Sweaty, trembling fingers clutched the silk sleeve of the royal robe with the desperation of a drowning man.
— "Your Highness... what does this mean?!" Assistant Minister Barov whispered, his voice cracking with panic as his face shifted from pale to a sickly red. — "The Church... the royal decree... If the envoys from Longsong Fortress discover that you spared a condemned criminal in the middle of a public execution, what are we supposed to do?!"
Standing on the wooden platform, Roland Wimbledon didn't even look at the old bureaucrat beside him.
The prince was still breathing heavily, one hand resting on the arm of his chair, but the initial panic in his gray eyes was beginning to give way to something else. It was Cheng Yan's practical, levelheaded mindset—a mind shaped by years of engineering and project management, accustomed to impossible deadlines and corporate crises—finally taking control of that royal body.
Roland yanked his arm away, sharply pulling his robe free of Barov's grasp.
— "Take the girl back to the dungeon," Roland ordered, his voice acquiring a firm, metallic edge that left no room for argument. — "Right now. I'll interrogate her myself later."
— "But, Prince, the people..." Barov tried to insist, glancing fearfully at the crowd below, which was beginning to hiss and shout in protest.
— "I gave you an order, Minister," Roland cut him off. — "Carter, make sure no one approaches her on the way to the castle."
— "As you command, Your Highness."
Carter Lannis wasted no time asking political questions. With a quick gesture, the Chief Knight summoned half a dozen elite guards. Within moments, the ropes binding Anna near the trapdoor were removed, and the witch was escorted off the scaffold, surrounded by a wall of shields and spears that carved a path through the rear of the square.
Down below, at the front of the crowd standing in the mud, Arthur followed every step of the escort without blinking.
As soon as Anna passed through the inner guard line and moved beyond the reach of stones hurled by the furious peasants, an invisible chime rang inside Arthur's and William's minds simultaneously.
In the corner of their vision, the translucent blue window flashed with an intense golden light.
[MISSION COMPLETE: THE TURNING POINT]
Reward: Magical Power Flow Unlocked.
Status: Synchronizing energy with host... 25%... 61%... 100%.
It wasn't just a notification on a screen.
The instant the counter reached one hundred percent, a silent electrical surge shot up the base of Arthur's spine, spreading through every nerve in his body like liquid lightning.
He held his breath, expecting the unbearable pain described in the original story when an ordinary person awakened their magical abilities.
But there was no pain.
This wasn't uncontrolled fire burning through his veins, it was a clean, cool, perfectly controlled current gathering behind his chest and at the base of his brain. It felt as though he'd spent his entire life seeing the world in black and white, only for an entirely new sense to suddenly switch on, allowing him to perceive tiny vibrations in the air around him.
Arthur turned his head.
William stood with his eyes wide open, a slow, feral grin spreading across his face as he repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fists. The surge of adrenaline mixed with the new energy was so intense that the cold air around his fingers seemed to tremble and distort for half a second—a direct reflection of his high Strength and Speed attributes receiving magical fuel for the first time.
— "Holy shit, dude... did you feel that?" William whispered, his voice vibrating with pure excitement as he cracked his neck. — "My body's like it just downed ten energy drinks at once, except my heart isn't racing. The game just went from 2D to actual 4D."
— "I felt it," Arthur replied, taking a deep breath to acclimate himself to the new sensation before refocusing on Carter Lannis as the knight withdrew with the prince's escort. — "But keep your excitement under control. We still don't know what our specific abilities are, and this is the worst place in the world to test them."
Arthur tapped his friend's arm and began walking along the edge of the square, following the direction taken by the royal procession toward the castle on the hill.
— "We have a ten-minute window to figure out our next move," Arthur explained quietly, dodging a group of miners cursing the prince's decision. — "Carter Lannis has already memorized our faces from the front row. Just look at us: our clean clothes, our haircuts, our straight posture... We're not hunched over in fear or covered in coal dust like everyone else in this town."
— "Yeah, we stick out like a lighthouse in the dark," William agreed, adjusting his posture to walk beside Arthur like a professional bodyguard.
— "More than that, we're an anomaly," Arthur continued, his eyes fixed on the backs of the royal guards fifty yards ahead. — "In a political climate where Roland's brothers want to see him dead or disgraced, two well-fed strangers watching an execution will immediately be classified as spies or assassins sent from the capital. If we try to hide in town, Carter's guards will hunt us down before sunset. Our only way out is to knock on the front door right now."
— "Direct approach?" William smirked. — "Now you're speaking my language. What's the password to get into the castle?"
— "A word that only a twenty-century engineer would give his life to hear in this godforsaken place," Arthur replied.
The two quickened their pace, climbing the muddy dirt road that led to the local lord's residence. They maintained a safe distance behind the soldiers while walking with a confidence utterly at odds with that of Border Town's inhabitants.
Based on Arthur's knowledge, the next few hours would follow a simple script. Once inside the castle, Roland would lock himself in his room or office, trying to sort through the jumbled memories of the original prince before descending to the dungeons the following day to confirm whether witches' magic was real. If they let Roland shut himself away, they wouldn't get a chance to speak with him today. They had to make contact in the outer courtyard.
When they reached the fortress's open gates—a massive, square, gray structure that looked far more like a military prison than a fairy-tale palace—the last of the royal escort was just finishing its passage through the entrance.
The moment Arthur and William stepped onto the stone ramp leading to the gate, two rusty but razor-sharp iron halberds dropped with a metallic clang, crossing directly in front of their chests.
— "Hold it!" one of the gate guards shouted, his face set in a scowl beneath his iron helmet.
Farther ahead in the inner courtyard, Carter Lannis heard the commotion at the entrance and immediately stopped.
The Chief Knight slowly turned around, his cloak swaying in the cold wind as his right hand settled with frightening ease on the pommel of the longsword at his waist. His narrowed, calculating eyes swept over Arthur and William from head to toe, immediately scrutinizing William's balance with the suspicion of a veteran who could recognize another fighter at a glance.
Carter walked toward the guards, stopping three paces from the pair.
— "Who are you two?" Carter asked, his voice deep, cold, and laden with menace. — "I personally reviewed the town records this morning. There are no visitors on His Highness's audience list. Tell me what you want here, and speak quickly, or the castle dungeons will have two more guests before nightfall."
William felt his shoulder muscles tense instinctively at the knight's hostility, but he kept his arms folded behind his back.
Arthur, on the other hand, took half a step forward and raised both open hands to chest height, displaying his empty palms in a universal gesture of peace. His expression remained perfectly composed, and his voice rang out clearly, loud enough to carry across half the stone courtyard.
— "Just two travelers and scholars from distant lands, Commander," Arthur said with impeccable calm and courtesy. — "We arrived in town today after hearing certain rumors along the way... rumors that the Fourth Prince of Graycastle is looking for capable minds who can turn this place's mud into gold."
A few yards away, Roland was climbing the first steps of the castle's main entrance beside a still-grumbling Barov, his back turned to the gate.
Arthur raised his voice slightly, directing his words straight at the prince's back.
— "OR, TO PUT IT MUCH MORE PRACTICALLY AND DIRECTLY... MEN WHO KNOW THE TEMPERATURE NEEDED TO TURN THE LIMESTONE FROM THE NORTH SLOPE AND THE CLAY FROM THE RIVER INTO CEMENT."
The word struck the cold air of the courtyard like a rifle shot.
On the stairs, Roland's foot froze in midair before touching the next step.
The prince stood completely motionless for two full seconds. Then, ignoring Barov in the middle of a sentence, Roland abruptly spun around, his gray eyes wide and fixed on the two strangers standing at the gate.
Seeing that the fish had taken the bait hook, line, and sinker, William couldn't resist flashing a broad, provocative grin. He tilted his head to peer over Carter Lannis's shoulder.
— "Oh, and we also heard that the local prince has a rather peculiar and questionable taste for interrupting public executions at the very last second!" William shouted cheerfully. — "We have to admit, we like his style! Now, if Sir Knight could move those iron skewers away from our faces, we have some serious business to discuss with the boss."
Carter Lannis's brow furrowed in irritation at William's disrespectful tone. His fingers tightened around his sword hilt, ready to order an immediate arrest for insolence.
— "Guards, arrest thes—" Carter began.
— "LET THEM IN, CARTER!"
Roland's shout cut across the courtyard, causing both guards holding the halberds to freeze instantly.
The prince hurried down the stone steps, his leather boots striking the uneven courtyard slabs hard as he approached the gate.
— "But, Your Highness!" Barov protested, hurrying after him, nearly out of breath. — "We know nothing about these two men! Their clothes are suspicions, they have no letters of introduction from the nobility, and they have just shown you blatant disrespect..."
— "I said let them through," Roland repeated without even looking at the minister. — "If they know the name of this mixture and understand what limestone is used for, I want to hear from their own mouths where they learned it."
Reluctantly, Carter Lannis gave a short nod, and the guards raised their halberds to clear the way.
Roland stopped less than six feet from Arthur and William.
At first, the prince's eyes were still clouded by exhaustion from the fusion of memories. But the moment he focused on the two men up close, his breath genuinely caught.
To medieval men like Carter Lannis and Minister Barov, Arthur's and William's clothes were merely foreign fabrics with unusual cuts and excellent dye jobs. But the man looking through those royal eyes was Cheng Yan, a modern man who had grown up in the twenty century.
Roland immediately recognized the industrially manufactured combed-cotton and synthetic-fiber blends in their black and blue T-shirts, the drape of their hoodies, the tubular shoelaces on their footwear, and the machine-made double stitching that no medieval handloom could reproduce, even in a hundred years.
Then Roland's gaze dropped to Arthur's left wrist.
There, gleaming discreetly beneath the pale afternoon light, was a brushed stainless-steel watch case, its finely ridged crown machined with millimeter precision and its second hand sweeping beneath the anti-reflective sapphire crystal.
Roland's knees nearly buckled.
— "Those clothes..." The prince's voice emerged as a hoarse whisper, faltering for a fraction of a second before he realized Carter and Barov were standing right beside him. He quickly cleared his throat, trying to recover his royal composure, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from Arthur's watch. — "That... 'artifact' on your wrist. Where exactly did you say the two of you came from?"
Arthur maintained his calm expression, using every ounce of his intelligence to read the tension, shock, doubt, and hope in the prince's face. He knew he couldn't simply say, We came from Earth, in the middle of the courtyard in front of Carter and Barov.
— "We come from a land very far away, beyond the known seas, where logic, mathematics, and science are the true foundations of civilization, Your Highness," Arthur replied with a slight bow of his head. — "In our homeland, we are known as scholars of the Kingdom of Dawn. We came to Border Town for the sole purpose of offering our knowledge to your territory. If, after hearing us out in private, you decide we're useless, you can send us away immediately. But I assure you, you won't regret it."
Roland closed his eyes for a second and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, his knuckles whitening under the pressure.
The headache caused by the former prince's memories, combined with the bombshell of this unexpected encounter, was pushing Cheng Yan's mind to its limits. He needed time to think. He needed silence before having a proper conversation with these two men.
— "Carter," Roland said, opening his eyes with an exhausted but determined expression. — "Take them to the guest quarters on the upper floor of the castle. Post two guards in the hallway and keep an eye on them... but treat them as honored guests from an allied kingdom. Bring food and hot water to their room. That's a direct order."
— "Yes, Your Highness," Carter replied, though his hand remained firmly on the pommel of his sword.
Without another word, Roland turned and climbed the castle stairs with quick, heavy steps, leaving Barov behind as he headed to his private chambers to lock himself away and figure out whether he was going insane or whether he wasn't the only modern traveler thrown into this medieval hell.
.
.
.
Ten minutes later, the heavy oak door of the guest room slammed shut, followed by the sharp sound of the iron bolt being turned from the outside by Carter Lannis's men.
The room was spacious, but it felt like a stone refrigerator. Its walls were made of roughly hewn, damp gray blocks. Two rustic beds covered with straw and topped with thick sheets stood against the walls, along with an old wooden table and a small, unlit fireplace.
As soon as Carter's metallic footsteps faded down the hallway, William released the breath he'd been holding and dropped into a wooden chair, which creaked loudly beneath his weight.
— "Hahahaha! Man, did you see that lunatic's expression?!" William whispered, his eyes gleaming as he pointed toward the locked door. — "When he laid eyes on my T-shirt and your watch, he looked like he'd just seen a ghost in the dark! I thought he was going to faint right there in front of the guards!"
Arthur allowed himself a faint smile as he walked to the narrow, glassless stone window and looked down at the castle walls, where the first torches were being lit while the sun disappeared behind the mountain.
— "The visual impact worked better than any speech could have," Arthur agreed, folding his arms against the cold wind blowing through the window. — "A mechanical engineer recognizes industrial technology at a glance. Now he knows firsthand that we're neither peasants nor ordinary spies sent by his brothers."
— "Dope. But, so, what now?" William asked, stretching his legs and feeling the steady hum of Magical Power flowing slowly through his body. — "Do we just sit here and wait for him to knock on our door tonight so we can have a little Earthling-to-Earthling chat?"
— "He won't come tonight," Arthur replied, shaking his head. — "If the timeline follows the original pattern, he'll spend the entire night tossing and turning in a cold sweat, trying to digest twenty years of useless memories belonging to the real Roland Wimbledon."
Arthur turned away from the window and leaned against the stone wall, looking at his friend.
— "Our real test comes tomorrow morning," he continued. — "He'll wake up with a clearer head, receive the city's disastrous economic report from Barov, and descend into the dungeons to see with his own eyes whether magic actually exists. That's exactly when we'll step into the room and make ourselves indispensable to him."
William rested his elbows on his knees, a confident smile spreading across his face.
— "Seeing fire magic in person and starting to terrorize this backward kingdom..." William said, slapping one fist into his open palm. — "Honestly, bro? I'm genuinely looking forward to sunrise tomorrow."
.
.
.
The next morning, the heavy thud of the guards' boots and the sounds of the castle's daily routine woke the pair early.
Shortly after sunrise, the door's bolt turned, and two guards escorted them through the cold hallways to the prince's official sitting room on the ground floor.
When the doors opened, the atmosphere inside was already tense.
Roland sat behind a long table of solid wood, nearly buried beneath piles of yellowed parchment, grimy account books, and hand-drawn maps. Standing in front of him, wearing an expression of pure bureaucratic misery, was Minister Barov.
The room smelled of old mildew, cheap ink, and the stale rye bread cooling on a pewter plate beside Roland.
Between the fingers of his left hand, the prince slowly turned a small, dark bronze coin—the confiscated emblem of the Witch Cooperation Association, engraved with a mountain and an eye at its center.
As Arthur and William crossed the doorway beneath the clear morning light streaming through the narrow windows, Roland stopped halfway through chewing a piece of bread. In daylight, the modern, flawless lines of the two visitors' clothes seemed to stand out even more starkly in the medieval room.
— "You're here," Roland said. His voice was still slightly hoarse from a sleepless night, but it was already much firmer than the day before. He set the bread on his plate and gestured toward the two visitors. — "Barov, these are Arthur and William, the two scholars from the Kingdom of Dawn I mentioned earlier."
Barov pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped the sweat from his wrinkled forehead, and cast the pair a look heavy with prejudice and suspicion.
— "Your Highness, with all due respect, we were in the middle of a confidential discussion concerning Border Town's security and the threat posed by the Church," Barov said, lifting his chin. — "I don't believe it's prudent to grant two outsiders, with no verified titles and such... suspicious... attire, access to matters particular. Much less matters concerning that sect, the Witch Cooperation Association."
Arthur wasn't intimidated by the old minister's stare. On the contrary, he calmly stepped closer to Roland's table.
— "There's no need to worry about us, Barov Mons," Arthur said, his firm, composed voice immediately commanding the room. — "During our travels, we've heard more than enough stories about the Witch Cooperation Association and its search for the 'Holy Mountain' to know that it's nothing more than a distraction. What you and the Church's bishops call the 'cradle of evil' or the 'devil's temptation,' we simply calls a lack of understanding of human nature."
Clink.
The bronze coin slipped from Roland's fingers and struck the tabletop, spinning until it came to a stop. The prince's eyes narrowed as he looked at Arthur.
—"You speak about these things with remarkable certainty," Roland said, folding his hands over the maps as he tested Arthur's reaction. — "Almost as if you've lived alongside witches and studied them firsthand in your own land. Minister Barov just assured me that every witch eventually suffers a corruption of the body and turns into a deformed monster of the devil."
Before Arthur could respond, William gave a short snort of laughter and spread his arms in the middle of the room. The movement stretched the short sleeve of his T-shirt against the powerful muscles of his biceps—a detail about the fabric's elasticity that did not escape Roland's notice.
— "With all due respect to the old guy here, Your Highness, that's just a scare story for peasants," William said bluntly. — "This so-called 'demonic corruption,' or the 'Devil's Bite,' that kills girls when they turn eighteen has nothing to do with the Devil. It's just their bodies struggling to handle the enormous pressure of accumulated Magical Power. Since the Church hunts down anyone who shows signs of the gift, they're afraid to use their powers in everyday life. It's like a boiler with its safety valve blocked: if you never release the pressure, sooner or later, it explodes."
The comparison to a pressure boiler made Roland's eyes light up instantly.
Every remaining doubt in the prince's mind dissipated in that moment. He sprang from his chair, shoving the tax records aside. The engineer needed practical proof. He needed to see the energy at work before his eyes to determine whether the laws of physics could still be applied in this world.
— "Barov, stay here and finish reviewing the mine's production reports," Roland ordered, already striding toward the door. — "Carter, get a torch and come with me. You two as well. We're going down to the dungeons right now."
.
.
.
The staircase leading down into the castle's underground levels seemed to descend straight into a pit of ice.
With every flight of damp stone steps, daylight grew more distant and the air heavier, illuminated only by the orange flames of the torch Carter Lannis carried at the front of the group.
As they advanced through the narrow corridor lined with empty, rusted cells, Arthur felt something unprecedented happening inside him.
The newly unlocked Magical Power Flow in his chest began to vibrate on its own. It was a faint, steady hum, like a radar detecting a radio frequency that grew stronger with every step they took toward the last iron cell at the far end of the corridor.
Roland stopped in front of the thick bars of the final cell, and Carter raised the torch to illuminate the darkness inside.
In the corner, sitting on a sparse pile of moldy straw and huddled against the cold wall, was the girl from the square. Without the towering gallows behind her, she looked even smaller and thinner inside her torn prison dress. Yet when she raised her soot-stained face toward the torchlight, her blue eyes still held that same remarkable steadiness.
She looked first at Roland, then directly at Arthur and William. There was neither anger nor terror in her gaze—only silent, attentive curiosity.
—:"What is your name?" Roland asked, gripping one of the iron bars.
The girl waited two seconds before answering, her voice low and slightly hoarse from the cold night spent surrounded by stone.
— "Anna."
Perfect, Arthur thought, watching the scene from a step away, his mind racing. The opening exchange between them is unfolding exactly as it did in the original story. Now comes the demonstration.
Roland asked a few more quick questions about how she had awakened her power, then asked her to demonstrate her magic up close. Without hesitation, Anna extended her small, pale right hand into the empty air of the cell.
The next instant, a flame appeared, floating a few inches above her palm.
Arthur and William held their breath simultaneously.
This wasn't ordinary fire fueled by wood or oil. The flame burned with an intense, clean, almost hypnotic glow, consuming the air without producing smoke and requiring no visible physical fuel. It was powered entirely by the Magical Power flowing from the young woman's body. The sudden heat washed over the faces of the four men in the corridor, driving away the dungeon's damp chill within seconds.
Roland stared at the flame with the wide-eyed wonder of a scientist who had just discovered a clean, inexhaustible energy source.
—:"There's nothing infernal about this..." Roland murmured to himself, a faint smile appearing on his face. — "It's simply her power."
When the guard opened the cell and Anna extinguished the flame, she shivered slightly as the cold draft returned and swept through her thin dress. Roland then did something that left Carter Lannis utterly stunned.
The prince removed his own heavy wool-and-fur cloak, stepped forward, and draped it over the shoulders of the prisoner condemned by your father, wrapping the fabric around her to keep her warm.
Anna froze. She stared at the royal cloak resting on her shoulders, then looked at Roland's face, completely speechless at the first act of kindness she had received from a stranger since becoming a witch.
Seeing that Roland had already decided to recruit her and hire her in exchange for silver coins, Arthur stepped forward and stopped beside the prince while Carter kept one tense hand near his sword.
— "You see what I told you yesterday at the gate, Your Highness?" Arthur said, discreetly pointing toward the young witch's hand. — "With a heat source as concentrated and stable as that, combined with the limestone from the North Slope Mine, we won't need months to build industrial kilns. We can produce high-strength cement in record time. Border Town won't just survive the Demon Months this winter; it will become a self-sufficient fortress."
Roland turned toward Arthur, abandoning the last traces of his arrogant-prince persona and looking at him engineer to strategist.
— "I understand the thermal potential of her fire better than anyone, Arthur," Roland said quietly, narrowing his eyes. — "But my question still stands: how exactly do two travelers like you know the chemical composition of cement and the geology of my mine?"
— "Let's just say that the ancient books studied by our order have considerable practical value, Your Highness," Arthur replied with a calm smile, leaving the lengthy explanation for a time when they were away from the guards' ears. — "But before we discuss chemistry, we have an immediate political problem. If you simply take Anna out of this cell and put her to work in the courtyard, the local priests and the other nobles' spies will discover that the witch was spared."
Roland frowned.
— "And what do you suggest?"
— "A simple smokescreen," Arthur replied pragmatically. — "We need a fake execution to calm the crowd and deceive the Church's informants. Just choose an ordinary criminal from the death-row cells, someone whose crimes already warrant hanging. Cover his face with the executioner's hood, dress him in the old rags, and let the town watch the 'witch' being hanged from a distance. As long as everyone believes she's dead, Anna can work freely within the castle walls until our position is strong enough that no one dares challenge Your Highness."
Silence held the dungeon for only three seconds.
The cold, efficient logic of the proposal aligned perfectly with Roland's practical mindset. The prince nodded slowly, looking first at Anna—who followed the conversation with keen blue eyes—and then at the pair from the 'Kingdom of Dawn,' who seemed able to anticipate his every need.
— "Carter," Roland called, turning to the Chief Knight. — "Do exactly as he suggested. Choose a condemned prisoner from the lower cells, prepare the gallows discreetly, and put this matter to rest in the eyes of the public today."
— "Understood, Your Highness," Carter replied, bowing his head in obedience, though his gaze toward Arthur now held a mixture of caution and respect for the cold efficiency of the plan.
Roland turned back to Arthur and William in the torchlight, a faint, ironic smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.
— "This is how we'll ensure her safety and get to work," the prince said, crossing his arms. — "But don't think you've escaped my questions, gentlemen. Once we climb these stairs, the two of you are going to explain in considerable detail what these 'ancient books' are... and how you managed to stitch together such flawless clothes using nothing but an embroidery manual."
William let out a short, confident laugh and thumped his chest, feeling the energy of this world pulse through his veins.
— "Then you'd better get comfortable, Your Highness, because we've got a long story to tell," William said, grinning from ear to ear. — "But you can be sure of one thing: by the time we're done here, the stitching on these shirts will be the least of your surprises. From this day forward, you can count on us."
Beside him, Arthur simply adjusted the watch on his wrist, watching as Roland signaled for everyone to return to the surface. Their first step inside the castle was secured. Now they had to survive Cheng Yan's private interrogation.