Power

Benita, who had been silent for a long time, seemed to have finally made up her mind. “My Lady, if I want to possess such power, what price must I pay?”

“Is that important?” Wu Yao replied. Interrupted by her question, she had almost lost track of her target again.

But facing her prospective skill trainer, Wu Yao also felt too embarrassed to speak too harshly, so her tone was merely a bit distracted and perfunctory.

“I... If I had this kind of power, I could protect the people who matter to me...”

Benita hung her head. She knew her thoughts were childish, but after witnessing Wu Yao's capabilities, she couldn't help but harbor such desires.

“Power?” Wu Yao spared a bit of attention for her. This NPC was probably brooding over Hilna's matter again.

“You've got one thing wrong.”

Feeling her professional instincts as a teacher kicking in, Wu Yao raised a finger to correct her. “Hilna died because of power.”

Benita stared at her blankly. “What do you mean?”

“Well, this is the first time I'm giving a lecture to an NPC.”

Wu Yao cleared her throat, using Hilna's case as a teaching aid. “Why was the Mage Association able to burn Hilna to death?”

“Because... they said Hilna was a sorceress who used witchcraft to harm people...”

“Do you believe what they said?” Wu Yao sneered. “They were able to say that simply because they have power.”

“Power is the ability to make others do what you say, even if they don't want to.”

“The Mage Association could make the soldiers obey them, decree her guilt, and silence the onlookers. That is their power.”

Benita recalled the day Hilna was dragged to the plaza. The details she had previously overlooked now became clear. Had there really been no one who felt the injustice on Hilna's behalf?

Of course there had been. But why had no one dared to speak out in public?

“There is more than one kind of power. If you can grant benefits to others, they will listen to you. If you can punish others, they will fear you and also listen to you. These are the most basic forms of power: interest and force.”

Wu Yao was reasonably satisfied with her NPC student as she watched Benita sink into deep thought. Behind them, Suren was also quietly listening to the sorceress speak.

“Why does everyone believe whatever the Mage Association says? They didn't hand out benefits to everyone, nor did they threaten people one by one. It's because the Mage Association represents legitimacy and the law. What the people recognize and obey isn't any single person, but the name of the Mage Association itself.”

Benita opened her mouth to speak, but Wu Yao cut her off. “When the villagers come to you for treatment, don't they have to drink whatever medicine you tell them to?”

Benita nodded. The village peasants were illiterate and knew nothing of medical prescriptions; they only knew that whatever the Physician told them to drink would make them better.

“That is also power. You understand things they don't, so they listen to you. As long as your medicine remains effective, they will always trust you. You said Hilna was highly skilled and many noble ladies sought her treatment, right? Then why did none of those nobles help her?”

Benita racked her brain before tentatively offering an answer, “Because... Hilna wasn't irreplaceable?”

“Exactly. And why did so many people immediately decide she deserved to die once they found out Hilna was a sorceress?”

This was precisely what baffled Benita. She couldn't understand why even those who had received Hilna's kindness would turn on her so ruthlessly without a second thought.

People who didn't know Hilna at all would hurl curses at her simply because of the label “sorceress.”

“That's because they were conditioned to believe ‘sorceresses deserve to die.’ No one had to force them; they naturally championed this idea. This power doesn't reside in the hands of any specific individual, but in the minds of the people.”

Wu Yao tapped her temple twice, as if knocking on an impenetrable door.

Benita suddenly looked up.

“You can call it ‘social conditioning’.” The term Wu Yao uttered rippled through Benita's heart like a stone cast into still water.

“From the moment you were born, someone told you that sorceresses are evil, and you believed it. Someone told you that nobles are naturally superior, and you believed that too. How did these thoughts originate? You don't know, yet you think this way, acting in accordance with these beliefs without ever questioning why.”

Suren, who had been following silently, showed a slight flicker in her eyes. Her expression remained blank, but Wu Yao's words set off a tempest in her heart.

Nobles are naturally superior. She had heard this countless times in her life, and she had believed it for just as many years.

That was why commoners like them had to grovel on the ground, toil in the fields, and be grateful for everything the nobles bestowed upon them.

...Until she slit a noble's throat and watched him sprawl on the ground, gasping for breath like a dying dog.

Wu Yao sighed, a rare occurrence for her, and muttered a quiet curse, “Does this stupid game really have to base its history on this kind of crap...”

“A witch, no matter how skilled in medicine, will die from a single sentence if she has no protection, no leverage, and no network.”

Wu Yao thought of the quest she had accepted earlier and sighed with regret. Hilna was a witch, after all!

“But... she saved so many people...”

“Saving people is not the same as having power.”

For once, Wu Yao began to seriously consider how she was supposed to complete the witch-saving quest in this kind of social climate.

The setting of this game was darker than she had imagined. It felt like no witch would ever willingly step forward and admit what they were!

“You save someone, and they are grateful to you—that's nice. But saving someone so they owe you their life, leaving them with no choice but to obey you—that is power. How many people you can rally to your side, and how many things you can bend to your will—that is the power you need to possess.”

Wu Yao stroked her chin and quickly decided on her quest strategy. She would make sure the whole world knew she was a witch, and that she would protect other witches.

As long as she stood openly and grandly where everyone could see her, wouldn't those witches who were too afraid to show their faces naturally come seeking her out?

She really was a gaming genius!

Benita was completely lost in her own thoughts. Wu Yao's words felt like opening the gates to a whole new world, and for the first time, she tried to analyze Hilna's situation logically.

Did Hilna have strength? Of course she did. She could accomplish many things that others could not.

But did she have power?

No.

She didn't cultivate connections, she didn't associate with the powerful and wealthy, and she didn't make herself “irreplaceable.”

She simply treated illnesses quietly, tended to her herb garden, and researched formulas. All of this, ironically, made her an eyesore to her peers.

A female Physician who was highly skilled, refused to cling to the powerful, and kept to herself would find no one standing up for her even if she was brought down.

If only some of Hilna's noble patients had been willing to speak up for her; if only she had been bound by mutual interest to some powerful faction; if only she had been too “useful” to be sacrificed...

And most importantly, if only people didn't believe that sorceresses deserved to die...