Release that Witch Chapter 4 Flame

“Can you tell me step by step exactly what occurred during the mine collapse?” Roland inquired.

Anna gave a nod and started recounting the events.

Roland felt a touch of surprise; he had anticipated silence from her or perhaps furious curses directed at him. Yet she simply replied, “ask whatever you want,” and calmly shared her story.

The tale wasn’t intricate, yet it brimmed with sorrow. Anna’s father worked as a miner, and he was down in the shafts when the collapse struck. As soon as word of the disaster spread, Anna joined the families of other miners rushing to aid in the rescue. Rumors had long swirled about the North Mine being a lair for underground monsters, its tunnels twisting and branching everywhere. Lacking any central leadership, the rescuers split up upon reaching the entrance. Thus, when Anna located her father, only her neighbors Susan and Ansgar remained with her.

She found her father’s leg pinned beneath a loaded ore cart, rendering him immobile, while another miner rummaged through his clothes nearby, hunting for money. Spotting their arrival, the thief grabbed a pickaxe and charged at Ansgar, sending him sprawling. But right as he raised it to strike her, Anna struck him down first.

Her neighbors swore an oath of silence on the incident and helped her free her father. However, before dawn broke the following day, Anna’s father hobbled out on crutches to alert the patrolling guards that his daughter was a witch.

“Why?” Roland couldn’t hold back the question upon hearing this much.

Barov let out a sigh before replying, “Likely for the gold reward. Spotting and reporting a witch earns 25 gold royals. To a man lame in one leg, that sum matches a lifetime’s labor.

After a brief pause, Roland continued, “He was a full-grown, robust man—your opponent. How did you manage to kill him?”

Anna let out a laugh then, causing the torch flames to flicker wildly, like massive waves crashing over a once-serene lake.

“Just as you imagine—I wielded the devil’s power,” Anna declared.

“Silence! You foul witch!” the warden bellowed, though his voice quivered noticeably.

“Is it real? Show me,” the fourth prince stated evenly, ignoring the outburst.

“Your Highness, this isn’t a jest!” The Knight Commander protested, his brows knitting together.

Roland emerged from behind his knight’s shield, advancing steadily toward the cell while declaring, “Anyone too frightened by her may leave. I didn’t command you to remain.”

“Stay calm! She wears a ‘God’s Locket of Retribution’ around her neck!” Barov yelled to steady the group—and probably himself too—“No devil’s might can shatter God’s protection.”

Now face-to-face through the bars, mere arm’s reach apart, Roland clearly saw the dust and bruises marring her cheek. Her delicate features marked her as still a girl, yet no childish innocence lingered in her expression—not even anger. It struck a discordant note, akin to images Roland recalled from television screens.

She bore the look of a street urchin scarred by destitution, starvation, and bitter cold... though not precisely the same. Typically, such lost children hunched over, heads bowed before the lens, but Anna stood tall.

Throughout, from start to finish, she held herself upright, chin lifted just a bit, meeting the prince’s gaze steadily. She harbored no fear of death, Roland understood. Rather, she awaited it.

“Is this your first encounter with a witch, my lord? Such curiosity could prove fatal,” Anna remarked.

“If it truly were devilish power, you wouldn’t find yourself in this plight,” Roland countered. “In that case, it’s not I who should dread death, but your father.”

Suddenly, the prison flames dimmed—no trick of the eye. The once-vibrant blazes shrank into compact knots. Behind him rose hasty breaths and murmured prayers, mingled with thuds from those stumbling in fright.

Roland’s heart pounded faster, sensing a pivotal moment. One path clung to the familiar world of logic and unyielding laws he knew. The other unveiled a realm brimming with enigma and wonder. And there he stood, on its very threshold.

Around her neck dangled the so-called ‘God’s Locket of Retribution’? How rudimentary and plain this pendant seemed, Roland mused. It consisted of a red iron chain bearing a shimmering, crystal-clear drop—if the witch's hands weren't shackled behind her back, couldn't she simply yank it free and shatter it in an instant?

Glancing back at the crowd still frantically muttering prayers in terror, Roland swiftly thrust his hand into the cell. He seized the pendant and gave a gentle pull; the chain snapped apart and clattered to the ground in pieces, the sudden action even startling Anna.

“Come on,” Roland whispered.

Are you ultimately a deceiver, perhaps some alchemist, or truly a witch? Should you now produce vials and bottles to brew acids, I'd feel utterly let down, Roland pondered.

A crackling noise reached Roland's ears next—the sound of water vapor expanding from intense heat. With a sudden temperature surge, the water pooling on the floor below them evaporated into steam.

Blazing fire erupted right from Anna’s feet, setting the ground where she stood ablaze. The torches at their rear detonated all at once, as though fed pure oxygen, erupting in a dazzling blaze of light. For a fleeting moment, the entire cell glowed like broad daylight, all amid the onlookers' horrified shrieks.

As the witch stepped ahead, the encircling flames trailed after her. Upon reaching the cell's edge, the score of iron bars forming the barrier morphed into towering pillars of fire.

Intense heat drove Roland backward, the searing air scorching his skin with painful bites. Within just a few breaths, he'd plunged from late autumn chill into sweltering summer—no, this was no ordinary warmth; it arose purely from those extreme flames, not enveloping summer air. Heat battered one side of his body while chill gripped the other, cold sweat even sliding down his spine.

...She truly fears no fire, Roland realized.

Now the Assistant Minister's words resurfaced in Roland's mind. Only at this moment did their profound meaning truly sink in.

She was the flame incarnate—how could one dread one's own self?

Before long, the iron bars shifted from deep crimson to pale yellow, then began melting away. Temperatures exceeding fifteen hundred degrees Celsius had been reached, all without any protective barriers—an astonishing achievement beyond Roland's wildest thoughts. He, like the others, had retreated to the farthest wall, pressing flat against it.

Without that distance, the molten iron's fierce heat could have slain him without even touching, enough also to set clothing aflame—like Anna's, whose prison smock had crumbled to ashes, leaving her form wreathed in roaring fire.

Roland lost all sense of time's passage, but finally, the flames fully extinguished.

Torch flames flickered calmly on the adjacent wall section, as though nothing unusual had occurred. Yet Anna's incinerated garb, the lingering hot air, and the prison bars scorched like by demonic forces—all bore witness that this was no mere hallucination.

Apart from Roland, only the Knight Commander still stood firm. The rest had crumpled to the floor, the warden so terrified his trousers reeked of urine. Naked now beyond the cell, Anna's arm shackles had vanished. She made no effort to shield her bare form, letting her hands hang loosely at her sides, her sea-blue eyes regaining their former serene calm.

“Now I have satisfied your curiosity, Sir,” she said, “Will you kill me now?”

“No,” Roland advanced, draping his coat around her while speaking in the gentlest tone he could muster, “Miss Anna, I want to hire you.”