Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 414: Section 276: Confrontation (Part 3)

Chapter 414: Section 276: Confrontation (Part 3)

After Malin swore he didn’t play foul and passed the lie detection, Ails could only consider this situation as a special case of his bloodline’s activation period.

"It seems we better not have direct contact until your bloodline stabilizes," Ails finally said, covering his fingers burnt by Positive Energy as he ran off.

Malin watched him leave, then turned to the others, "I’ve said it before, there is always a way out of despair."

"No, if it weren’t for you, we couldn’t have found this path..." Elder Hoffman looked at Malin with a somewhat joyful smile, "It’s wonderful, just thinking that the torturous path of the Secret Keeper may end with my generation, that’s truly wonderful."

"...Teacher, is it really impossible to preserve your soul, not even to return it to the River of Mana?" Malin asked.

"Yes, it’s precisely because of this that those children chose to fall into despair and corruption," Elder Hoffman said with a nostalgic sigh, "I remember the face of each one of them, just like I remember all the brothers and sisters I’ve cleansed... Malin, my child, how did you and this guy get to know each other?"

So Malin recounted his entangled fate with Ails from start to finish. When Malin mentioned letting Ails deal with the souls of Chaos, Elder Hoffman looked at him, "Promise me, child, that it’s a fine choice to let the souls of Chaos suffer eternally but... Do purify the souls of those few apprentices of yours. It’s you who brings an end to the torturous path of the Secret Keeper cult, and I also implore you... to put an end to all this so that the children taught by Colin in the future won’t have to kill each other anymore."

"I promise you, Teacher," Malin nodded.

"Thank you, my child." After speaking, Elder Hoffman waved his hand, starting to shoo people away: "Malin, Colin, you go first."

So, Malin and Colin left the room, then Malin patted Colin’s arm, "Put the ring back on, dummy."

So the big man fumbled to put the ring back on his finger, and Malin took him back to the entrance of the corridor. There, Malin saw a worried Faye, saw Margaret praying with her eyes closed and thinking he had resolved the problem, Malin cleared his throat, "Margaret, look who’s back."

Margaret opened her eyes upon hearing this, then she saw Colin with a bitter face.

As if her wish was fulfilled, Margaret joyfully threw herself into Colin’s arms.

"Margaret, your hair..." "It’s alright, it’s just good that you could come back to face me, Colin, don’t worry, I’ll never leave you."

After speaking, this sister didn’t care about the outsiders and lifted Colin into a kiss.

"Look, in Thanan terms, this is what you call undying love," Malin said in Thanan language.

"I feel like it’s more like a Thanan cradling a Saharo Beast’s head in their mouth," Faye rolled her eyes and then gave Malin a smile: "That’s great, Malin, you brought Colin back. Although we cannot change the outcome, at least we’ve brought lovers together."

"Who says we can’t change the ending," Malin responded with a smile.

Then they heard Margaret’s surprised cry, "You’ve found a solution?"

"Yes, Malin found a Lich, and we’ve decided... to kill the Evil God for good. To achieve this goal, we need to find some powerful Legendaries, but that’s beyond Malin and me to handle now," Colin said, looking at Malin, "Thank you, Malin, I thought I would be separated from Margaret forever."

"Don’t be silly, dear, I won’t leave you," Margaret said.

"No, dear, it’s me who will leave you. If I undergo the surgery, I won’t be a whole person anymore, I can’t give you happiness, we might not even have children. Lady Anna and Lady Manli won’t allow such a thing to happen," Colin brushed aside her hair and gazed at Margaret lovingly, "These past few days, it twisted my heart every time I thought of this, but I can’t run away from my duties. When Teacher picked me from famine-stricken folk, I hadn’t eaten for nearly four days; he gave me the fortune to continue living. I became a Secret Keeper to repay this enormous debt... More than once, in dreams, I’ve begged for your forgiveness, begged Fate to spare me... but I know, Fate won’t do so, and I won’t run from it all, and you wouldn’t forgive me either, would you? Because I’ve betrayed you."

"No, dear, I will never betray you. Only death can part us, and even if death one day separates us, I swear I will always watch over you until the day death brings me to your side. In that moment, I’ll embrace you once more... Colin..." Margaret choked up as she said this.

The young couple embraced again.

Faye wiped the corners of her eyes, then looked at Malin, "We’ll be like that too, won’t we?"

"We will, even if time flows and we turn into strangers, we will meet again under the oath we’ve made today. You will be my eternal love," Malin reached out, taking the hand of this silly girl.

If he could, Malin really wouldn’t mind if he and she could truly be together forever. After all, having seen the other timelines’ unfortunate versions of himself, Malin felt he must survive and ensure happiness for Faye, Maya, Jessica, and Lillim as well as Clovis.

As for a certain Big-eared Fox... Oh well, letting her be happy too wouldn’t hurt.

Malin admitted he wasn’t cut out to be ruthless; he could only live up to the creed of reciprocating the good he’d received.

"Let’s leave them here," he said.

Taking Faye with him, Malin saw Matilda at the entrance, still a bit unsteady on her feet, but she ran over when she saw him and then weakly asked for a hug, "How did it go?"

"I called Ails over, that Lich."

"A Lich, I despise him," Matilda gave a standard Paladin standpoint.

"But he’s the only one who can help Colin and Margaret, and he’s also the only Lich I can trust," Malin said, then patted her head: "Don’t worry, I’ll be watching him, and if he has any ulterior motives, I swear, he’ll have a very splendid death."

"What kind of splendid death?" Matilda asked.

"I’ll use its spine as the handle, its skull as the hammer, and flatten its soul box into a scatter plot 100 meters by 20 meters," Malin said.

Matilda thought for a moment, then laughed and hugged Malin: "Very good, a death befitting a Lich."

Since it was a hug from behind, Malin could feel his back being hit by the ribs of the big-eared fox, sigh, the curse of the medieval times, dehumanizing people, even a fox can suffer malnutrition.

Thinking this, Malin patted the back of Matilda’s hand: "There’s nothing for us here, let’s go back."

"Ah! We’re going back through a portal again?!" Matilda was shocked.

"Yes, or would you like to take the train?" Malin asked the big-eared fox.

"No way!" After Matilda spoke, she followed closely behind Malin, resigned to her fate as they returned to the portal.

"Speaking of which, this door is really expensive, teleportation for one person actually costs 5,000 Mowish." Malin complained a bit while passing through the door—the old men of the Mage Tower were just too greedy for money.

"After all, teleportation is still the fastest way of moving up to now, you either spend money or you spend time, it’s that simple." Having said that, Faye walked towards the teleportation portal first, and before entering, she turned and gestured to Malin about Matilda.

So Malin turned around, took hold of the big-eared fox, then dragged her through the portal.

.........

After sorting out Colin’s affairs, Malin rested for two days, then followed the mentors to the top sixteen competition. Unsurprisingly, Maya’s team from the lower grades lost to the Church of Justice’s lower grade team.

Honestly, Malin knew his sister was done for just by looking at the Church of Justice’s lineup—Paladin Apprentices at the front and witch hunter Apprentices at the back, mixed with Demonslayer and Blesser Apprentices. The only useful one in the lower grade team was his own sister. The two giant kids at the front looked impressive, but against the Elite, they were taken down in just a few hits.

In the end, Maya unleashed her power, electrocuted half of the Church of Justice’s back row, and then she was picked up by several Paladin girls and thrown into the open arms of Malin below the stage.

Maya deliberately reduced the lethality, and the people from the Church of Justice understood this, so after patting each other on the back with laughter, the match was over.

Only Maya was a bit unhappy, but she understood that this was just a venue, and everyone on stage was just an Apprentice, not mortal enemies. So in the end, she let Malin lead her back to the mentors’ seats—the matches for the middle and higher grades were up next.

The leading mentor of the Goddess of Harvest had bad luck, drawing the Church of Justice in the top sixteen. There weren’t many people rooting for the Church of the Goddess of Harvest.

Malin thought this was actually quite good—the youngsters of the Church of the Goddess of Harvest could be woken up by the Church of Justice’s members, which was a good option. After all, the reputation that the Church of the Goddess of Harvest wasn’t good at fighting was deeply ingrained.

But Mentor Emet-Selch had a different opinion: "I think the middle and higher graders still have a chance. After all, they’ve faced you directly."

"But they couldn’t beat me, either," Malin rebutted while stroking Maya’s tail.

"At least they can face you, not like those kids from the Church of Justice who don’t even have the qualification to face you," Emet-Selch said, pointing at the children coming out of the preparation area: "Look, they are coming! I believe in them!"

"...I believe in them too," Malin said with a smile.

Even though he felt these kids basically had no chance, at least... having dreams was quite nice, wasn’t it?

Thinking this, Malin noticed a gaze from afar, he turned his head, and saw a girl looking at him.

Isn’t that the girl who always pesters Maya to touch her tail?

With that thought, Malin laughed and lifted the tail he was holding.

Hmph, see this? This is my tail. Rage in your impotence! You brat!

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