Shut up, brave man! I don't want to atone for my sins to you!

Charles knew what Rachel meant:

"You mean Victoria?"

"Of course," Rachel answered in the affirmative, then sighed, "Although I am reluctant to admit it, Victoria is indeed the most developed country in the entire Pangaea."

"Whether it's technology, people's livelihood, or infrastructure - except for the fact that Victoria has made no achievements in the field of magic and has always been considered weak in the military field due to the lack of high-level magicians, Victoria is not inferior to any other country, and can even be said to be far ahead."

"But what's the use?" Rachel shook her head. "No matter how hard those mortals try to catch up or run, they are doomed to be unable to compete with a group of powerful countries. Not only because they are abandoned by magic, but also because Victoria has never had a limited wish machine."

After hearing this, Ciel finally expressed a different opinion:

"That was before."

Of course, Lacier knew that was in the past. She raised her hands and placed them on both sides of her cheeks like crab claws, and said in a cute and deliberate way:

"I understand, I understand. The past was the past, and the present is the present, right? Now Victoria has the help of the witch Thea, and has obtained forbidden spells by analyzing the fragments of the holy sword. She may have secretly developed a powerful weapon that can fight against a group of powerful countries."

She sighed for the second time in a very mature manner and put down her two "crab claws" at the same time:

"Ah... So, it is very likely that Victoria now has the capital to compete with powerful countries, but almost no one knows it except us. Intelligence and information are the most important things when two countries are at war..."

"Hey!" Rachel suddenly had a very interesting idea. "Charles, do you think there is a country that still thinks it can easily defeat Victoria and therefore declares war on Victoria, but ends up capsizing in the gutter due to ignorance and arrogance, and is easily defeated by Victoria?"

Charles was silent for a moment, then answered hesitantly:

"I am not sure."

"You should just tell the truth," Lacie rolled her eyes, "But that's true, who can say for sure whether Guo Qiang, who has mastered the limited wish-granting machine, is stronger than Victoria, who has received help from the witch Thea and obtained forbidden magic?"

At this point, she suddenly thought of something, as if a blessing had come to her mind -

If the holy sword passed down by successive heroes was found somewhere in the past civilization... or was simply made by the past civilization, then, based on Victoria

With today's technological level, is it really possible to reverse engineer it?

The answer is almost certainly "no".

Unless Victoria, like the elves of Lentiheim, possessed a legacy bestowed upon them by the mistress, how could Victoria, who was still tinkering with steam and steel, analyze the advanced technology of previous civilizations that could create something as weird as a limited wishing machine?

But they did it.

With the help of the witch Thea, they successfully analyzed the fragments of the holy sword and obtained forbidden spells that only brave warriors of all generations could master.

Does this mean that...

Lacie suddenly swallowed, lowered her head and looked at her current body.

A wonderful idea was born from her heart:

"Witches, like the holy swords, were they also born from a previous civilization?"

[To be continued]

-

36. What to do

If the witch and the holy sword both came from a previous civilization, then the logic would make sense -

The reason why the witch Xia was able to analyze the holy sword was because she and the holy sword came from the same source.

Along with this conjecture, a subtle idea was born in Rachel's mind:

"what about me?"

She is obviously a witch too!

Even the witch Thea recognized her identity and called her "compatriot", but why did Thea have the ability to analyze the holy sword, while she could only stare at it?

Laceier was about to bang the table and turn into a demon.

unfair!

She is also a witch, why can't she do it?

Is it because she is a flawed witch?

This really is a perfect match with Charles - Charles is a fake hero, and she is an incomplete witch, the two fakes are a perfect match.

Therefore, the information they received was fragmentary and confusing, just like a jigsaw puzzle that was disrupted and missing key parts. It was not easy to put it together.

But they couldn't give up on this puzzle.

Lacele bit her fingers in distress.

After all, the completeness of this puzzle may be related to the safety of the entire Pangaea.

Although the witch Thea seemed to be trying to complete the puzzle just like them, and even went a step further - if the witches really came from a previous civilization as Rachel guessed, then the nature of the "topics" they each promoted would be intriguing - Rachel even had reason to believe that those "topics" themselves were some kind of attempt.

Summarize the experience of the demise of previous civilizations, avoid possible mistakes, and choose the most correct route...

After the fall of the previous civilization, the monsters that were the culprits fell silent and the entire Pangaea turned into scorched earth.

However, just as weeds sprout when the spring breeze blows, the new season of civilization quickly breaks through the ground, grows rapidly, and bears fruit.

Life will find its own way.

Pangaea once again became a garden of life.

At this time, the witches appeared.

They are the gardeners left behind by the previous civilization for the new civilization. They will carefully take care of every plant in the huge garden of Pangaea, that is, every country and race they choose as a "subject", and carefully lead them to the climbing frames or even molds they have carefully designed in advance.

Then, these nations and races will thrive along the lines they provide, and eventually reunite toward some great goal.

Rachel believed that the great goal was to defeat strange beings like Slender Man.

The former civilization was like a blazing bonfire, but it was strangled when it burned most vigorously, leaving only a few sparks, but these few sparks survived tenaciously.

After tens of thousands of years of waiting, when a new season of civilization emerges, when the right time comes, they will burn again and release the energy that has been accumulated for tens of thousands of years.

"So, the current Pangaea is probably a giant laboratory for the witches, and each witch is a researcher in the laboratory. The "projects" they conduct are actually some kind of experiments?"

"Through the experiments and tasks performed by each member, this group of survivors from the previous civilization will get answers: they will know the nature of weirdness, will obtain methods to fight weirdness, will complete the mission they were given from the beginning, they will defeat the weirdness that caused the destruction of the previous civilization, they will..."

"—They will use the ashes of the past to reignite the world."

Lacie exhaled slowly.

Although these were all her guesses, she almost stubbornly believed that this might be the whole truth about the witch.

Even though she is not a real witch, she is just a stranger from another world.

She usurped the sovereignty of this body, and by accident, got involved in this grand revenge that spanned tens of thousands of years, went through two civilizations, and condensed the efforts of countless people.

If that was the case, she could probably guess why the witch Thea wanted to be a riddle teller and refused to tell her the truth about witches.

The witch Thea is also playing.

No, it would be more accurate to say that it was the previous civilization that gave birth to the witch Thea that was going all in.

Different witches choose different subjects, leading different countries or races on different routes, moving towards the ultimate, only goal. But not all subjects and routes lead to success. On the contrary, perhaps only a very small number of witches, or even not all witches, can achieve the mission entrusted to them by the previous civilization.

In this case, let's increase the sample size.

The different topics and routes chosen by the witches should be different, and the bigger the difference, the better. In this case, why not give it a try with a witch who has no idea of ​​the truth but is already on the right path?

Perhaps it is precisely because we know nothing that we can take a completely different path.

Is this what Witch Thea thinks?

Laciel didn't know, but she thought the truth should be similar to this, so the witch Xia was not blocked by some hardship, she was deliberately not telling Laciel the truth.

"But she really underestimated my amazing wisdom," Lacie said with a little pride, but more of a complicated thought, "In the end, didn't I see through everything?"

So the question is, after seeing through everything, what should she do?

Should she take on the heavy responsibility that the witch Thea threw at her without even saying hello, or pretend nothing happened and continue to live heartlessly until this season's civilization repeats the mistakes of the previous civilization and collapses like a building?

Lacie suddenly felt that she was standing at a crucial crossroads.

There are always many choices in life, right? This is true in Pangaea, and in previous lives as well.

Before coming to Pangaea, Lacee would often hear her drunken father complain that if he had listened to his friend's advice in the early years and handed over his hard-earned savings to his friend so that they could do business together, he might have become as rich as that friend. At the very least, it was better than it is now.

Perhaps it was at that time that the gears of fate began to turn quietly for my father.

And now, Rachel felt that she was facing the same choice as her father did back then.

Once she makes her choice, the gears of fate will begin to turn, urging her to embark on a path from which there is no turning back.

But Lacie hates making choices the most. She has always suffered from severe difficulty in making decisions.

"Why don't you ask Ciel?"

For some unknown reason, she thought so.

Perhaps it was because the brave man beside her made her suddenly realize that she was no longer alone, and that she had someone to seek advice from, to act coquettishly to, and to rely on with peace of mind.

So, after a brief hesitation, she bit her lip, carefully reached out her hand and poked Charles' arm:

"Hey Hey hey?"

For some reason, Miss Witch was still not used to calling the hero. She didn't even know how to address him.

Obviously, she could call the hero by his name very naturally before, but now...she actually wanted to call Ciel "husband" or something.

She had even shouted this a long time ago when she was still in the squad, but that time she was on a mission, and she shouted it just to tease Charles and to tease her good brother to see how he would react.

At that time she shouted with confidence, but now that the relationship has been confirmed, she has become too shy to speak up.

Only rarely, when she became weak and wanted to act coquettishly with Charles from the bottom of her heart, could she overcome her remaining extremely stubborn and pitiful male self-esteem and call Charles "husband".

Even so, her usual thoughts at that time were: "I am a beautiful girl now anyway, so what's wrong with a beautiful girl acting a little spoiled? Isn't this a normal thing?"

She has always had a flexible bottom line.

When she is not needed, she is a macho man, and when she is needed, she becomes a beautiful girl. It seems that only by putting on the indestructible armor and disguise of a beautiful girl can she become weak with a clear conscience, become frank, and expose her truest self without any defense.

However, even she herself gradually realized that the frequency with which she became the latter was gradually increasing.

She seemed to be getting more and more used to thinking of herself as a woman rather than a man, because only in this way could she feel at ease enjoying Charles's care and...

To get "love".

So sometimes she couldn't help but think - she thought, maybe becoming a girl wasn't all bad.

On the contrary, becoming a girl seems... not bad?

But every time she would wake up quickly and immediately think that she was completely crazy.

She actually thought that becoming a girl, being fucked by men, or even marrying a man and bearing children with him was a good thing?

She was... a man before!

This was horrible. Such a thought was even more horrible than when she was caught by Charles and severely punished until she lost consciousness and started talking nonsense. The latter could only prove that she deserved the punishment, but the former seemed to indicate that she had completely begun to transform into a female on a psychological level.

More than once, Lacele felt that she should stop, should bravely resist the bad temptation from Charles and say "no" to Charles.

But she never managed to do it once.

Even this time, knowing that asking Charles for help would most likely speed up her transformation into a female, she still tugged at the corner of Charles's clothes, and after he came over with a puzzled look on his face, she told him all her guesses.

"So," after finishing her talk, the anxious witch secretly observed the changes in the hero's expression and asked, "What do you think, should I help Witch Thea and fulfill my mission as a witch, or should I pretend that I know nothing and continue to eat and wait for death?"

The brave man was silent for a long time after hearing this, and finally gave an answer:

"As a hero, I would like to suggest that you help the witch Thea and complete your mission as a witch, but..."

At this point, he gave a rare wry smile, scratched his head, and then looked into Lacier's eyes and said seriously:

"I still decided to respect your choice. No matter what you plan to do, I will support you and I will..."

The brave man suddenly thought of something - perhaps he felt that simple and pale words could not prove his feelings, so after a brief hesitation, he simply knelt on one knee in front of Lacie.

Just like the scene described in the epic poem sung by the bard, the brave man slowly lifted up the witch's delicate hand, lowered his head, and kissed the ring on the witch's ring finger.

Then he swore in a solemn voice:

"I will always be by your side. I will be your most loyal sword and shield. I will follow you until the end of time, until death separates us..."

He wanted to say till death do them part.

But the witch suddenly blocked his mouth and stopped him from speaking any further.

The hero subconsciously looked at the witch, and the witch smiled and shook her head, telling the hero: