Upset with the sudden change in the situation, Azima looked to the side and stopped talking.
The crowd was silent as Doris wept and wept. After Doris had finally calmed down, Scroll spoke up again. "I believe many of you are just like her. You"ve constantly been on the run and never had the chance to contact your families. Even if you found an opportunity to return, you would only find a hometown in ruins. This is why we want you to provide your personal information to the City Hall. With this information, we"ll be able to send each one of you the latest news about your hometown once any of your fellow townsmen come to Neverwinter. Among those people may even be your relative."
"Besides, City Hall has already sent staff to gather the refugees from all around Graycastle and to bring them back to Neverwinter. It"ll be a long process, but eventually, the news will spread and more and more refugees will come to Neverwinter. It"ll be easier for you to obtain information about your families if you stay here. Of course, if needed, the staff can concentrate their search on the areas around your hometowns. His Majesty is fully capable of doing that."
"Are you serious?" Azima looked up and stared at Scroll. "Are the big shots in the palace willing to help us find our families?"
"If your "big shots" refers to City Hall officials, I"m also one of the big shots," Scroll said with her hands laid out. "We run the city with a completely different system compared to the n.o.bles. As long as you can pa.s.s the exam, even a witch can get involved in the administration and become an official of the kingdom."
These words stirred up a commotion in the crowd.
"As for the question you asked, the answer is yes," Scroll then continued with her explanation. "Neverwinter never intended to stop you from leaving here nor would we want to limit your freedom. But I do have to warn you against leaving Neverwinter right now. The war rages on and famine ravages the country. Numerous towns and cities were left deserted. Not only would traveling outside be very dangerous, but it would also likely be an unnecessary venture. His Majesty is currently leading the army to recover his country. When he unites Graycastle and restores order in all the four regions, you can then head out to wherever you wish."
Scroll paused and picked up the registration form again. "So, do you still think it"s not necessary to fill out these forms?"
This time, no witch objected.
On the way back to the castle, Wendy could not help but exclaim, "You were so brilliant, Scroll. I could hardly think of what to say during that moment. They must have been quite impressed by the Witch Union."
"I just took advantage of my position," said Scroll, with a smile. "There were only 46 witches in the first batch. We"ll be very busy for the next few days."
"Well..." Wendy"s voice sank to a whisper.
"What? Are you going to say you aren"t suitable for the position of manager again?" Scroll stopped walking. "You have to know that His Majesty chose you because—"
"Because I"ve some qualities that the others don"t have, right?" Wendy chuckled. "Rest a.s.sured. Since the last talk I had with His Majesty, I"ve already made up my mind. I was just thinking about how to welcome the arriving witches. Back then, I never thought twice about accompanying my sisters to find the holy mountain no matter how harsh the journey got. Things are much better now, and if I keep saying such nonsense, I would truly feel unworthy of the Chaos Drinks that I stole from Nightingale."
"Now that"s more like it." Scroll said, relieved. "I almost forgot about the drinks until you mentioned them just now. I helped you a lot back there. Are you not going to buy me a drink for it?"
"How about tonight? I"ll ask the kitchen to prepare some toasted mushrooms and fish fillets. Let"s drink and hang out in my room, just like what we did the last time. If there aren"t enough Chaos Drinks, we can borrow some from Nightingale. After all, she isn"t here in the city right now; I can make it up to her later."
"That"s settled then," Scroll said smilingly.
"By the way," Wendy examined Scroll"s forehead with a curious look. "Do you really remember all the personal information of more than 100,000 citizens? Don"t you get confused by all that information?"
"I don"t know how to describe it." Scroll pondered for a moment. "At the beginning, when I wanted to remember something, I had to recall it from the bottom of my memory. For example, if I wanted to look for a name, I needed to recall the date when this person registered and then the exact page in the registration book. It was very troublesome, and I would get a headache whenever I overthought. However, I found that the contents of my memory became more organized over time."
"What does that mean?"
"It"s as if all the details are sorted through automatically... and as soon as I start to recall something, I"ll see all the relevant stuff right away." Scroll paused for a minute and appeared to be weighing her words. "And the strange thing is that I can read a lot of the related items at the same time, in detail. Maybe this is what they mean by practice makes perfect."
"I see," said Wendy, greatly impressed. "His Majesty once said that a person"s memory was far more powerful than we could imagine. I found it unbelievable at that time, but now I believe that it"s no exaggeration."
"Indeed, it"s a wonderful feeling," Scroll nodded and said. "Now, whenever I begin to search inside my head, I"ll feel omniscient. But I"m not sure whether I"m going to be able to remember everything after His Majesty unifies Graycastle and extends his new management system to all the domains."
Wendy was thrilled by this idea and thought, "What does that mean? So if Scroll is still able to remember everything at that time, then all the people"s life stories will be kept in her head.
That means she"ll be history itself."
When Wendy was about to say something, sounds of hurried footsteps came from behind them.
"Lady Wendy, I finally find you," a young City Hall clerk bowed to the two witches and said. "There"s a guy who came to the hall and refused to leave. He insisted on meeting the head of the Witch Union. We"ve told him that we"d pa.s.s on his message, but he said that he has something he must tell you face to face."
"Why did he come? What"s his name?" Scroll knitted her eyebrows and asked.
"His name was Posack," answered the clerk. "He told us the reason, but we think he might be mistaken. He said that he"d found a girl covered in blood when he was tending to the cattle. He thinks that she"s a witch, but the girl was unconscious, so she couldn"t respond to his questions. We"ve checked the work plan for today and didn"t find any witch scheduled to work out of town. Do you have any idea as to what this might be about?"
"Posack, he"s a local man and has a good record. He"s even among the first batch of students of the Agriculture cla.s.s. I believe he doesn"t mean to make trouble for the City Hall." Scroll was puzzled and asked, "Might the witch be Leaf?"
"That"s impossible. Under the protection of the Heart of Forest, no one can hurt her." Wendy immediately denied Scroll"s guess. Roland had decreed that all the new domains he seized this year should be sowed with Golden Twos. To fulfill this goal in time, he had asked Leaf to stay in the Misty Forest to continue cultivating the seeds instead of going to battle with the First Army. "If some enemies were to break into the region of the Misty Forest that she controlled, we would have heard something about it. Don"t forget that there are a group of workers responsible for carrying wheat seeds and also border guards monitoring the northern side of Neverwinter. If there was an attack, we should have heard the alarm by now."
"So then he must be mistaken?"
"Anyways, let"s meet the man first. We can still help the heavily wounded girl even if she"s not a witch." With that being said, Wendy felt a hint of anxiety in her heart.
Am I forgetting something?