After the prince returned to his office, Joan followed him in shortly after.

"Your Highness, I'm sorry, Lily didn't mean to."

"I don't mind," he smiled. "She's just a little girl."

"Only you are so tolerant of us," Joan sighed. "She wasn't like this from the beginning. It's just that after being deceived, she now finds it difficult to trust ordinary people."

"Was it before joining the Witch Cooperation Association?" he asked. "I remember she joined you only a year ago."

"Indeed, I found her in the suburbs of Redwater City," Joan said. "You know, I can sense the presence of magic power. The closer I get, the stronger it is. Although I can't directly see the shape and color of magic power like Nightingale, it can at least be used to discover new witches. So every time I pass through a town, I disguise myself as a noble lady who wants to adopt children and go to local shelters or orphanages to look for sisters who may have awakened." She paused. "At that time, Lily was locked in a remote township shelter, but when I specifically asked to adopt her, I was rejected. The owner of the shelter told me that they only sold adult girls here."

"Why?" Roland asked in confusion. The latest awakening time for a witch is before adulthood. Could it be related to this?

"At that time, we also felt very strange, so we asked Nightingale to sneak into the shelter to search for the account books, records, and related information. Fortunately, the shelter was far from the town, so we could stay here for a longer period of time."

"Why didn't you just take Lily away? With Nightingale's help, it shouldn't be difficult, right?"

"It's indeed not difficult," Joan nodded. "Except for a God's Stone of Retribution worn by the operator, there were no other stones or mechanisms placed in the shelter. But we couldn't do that. There had been precedents for this kind of thing."

"What precedent?" The prince poured Joan a cup of tea.

"Thank you," she took the teacup. "At first, whenever we found a witch, we would forcibly take her away. But a change occurred in Seawind County that changed our approach. At that time, a young witch who had just awakened thought we were evil and attacked us after being brought back to the Witch Cooperation Association, ignoring our explanations. In the end, two sisters were seriously injured and died, and she was also killed by Hakala's Deathly Magic Serpent. So from then on, we would carefully observe the witch for a period of time, determine her situation and thoughts before taking action. If the church was pursuing us urgently, we... could only choose to give up."

"So, Nightingale and Wendy's encounter wasn't a coincidence?"

"Of course not," Joan took a sip of tea and shook her head with a smile. "There was a gap of more than a month between discovering Nightingale's existence and Wendy contacting her. During this period, we also recruited other sisters, such as Red Pepper and Wind Chaser..." Her expression dimmed a lot when she said this. "It's a pity they all died in the Barren Land. It would have been great if everyone had chosen to settle in Border Town from the beginning."

Roland also felt quite regretful. If all forty-odd witches of the Witch Cooperation Association were gathered in the town, it would probably have entered modern life.

"Let's not talk about those things," Joan took a deep breath. "Let's talk about Lily's matter. After searching the shelter and tracking the operator's whereabouts, we discovered a shocking fact—this small country house was neither a real shelter nor was it established to select witches."

"What was it for then?"

"To satisfy the operator's selfish desires." Even Joan, who had good self-restraint, looked somewhat gloomy when she said this. "Every week, the operator would go to the slum areas of Redwater City, abduct those wandering children, and deceive them by saying that he was a kind-hearted nobleman who had opened a shelter in the suburbs, where great nobles would often come in disguise to choose adopted daughters, and as long as they were selected, they would never have to worry about food and clothing for the rest of their lives. Not everyone would be deceived, but... over the past ten years or so, hundreds of girls have gone to the shelter."

"So many?" Roland frowned. "But you said the shelter wasn't very big."

"Hundreds are just the records in the books. Most of them... died," she said in a low voice. "In the past ten years or so, he has discovered a total of three witches, all of whom were sold to the church. If other girls had good looks, he would dress them up and sell them to those in need, and those who were not interested would be killed by him in the forest of the shelter."

"..." The prince didn't know what to say for a moment. Suddenly, he felt a pair of hands gently placed on his shoulders from behind.

"The probability of a witch awakening is not high, so excluding the shelter expenses, the golden dragons he has earned over the years are about twenty, according to the data recorded in the books. But for these twenty golden dragons, nearly three hundred people died, and the pits in the forest were filled with corpses. When Hakala interrogated him as to why he did this, he actually said that earning golden dragons was not his original intention, but merely to maintain the operation of the shelter. The only reason for selling adult women was because a witch could sell for a much higher price than an ordinary woman. His purpose was to enjoy the pleasure of life and death, and arbitrarily disposing of the lives of these wandering girls made him feel like a king. Hakala killed him in a fit of rage, and when we wanted to drive these girls away, most of them glared at us as if we had taken away their chance to be adopted by nobles."

"Lily was like this at first, until Hakala took her to the woods behind the small building. There, she saw her friend—the lucky girl who had left the shelter a month ago, claiming to have been chosen by a noble—and several stinking pits. Then Lily vomited all over the place and fainted in Hakala's arms. After waking up, she was also expressionless, with no expression in her eyes, until she slowly recovered under Wendy's care. From then on, she was full of vigilance and distrust towards ordinary people, especially nobles," Joan said. "But I believe she will gradually correct this view, after all, you are also a member of the nobility."

"I see," Roland sighed inwardly. After experiencing this kind of thing, it was already considered strong-willed to be able to cheer up.

Joan picked up the kettle and refilled the two cups, and after a long silence, she said, "Your Highness, I have a question I want to ask you."

"What question?" He was stunned and found that Joan's expression was a bit serious.

"Nightingale, you're here too, right?"

"Um," Nightingale emerged. "Do you need me to leave?"

"No... you know about this anyway," she shook her head. "Just consider it witnessing it with me."

After saying that, Joan looked at His Highness Roland, "You once said that you were willing to marry a witch, but I don't know if you know that witches cannot have children." She paused for a moment and asked, word by word, "Your Highness, even so, will you still not change your original intention?"