Don't Burn Them! Even Witches Have Value!

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"Eh?" x2

Flora and Elysia both let out surprised, soft cries.

Speaking of which, although Lynn's focus was always peculiar, the questions he noticed were all very critical.

This time was no exception.

"That's right! Why am I able to communicate with you!

And I only just noticed that I actually used your language subconsciously!"

The origins of the Church, the legends of curse magic, and even the reasons for the extinction of the elven race were not very important at this moment.

Compared to those questions that were difficult to verify and far too distant, right now they needed to investigate an even more mysterious phenomenon.

"So that is how it is. This is indeed an academic question worth investigating."

Theodore, who had been called to the study by Elysia, wore two dark circles under his eyes and nodded in deep agreement.

"Mmm, it's probably just because the human language was readily available?

Mom and Dad said the Ancestral Wolves found it useful so they just used it directly."

Iyanna, holding a piece of bread in her mouth, imitated Lynn by rummaging through books, even though she had never learned how to read.

"How could that be! The language of our great elven race is very beautiful and complex!

It is impossible to use the low-class language of small fry humans!

If you don't believe me, listen, just like this!"

After speaking like she was chanting a long poem, Flora proudly stood with her hands on her hips:

"How was that?"

"It is indeed very tedious, and there seems to be a lot of overlapping homophones."

"So what on earth did that long stream of repetitive words mean?"

"What do you mean tedious and repetitive! You two small fry! This is just a simple greeting of our elves!"

"Is it because you live long that you waste time in this manner?"

After forcibly suppressing the urge to cast magic, Flora looked at Lynn and the others with some confusion:

"So what are you looking for?"

Lynn stood on the ladder in front of the bookshelf. After repeatedly flipping through and tossing down many books, his eyes suddenly lit up:

"Aha, found it, *The History of the Milan Kingdom*!"

This was the oldest written history officially permitted to be recorded by the Milan Empire in his memory.

Due to some unknown reasons, the Church and various nations had reached an agreement not allowing the physical recording of history before the Year One of the World Calendar.

It was precisely because of this that people had gradually forgotten the massive empire from seven hundred years ago, to the point where they could no longer even know its name, and could only refer to it as the ancient empire.

"Let's see what connection there actually is between Milanese and the elves."

Lynn gestured for everyone to crowd together, and then, amidst a pile of curious heads, began to open the book.

Exactly as the Church required, the history before Year One was simply glossed over in a single stroke, merely hinting that the Milan Kingdom was a fragment of an even larger nation.

The original Milan Kingdom was located in the western inland of the current Milan Empire, which was the current kingdom area, and its capital was the current Royal Capital.

In subsequent expansions, the Milan Kingdom gradually obtained the southern Dragon City region, the eastern Imperial Shore region, and the northern border region originally belonging to Frost through means such as marriage alliances and wars.

The four regions were respectively managed by hereditary families, with the family heads being Grand Dukes.

The four Grand Dukes and the Church's Cardinal in Milan were collectively known as the five Electors. Whenever an emperor passed away, a new emperor would be chosen from among the first four.

On the blue planet, there was also an illegal organization that was neither holy nor an empire that adopted such an elector system.

"Alright, what follows is a mess of detailed historical events, so we can draw a conclusion—

Elves have absolutely nothing to do with Milanese, hey!"

The Milan Kingdom originated from the western kingdom. How could it possibly have any connection with the elves in the northernmost part of the northern border?

So, after ruling out the possibility of some fusion or reference between Milanese and the elven language, there was only one answer—

"Your Milanese can only have been learned afterwards, Miss Old Hag!"

"What kind of ghost title is that!

And never mind that I've never even heard of the so-called Milan in my memories,

even if I could learn it, how could I possibly learn the inferior language of you small fry!"

"But haven't you learned it very well?"

【Favorability: -20 (This detestable small fry! Constantly provoking me!)】

After being angered to the point of turning red-hot, Flora, waving her small fists, immediately shouted:

"I didn't learn it at all, okay! I can't even read what these squiggly-worm words mean!"

Wait, she couldn't read the meaning of the words?

In an instant, Flora herself realized something—

The reason she was able to communicate so naturally was because she felt familiar with "hearing" it.

In other words, she had grown accustomed to hearing Milanese, and therefore could use it normally to communicate.

To the point that this phenomenon had become an instinct, overriding her habit of speaking the elven language.

Why was it like this?

She closed her eyes.

And within this sensory state of closed eyes, she experienced a different kind of familiarity.

It was different from being unconscious, but rather the state of simply looking at her closed eyelids while awake.

Consequently, many voices that had been temporarily forgotten and were now remembered once more resurfaced.

The initial pioneers, the traveling merchants, the fighters contesting for territory, the farmers settled here...

Their voices, she had been listening to them all along.

It was as if, while she was dormant inside that tree, all the trees in this place had turned into her ears and eyes, constantly and passively receiving this information.

No, it was not "as if"; it was exactly so.

Abruptly, her body trembled.

If so, then at the very beginning of this listening, what had she heard?

Countless voices retraced their steps like a rewinding tape, constantly weakening and diminishing.

Until only a single voice remained—

a shrill and desperate female voice:

"Why! Why! Why!

Why did you betray me!

Neorida!"

————————

Lynn, lying on the bed, had never felt this tired before.

On one hand, it was likely because he had recently suffered consecutive occurrences of terrifying violent physical abuse.

On the other hand, it was because his brain had received too much complex information.

Before going to sleep, as was customary, he needed to process them with his world-shaking wisdom.

First, naturally, was the most important and most critical part.

How to make more money!

What had already been decided to be carried out was the graded packaging of the charcoal.

There was no need to trouble his employees with such a minor matter; he could have the townspeople do it.

And this was merely the first path he had prepared for these people to improve their lives.

These fellows had to pay taxes to him, so they had to be involved in his grand commercial blueprint.

Many greedy people only cared about one-sided wealth, believing that they had to strip away everything on their territory; how incredibly foolish.

Hoarded money meant low liquidity; it was a pool of stagnant water.

Only by allowing the tax-paying townspeople to obtain their own wealth could a benign cycle be formed.

Second, which was a slightly more secondary matter, was the investigation requested by the Frost side, who was his financial backer and "Party A".

According to the information disclosed by that assassin who had broken down emotionally for some unknown reason, the person who wanted to capture him was Baron Rose.

What a familiar title... wait, wasn't this Dawson's older brother?

And he was the father-in-law of the Viscount of White Pine!

Lynn tossed and turned uneasily, poking his head out to look under the bed.

After confirming that Iyanna, curled up like a meatball, was sleeping on her own large tail, only then did he lay back down with a bit of peace of mind.

More information needed to be obtained after communicating with Griffin, so he temporarily refrained from wasting brain cells to think about it.

In that case, what he needed to ponder now was another secondary critical question.

How to trick that old-hag brat... why could those two terms be put together... into joining his team.

She, who knew wood magic, was not only powerful, but clearly possessed massive production benefits—

out-of-season fruits and vegetables, prefabricated treehouses, and even getting high-quality timber for free; she was simply omnipotent, from supply chains to real estate!

However, before pondering this question, another small issue surfaced.

And that was the name of the betrayer involved in the sentence Flora had finally told them she heard while dormant.

Neorida.

Well, just hearing this name, it might feel a bit unfamiliar, so changing it to his full name would do.

Neorida Francis I

To change to a more widely known title, it was—

the First Pope

Lynn abruptly sat up from the bed, sweating profusely.

He had been constantly numbing himself to avoid thinking about this question.

Because he was very clear that, once one knew what they shouldn't know, something major was usually about to happen.