Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 612: Section 426: Roman Holiday (Part 4)

Chapter 612: Section 426: Roman Holiday (Part 4)

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Legends eventually come to an end, and the news of the old lady of the Moriti family’s passing spread quickly throughout the entire Western Human World. Condolences poured in from all over, and some acquainted legendary Professionals even made special trips to bid farewell to the elderly woman. As a bystander, Malin watched this scene with a sense of melancholy for the fragility of life and the unpredictability of fate. When he had traveled south, he thought the old woman looked fairly healthy, yet just a few months later, she had already departed this life.

At the funeral, Malin saw the High Priestess of the Church of the Goddess of Harvest. The old lady did not cry; instead, she stood there, stubbornly enduring the entire funeral.

It was said that she and Lady Domi were old friends, both having been fond of that young man named Jack in their youth... The beautiful romance of those days had eventually been washed away by time, like sand on a beach.

After attending the funeral, Malin took the girls back to Carterburg collectively. He had established an indirect teleportation channel between Carterburg and Rongma’s palace: on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Carterburg connected to a rest area in the Semi-Plane and then to the palace; on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, Carterburg connected to the Seafloor Base then to the palace. There were mechanical checks to ensure no stowaways.

What, and on Sundays?

Why bother running around on the weekend? Just sleep in the palace on Saturday. With a pull of the big blanket, ahem, I mean, with a pull of the girls’ big tails, what’s there to be dissatisfied about?

Having a perfect Roman holiday once a week, Malin felt very satisfied, and thought those who weren’t satisfied could be thrown into the Raging Sea to feed the fish.

The only regret was that widow who hasn’t gone out again. However, she had subscribed to newspapers, and the local press made sure their delivery boys were absolutely dependable, so this matter remained unresolved for the time being.

And a new victim emerged—Halil Duboa, a colleague of the Jinge City policeman that Malin knew. He had been pickpocketed in Naples. According to Jason’s analysis, the targets likely used the stolen wallet to obtain a train ticket and leave Naples, as new tickets had been suspended at the time, and only those with old ones could depart.

It was for this reason that the white-haired elders and the others involved hadn’t caught their targets.

After much deliberation, Malin felt that the widow was likely one of the targets, but the current problem was that they still hadn’t found that Illusionist gentleman. He seemed to have vanished into thin air in Rongma, and for about a week, the police had been confirming new victims, while the dark side showed no signs of offering rewards for catching the thieves.

As long as the Illusionist gentleman didn’t appear, capturing the widow would be pointless—as Malin said, as a civilized man, how could he take a girl hostage?

"Do not do to others what you don’t want done to yourself," that’s exactly what it means.

Apart from the widow, Malin’s recent life has been quite colorful. Besides the routine missions with his Church team to slay Spirits that don’t know their place, Malin had now trained a spare ration, which became the most reliable guard at the orphanage.

And Mrs. Spotty had become Malin’s sidekick. Compared to the nearly ten-ton spare ration, having Mrs. Spotty accompany Malin greatly reduced the frequency of door repair costs—when the former entered, it relied entirely on brute force, carrying the door into the room was typical, and when it occasionally entered a store and scared every customer and staff member into fleeing through windows, compensation costs naturally skyrocketed.

As for its offspring, they had become little followers of Rewo and Maya.

Sometimes Malin would also visit the Apprentice’s training field to give them combat training advice—Malin could no longer fight like before since that used to be overpowering, now it would be more like an execution.

It left Malin feeling a bit melancholic—the good old days were gone.

But new joys still existed—for instance, when leading the team to exterminate those Spirits, Malin could cast blessings on the Apprentices and let them hammer away at each other. At such times, Malin would bring Maya and Clovis, the girls with godlike archery skills and excellent spearmanship, not only to rescue unlucky surrounded Apprentices but also to join Malin in enjoying the spectacle.

The Apprentices usually had a significant advantage. Moreover, since Malin had taught them how to form battle arrays side by side, there were no more melees between them, and the Apprentices’ advantage was further amplified—Spirits had no advantage other than having more heads. If a few of them could form Spell Formations, it would mean utter defeat.

If they encountered some big brutes, then it was time for Malin to show off with a club made from a small tree—usually, such unlucky ones would get launched away, sometimes shattered, and in rare cases, it would be a head that flew.

After a week, the Church mentors noted the Apprentices had begun to learn unity, which was a good thing.

Then came the bad news—hearing that the first-year Apprentices and the second-year Apprentices had collectively gone out and arranged a brawl with the Apprentices of the Church of the Goddess of the Night of the same grade, resulting in hundreds of people fighting so fiercely that almost everyone was injured and half a street was destroyed, Malin had just woken up.

The reason for the fight was simple. At one time, Carterburg’s Church of the Goddess of Harvest had overshadowed the Church of the Goddess of the Night in a big competition, and the grudge between them had been set since then. Over the recent years, there had been constant minor frictions, which both mentors and High Priests of the respective churches bore some responsibility for—because these were minor, they weren’t properly addressed, and there were wins and losses in the fights.

But this time was different. The leaders from both sides had fallen for a girl from the Church of the Goddess of Benevolent, yet, she fancied a neighbour’s little brother from the Church of Justice.

This shouldn’t have been a big deal, but the mistake was made by the boy from the Church of the Goddess of the Night who mocked his rival, saying something like, "The Goddess of Harvest Church’s sycophant ended up with nothing after all his groveling..." When Malin heard this, he genuinely felt the Church of the Goddess of the Night’s little bastard deserved the beating.

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"These cheeky brats even dared to say such a thing, and even Malin, an atheist like him, found the statement too much — who in the Transcendent world doesn’t know who is really in charge of the Church of the Goddess of Harvest."

In any case, with that statement, the two sides agreed to a brawl, and then the battle formations that Malin taught his apprentices were put to practical use at the scene of the fight. The two groups arranged their fight beforehand, with benches, bricks, folding chairs, fists, flying kicks, and head hammers all being part of the fray. Who would have thought that this time, over a hundred second-year students would line up in three rows, with the front row armed with chair legs, while the back row creatively used clothes racks and drying rods."

The second-year students from the Church of the Goddess of the Night had never fought a street brawl with military precision before. As soon as the fight started, these youngsters were immediately routed, but once the opponent became disorganized, our second-year students also lost their formation. By the second half of the fight, it had turned into a free-for-all, and they were caught off guard by the third-year students who suddenly joined from the Church of the Goddess of the Night.

"But if you call people, I can call people too."

"It was only when the mentors from both sides noticed their fourth-year students starting to stir that they realized what was happening in the new western district."

Arriving at the scene, Malin was somewhat headache-ridden — half the street in the new western district had been torn apart by the fearless little rascals — chairs and tables had all been ’conscribed’ for the brawl."

The only good news was that these little rascals never really aimed to kill. If someone had actually died, then the trouble would have been serious."

Of course, neither Church was interested in pointing fingers — after all, the reason for the fight was too embarrassing to speak of. With combined efforts from Malin and the opposing red-robed High Priest, it was decided that all the participants in the fight would be put in solitary confinement for a day, with each of the two leaders going home to receive fifty strokes and be suspended from the gate for a day. Considering both were beaten black and blue, the mentors from both sides agreed to give them a half-month recovery period, followed by mutual supervision of the punishment enforcement.

Malin paid the compensation for the damage to half the street. Initially, he felt that although fighting was wrong, it was good that the little rascals showed some spirit, but the civilian Bishops from both sides couldn’t stand it. After another discussion, they finally decided to each pay half of the compensation to Malin — such behavior was absurd for a red-robed High Priest."

If someone was going to save Malin money, what else could he say?

Malin also visited these youngsters, most of whom were bruised and swollen, but compared to being stabbed in the leg by a spirit, this couldn’t even be considered a wound."

After comforting them, Malin also found out the name of the girl from the Church of Justice."

"And she is Logan’s cousin, huh," said Clovis, raising an eyebrow.

"Huh, since when did Logan have a cousin?" Malin realized his old friend seemed to have gained a whole new attribute.

"Indeed. In the past two years, I’ve gained at least a hundred cousins — and that’s just the ones I know about. Who knows how many I have that I don’t know about," said Logan, sitting next to Malin with a lack of energy. "Every time I find out how many more cousins I’ve got, I realize just how much older I’ve gotten."

This year’s seventh-grader wasn’t involved in the fight, so when Malin found him, he was bragging about how if he and Malin had been there, they would have rendered the tough guys from the Church of the Goddess of the Night utterly helpless.

In any case, it gave Malin the false impression that he and Kobe could score eighty-two points together.

"You’ve got to work hard. Miriam is already in the eighth grade, he might be graduating soon," said Malin, patting his old friend on the shoulder.

The other rolled his eyes, "I know... By the way, I have a job for you. Are you still doing it?"

"Let’s hear it; if it’s for a junior from our Church, give them a cost price," Malin had always been very kind to the lower grades, after all, he was their beloved red-robed High Priest. It was not in his nature to watch them being bullied.

"Of course it’s a junior, the one leading the stunt at our Church that got suspended. That guy said something about wanting me to help him send flowers to the girl. What kind of flowers should I be sending to my cousin? It would be terrible if Miriam found out, so how about you deliver them?"

"That’s really not possible," Malin said gravely.

"Why not?" asked Logan, curious.

Why indeed?

Watching the girls drag Logan out, listening to his pitiful cries for mercy, Malin had no choice but to keep silent for his own safety.

A dead sage is no match for a dead companion, after all.