This was the mission for the latter half of the spring offensive: seizing Willow Town and Fallen Dragon Ridge. Capturing Willow Town would unify the Western Region, and taking control of Fallen Dragon Ridge would enable them to have the easiest access to the Southern Territory.

Since these two towns were well fortified, Roland entrusted the command to Iron Axe and he himself would not partake in the expedition. Because they just conquered King's City, the soldiers were having high morale. Besides, those professional soldiers had gradually formed a prototype of soldiers in a modern army, which meant they could faithfully carry out combat orders without being led by Roland personally. Therefore, Roland was sure they would take the two towns. As long as they made a thorough investigation and used the artillery troops to steadily push forward, they would not face great resistance from the enemies.

The reconstruction of the post-war order should be his focus of attention.

Fortunately, Willow Town was not a large-scale town. He did not need to set a fully-functional secondary City Hall as the one in the Longsong Area, but only to set up offices for each department correspondingly. Nowadays, the Border Area could offer a batch of fundamental management staff, so it would not be hard to add Willow Town to the political system of the City of Neverwinter.

As for Fallen Dragon Ridge, he would hand it over to Countess Spear for management. After the fall of Timothy, Spear had sworn allegiance to Roland and agreed to accept the overall management model of Western Region. In order to help her take over the city and cleaning up the rebel n.o.bility, Roland believed it was necessary to garrison the first army there.

Plus, in the future, whether to further annex the Southern Territory or to conquer Iron Sand City, Fallen Dragon Ridge was the key traffic artery. So, the other purpose of the garrison was to prevent accidents. No matter what, Roland had to take hold of this city.

"In this way, there won't be many left in the First Army," after knowing the plan, Iron Axe said, frowning. "500 of them are guarding King's City, 1,000 will be dispatched to Willow Town and Fallen Dragon Ridge, and the number of soldiers I can freely mobilize is no more than 1,500, most of whom are artillery. Given that, City of Neverwinter probably will temporarily lose the ability to launch the attack."

"How is the training for the new soldiers recruited during the Months of Demons going?"

"Not even close to the regular troops," Iron Axe said while shaking his head. "They need to be trained for at least two to three more months."

Roland could not help laughing. He remembered when he originally set up the Militia to resist demonic beasts, it went to the battlefield only after one and a half months' training. Now with the increasingly comprehensive construction of the army, the criterion of acceptability also greatly increased. In fact, as long as the soldiers could line up based on the order and take aim to pull the trigger, even in this era it was a strong army—After all, they only needed to aim and shoot without necessarily being under the attack of the enemies and risking their own lives.

"Don't worry. By then the garrison could be replaced by those new recruits, and it'll be a sort of training for them to fight against the guards of the n.o.ble." Roland said in a leisure tone, "When the emissary delegation for recruiting refugees returns, the population of City of Neverwinter will reach another peak. We can continue to expand our army then."

Seizing King's City was far from an end, and seizing Fallen Dragon was only a start. If everything went well, he hoped to annex the whole Southernmost Ridge before the arrival of the Months of Demons this year.

If he could get a stable supply of black water, he might be able to lead the industries of City of Neverwinter to a new stage.

Soon after Iron Axe left, Nightingale quietly appeared in front of Roland.

"Iffy wants to see you."

...

Looking at the witch from Bloodfang a.s.sociation slowly walking into the office, Roland could feel some changes.

Her steps were not as firm as the time when she first arrived here; her maroon long hair was a little messy, which showed that she apparently did not care to take care of it. She did not look as vigilant and proud as before; instead, she looked rather confused and at a loss.

At this moment, she looked more like a girl at her real age.

Iffy bowed first, and then after a long silence, she opened her mouth. "Your Majesty, what's... the weapon that Maggie used?"

Roland had expected that she would ask about it. He nodded at Nightingale, and then Nightingale took the revolver out of her waist and put it on the table.

"What she used was a gun. It kills enemies with projectiles fueled by gunpowder." He skillfully removed the cartridge and poured out the bullets. "The projectiles used to shoot at you were modified in a particular way, otherwise you would have been killed on spot."

Iffy's lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but yet she swallowed her words in the end.

Roland picked up a bullet and raised it in front of everybody. "Do you see it?" It is not much bigger than a finger, but yet it requires an extremely complicated procedure to manufacture it. The whole procedure required the joint work of hundreds of ordinary townsmen and three witches. Neither of the two groups is dispensable. And those are the non-combat witches who you think are useless. Do you still think so?"

"I..." She looked hesitated, but could not utter a word in the end.

Roland did not give her too much time to think. He continued, "Maybe they cannot compete with you in terms of abilities, but that doesn't prove anything. Although a commoner can't knock down a fierce beast with his bare hands, it's the human beings that rule the world, not the beasts."

"I prefer to call the non-combat witches as a.s.sistant witches. Through their own abilities, they can give the vast majority of ordinary people new forces, such as those guards who fight with long swords and s.h.i.+elds—with the help of them, human beings can easily beat the beasts. In a sense, a.s.sistant witches are greater than combat witches."

"But the weapons you invented... can play a more powerful role in the hands of the combat witches," Iffy said in a low voice.

"The difference isn't very obvious, at least not obvious enough to change the outcome of a war." Roland shook his head. "Imagine this: while faced with ten ordinary soldiers armed with such weapon, what's the odd for you to win? In my territory, they can produce seven to eight such guns every day, but how many combat witches are there? Moreover, owning the weapons alone isn't enough. We also need to maintain them. To this end, we need a ma.s.sive production and logistics team, in which a.s.sistant witches play irreplaceable roles."

He rea.s.sembled the gun and returned it to Nightingale. "I know that it's hard for you to understand the fact instantly. But the reason human beings are greater than the beasts is that human beings can use their wisdom to create power that the world has never had. To this end, magic power is undoubtedly the best tool, and yet you're wasting this talent." He paused for a moment. "Right, the First Army reserve will have a maneuver using loaded rifles this afternoon. I suggest you watch it so that you can use your own eyes to observe what the real power is."

"The time has changed, Iffy."

...