Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 498 - Three Hundred and Thirty-Five: The Imaginary South with Beaches and Sunshine

Chapter 498: Chapter Three Hundred and Thirty-Five: The Imaginary South with Beaches and Sunshine

Opening his eyes, Malin looked up at the ceiling, adorned with beautiful wallpaper full of lovely patterns.

The small banquet last night had been cheerful for both guests and hosts. After seeing off all the guests, Malin was the last to clean up before crawling into the warm embrace of his bed. He had slept well; the mattress was specially made from the softest belly hides of groundhogs, and the quilt was filled with down feathers, encasing large wolf, fox, and leopard tails.

This was truly a heavenly life.

Malin sighed and simultaneously thought about getting out of the cozy bed—no matter how much like heaven it was, one still had to go to work.

With a flip of his little hand, Malin noticed that his hand had shrunk a lot.

After a moment of silence, Malin touched his face.

That had shrunk a lot too.

Then he pulled out the leopard tail from his chest... It had grown quite a bit.

At the same time, he confirmed once again that his paternal bloodline had been activated.

Ever since bloodline issues had begun, Malin’s wardrobe always contained smaller clothes, prepared for when his paternal bloodline was activated so he would have something to wear.

But this time, Malin had become far too small—this time he looked to be only about ten years old. However, based on his encounters with others of his kind, this was more in line with the standard height.

Still, he seemed to be a little bit shorter than average.

So he rolled up his trouser legs twice and his sleeves twice, but overall, it still looked big on him.

The bad news was that his Frost Giant bloodline had become inactive, and Malin began to feel cold.

The good news was that his strength hadn’t changed, and as a six-circle Mage, Malin had cast a spell formation on himself that allowed him to ignore extreme climates. So when he arrived at the Church with the girls, he was wearing only a shirt and a pair of overalls underneath his wolf skin coat, which was open at the collar.

Margaret burst into laughter when she saw Malin, "Your bloodline has been activated again, huh?"

"Who knows," Malin spread his hands with resignation.

......

Two days later, Malin’s apprenticeship came to an end while he was still a little guy—the Church of the Goddess of Harvest kicked Malin out of the Apprenticeship with the reasoning that they basically couldn’t teach him anything.

The reasoning they gave was very sound—you, a six-circle Mage and Rank Eight Transcendent, could at least be a proper warrior if you went to the Warrior’s Guild for grading (warrior’s professional level ten). With strength, physique, and intelligence all moving towards 100, not unleashing you into society to benefit the people would be a loss for the whole world.

If Malin hadn’t heard someone boast so seriously before, he might have believed it.

And that very day, news came from the Primate—he was given a Church office, acting as Commander-in-Chief of the Punishers in the Carterburg area.

In other words, starting from that day, Malin was the toughest enforcer for the Church in Carterburg, ready to handle anything that couldn’t be settled by anyone else—just close the doors and unleash Malin.

Before this, the role had been Hoffman’s, and Malin had initially no desire to take it over—it was a role that logically should have been handed over to Colin.

But then Colin took over Hoffman’s position as the Inspecting Bishop of Carterburg—only twenty-six years old. In other words, a Bishop under thirty—anyone with ears, even a blind man, could tell that this was a face-saving move from the Primate for Malin’s elder brother.

Inspecting Bishop didn’t need to involve himself in local matters, yet he could oversee all issues within any Church of the Goddess of Harvest in the Carterburg area. He could even meddle in all internal affairs and report directly to the Primate, bypassing the local Archbishop.

With this backing, Malin accepted the role and immediately went down to a town—the town indicated that some northerners had been raiding the nearby forests and had been extorting fees from the town more than once.

Malin entered the forest with the local police and punishers. The northerners had in mind to use their stockade as a defense but Malin sent a Fireball as big as a washbasin that blew their gate apart.

These bullies who only picked on the weak instantly chose to surrender.

On his way back, Malin encountered a Mountain Spirit—a bear-type spirit. The creature had come out to look for food with the arrival of spring and upon seeing Malin, decided that this would be an easy meal.

After all, Malin looked the most edible of all present.

The bear was then predictably floored with a punch from Malin, making it doubt bear life itself, and as Malin was about to deliver the killing second punch, the Mountain Spirit chose to surrender—spirits are intelligent, and in the face of overwhelming defeat, they would choose to either flee or surrender.

Malin proved too powerful, so it surrendered.

Upon its surrender, Malin found himself unable to continue the attack—as a decent person, no matter how brutal, he couldn’t possibly kill a spirit that had surrendered to him.

In the end, he could only ride it back to town.

If at first the townspeople had any doubts about Malin’s strength, all such doubts vanished the moment he made a grand entrance riding on the back of the scrawny Mountain Spirit.

Malin put all the northerners into the stone quarry camp east of the town and rode back to Carterburg with his punishers.

The Mountain Spirit, whom Malin had named Emergency Rations, also had its first big meal—Malin shot down a buck crossing the road, gave its head to the punishers to play with as a trophy, roasted both its hind legs for lunch, and left the rest to Emergency Rations.

This bear spirit had definitely eaten its fill and hadn’t even thought about turning hostile when it saw Malin uproot a small ironwood tree, strip it of branches and roots with one hand, and then start whittling it with a knife.

Meanwhile, Malin showed it the kind of smile only an old father beating his unruly child would have.

The wise bear spirit pondered for two seconds before choosing to lie on the side of the road and expose its belly.

Malin had finished crafting this club and tossed it to the giant in the Punisher team, who had been begging Malin to make such a big toy for his child; now his wish was fulfilled, and naturally, he was happy—after all, it was crafted by Mr. Malin himself.

Malin was basically not the type to disappoint a father who wanted to make his child’s wish come true.

By the afternoon, Malin’s team arrived at Carterburg, originally planning to give the spare food to the Church’s beast tamers, but this bear spirit was very clever, clinging tightly to Malin’s trouser leg—without tearing it, just holding on and not letting Malin go.

After thinking it over, Malin eventually brought the large bear back home—indeed, it was smart and had plenty of strength and ability. Leaving it with the Church might really pose the question of who was the spare food.

Back at Malin’s house, the first girl the bear met was Jessica, and the wolf girl laughed the moment she saw Malin riding back on the bear: "Looks like the mountain spirit has taken a shine to you."

"Yeah, it surrendered," Malin said while observing the big bear’s reaction and noticing it had already recognized the danger the wolf girl posed—it quickly hid behind Malin.

The next to come over was Lillim, and the big bear glanced at Malin.

The message was very straightforward—can I eat her?

Malin smiled benevolently, while he began sharpening knives.

The spare food swiftly bowed its head and flipped over in front of Lillim, exposing its belly.

Lillim was extremely happy as she patted the spare food’s belly, then showed some disgust as it was too dirty.

"No worries, I’ll take it to get cleaned up in a bit."

Malin sharpened the knife and passed it to Matilda, who had come over to get it.

The big bear sized up Matilda and then looked at Malin again, finally whimpering and hiding behind Malin—it had an instinctive sense of danger due to her height.

"Can I eat it?" Matilda asked.

"No, it’s my spare mount now." Malin indicated that recently he couldn’t even reach the brakes of his motorbike, so riding a bear was better.

Matilda walked away, laughing.

Then came Faye, and the mage girl, upon seeing the spare food, smiled and pulled out a flaming elemental sword with both hands.

The big bear instantly jumped up, flipped over, and exposed its belly—animal spirits, through their lengthy evolution, had learned one thing from their parents: never pick a fight with human spellcasters, as doing so often resulted in becoming raw material for one of the hundred ways to cook a bear spirit.

"Quite sensible. Stand up, clap your hands, nod," Faye commanded the spare food to perform a few actions, and after confirming it understood human speech, she happily gave Malin a kiss. "How did you bring it back?"

"I punched it," Malin pointed at its still slightly swollen left side of the head.

The spare food howled and then collapsed on the ground.

Faye nodded, laughing, "From now on, you’ll be the pet of everyone in the house. Behave and you’ll get meat; misbehave and we’ll eat you."

The spare food nodded frantically, then it saw Maya and quickly ran over to lie down beside her.

Maya smiled and patted its head, "So you’re my brother’s mount, you need to be well-behaved."

After receiving an affirmative response from the spare food, Maya took out a small piece of honey biscuit. The big bear ate it happily and then licked Maya.

"Brother, are you busy tomorrow? Rewo wants to invite us over to her place to play."

"Shouldn’t be anything tomorrow." As Commander-in-Chief, Malin thought about it and confirmed he had no jobs lined up—at least not noted down.

As he thought this, everyone saw a Farole messenger pigeon flying low, and just as it was about to land on Malin’s head, a black Thainese Cat jumped up, attempting to catch it.

The messenger pigeon changed direction, evading the Thainese Cat, and then landed in front of Malin.

Malin shook his head looking at the message tube on its leg, "Work’s come, it looks like I can’t accompany you to play."

"See what it is," Faye said, coming closer, eager to get a quick look.

Malin pulled out the parchment from the tube.

Hmm... it was from some lame-legged baron who was inviting Malin and his family to his territory.

"Farole? I’ve heard it’s a very warm place," Faye said, turning to the girls. "What do you think?"

"It would be nice to go play," Lillim said.

"I agree. I’ve heard Farole has nice scenery all around, with beautiful landscapes and even hunting grounds." Jessica said this, her smile implying more.

The spare food lay down obediently.

After all the girls agreed, Malin nodded, wrote a response on the parchment, and let the messenger pigeon fly away.