Rumors[]
She is initially captured when the North Mine collapsed. She was suspected of witchcraft on the corpses.
In order to escape, she exposed her identity as a witch and was then captured by angry villagers.
The revenue from that iron mine accounts for half of the production of this town, and the guards confirmed that someone at the scene was killed by witchcraft.
The head and a large part of the body were spread out on the ground as if they were melted. The corpse looked like a used up candle,” the minister said with a look of disgust.
Historically, most of the victims of the inquisition witch hunt were innocent, tools for the church to maintain control over the populace or possibilities for ignorant townspeople to vent their anger. Sure, a small part of the accused caused their own downfall. The kind of people dressed that oddly while mixing together all sorts of strange material, claiming that they could predict the future and knew the conclusion of life and death.
The truth was those people did figure out some tricks, such as the use of chemical reactions, but then they used that to claim that they had gained the power of the gods.
To modern eyes, these were just some simple chemistry tricks, but in medieval times, those could easily be misrepresented as incredible phenomenon.
As for melting people, the first thing Roland thought of was an acid solution.
If she relied on alchemy, and that was rare, maybe…[1]
North Mine[]
Anna’s father was a miner and was working when the mine collapsed. Immediately after they heard about the accident, Anna and the other miners’ families went to rescue their loved ones. The North Slope Mine area was rumored to be an abandoned monster lair with many forked pathways extending in all directions. Since the volunteers were all acting on their own accord, they separated at the mine entryway, and only Anna’s neighbors Susan and Ansgar were by her side when she found her father.
Her father’s leg was crushed under a cart filled with ore, rendering him motionless, but at his side was another miner patting him down for money. When the looter saw them, he rushed at Ansgar with a pick and knocked him to the ground, but as he was about to strike her, Anna killed him first.
Anna’s neighbors vowed to keep her secret and helped Anna rescue her father. However, early next morning, Anna’s father went out on his crutches and reported to the patrolling guards that his daughter was a witch.
This was to receive a reward. Discovering and reporting a witch can get you 25 gold royals. For a man with a crippled leg, 25 gold royals would take care of him for the rest of his life.[2]
Dungeon[]
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She is met on the bottom floor of the dungeon, constrained by God's Locket of Retribution.[1]
She says she used the devil's power to kill that looter.[2]
Roland then snaps the locket to release that witch, and she burns her entire cell, melting the iron bars with her flame talent.[2]
Chen then decides to hire her.[2]
Cottage[]
The witch Roland saw now and the witch he saw yesterday looked like two completely different people. After a thorough cleaning, her long flaxen hair draped over her shoulders like a shawl and had a soft and shiny luster. Although her skin hadn’t been maintained due to her rough life as a commoner her youth made up for it, and the light dusting of freckles which were on the bridge of her nose added a youthful vitality to her face. Her body was still thin and looked as if a strong breeze could push her down, but her cheeks with a rosy color and the bruises and marks on her neck were much faded from yesterday. Roland suspected that witches received an improvement of their physical capabilities in addition to their magic. At least Anna’s recovery rate had to be much faster than the average person’s.
Anna now wore clothes he had carefully selected from a variety of styles, all in order to satisfy his lewd tastes. The full protective clothing that the iron workers wore was too thick and not suitable for her, while the robes many mages wore in games appeared to be elegant and classy, in real life they restricted the mobility of the wearer and would quickly be turned to ashes. As for maid dresses, hey, is there any better clothing than this?
Even if this world had no modern maid outfits yet it was not a big problem, the usual maid clothes were what the later generations were based on after all. So Roland directly took a set of clothes from Tyre and cut it to Anna’s size, shortened the skirt, changed the long sleeves to short sleeves, made the the round neck collar become folded and then tied it into a bow, thereby creating the new witch uniforms.
This was matched with a witch hat (customized), black boots (ready), as well as a knee length cape (ordered). In the past, Roland could only see this type of costume in a movie, but right now, one stood in front of him, looking so much like a witch from earth lore.[3]