Volume 4, Chapter 38 – Traces of the Past

“No, no, this is just a misunderstanding, Anastasia. Take a good look around.”

Just as Fia said, this place was actually the underground grand hall of the Witch Hall, the same spacious area she had passed through before to get to Lianne’s meeting room. However, it might have been better if Fia hadn’t said anything. The moment she did, Anastasia and Milu immediately noticed a group of apprentice witches, also wrapped in bath towels, walking not far away. And because the apprentices were fooling around, their swaying towels were not covering what they were supposed to.

Correspondingly, Friede’s face became awkward. She held one hand to her chest and coughed loudly into the other, not forgetting to move her body to block the view between Fia’s group and the apprentices.

“Ahem, my apologies, Lady Fia, for letting you see such an improper sight. We’ve just returned from the great desert, which is why we’re bathing at this hour. Did you come here using the [Transmission Beacon]?”

With the excuse Friede had given her, Fia naturally went along with it. She pretended not to see the apprentice witches and answered with a smile.

“Mhm. I came back this time to find a place to experiment with magic. I’ve also found a few suitable residences in Blossom. I’ll take you to see them in a bit. After all, you’re the ones who will be living there, so it’s more appropriate to give the choice to you.”

“So soon? Weren’t you not yet in Blossom the last time you were here? It’s only been less than a week…”

Hearing that Fia had already found a place to live, Friede’s black eyes widened in surprise, and a sense of gratitude quietly welled up in her heart. Even without Fia saying it, she could imagine that after losing her memory, the number of things she had to deal with in the royal palace must have been like a snowstorm. Yet Fia had still put the witches’ residence as her top priority. This made Friede, who had never received such treatment, feel extremely uneasy.

“It hasn’t affected your normal life, has it, Lady Fia?”

“Rest assured, it hasn’t affected me at all.”

The housing information was the result of Colita’s collection. All she had really done was to pick a few relatively good places from the booklet. The time she had spent on it added up to less than a quarter of an hour.

At this, Fia feigned a look at Friede’s wet, black hair.

“More importantly, you need to prepare, Friede, and call Lianne. How should I put this… because the places that can accommodate three or four hundred people are basically only farms and workshops, the conditions there are simple and not suitable for immediate living. The farm I think is in the best location has a collapsed mansion. It will require someone skilled in earth-elemental magic to build some temporary housing before you can move in.”

There was a spell in earth-elemental magic called [Stonework Creation], which could create temporary residential houses. As for furniture, Fia planned to purchase a batch for them if the witches didn’t have any.

“No problem, I’ll go call Lianne right now! By the way, are you going to the desert to experiment with magic, Lady Fia? There might be some problems there.”

“Problems?”

Fia tilted her head.

Rеαԁ on КαtReαⅾiոgСаfе

Friede gave a wry, gentle smile.

“I don’t know how to say it… you’ll know when you go to the great desert and see it for yourself. To say it out loud would be to spoil the mood. Besides Lianne, is there anything else you need to bring?”

“Spoil the mood… if you all want to stay there for a while, then bring some more gold coins and clothes. Also, bring some tools for weeding. The farm is full of weeds.”

Although Colita could have arranged for people to go and weed the farm with a single order from her, seeing the faint joy and excitement on Friede’s face, Fia felt it was more appropriate to let the witches handle it themselves.

For Friede’s group, who were homeless and not tolerated by the world, there was nothing more precious than a place that could accommodate and accept them. Even if it was just a ruin overgrown with weeds and filled with rubble, they were willing to call it home. And to build a home from scratch, the moment it was completed, they would surely feel an unprecedented sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. That feeling of security could only be experienced through personal effort. It was better not to interfere too much, even with a small matter like pulling weeds. For the witches, it was a kind of happiness.

Sure enough, the joy on Friede’s face grew even stronger. She agreed at once.

“Alright! I’ll pick a few steady-headed children to go. As for Miss Anastasia and Miss Euphimilu here, are you going to the desert with Lady Fia, or will you just sit here? Latania and the others are still in the bath. If you haven’t had breakfast, there is still hot food in the dining room.”

“I—”

“Anastasia and Milu can just look around here. I’ll be back soon. If you can, please check on Laplace’s Demon for me and see what it’s up to.”

Fia made the arrangements before Anastasia could speak. The magic experiment was too dangerous, and if she had them stand at a safe distance, they wouldn’t be able to see anything clearly. The desert was exceptionally dry and hot; it was better for them to chat with the apprentice witches in the cool Witch Hall.

“Understood, Your Highness.”

“And Milu?”

“Mmm… come back soon.”

“Mhm. I’ll be back before long.”

Seeing Milu’s troubled expression with an index finger to her lips, Fia patted her white hair. Then, with Friede seeing her off, she left the Witch Hall.

◇

Her vision quickly changed to a vast expanse of yellow sand. The dry and hot air rushed into her trachea through her nasal cavity, causing a burning pain in her throat. Looking down from the sky, all she could see were rolling sand dunes. To Fia’s surprise, in less than half a month, the great desert outside Byrne City had undergone many changes.

Rеαԁ οn КatRеаԁіոɡСаfе

First was the green. Due to the revival of the ley lines, the low-lying green grasslands had now extended several kilometers into the desert. Fia even saw a few small ponds.

Second, there were many more signs of human activity in the desert. People traveled in groups, like a line of ants. Along the way, there were also many street vendors selling fresh water and food. With the excellent eyesight of an elf, Fia could see that the people walking into the desert were not dressed as travelers, but more like miners, with pickaxes and large cloth bags on their backs. She didn’t know what they were up to.

Without paying much attention to this group of strangely dressed people, Fia accelerated towards the center of the desert where she had used the orbital bombardment. However, when she arrived at the location, she discovered that the destination of those miners was the very place where she had used it.

Looking down from Fia’s position, a large market had already formed in the meteorite crater at the center of the explosion. Not only were there manually excavated caves, but there were also simple stone houses on the ground created by magic-casters using [Stonework Creation]. A rough look showed that there were over a thousand people moving about.

“This is…”

Fia’s eyebrows rose slightly, and she descended a little.

She could see the miners laboriously digging for stones in the black earth with their pickaxes. These stones would then be washed and dried by the women not far from them. In addition, there were also magic-casters in the market using appraisal magic on the stones. It was quite a lively scene.

Fia immediately understood what these people were doing.

The problem Friede had mentioned must have been the existence of this market.

The orbital bombardment half a month ago had destroyed countless high-rank monsters along with their magic cores and corpses. The mana contained in them had, under high pressure, fused with the molten sand, making these sands—or more accurately, crystals—rich in mana.

On the first night after the explosion, she had considered that these crystals might be very valuable. She had circled the center of the explosion using [Wind of Exploration] and [Telekinesis] to collect all the crystals with extremely high mana content. Now, these people were doing the same thing as she had been then, mining for crystals with mana.

Although the remaining crystals were mostly of the low mana content type, they should still have some mining value. With a bit of luck, they might even be able to find some of the high mana content crystals she had missed. Of course, these miners didn’t have [Wind of Exploration] to check the mana content. They could only dig them out first and then hand them over to a magic-caster for appraisal. It was a matter of luck.

“At this rate, I don’t know how long it will take to finish digging. And I wonder how much money they can make.”

She could go down and ask, but as the creator of this place, it would seem like she had a twisted sense of humor.

With one hand on her chest, Fia lowered her head in thought.

“Since countless people are flocking here, it must be profitable. I’ll ask Friede about it later.”

Friede seemed to have said something about “just coming back from the desert.” She must have been looking for mana-rich crystals nearby. If she hadn’t seen it now, Fia would have forgotten that when she had left Byrne City, she had secretly reminded Friede to quickly come to the desert to collect the still-valuable crystals.

Rеad оn ΚаtRеаⅾіոgСαfе

It should be said that Fia had no intention of charging a toll or demanding that the miners here pay to dig. She had already taken the high-value parts. The remaining defective products were useless to her and she didn’t have the time to dig them up. It was not a bad idea to think of it as creating jobs and giving the people who lived off the desert another way to survive. The people here lived too hard a life. Besides, Byrne City would belong to Silvar before long, so they could be considered half her own people. Helping them out a bit would only make her feel better.

At this thought, Fia smiled. Then she noticed that some of the people were not mining for crystals, but were carving a large block of stone at the entrance of the market. Although the statue had not even been roughly carved out yet, Fia could clearly see the words engraved at its base.

『—In memory of the elf princess who turned the tide in the beast tide of destruction, Dofilia Alexia Yushir.』

“Uh…”

This must be the “spoiling the mood” Friede had mentioned.

No wonder she hadn’t told her. She wanted to give her a surprise.

Fia felt both happy and embarrassed, so much so that her delicate face flushed red. She had only heard from Baron Khesa that a memorial day had been established for her; she had never heard about a statue being erected.

She had never thought that in a corner of the world—perhaps it couldn’t be called a corner—there were so many people who were grateful to her. Was this good karma?

With a sense of joy and lightness in her heart, Fia no longer lingered and flew straight for the deeper part of the desert.

◇

The desert outside Byrne City was long and narrow. It didn’t take Fia long to find a new testing ground. As far as the eye could see, there was only yellow sand. There were no people within a fifty-kilometer radius, and the field of vision was wide. It was the perfect magic testing ground.

Fia slowly descended onto the highest sand dune, then rose slightly again.

—It wasn’t for any other reason, but that the sand here was a bit hot. Although Fia wasn’t barefoot, her translucent shoes, which were almost like sandals, were not much different from being barefoot in the soft desert. The feeling of sand getting into her shoes was by no means pleasant.

“Let’s start with practical magic.”

Muttering to herself, Fia began to organize the chants in her mind.

She had always adhered to the principle of quality over quantity when learning magic, but the current situation no longer allowed her to slowly grind. It was imperative to learn practical magic and powerful single-target spells.

Practical magic went without saying. As for why she chose single-target spells, the answer was simple. A spell like [Spatial Rift] was certainly powerful, but it was not suitable for use in a capital city with a population of one million. Its practicality was even lower than [Fairy Fire]. In that case, it was more practical to start with single-target spells.

Rеad оn ΚatReаⅾіnɡCаfе

For practical magic, Fia chose [Airflow Control], [See Through], [Flowing Wind’s Blessing], [Demon’s Bane], and [Ready Stance].

For single-target spells, she chose [Thunder Spear], [Mind Blast], [Seal of Retribution], and [Hellfire].

These spells were not chosen at random, but were selected to make up for her shortcomings, which she had summarized from past battles.

The rank of practical magic was generally below the Fourth Rank. It wasn’t that Fia didn’t want to learn higher-rank practical magic, but that the “tech tree” of the World Tree Continent was extremely skewed. Because the number of magic-casters was small and their status was high, they usually only had to cast spells from a distance, so few people developed magic that was not for direct offense or defense. This led to the fact that magic with an unclear positioning generally did not have a high rank—although the Third Rank was already a realm that most people could never reach in their lifetime.

Take [Airflow Control], for example. Fia learned it to use as a buffer. If a heavy object were to fall towards people, she could use it to slow it down, and then catch it with [Telekinesis]. But such a spell was clearly not as direct as [Fireball], so it had stopped at the First Rank.

As for the remaining [See Through], [Flowing Wind’s Blessing], [Demon’s Bane], and [Ready Stance], the first two were Second-Rank spells, and the latter two were Third-Rank.

[See Through] was a spell that could to a certain extent break through illusions and disguises. [Flowing Wind’s Blessing] was the spell Greyan had used before, which greatly increased one’s speed at the cost of consuming a large amount of mana in a short period of time. Although Fia could exceed the speed of sound with just [Flight], its shortcoming was that it was not agile enough. If she were fighting on the ground, it would be more nimble to use a springboard created by [Telekinesis] in conjunction with [Flowing Wind’s Blessing].

[Demon’s Bane] and [Ready Stance] were more special. The former was a spell that could be applied to a weapon to cause specialized damage to demons, similar to a poisoned weapon. Its drawback was that it was only effective against demons.

The latter was a spell that increased the power of the next attack at the cost of standing still and continuously consuming mana. It was generally used by heavy knights with horses. To use numbers as an example, if the power of a knight’s direct lance thrust was 10, after using [Ready Stance] and standing still to consume mana, the damage of his next lance swing would increase or decrease with the amount of mana consumed, possibly between 15 and 25. Of course, this was just an analogy; the specific situation would vary according to the knight’s magic proficiency and mana.

Feeling the flow of the surrounding wind, Fia set the ground ten meters away as her target and chanted in a low voice.

“—[Airflow Control].”

Whoosh.

Abruptly, a small airflow swirled in front of Fia. The sand on the ground was swept up by the wind, dyeing the cyclone yellow. Unlike [Wind Blade], Fia could feel that this cyclone was under her control. She could change its flow rate and direction at any time, rather than it being unable to change its flight path once cast.

As a test, Fia used her will to make the cyclone rise at its maximum speed. The result was that its flight speed was still only comparable to that of a mosquito, and when it exceeded a height of ten meters, it dissipated with a pop.

Although she hadn’t had high hopes, this was too pathetic.

No wonder no one liked it.

Fia couldn’t help but feel helpless.