Steampunk Era: Mad Abield

Originally, in the atmosphere of the noble’s grand wedding, the city before Malin’s eyes should still be soaked in a welcoming ambience, yet now there wasn’t a sound throughout the city, as if it were a city of the dead.

This reminded Malin of Carterburg from his dreams, but there, at least, there were mechanical voices, unlike here, where the silence was only broken by the sound of their footsteps.

Silent Hill had no outer walls—unlike Carterburg. Carterburg, from its beginning, was a frontier settlement, surrounded by Spirits and hostile neighbors. Even in modern times, it needed walls for protection, to prevent the wilderness Spirits from invading.

But Silent Hill was different; it was in the Central Administrative Province, where any Spirits bold enough to challenge humanity would be swiftly dealt with, to the point that Malin had heard Spirits in the Central Administrative Province actually steered clear of humans. Only those Spirits that drifted in would dare attack humans without fear, and of course, their fate was but death.

The walls of Silent Hill tightly enclosed the Temple District, the Noble District, and the Administrative Commerce District, leaving several other residential areas without walls.

The path that Malin and his group needed to take was through these residential areas to reach the Temple District.

Crossing a few patches of farmland, Malin glanced at a roadside farmhouse, and peering in through a window, he couldn’t make out anything. He activated a thermal sensing spell formation and then saw one or two very blurry figures inside—Insectoids are cold-blooded, even if their hosts are warm-blooded creatures. But once the transformation is complete, they no longer emit as much heat as before.

This should be a fairly safe testing environment.