The starting point would be Carterburg, and the reason for taking the train was twofold: Malin had to make stops at four places along the way north to Carterburg to inspect the local defense forces on behalf of his father-in-law—his two sons were shining brightly on the northern battlefield and really didn’t have the time to waste on this, and this old boy was recently contemplating whether to give Faye another sister, so back and forth, the entire Mowish family only had Malin rushing around with nothing particular to do.
And arriving at Regensburg, Malin would just catch up with the decennial meeting of the Western Human World’s Union, where they would all discuss the Tide of the Dead—The Astrologer’s Guild was close to declaring a level one alert, and the Eastern Kingdom was the most anxious—various Chaos monsters could already be spotted swarming in the Dark Zone to the east, and they had already begun conscripting all adults to join the army, with all nobles undergoing reorganization.
Malin’s side had also contributed a considerable amount of food and munitions—in these desperate times, Malin wasn’t in the mood to present any personal grudges towards the nobles and royalty of the Eastern Kingdom, determining to set those aside until after the Tide of the Dead was over.
The myriad troubles originally whirling within the Eastern Kingdom also calmed down at this time; although individuals harbored their own ulterior motives, faced with such circumstances, they could only choose to set aside their differences—if they lost their lives, any old grievances would become unimportant.
So you see, Malin really had nothing to do in Rongma, and with no way to bring along his daughters, he could only have the female commander from the Benevolent Church’s Warrior Sisterhood help take care of his wives.
Fortunately, there were many ladies-in-waiting in the palace now, so Malin didn’t have to worry about any trouble—today, the exterior of Rongma’s palace was surrounded by three layers of security forces on both the inside and outside, with Maya’s Divine Master arriving just yesterday, accompanied by a squad of female Paladins from the Church of Justice, with a Legendary at the helm. If anything were to go wrong even with such protection... how could it be possible, Malin had already agreed with Nameless that if something did happen, this great being would personally leap over.
Although due to the rules, his true body could only remain for roughly five minutes, there was probably not a single one in this world that could withstand his vicious beating for five minutes.
And honoring the principle of exchange, Malin acknowledged that Matilda’s children would also become followers of the Lord of Justice and that no matter what happened in the future, they would not be forced to convert Matilda or her children to another faith.
Although Malin knew Nameless wouldn’t act without purpose, at least during these tense times, Malin didn’t have to worry about anything happening to his family. Besides, as a devout follower of the Lord of Justice, Matilda also held a positive and affirming attitude towards her children becoming believers.
"Mr. Malin, Jon is here," Lulu’s voice pulled Malin out of his reverie. He looked up to see Jon standing at the doorway, "Jon, my old friend, don’t just stand there, come in."
This no-longer-young old friend smiled upon hearing Malin’s invitation and finally made his way to the chair in front of Malin’s desk to take a seat, "I never thought that the boy from back then would become a High Priest of the Church."
"Indeed, just as I never imagined that you would find that thing," Malin said, reaching out to take the tablet that Lulu handed him, "You want to know what this is, right?"
"Yes, it’s all in Thanan script, but to my knowledge, we didn’t establish contact with the Thanan people until less than a millennium ago, so how could something from before the Great Destruction Era have Thanan script on it?" As Jon voiced his long-held doubt, he looked at Malin for an answer.
"Indeed, although you’ve thought a lot about it, it seems you haven’t considered that this object might indicate that we knew the Thanan people well before the Great Destruction," Malin replied with a smile.
Indeed, we were once together, battling under the same banner.
Back then, this civilization had not yet crumbled, and all the people on this planet, though not as close as family, could at least maintain a polite distance.
It’s just a shame everything changed, my