"Let her go!"

Hearing so many complaints, Iffy twitched her lips and raised her right hand. The cage was gone and Maggie fell onto the ground.

"d.a.m.n you!" A fast-flying golden figure lunged at Iffy. It was Lightning!

However, just as she raised her fist, the magic cage locked her inside. It was impossible for her to touch Iffy even though she was only an arm's length away.

"Get out of here. This is none of your business!"

Iffy angrily tossed the cage away, sending it tumbling over and over on the ground. Lightning b.u.mped inside the cage until it rolled out of the area that Iffy could affect.

She wiped the dirt off her face and was about to bound towards Iffy again, when she saw Roland walking toward her, hand raised.

WHACK!

The sharp slap left everyone stunned, especially Iffy.

She did not bother to cover her red cheek, staring at Roland in disbelief. After a while, she slowly lowered herself on one knee and said, "Pardon me for my lack of manners, Your Majesty."

Roland was also surprised by himself. He had been reluctant to slap a girl, but seeing Maggie fall onto the ground, he had burst into anger and stepped forward uncontrollably as if witnessing his own daughter being bullied by some mean, naughty kid.

"Why did you do that?" He shouted at Iffy.

"Your Majesty, her potential will explode during a crisis, giving her much greater strength. I just want you to have accurate test results." Iffy said in a cold voice as if it was simply something trivial. "It seems that even an evolved non-combat witch still can't compete with a combat witch."

Roland was speechless in shock. What made Iffy think that it was reasonable to hurt her own kind just to get the test results? What kind of environment had she lived in?

He then turned and looked toward Wendy carrying the white-haired girl in her arms. "How's she doing?" he asked.

"She's alright. She's not heavily injured, except for some reddening welts and swelling," Wendy answered. She rolled up Maggie's sleeve with a frown, revealing red bruises on her white arm from the magic cage.

"Coo." Maggie buried her head into Wendy's arms, sounding rather grieved.

"Relax, Your Majesty," Iffy said plainly, "I'm always aware of how much power I use. Those areas of redness will recover within two days..."

"Apologize to her!" Roland angrily interrupted.

Iffy opened her mouth in surprise and blushed with embarra.s.sment. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty"

"No, not me. Apologize to Maggie."

She bit her lip and lowered her head, without saying a word. Looking at Iffy who was insisting on not apologizing to Maggie, Roland felt so annoyed he wanted to laugh.

It looked like the situation on Sleeping Island was worse than he had imagined. If the Bloodfang a.s.sociation witches dared to behave like this in the territory of a Lord, they must be even more arrogant on Sleeping Island.

Roland now found himself in an awkward situation. He could neither change Iffy's att.i.tude towards non-combat witches, nor send her back to Sleeping Island. He believed that no matter how hard he punished Iffy, she would never see anything wrong with her own deeds and att.i.tude. If he simply punished her and asked her to go back, he would lose Tilly's trust because he would fail to solve the problem for Sleeping Island. He had promised Tilly that she could always count on him with any problem.

He would have to break her pride of her power, in order for her to realize her fault.

"You think you're more powerful than the non-combat witches, so you can despise them?" Roland asked in a cold, hard voice. "You're not that strong."

Hearing this, Iffy promptly looked up at him defiantly.

"You think combat witches are superior to a.s.sistant witches because you're the ones who can protect your kind, right?" Roland said, "This is ridiculous. You can't win a fight, entirely by yourself."

Iffy frowned tightly and looked angry. "Your Majesty, do you mean to say that a non-combat witch can defeat me?"

"Yes, you don't believe it?" Roland sneered. "Most witches in the Witch Union could easily defeat you, even if they've never used their power in a fight." He looked at Lightning who was standing aside, startled by his words at first. She quickly understood and nodded to him.

"That's just your imagination."

"OK, how about a duel between you and Maggie, " he said in a deep voice. "She'll show you why you should never look down upon the a.s.sistant witches."

"What?" Iffy's eyes widened in surprise. "You mean a fight between me and the dumb pigeon?"

"The duel is set for tomorrow, " Roland said each word slowly. "You'll see that you're not as strong as you think."

*******************

Returning to their place, they saw lunch awaiting on the table in the living room.

There was meat soup, bread, mushrooms and stewed vegetables.

Apparently, they did not need to go to the hall for lunch.

"Wow? We get meat and bread?" Softfeathers asked in surprise. "I thought we would only get cold water."

"Is this for the duel? He doesn't want me to fight in hunger?" Iffy sneered. "He has too much faith in that stupid bird."

"Maybe the dishes are drugged with something, like laxatives." Softfeathers suggested.

Completely ignoring the other witch's words, Iffy grabbed a piece of bread and stuffed it into her mouth. "If you're worried about that, you can always just not eat it."

"I don't care. I'm not the one going to a duel." Softfeathers rolled her eyes. She climbed up to sit on a stool and took a dish of roasted mushrooms, saying, "Hey, do you have to do this? Lady Heidi asked us to confirm the situation here, but she never told you to irritate the lord."

"It's an exciting opportunity," Iffy said.

"Really?" Softfeathers asked with great interest. "That's why you're doing this?"

Iffy turned and stared at Softfeathers coldly until the little girl dropped her head and mumbled. "Fine, forget about it."

Ever since a group of Sleeping Island witches had come back from the Western Region, the atmosphere was bad for the Bloodfang a.s.sociation. According to the returning witches, Lady Tilly's elder brother had built a domain where witches could live like ordinary people and even the a.s.sistant witches were well treated. This story had made the useless a.s.sistant witches on Sleeping Island very excited. Lady Heidi thought that it was Tilly who made up this story to gain the support of the many a.s.sistant witches. A lord would naturally value combat witches more, they could conquer and bring lands and power to him.

During today's test however, Iffy was really surprised to find that this lord seemed to treat all the witches equally,

But it was not what surprised her the most.

She was most surprised by Maggie.

Iffy could not believe that a stupid bird so clumsy in speech was so popular among the witches and liked by the lord, and that everyone was really beaming with a smile when they saw the fool. On Sleeping Island, Maggie was just a pet, a dispensable role!

Seeing Maggie, Iffy was full of anger and jealousy.

Iffy thought it was a betrayal that Maggie had left Sleeping Island and was living happily together with the witches here.

This was the real reason Iffy had targeted Maggie.

However, things had really gotten out of her control.

She still found it hard to believe that His Majesty had made such a ridiculous suggestion and arranged a duel between her and a pigeon.

She had to accept it. After all, getting information about the Western Region was one of her tasks here. Another task was to attract the lord's attention by showing her value and ability.

She was confident that she could make it clear to His Majesty that there was a huge gap between the combat witches and the weak a.s.sistant witches.