Steampunk Era: Mad Abield

Almost two hours past the anticipated time, Malin finally arrived at the edge of the town, where the emergency team had already taken position. Malin made introductions with the person in charge of the emergency team. They had conducted an investigation on the fog but were completely unable to comprehend how the fog came into existence. They had also tried using Spell Formation to disperse the fog, to no effect at all.

The only good news was that the fog seemed to be non-toxic. They had lowered small animals into the fog with ropes. Spell Formation could confirm their position, and they seemed capable of moving within the fog, without being controlled or encountering other problems.

Hence, before Malin’s arrival, the captain of the team had entered the fog with a rope. Except for seeing nothing, he found nothing else, and due to the rope being too short, he had to return the same way he came.

At Malin’s behest, Eleven entered the fog, as Malin began to prepare—bullets, potions, and a protective suit specially made for Bippo.

"Your Excellency, you arrived a bit late," the captain said.

"The wooden bridge collapsed on the way here, and we had a hard time finding a new path," Malin said somewhat awkwardly—if not for Salis, whether Malin and Eleven could have arrived today at all was questionable.

"The bridge collapsed? My gosh, it’s remarkable that an out-of-towner like you could still find this place. We’re truly sorry, Your Excellency, for misunderstanding you," the captain said with a hint of embarrassment, bowing his head in apology.

"How do you plan to get back?" Malin asked, looking at them.

"If the bridge is down, we will have to take a long detour on foot; if we walk, we might get back to Copenhagen before dawn breaks tomorrow," the captain said with a sigh of resignation, "We’ll freeze to death out in the wild."

Malin shook his head and opened up the back half of his motorcycle: "I have tents and food for overnight on my bike, plus some alcohol. You can set up the tents first, and if all goes well, the issue should be resolved before sunset today. Then we can hunker down in the tents for the night, and first thing tomorrow morning we’ll head back ... besides, if the fog incident is handled, we might be able to use the teleportation passage to return directly."

"Thank you so much," the captain said. He and his three teammates, whose faces were chapped red from the cold, began to set up the tents. Malin watched to make sure they didn’t start to strip their clothes off due to the work, and only then did he relax—in such cold weather, if they began removing their clothes, it would mean that they were entering the countdown of their lives. A dangerously low body temperature causes the body to release a significant amount of heat, which makes one feel overheated and leads to undressing. All this signifies a loss of awareness of the outside world, creating a vicious cycle that results in death from hypothermia.