Steampunk Era: Mad Abield

Having made thorough preparations, Malin and his group first traveled through the teleportation gate to the border area between Sydney and Farole, near the edge of the mountains. The Sydney side had complete defense installations and a castle, so it was chosen by the Church of Justice as a forward base—there was nothing on the Farole side, currently an uninhabited zone, amidst a landscape infested with zombies.

"We’re not going to walk all the way there, are we?" Malin asked Dante, who was leading the way, while adjusting his helmet—a specialty produced by Carterburg, originating from the most commonly found tide crabs on the Western beaches of Carterburg.

These tide crabs could move like humans—straight ahead. Their shells were very hard, with huge and powerful pincers capable of killing an adult human.

However, their frontal shells were quite soft, and although their eight short legs moved swiftly, they couldn’t climb onto small platforms. Therefore... they were embarrassingly troublesome prey.

Since it was outside the Raging Sea region, humans usually didn’t have the right to hunt these tide crabs at will. But Carterburg conducted significant business with the Sea Clan each year, and Thanan was a major taxpayer. Also, there was an intense impulse to bring crabs to the dining table. Thus, Carterburg was allowed to hunt 500 tide crabs from the Western beaches each year and obtain 2,000 crab eggs, with the right to deal freely with any tide crabs that invaded inland.

The helmet on Malin’s head was made from crab eggshells. These white crab eggs, before hatching, were very hard and had always been the source of Carterburg’s hard-shell helmets. Malin used them as a layer inside the helmet, with the interior protected by shock-absorbent padding, a layer of impact-resistant plastic on the outside, and could even have camouflage fabric added.

Although it didn’t seem to offer much protection, the knowledgeable folks of the Church of Justice quickly chose to use this new type of helmet instead of exposing their heads unprotected to the world. A single egg could usually make two helmets, so there was no issue of scarcity.

Dante shook his head, "Of course not. We have support from Sydney’s military. A squadron of Gryphon Knights will take us into the airspace over our target area. After dropping us off, they will move away to a safe area for rest and maintenance. We will have observers who, upon seeing our signal flares, will come to pick us up."

Wow, Gryphons, what rare creatures. Malin had never ridden a Gryphon before, and the Church didn’t have them either. One reason was that the high Sequence lords generally all had access to teleportation gates, and making a grand entrance through a gate was far better than arriving dusty and fatigued on a Gryphon.