Steampunk Era: Mad Abield

Perhaps having encountered all sorts of misfortunes along the way, the journey towards The Capital was peaceful the entire way. Every day, Malin would use the telegraph in the carriage to keep in touch with Jiaxi and Zem Meyer from the Benevolent Church, who followed behind. The former was responsible for confirming Malin’s location to ensure that the painting didn’t get close to Malin again. According to him, this time the painting depicted some wolf-shaped Spirits, which were obviously the Greyplain Wolves from the Western Administrative Province—the Benevolent Church’s apprentices killed the most of these creatures each year.

Meanwhile, the latter would occasionally discuss novel plots with Malin—Zem was a faithful reader of Holmes’s detective stories, and when he confirmed from Jiaxi that Malin was the Author, his face was skewed with rage—because he couldn’t believe such a young kid could write such works and was convinced that Malin was plagiarizing someone else’s glory.

Then Malin brought out Faye, his princess, to vouch for him. She was Malin’s guide to the customs of the Central Administrative Province, and she pointed out several clues she had buried in the novel before—this time they directly indicated Malin the Author and her as the co-author. After Zem confirmed this, he immediately became a loyal reader of Malin’s.

Upon hearing from Malin that the detective series had come to an end and that the last two volumes would be handed over to the National Publishing House after his return, the young man expressed his curiosity about Malin’s subsequent novels, besides feeling a touch of regret.

After discussing it with Faye, Malin decided to let the book about the Alien rot in his hands—because the content was somewhat obscure for the mortals of this world, the plot leaned towards horror, and the genre was science fiction. To avoid certain accidents, it was better not to write it at all.

As for what kind of accidents... Malin thought the Magic Carpet explained it all quite well.

Besides that, Malin couldn’t think of anything else to write, and after discussing with Faye, he decided to take a break from writing for a while.

After all, Malin had already made a name for himself with one book, becoming the trailblazer of the detective novel genre in this world; he felt that he had fulfilled his dream, and what followed was the phase of idly living off royalties like a parasite.

Other than that, Malin only spent his wait practicing swordsmanship—a certain master swordsman was still waiting for him to claim his head.

Instructor Amethyst volunteered to spar with Malin after watching him practice alone.