“Wolf King Woolf and I have already reached an agreement,” Garcia explained, “In case I help him ward off the Church, he will give me a hand in taking over the whole Kingdom of Eternal Winter. So if the Church does not recall their troops, the ships loaded with fierce Snow Powder and Styx river-water will turn the Old Holy City into a sea of flames — unlike the New Holy City, which is surrounding by high city walls, the old city does not have any walls. Thus, without enough manpower, they won’t be able to stop the slaves’ attack from all directions.”
“However if they retreat, the western border of the Wolfsheart Kingdom will be able to receive breathing room, and with the joined border of the two countries, we will also be able to work together against the Church in the future!”
“Indeed,” the Queen of Clearwater nodded, “We will also be able to obtain a firm grip over Endless Winter for ourselves.”
Seeing that the second month of summer was coming to an end, Border Town was on the verge of greeting summer’s final month, which was also the hottest of all of the months, all the more leaving Roland in a mood where he didn’t wish to leave the castle.
Aside from using it to make gunpowder, the rest of the saltpeter brought in by Margaret had been used to lower the room’s temperature — nowadays a bucket of saltpeter with a kettle soaking in it had been arranged within almost all of the castle’s rooms. This way, not only were they able to show the effects of endothermic cooling, but it also allowed them some ice water which they could drink to quench their thirst. Only in this way was he able to keep from sweating as he sat in the office each day.
With the exception of Anna, he had called all of the other witches to stop their work. Outside of their daily practice and learning, they were mainly gathered in the hall of the first floor, either chatting or comparing their skills in Gwent against one another, displaying an appearance that was of both harmony and happiness. However, Anna… It wasn’t that Roland didn’t want her to rest, it was rather that she didn’t hate the heat at all. Compared to holding ingots which were still red from the fire directly in her hands, the hot temperature of summer was nothing to her. Even when standing next to the fireside and producing steel for the whole afternoon, she did not even shed one drop of sweat.
In order to reward Anna for her hard work, Roland had recently specially created some ice cream desserts. For example, the later generation classical types of ice cream — made from stirring a mixture of egg yolk, butter, milk and syrup. Which were then cooled off once more by using saltpeter. Anna was exceptionally fond of this soft and fragrant ice-cold snack, every time he saw her take a small bite of ice cream, her lake-blue eyes would turn into stitches, making him feel very pleased.
Moreover, looking over the monthly reports sent by the City Hall was also a joyous pleasure of his.
By now, Border Town’s population had once more doubled, almost reaching a total of 18’000 people. On top of that, with the addition of Longsong Stronghold’s monthly “transferred” batch of serfs, breaking through the 20’000 mark next year would not be a problem for him. Leaving out the size of the territory of Border Town or the number of villages and towns belonging to it, this scale could almost be compared with the size of Redwater City, the city of Valencia, and King’s City.
However, something which was somewhat regrettable was that even though the population might have grown a lot, the quality of it hadn’t improved by much. At present, there were still more than 1000 of Border Town’s native inhabitants who had yet to receive an education. Furthermore, it would still require one year before they could obtain the capacity needed to graduate without a hitch — although Karl’s previously opened college had fostered a batch of talented students in advance, their number were still less than one hundred, which when compared with the general population, seemed insignificant.
The current development of the town’s factories was also excellent.
