife for the Count's murderer, so naturally she wouldn't let him off easily.
If she could gain support to abduct this man to Moyland, then as an interrogator she would have the opportunity to properly torment him, while also preventing Dorothy from stealing away the smuggling route.
“That is also a method, but Arachne, are you confident? A werewolf who possesses both Blood of the Evil Curse and Time Acceleration and can use them simultaneously, if he resists with everything he has, are you confident you can capture him alive?” Dorothy asked Arachne.
“You've definitely already made contact with him, haven't you? Find a way to lure him out, then I'll ambush him. With the two of us working together, are you saying we still couldn't handle him? Or are you unwilling to take the risk?” Arachne snorted coldly.
“When I met him, there was someone else beside him, you know. Jonathan Ruit. Arachne, you shouldn't be unfamiliar with him, right?” Dorothy smiled at Arachne.
Arachne's brows tightened.
Jonathan Ruit was no stranger to the Witch Assembly. He had once been a colonel in the Empire's expeditionary army, and in one battle his unit had used a suicidal diversion tactic, paying the brutal price of total annihilation to inflict a severe blow on Moyland's navy.
And to Arachne, he was an even more familiar old acquaintance. He had now changed his name to Johnny Wellman and was responsible for escorting the Count's ocean-going fleet. Every time someone came to her territory to collect goods and make payment, it had been Johnny's fleet.
And now, Johnny had actually switched allegiance to Fenrir. She truly had not yet obtained intelligence on that point. With his support, Fenrir really wouldn't be so easy to deal with.
Taking the deduction one step further, that would mean Fenrir had very likely seized the Count's established territories along the way and taken possession of the Count's resources.
In that case, it would become much more difficult for her to find someone else to rebuild the Count's sales network. Dorothy had already gotten ahead of her in that respect!
As though confirming her deduction, Dorothy continued: “According to what I've learned, he has already successfully inherited the vast majority of the Count's sales network, and he even intends to continue expanding it. He is the best candidate for establishing a new smuggling route. Judging from the feedback, his ambition seems to exceed the Count's, so he has further value for utilization.”
“But he's producing mana himself. How about ordering him to stop that portion of production?” one Great Witch proposed, quickly receiving quite a bit of agreement.
“No, I think that would be applying pressure in the wrong direction. What we should force him to do is use that as the reason to increase his purchase volume, make him find ways to expand the market and dispose of the goods, and increase the influence of the mana trade.
For example……make him expand the market into the Empire's west, force him to do what the Count never dared to do in the past. In addition, I'm still investigating whether he possesses some special Blessing power inside dungeons.” Dorothy suddenly added.
“You mean he might be a Dungeon Lord? Just like……” Great Witch Isula glanced at Queen Alice halfway through speaking and abruptly stopped.
“Since we've already seen the unprecedented case of a Blessing appearing on a man, it isn't impossible.” Dorothy said.
Only Moyland's successive Queens had possessed the power of a Dungeon Lord, inherited in a direct line from Her Majesty Isis to the current Her Majesty Alice.
Of course, in a certain sense, they could also be regarded as the same person.
“They” were the masterpiece into which the Abyssal Church, and even the former Earth Mother Goddess Church, had poured all their resources!
“Wait, if that's the case, wouldn't he pose a threat to Her Majesty the Queen's advancement……?” Arachne suddenly said.