Volume 5, Chapter 38 – Visitors

“But didn’t Your Highness say this was a heater? How does it heat without being roasted by fire? The groove in the middle must be for firewood, right?”

“This is a flameless heater,” Fia hurriedly stopped Anastasia and explained. “You just need to inject magic power from here.”

Fia began to inspect the temporarily made magic stove. Fortunately, she had discovered it in time, and Anastasia’s fire had not damaged it.

As for what a magic stove was, it was not difficult to explain. It was essentially an enlarged and enhanced version of the heated bedding. Due to the lack of water and the cold in the Cold Night Kingdom, the trees around large cities had long been cut down. People usually used crimson stones for fire. However, these stones were a type of ore and needed to be bought. Although the Cold Night was rich in ore and the price of crimson stones was cheaper than firewood, it was still something that had to be used sparingly.

Now, with dozens of iron pots large enough to fit a person needing to be heated, seeing the women struggling to carry the crimson stones was extremely laborious. Fia, with the thought of whether she could improve the heating method, used her enchanted blade to cut out square stone blocks, one meter to a side and pieced them together into a base several tens of meters long. With [Telekinesis], she carved out indentations of the right size to hold the large pots, and then inscribed the [Light] magic circle on the stone.

Because ordinary stone had extremely poor magic conductivity, the heating effect was very obvious. In addition, Fia had deliberately made the magic circle very large, so it consumed more magic power than usual, and the heat generated also increased. As a result, although the temperature of the magic stove could not compare to [Fairy Fire], it was higher than that of burning wood.

Such a stove had no open flame or thick smoke, and it did not require one to blow hard to increase the fire. It was extremely user-friendly and even came with a lighting function. Therefore, after the magic stove was made, Fia had quite proudly shown it to her companions. However, Liti had seen its shortcoming at a glance: its magic consumption was incredibly high. An ordinary person, even someone at the Third or Fourth Tier, would find it difficult to last until a pot of water boiled. Only someone of Fia’s level could use it as a daily appliance.

In short, it lacked practicality.

It should be said that not everyone had a wry smile about the magic stove. Take the two old men from the Elf Tower, for example. When they saw Fia use [Telekinesis] to control multiple quills to draw magic circles at the same time, they were so shocked that their mouths remained open for a long time, their jaws looking as if they would fall to the ground at any moment.

That being said, impractical was impractical. With the respected status of magic-wielders on the World Tree Continent, they didn’t need to go into the kitchen themselves. So, the magic stove was a vase that those with magic wouldn’t use, and those without magic wouldn’t buy.

Nevertheless, the magic stove was put into use under Claire’s doting gaze. Following Fia’s instructions, Anastasia squatted down and placed her hand on the rectangular stove, which was only as high as her calf. As long as she injected magic power into this stone slab, the stove would start to work. Because Claire had been injecting magic power into it before, the dozens of large pots on the stove were now steaming, and the smell of spices and meat mixed together was mouth-watering.

One could see the young Snake-folk girls standing on high stools, responsible for adding seasonings to the large pots, swallowing their saliva as they stared at the rolling meat. And below them, the older women were gathered together, discussing this novel thing called a magic stove. For them, who were housewives and frugal, a tool that could cook food without consuming crimson stones had an endless charm.

“Your Highness, is this alright?”

“Yes. Inject magic power into it. It might feel a bit sluggish at first, but that’s a necessary process.”

“Understood.”

With those words, a faint blue light symbolizing magic appeared on Anastasia’s right hand. However, after only a few seconds, her expression changed slightly.

“Your Highness, this is no longer just sluggish. It requires one’s full concentration to inject magic power, right?”

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“Even you find it difficult, Anastasia… Seeing Claire operate it, I thought it wasn’t that hard…”

As if sensing Fia’s frustration, Anastasia immediately changed her tone to comfort her.

“But it should be a good tool for practicing magic control.”

Thank you, Anastasia, but I already know I’ve made something useless.

After today, I’d better find a place to dispose of this failure and throw it into a corner of my memory.

Feeling that she had made a mistake, Anastasia had to awkwardly change the subject.

“By the way, what did Miss Claire and Princess Tilulu go to do? They were just here.”

“Claire took Tilulu to change her clothes.”

“Change her clothes?”

A hint of confusion appeared on Anastasia’s mature face. In her opinion, the clothes Tilulu was wearing were not that bad and didn’t need to be changed. However, when her gaze fell on the wooden high platform being set up in the distance, a look of realization appeared in her eyes.

“Are they changing into formal wear?”

“Yes,” Fia nodded, the long white hair by her side twitching. “Although most people already know the secret that Tilulu is from the old royal family of the Cold Night because of Chazo’s declaration of war, this is a different matter from her becoming queen. There has to be a formal process. She has to declare herself queen in front of everyone.”

To announce at the time of her great victory over Chazo’s army that Tilulu would be the new queen of the Cold Night would undoubtedly be the most inspiring. Moreover, for the Snake-folk, they had no way back. If Tilulu failed, they, who had defeated Chazo’s army, would surely suffer. The two sides were just a few formal promises away from being grasshoppers on the same rope.

The blonde-haired Anastasia nodded thoughtfully.

“There should indeed be a formal announcement. Starting from here and slowly planning, with your help, it won’t be long before Tilulu becomes a new force that can rival the Holy Son Faction and the Royalist Faction. After that, as long as we continue to support her and send advisors, I believe that without our much interference, she will be able to become the queen of the Cold Night on her own. At that time, out of gratitude, she will once again become Alfrieg’s enemy.”

Anastasia’s words were not finished. She seemed to be hesitant about something, her rosy lips slightly parted, her azure eyes filled with hesitation.

Fia naturally saw this. She first glanced behind her, and seeing that the Snake-folk girls were all busy with their own things and no one was eavesdropping, she smiled and spread her hands.

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“Go on. There’s no one else here.”

“Yes. It’s just that today, you made thirty thousand soldiers surrender with your own power. Everyone saw that Tilulu was relying on your strength, not her own wisdom or martial prowess to defeat the enemy. According to the beastfolk tradition, I’m afraid… I’m afraid it will give people a lot to talk about—no, when Tilulu has her own power in the future, these criticisms will naturally decrease. This subordinate was overthinking. Please don’t mind, Your Highness.”

“Wait, Anastasia, your worry is not superfluous. This is exactly what I wanted to tell you and Liti. Tilulu has changed her name to Tilulu Alexia Lujue. Since last night, she has been a member of the Alexia family. It is only natural to help a family member. Although this reason is a bit far-fetched, as long as she cultivates a force of her own after becoming queen, the criticisms will eventually disappear.”

“Become a member of the Alexia family?!”

Anastasia’s eyes widened, and her voice rose a pitch. She almost stood up. It wasn’t until the nearby Snake-folk girls looked over because of her loud voice that she smiled stiffly and signaled them not to mind her, then asked in a low and urgent voice.

“H-how did you do it? Did you go back to the country and discuss it with His Majesty?”

“No,” Fia secretly glanced at Anastasia’s shocked face and guiltily looked away. “What I mean is… Tilulu will become my daughter starting from today. I haven’t reached the age of adulthood for elves yet, so it’s just a daughter in name. It should be fine, right?”

“Uh,” Anastasia was so shocked she couldn’t speak for a long time. It took her a while to recover. “If it were an ordinary family, it would indeed be fine. But the Alexia family is the royal family of the Kingdom. Adding the name ‘Alexia’ has a significant meaning for Silvar. Without discussing it with His Majesty first and getting his approval, when you go back to the capital in a few days to celebrate the Saint Alexia Festival, how do you plan to explain it to him…”

If Fia didn’t inform Yelido beforehand, and he found out that someone from the Cold Night was using the Alexia name, it might turn into a huge joke. The nobles of this world didn’t care about the lives of the common people. In their eyes, commoners were just plebeians and consumables. It wasn’t strange for them to start a war for the sake of face.

Seeing that Anastasia wasn’t too shocked, Fia was relieved. She had thought there was a rule that minors couldn’t be mothers among the elves. Since there wasn’t, she could justifiably use the name of a mother to help Tilulu become queen. In that case, she would become the mother of the Cold Night nation? The royal family of the Cold Night had been helped by the royal family of Silvar. In this way, the relationship between the two countries would be more harmonious in the future.

Relieved, Fia waved her hand lightly.

“Father is easier to talk to than you think, Anastasia.”

“I hope His Majesty will agree with you…”

Anastasia still had a particularly worried expression.

Fia decided not to linger on this issue.

“By the way, do you know if there are any races in the Cold Night that can communicate over long distances?”

“Well, that depends on how far. The Bat-folk can communicate over long distances with a special sound that ordinary people can’t hear, but the distance is at most three or four thousand meters. Below them, there are many similar races, but the communication distance will not exceed the Bat-folk’s.”

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“What if it’s hundreds or even thousands of kilometers?”

“Impossible. There is no such race, nor does a spell exist that can communicate normally over hundreds of kilometers. If there were such a thing, we in Silvar would have already equipped our army with it. Why do you ask, Your Highness?”

“I heard something that concerned me from the Lionfolk warrior captain.”

In the afternoon after the war ended, Fia had not been completely immersed in enjoying life. She had interrogated the Lionfolk warrior captain about the true purpose of their army coming to attack the Snake-folk, that is, whether they were really just using it as a pretext, but were actually after the Holy Son Faction. The captain had looked completely bewildered, as if he knew nothing about it, and claimed that Chazo had given the command of the army to the disgusting man she had killed, and his only responsibility was to carry out his orders. In this way, the clue was completely lost.

In addition, since Chazo himself was not in this army, Fia began to doubt Ying’s speculation that day. If his goal was to attack the Holy Son Faction, it was impossible for the unfathomably strong him not to go personally to limit the Holy Son’s power. Otherwise, with the Holy Son’s Seventh-Tier strength, even an army of thirty thousand and fifty War Behemoths could not kill her. As long as Nola wanted to run, these people couldn’t stop her at all.

Therefore, either Chazo was not as complicated as Ying thought, or he had other tricks up his sleeve. For example, the army with fifty War Behemoths was to attract the Holy Son’s attention, so that she would gather all her defensive forces on this side, while he himself led another team to secretly attack from the opposite direction. This could also explain why the trump card of fifty War Behemoths was played from the very beginning. The larger the scale of the army, the more attention it would attract.

However, the premise for such a tactic to work was that the two armies must have a way to communicate with each other. Otherwise, on a long march, it would be easy to delay the opportunity due to all sorts of unexpected things, such as encountering muddy roads or bad weather. If the time was dragged out for too long, any low-probability event could happen. If the other army led by Chazo arrived at the Holy Son Faction’s main camp before these thirty thousand, then the feint tactic would be a complete failure.

Considering that the disgusting man had been teleported away by something before he died, the possibility that Chazo had long-range communication abilities was extremely high. In that case, she had to consider the possibility of Nola being attacked by two armies.

From an outsider’s perspective, it was of course most beneficial to sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight. The two sides would first fight to the death and exhaust all their resources. Then, Tilulu could take the opportunity to rush into the capital and declare herself the queen. By the time Chazo reacted, it would be too late; he would have lost the capital to resist.

But this was not without its disadvantages. The beastfolk revered strength. If Tilulu became queen by taking advantage of the situation without accumulating enough strength, she would be despised and would not be able to stabilize her regime for a while. In addition, the Cold Night would suffer a sharp decline in its labor force due to a large-scale war and would not be able to recover for a long time.

In addition, although her first impression of Nola was very bad, after taking her flogging, Fia could see that she was not an unreasonable person. The night before Ying left, she had told Fia that there was a possibility of cooperation between the two sides, and that each could take what they needed.

Nola’s goal was to seek a better life for the people of the Cold Night, while Tilulu’s was revenge. The only point of conflict between the two was Fia herself, that is, the Cold Night could only do things that were beneficial to Silvar and could not harm its interests. If Nola could agree to this condition, then cooperation between the two was not impossible.

The best situation would naturally be to make Tilulu the queen, with Nola as her subordinate. In this way, Nola would get the power she wanted to improve the lives of the people, and Tilulu would also get her revenge. Of course, the premise was that Nola could not usurp Tilulu’s power. On this point, it would be best to have it as a prerequisite not to use violence. A sincere subordinate was far more reassuring than one controlled by fear. Otherwise, a moment of carelessness could lead to a life or death struggle.

But in the end, the most important thing was Tilulu’s thoughts. She would execute whatever she decided. If the decision was not left to her, she would never be able to grow.

If Tilulu did not intend to get involved, she would write a letter to Nola, tactfully reminding her to pay attention to the surroundings of her territory and be careful of enemies with teleportation magic. It would be the least she could do.

“Lady Witch~ May I ask where Lady Tilulu is?”

As Fia was thinking about the future, a Snake-folk girl suddenly found her. From her decent attire, one could tell that she was a noble.

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Fia asked without changing her expression.

“What’s wrong?”

“Someone is looking for Lady Tilulu. They say they are her relatives and hope she can meet them.”

“Oh?”

Tilulu was the orthodox royal of the Cold Night. For someone to claim to be her relative at this juncture, they were either a sycophant trying to curry favor or they had set a trap to harm her.

“Who entrusted you to deliver this message?”

“It was a message brought back by one of my family members when he went out of the city. He said that the people who entrusted him live on the other side of the mountain. This is the letter they sent to Lady Tilulu. They also gave my family member a considerable sum for the errand.”

The Snake-folk girl explained with innocent eyes.

Fia took the letter and nodded with a smile.

“I see. Thank you. I will inform her.”

“Then I’ll be going? Please come to my house when you have time, Lady Witch of Calamity Flame.”

Before leaving, the girl gave Fia a meaningful wink. If this were a human country, Fia would have surely agreed on the spot. But this was the Cold Night, where one could casually give away their daughter as a concubine. Fia really didn’t have the courage to reply. She had a feeling that this invitation was not simple.

“Your Highness, could this be a trap?”

Anastasia frowned.

Fia turned her head and smiled at her.

“We’ll talk about it after the banquet. For now, the celebration is what’s important.”