Chapter 306 Inside the garden
Scroll stood behind His Highness Roland, attentively watching as he wrote out the manuscript. Autumn sunshine was falling in through the window onto her back, which made it feel like her whole body was being bathed in warmth.
“Ah, in addition to electronic gains and losses, what further content ah… online class, very urgent.” From time to time the Prince would write something onto the paper and then began to lean his forehead on his hands while he pondered and said some difficult to understand nonsense. At first, Scroll was a little worried about the Prince’s health, but later on she discovered, that this was His Highness’ normal state when he was trying to recall his ‘knowledge’.
Merely that today’s symptoms seemed to be much more severe than ever before.
Unfortunately, I cannot help him… Scroll lightly sighed, if there was a witch who could help him in this regard, I am afraid there is only one, Anna. She had already noted down all the content of the previous books His Highness had written in her brain – but it was merely noted down, nothing more. The past knowledge about those math and natural principles was something much deeper, just reading it is already enough to make people’s head turn muddle-headed, no wonder His Royal Highness feels so embarrassed.
“How about, ending it here for today?” Scroll couldn’t stand it any longer and so she opened her mouth.
Roland decided to give up and put down his pen, leaning his back against the chair then said, “I really envy you for your highly retentive memory. If I could be like you, why would I ever need to worry about exams? I would have been admitted to a famous school and walked to the pinnacle of life.”
She automatically ignored the other’s later half of words as nonsense, “Your Royal Highness did they also demand you take those exams at the palace?”
“Yes ah, or how to separate which prince is more outstanding than the others,” he mumbled to himself.
“In fact, sometimes it is not good to remember everything,” Scroll said with a smile. “For example, bad experiences, or the times when you felt deeply hurt or sad, or when you are unable to forget when your life was still happy.”
At the time when she lived in the Seawind Region, due to her identity of being poor, she had to suffer bullying and beatings countless times already. Until today, she could clearly remember the location of every hit, the faces of the perpetrators twisted in anger, and the pain of each kick. Only after finding shelter by the old captain with the broken leg did her life become slightly better. In fact, living in slums like places, with each of them pillaging, fighting, and killing each other, was not much different from freezing or starving to death.
For a long time, she had hated herself very much, why were all her suffering still vivid in her mind. Because the memory of those scenes was still so clear, the nightmares she suffered during the nights, were repetitions of her unbearable past. Later on, during her day of adulthood, when she awakened her branch ability “Magic Book”, she finally understood that her extraordinary memory was actually something that came along with her identity as a witch.
Probably Roland could guess what she wanted to say, so he revealed an apologizing smile and said, “You might be right.”
Scroll suddenly felt warmth flowing through her heart.
There were only very few people who cared about a witch’s thoughts, not to mention, this person was even an illustrious member of the royal family.
“It doesn’t matter, those times have already passed, Your Highness.”
Roland Wimbledon, compared with other nobles she had seen… no, he was very different compared to all of the people she had met. He possessed a lot of learned knowledge, but all day long he only thought about how he could teach it to other people; his identity was that of a noble, however he didn’t reject people that were below his rank; he enjoyed the praise of the crowd, he could act recklessly, but this was not everything to him, instead, he also took care of other people’s feelings.
A desolate and impoverished town had undergone earth-shaking changes within one year. The freedom and peace that witches had longed for, was actually granted to them by His Highness Roland. If she hadn’t personally experienced it, she would never have believed that there could exist such a ruler in the world.
Nowadays, Scroll had discovered that her own way of thinking had undergone some changes. Before this she hadn’t approved of His Highness wanting to take a witch as his wife at all, but now she felt that regardless of who His Royal Highness married, he would take over the throne of Graycastle. He wasn’t like the others who kept with the routine of favoring those power-hungry and corrupt nobles, rather, he preferred to make a better life for his people.
She faintly felt that this surge of strength seemed to be stronger than any previous force..
“Ah, let it be,” all of a sudden Roland said while rubbing his head, “This is the last page.”
“Will you continue to record tomorrow?”
“No, just give it to him like this. Together with the physics teaching material, it should be enough for him to study for a while.” His Royal Highness took a new paper and quickly wrote down a few characters on it before he continued, “After all, it is a copy of a book from ‘ancient times’, so it should be normal to be missing most of it, right?”
Scroll took the paper and saw the name of the book – “Intermediate Chemistry (Remnant)”.
…
After finishing her memorizing task, Scroll left the office and was preparing to go back to the City Hall when the magnificent scenery of the back garden attracted her attention.
After the completion of the castle wall expansion, the castle’s backyard had almost reached the size of the town square. And now, less than a week after, it was already covered by all kinds of plants. There was no doubt that this must be a masterpiece of Leaves.
Scroll followed the pass formed by two rows of olive trees, step by step going towards the depths of the garden. After passing by a row of dense sugar cane, she saw Leaves sitting on the shore of a pond.
The other side hadn’t bound her hair into the braided pigtails she usually wore during the daytime, instead, today she had draped her head full of green long hair over one shoulder. Her spotless white feet were lightly splashing around within the water, she was holding some wheat grains in her hands, and from time to time she would throw them towards the fishes swimming around her feet. Unable to stop herself from chuckling out loud, whenever one of those fishes approached her and gently brushed against her toes.
“Are your feet completely healed?” Scroll asked as she sat next to her.
“Oh, it’s you Teacher Scroll,” she blinked for a moment in confusion, then nodded happily and said. “Yes, Miss Nana has restored them to their original form. Like this, I finally don’t need to endure the pain in my toes during winter.”
“Are all these plants you planted in the garden your improved versions?”
“Well,” Leaves said as she began to point happily towards each of them, “Over there is the vine shed, here are the fruit trees, and there are the crops. I also asked His Royal Highness to bring me a batch of compost, just so that I could test the absorption quality of the new crops. In addition, there are dozens of bird’s nest in the fruit trees, and the messengers Honey raised are all sleeping on top of the trees.”
Scroll lovingly stroke her hair and said, “I thought you would be the first witch of the Witch Alliance to evolve. After all, when we were within the Impassable Mountain Range, the ability you displayed wasn’t below that of Cara.”
“His Royal Highness said that the possibility to evolve one’s ability comes along with the understanding of our ability. Plant cells do indeed make people feel they are unfathomable is what I’ve thought long ago, but now I think that at the root of it they are all the same. You see, a bundle of tiny grass when fused together can change into flexible vines, but if they were different, how could something like that ever be possible?”
Scroll opened her mouth, but she didn’t know whether she should comfort her or agree with her, so finally, she said: “Your ability, even without evolving, can already do so much for His Highness.”
“I feel that it is not far away from me,” Leaves said, shaking her head, while her eyes were filled with bright light, “Animals are living, plants are living, and even several parts of them together are living as well… Birds need trees to build a nest, while their droppings once again bring nourishment to the trees. A forest can provide a living being with everything its needs while at the same time the forest extends due to the provided moisture of all living things.” She paused, “Look at this garden. I think I already found a way to move forward.”
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