"So what do we do now? The little ones are taken care of, and it’ll be at least two days for the bloodline trace. Is there anything we can arrange in the meantime?"
As Lillim, Maya, and Jessica were putting away the stone slabs, Clovis looked at Malin somewhat boredly.
Malin pondered for a moment, "I have an idea, let’s go break into empty houses."
The girls unanimously and silently rolled their eyes at Malin.
Just then, the roar of an engine came from down the street. Malin and the girls turned to see an antique car speeding along the road. It made a sharp turn as it entered the little square, initiating a perfect yet heroic drift, filling the air with the smell of rubber. Malin watched the car finally stop at the edge of the square, near the street, parked perfectly.
Professor Emetselch stepped out of the opened car door, took a pair of sunglasses from his shirt pocket, put them on, and then turned to his passengers.
The young and neatly dressed male looked a bit worse for wear, but he mustered the strength to open the car door and got out on his own, although his floating steps betrayed him.
On the other side, the half-sized lad finally crawled out. He stood up leaning against the wall, then looked at his companion and Emetselch, who were walking farther and farther away. Eventually, he bowed his head and began to sort out the inventory.
"I always thought Malin was the only man under heaven who could take a ride around the city in Professor Emetselch’s car and still get down on his own," Lillim remarked as she watched the scene.
"Not the same, Mr. Malin walks steadily, while I see he’s almost floating," Clovis said disdainfully about the young man, "But at least he’s better than the half-sized kid. By the way, who are they?"
"Before he left, Professor Emetselch said he was going to pick up an inspector from the Central Administrative Province," Malin explained while noticing that Faye seemed a bit unhappy, "What’s wrong?"
"I recognize that guy," Faye said objectively.
"The one who’s kind of floating?" Clovis turned and asked.
"No, the one who’s vomiting; he’s sort of my cousin," Faye explained, shaking his head, "He’s a very pretentious guy."
"How pretentious?" Malin asked out of curiosity.
"He thinks he’s the number one handsome guy in the Central Administrative Province," Faye said as he raised the Magic Crystal Camera.
Malin thought for a moment and then pulled out his own Magic Crystal Camera.
The so-called collective effort described just this principle.
Malin’s encounter with his cousin Faye occurred an hour later, after the half-sized kid finally got past the trouble he had clearing inventory, because he took a bath and so, wearing a bathrobe and with a face of exhaustion, sat down next to Malin, turned his head, and scrutinized Malin: "You’re Malin?"
"How come everybody knows me." Malin put down the last volume of the Holmes detective series he was reading and looked at the half-sized lad.
"My old man had your image captured with a Magic Crystal Camera and showed it to me, told me that if I saw you, no matter how much you look like someone people love to hate, to definitely not throw down the gauntlet." The half-sized lad said, turning his head to glance at the girls who were cheerfully barbecuing with a stove taken from who knows which household, "My cousin seems much happier than before."
"You don’t really look alike," Malin glanced at him.
"No kidding, I’m dominantly human in appearance, she’s dominantly elf. We can’t look the same, do you understand how many people that would kill?" The half-sized lad made a dark joke that one only finds in black humor, then, like Malin, settled into the soft rocking chair, "Nice chair, is it from your Church?"
"Not really, we took it from nearby houses," Malin replied, while noticing Lillim approaching, one hand with grilled meat and the other with roasted carrots.
"Is this how you Clergy operate!" The half-sized lad seemed somewhat unhappy now.
"What else could we do? When we went to seal the houses, we took some things back, but we left money too. We can’t starve, right?" Malin gave him a look.
"Don’t you have stores?" The half-sized lad completely misunderstood and continued to argue with Malin.
"These grills were moved from the store owner’s home. He and his entire family perished in this incident. We’ve sealed up his store, warehouse, and two residences," Malin explained, took a bite of the skewer Lillim handed him, and then accepted the ones she passed to him, "You haven’t seen a scene in the Central Administrative Province, have you?"
Malin had no intention to criticize him; this young man was obviously a noble youngster from the Central Administrative Province and likely had never witnessed the horrors of spirits devouring humans. Nearly sixty percent of Silent Hill’s population was gone, entire blocks without a living soul were now the norm. Malin and the girls started out at six in the morning to take shifts in nearby blocks, working with the church members to seal houses where whole families perished.
These properties would be taken over by other branches of their families—judging who would take over was a matter for the secular department to deal with.
Since the Middle Ages, this has been a very sacred job, and the Church of the True God is the only one suitable for the job—you say something’s missing? No problem, the church members swear to God, they didn’t take anything, the Sealing Array is intact, so there is no question of anything missing, no need for a lie detector (There wasn’t a God of Justice in the Middle Ages, nor a lie detector).