Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 565: Section 387: Help (Part 2)

Chapter 565: Section 387: Help (Part 2)

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Forget it, after all, she is an observer of the National Church, a Special Envoy in her own right, and the Church of the Lord of Justice worships the Lord of Justice, who has shown his saintliness to the public. However, according to AI intelligence, this deity is actually a super Frankenstein, with at least five deities sustaining the divine office of the Lord of Justice—the Goddess of the Night counts as one, Nameless (Lord of Justice) counts as another, the genuine Master of Wisdom counts as yet another, Jianqi counts as one more, and the last is the Lord of Justice himself.

During the last cataclysm, he was hammered by Nagoth and is still in a moribund state. The Goddess of the Night, who is on good terms with him, naturally does not wish for her old friend to truly perish.

Although there is some conflict between Nameless and him in terms of divine office, Nameless himself does not need faith, and being a god of order, he does not want the Lord of Justice to truly die. It is said that the Lord of Justice is actually a mute young girl, who views life and death with indifference and will fight if provoked. To Malin, she is precisely to Nameless’s taste.

It’s quite surprising, the deities in the European region are mostly goddesses, unlike Thainan, where the Immortal Lords are merely legendary. The two greatest deities there are called Confucius and Master Wu.

The first time Malin heard this, he almost wanted to call the police—what are you two, one a tyrant and the other nameless, doing in Thainan?

The genuine Master of Wisdom is said to have been in a romantic relationship with the Lord of Justice back in the day and would certainly help.

As for why Jianqi would help, considering their relationship to Nagoth... putting it another way, if Malin were Jianqi, being able to send a message to ’old friend’ Nagoth and let him know that the grand scheme he ruined would be a ’good’ event appreciated by both parties.

Of course, his presence could not possibly come forward publicly; his existence is more reflected from one side—the Punishers of the National Church had a moment of inspirational reversal in the battle against the church of the Evil God who believe in Nagoth. To quote the involved Punishers, at that moment, the idea just appeared in their minds.

Then, following that idea was the right move because the enemy would certainly die as a result.

Everyone, including Nameless, checked the Punishers over and over again to confirm that they had not been contaminated—in the end, they could only summarize it with the phrase "Jianqi watching Nagoth get frustrated is really delightful."

Jianqi and Nagoth, one skilled in change, the other content with eternity, hence, their relationship is extremely bad, with the armies of both even fighting to the death under the walls of the city of the living during the year of destruction.

So, Malin really had no reason to be surprised by his appearance, and the conflict between the National Church of the Holy Kingdom and Nagoth does indeed provide adequate reason for Jianqi to intervene—pleasing himself while striking at the enemy, no better scene than this.

Last is the Lord of Justice himself, currently lying in the Golden Prairie, sometimes briefly regaining consciousness, issuing sacred decrees and revelations, who knows when he will wake up again, but at least everyone knows he isn’t dying any time soon.

Because of this, among the four religious sects under the National Church, there’s the purple-clad sect skilled in the mystic arts, the Night Watchers in black robes, the Purifiers as white as snow, and the red-clad sect adhering to the original doctrines.

Lulu, for instance, is a standard Night Watcher, an observer among the Night Watchers, akin to an ambassador from the human kingdoms, usually assigned to an individual or organization to maintain diplomatic relations for the Church.

This time, this girl has come to the city, presumably to initiate negotiations with the Gallo family, after all, one of the leading Noble families of the Farol Principality.

Having concluded his thoughts in a flash, Malin approached the map where Clovis and Jessica had already marked the human army’s position: "Our army started moving the day before yesterday and has traveled one hundred and twenty kilometers in two days, our people are in good condition, Sydney’s National Defense forces have lost several hundred people."

Jessica’s words almost made Malin laugh, but considering that the National Defense Forces are no match for the Northern forces or Sydney’s Guards Army in any respect, and that Malin’s troops in terms of personnel and all aspects are benchmarked against the Guards Army, and even stronger than them in dietary terms, being superior to the National Defense Forces is normal. If he couldn’t even achieve that, Malin might as well give up and go back to being a contented merchant.

"Actually, the National Defense Forces aren’t too bad, under normal circumstances they would need three days to cover one hundred and twenty kilometers, they’ve already done a lot to save face for our Majesty," Clovis said with a smile, "But in the eyes of various churches, our factory guards have been quite conspicuous."

It seems Clovis is very satisfied with the performance of the guards.

"The old soldier did very well this time, after we return, promote him one service class as a reward, and if his performance in battle is good... remember to give him the Excellent Service Medal."

After giving his instructions, Malin turned to Lillim: "When is the Church coming to pick us up?"

"This afternoon, they’ve specially opened a long-distance teleportation gate for us." The Bunny Girl said, grinning from ear to ear at the mention of the teleportation gate.

"No Gryphon Wing Squadron this time?" Malin asked, feigning ignorance, since the pair of Gryphon leaders were so traumatized by Malin last time that they would scream at the sight of a small person, almost causing the local Gryphon-feeding Half-human Gnome attendants to lose their jobs.

"Please don’t ask questions you already know the answer to, Mr. Malin," the Bunny Girl said, looking very serious.

"I didn’t eat their eggs," Malin rolled his eyes and thought about what Gryphon eggs might taste like.

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It must be that flavor that is incredibly delicious when you stir-fry it until it’s medium rare with spring onions, plate it, and drizzle sauce over it—smooth as sweet chocolate pudding.

Wait a second, how can I imagine the taste of Gryphon eggs when I’ve never eaten them?

"You Frost Giants drove the Gryphons from the northern mountains southward back in the day," Thainan, the invisible bystander, suddenly spoke up.

"It wasn’t me who did that," Malin said feeling a bit guilty—could it be that the experience of food flavors can truly be inherited?

Or is it that human genes have evolved to such an extent over these years?

So Malin thought again—what is the most delicious thing, trying to dig into the deepest memories of gluttony stored in his genes.

He couldn’t think of anything.

Malin laughed and sighed, "Ladies, take a break. We’ll check their location again in the afternoon and then we set off; we’ll meet up with them at the predetermined camp tonight."

"Understood," Clovis nodded.

"We want to go," Nuo and Rewo exclaimed in unison.

"No, it’s too dangerous. I heard there are at least a thousand Black Orcs there, and they say they’re man-eating demons. With your delicate skin and tender flesh, it would be bad if you guys were eaten," Malin joked—what a joke, it wasn’t just them, he didn’t even want to bring Faye—polluted areas and mountains, would he be sending delicate girls to their death?

Malin still hadn’t figured out exactly what Black Orcs were. Everyone says they’re bigger and stronger than those green-skinned Orcs, invaders from another world who came during the Second Great Destruction, who love to eat humans, and are even more terrifying than the cannibals in the mountains east of the wastelands.

At least cannibals can’t rip a living person apart and eat them on the spot with such ferocity. So, facing an unknown enemy, Malin instinctively prepared extensively, not only putting together a factory guard force of two thousand men, each armed with a semi-automatic, but also did he have a team of bear-men haul up two organ guns—those hand-cranked six-barrel machine guns firing 20MM rounds with a link-chamber mechanism. Malin wanted to equip them with LMGs, but common materials weren’t up to par. It was feasible to cast them using spell formations, but the cost was disheartening to everyone at the Science Research Institute.

So, going for the next best thing, since small-caliber wasn’t possible, they switched to large-caliber.

Thus, such a monster was born. Previously, this beast had been tested on the northern battlefield, and the soldiers there had nothing but high praise—one hundred-round belt could eliminate an entire squad of Chaos warriors; a full-powered round of large caliber could punch through armor and Chaos alike, the entry wound the size of a bowl, the exit a gaping hole. Just a few rounds could utterly kill a Chaos warrior, with an effective range of eight hundred yards; magicians often accompanying Chaos warriors would also be lethally hit by bullets that penetrated the soldiers in front of them.

Then it headed south, and in battles with Black Orc gangs in the wasteland, this monster proved even more lethal and effective—since Black Orcs typically only wore animal skins, the 20MM caliber machine guns could penetrate five of them at a time. The warband engaged with the experimental unit lost more than half of its members in the two-minute charge, and the Paladin leading them said that if they had just one more of these guns, three lined up in left, center, and right formation providing crossfire coverage, they wouldn’t have suffered any casualties at all, because all the Black Orcs would die on the charge.

The Church of Justice promptly ordered a hundred units. Malin’s solution for them was to mount them on carts, which could be towed around and fired from. On the wasteland terrain, a few carts could make life a living hell for an entire Black Orc gang—their physical constitution was powerful, but it was too much to expect them to outrun warhorses specially bred by the Church of Justice.

The difference between the two sides was like comparing a provincial 100-meter champion to a superhuman who could run ten thousand meters at the same speed without panting.

Malin’s viewpoint was—never solve with men what can be solved with bullets because in this world, a person needs fourteen years to become productive, and that’s still as a child laborer, from whom you can’t squeeze much, yet a trained craftsman could produce a hundred bullets a day, and even if it took a hundred bullets to kill a Black Orc, it would still be a huge profit.

Because that craftsman would grow up, making more bullets and other things, but once a Black Orc dies, it’s over. No more offspring, no more killing—because Black Orcs have two litters a year and take ten years to mature. An adult Black Orc during the era of cold weapons had an exchange rate of three to one, or even higher, against human armies.

But since the advent of the firearm, the exchange rate between humans and Black Orcs has approached two to one. Usually, the Beastmen have to charge across the space between the two forces before they can engage in combat with human armies. Their bows and crossbows can’t compare to firearms. Any Black Orc warband daring to take on humans head-on is destined to be beaten badly.

What Malin needed to do was add a zero behind the two and, if possible, add one more zero after that.

So, if Nokia could know what’s happening now, they would surely proclaim that technology should serve humanity.

After all, they were the ones who manufactured firearms and bullets before, knowing the crux of the matter better than other companies.

Because without people, what good is technology?

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