Chapter 20: Train

Chapter 20: Train

Seeing Alfred look over, Klein smiled in return and nodded lightly.

“I suddenly feel a little danger.”

After saying this, he calmly turned and walked toward the carriage Haggis had pointed to.

“Danger…” Alfred repeated the word in a low voice and warily looked around, yet he did not discover anything strange.

He slowed his pace, paying attention to his surroundings at every moment, and returned with abnormal caution to the three-story building not far away.

Pagani glanced at the solemn Alfred and asked in puzzlement,

“Did something happen?”

He was a fair distance from the arms transaction site and had not been able to hear the conversation over there.

Alfred walked to the window and looked down at the carriage team that had finished loading the arms and was preparing to leave. After weighing his words, he said,

“Dwayne Dantès suddenly left, saying he had a premonition of danger.”

“Danger?” Pagani did not treat it lightly. He guardedly looked in front, behind, left, and right. Yet until Mesanyes’s people left the area and vanished into the darkness, he was still unable to sense anything wrong.

He immediately laughed.

“Haha, Alfred, you’re being too sensitive. I think it’s purely that Dwayne Dantès is timid and unwilling to remain here too long!”

Alfred withdrew his gaze and frowned slightly.

“Perhaps.”

…

After returning to his rented hotel, Klein had Winner Enzo, now transformed into a mixed-blood young man, open the box in his hands and take out the gold bars and gold coins one by one, counting them clearly.

The valuables inside were worth a total of thirty thousand Loen gold pounds!

“Thankfully, what I agreed on with Miss Messenger before was gold equal to ten thousand Loen gold coins. I don’t need to exchange it separately…” Sitting leisurely in the easy chair, Klein drank the sweet-and-sour, refreshing Guadar beverage while “supervising” his marionette at work.

Once Enzo had finished dividing the wealth, he took out the adventurer’s harmonica, brought it to his lips, and blew once.

Reinette Tinekerr, carrying four blond-haired, red-eyed heads, immediately stepped out from the void as though she had been nearby all along.

Her eight eyes turned at the same time, looking toward the separated pile of gold coins and gold bars.

After several seconds, the four heads Reinette Tinekerr carried spoke one after another:

“Very good…” “Future…” “Missions…” “Will cost more…”

…Where is the logic between the front and back parts? I paid the remuneration so punctually and so quickly, so why will future missions cost more? Klein froze for a second, then sat upright and asked,

“What?”

The four blond-haired, red-eyed heads held by Reinette Tinekerr nodded very seriously.

“Mission…” “Pricing…” “Depends on…” “Your…” “Ability…” “To…” “Earn…” “Money…”

It can be done like that… Klein opened his mouth, yet found he had no way to refute her. After all, matters like this were unilaterally decided by the one providing help. Besides, now that he had advanced to Sequence 4 and become a demigod, the tasks in which he needed Miss Messenger’s help would likely grow more and more difficult and dangerous. A price increase seemed only natural.

After Reinette Tinekerr swallowed that pile of gold coins and gold bars and vanished from the room, Klein gathered his thoughts and began silently calculating his current assets:

“Expenses have been quite large lately. I still have 17,275 pounds in banknotes and 65 gold coins… This pile of gold bars is worth 25,000 pounds… Altogether, more than forty thousand pounds in assets. Even in the entire Loen Kingdom, that isn’t a small amount. I could buy a manor and farmland with it… Arms transactions really are profitable…”

Reinette Tinekerr primarily needed gold coins, so what remained were all gold bars.

After standing and moving the gold bars above the gray fog, Klein walked to the window and cast his gaze north.

The matters here had preliminarily concluded. Next, he would return to Backlund.

After staring toward the horizon for a while, Klein suddenly sighed soundlessly.

“Backlund…”

…

North Borough, Backlund Technical University.

Audrey was walking through the campus with several staff members of the Loen Charity Bursary Foundation.

She wore a simple pale-green dress, with a plain white belt tied around her waist. Her golden hair surrounded a slightly playful gauze hat decorated with ribbon flowers. She had almost no accessories, only a silver bracelet around her left wrist. She looked no different from a female student whose family circumstances could only be called middle-class.

During this period, she had visited public elementary schools on the edge of the East Borough and technical schools in the Backlund Bridge area. She had long since understood what kind of clothing should be worn for what kind of occasion, unlike many nobles who treated charity events as social occasions.

Her clear green eyes moved slightly. With a faint smile, Audrey carefully observed the students coming and going.

These few days were when Backlund Technical University issued admission notices and when the new class of students arrived to register.

Originally, registration should have been held in late August or early September, but Backlund Technical University was a newly established school. Its entrance examination had been later than those of other universities, and the results were also released later. This meant that students who applied here might also have taken the exams of other universities, or might even already have been admitted. Therefore, the registration process had been moved forward in order to verify the number of students and determine how many additional admissions were still needed.

For this reason, Audrey and the staff of the Loen Charity Bursary Foundation had come here to help the first group of applicants who had passed review handle enrollment procedures.

Where her gaze passed, she found that the students on this campus all had brilliance on their faces. Their conduct carried obvious confidence, and every word and action contained an indescribable vitality. They seemed filled with longing for the future and able to see light ahead.

This was completely different from Audrey’s experience in several public elementary schools. The students in those places were either rude and noisy, or silent and gloomy. What they had in common was that they were often confused and uneasy. When encountering outsiders of status, they became timid and shrinking. Their gazes were dim, lacking the vigor young people should have.

“I truly hope those children all have the opportunity to receive higher education and can become like the students here, working hard toward a beautiful future…” As Audrey sighed soundlessly, her gaze swept over a young man and woman beside her who appeared to be brother and sister.

The elder brother had clearly already entered society and begun working. He wore a silk top hat and a thin black formal suit. He looked about thirty and had the bearing of a government employee.

From somewhere, he had borrowed a rather old camera. After setting it up on a stand, he gestured for his younger sister to move and adjust her posture while searching for the best angle.

The younger sister looked seventeen or eighteen. Her black hair was simply draped down, and her brown eyes carried a hint of helplessness. Yet she said nothing, seriously following her brother’s instructions.

Similar combinations were everywhere on campus. Some were parents and children. Others were groups of friends together.

“Scenes like this are truly beautiful…” Audrey withdrew her gaze and walked forward.

There was a plaza ahead. In its center stood a retired steam locomotive, its enormous and complicated body rising proudly, adding an industrial quality to Backlund Technical University.

…

Woo!

Like a monster, the steam locomotive spewed smoke and dragged its long body into the station, slowing more and more.

A mixed-blood little girl of seven or eight, delicate as a doll, held her mother’s hand and waited in a fairly long line. She excitedly asked her father, who was also of mixed Loenese and Balamese blood, about the situation at Desi Bay.

As she slowly moved forward, she saw a gentleman with graying temples and a top hat holding a gold-inlaid cane, bringing along a brown-skinned servant as they walked toward the first-class carriage.

The servant curiously looked left and right and said,

“Sir, what I’ve seen during this period is rather different from what I imagined. I originally thought Balamese people would live very hard, very painful lives, with chaos, filth, poverty, and oppression everywhere. But it wasn’t like that at all. They can still drink Guadar beverages, smoke East Balam tobacco, and some can even afford bicycles. Uh, you know that although I have Balamese blood, I was born in Backlund and had never been to the Southern Continent before. Of course, my Dutan is quite good.”

The middle-aged and elderly gentleman with excellent bearing chuckled and raised his cane.

“That is because the cities and districts we visited were still relatively decent. The most miserable Balamese mostly live in the countryside, in those plantations. The rest settle around factories and form slums. We never had the chance to see them.”

As though sensing the little girl’s gaze, this gentleman with deep blue eyes and his servant turned their heads and looked over, smiling warmly.

The corners of their mouths clearly curved upward. Both revealed eight teeth, then nodded slightly, withdrew their gazes, and continued forward.

Before long, the little girl and her parents boarded the steam train and found their seats.

When the “woo” sounded again, the little girl saw a man with dark-brown skin, soft facial contours, and a red swollen lump on the side of his face lower his head, press down his hat with one hand, and quickly pass by, heading straight toward the front of the train.

The man then knocked on the partition door and slipped into the driver’s cabin. He said to the conductor,

“All the train attendants have already been replaced with our people. The bridge ahead will be the place where the sacrificial ritual is held.”

The conductor, who had a thick beard, nodded.

“May God be satisfied with this trainload of sacrifices.

“May we obtain eternal life in His kingdom.”

Woo!

The steam train crossed one bridge, then another. After traveling for a long time, it arrived very smoothly at its destination port.

The doll-like mixed-blood little girl was somewhat tired and no longer as lively as before. Led by her parents, she followed the crowd of passengers and moved step by step toward the exit.

Several train attendants stood at the doorway, helping certain passengers carry their luggage out of the carriage.

When the little girl and her parents passed by, all those train attendants curled up the corners of their mouths, revealing eight teeth and offering warm smiles.

After the little girl jumped onto the platform, she subconsciously looked back at the steam locomotive and saw figures standing outside the door, discussing something. Among them seemed to be the conductor, as well as the man from earlier who had a swelling on the side of his face.

In less than a second, all these people turned their heads toward her. The corners of their mouths rose one after another, revealing eight teeth.

The little girl withdrew her gaze and, with a slight bounce in her steps, left the platform together with her parents.