I don’t know if it’s because of the intense exercise and sweat, or because I completely got rid of the robot horse and eliminated the source of the uneasiness. Hitzfeld felt that he had recovered a lot.
My head was still a little dizzy, but at least I didn't need help to walk anymore. My thoughts were clearer, and breathing the air seemed like a pleasure.
The two men and the dog continued to move forward through the carriages, passing carriages 9, 8, and 7, and found three bodies in carriage 6.
Without exception, all the corpses were wearing dark black felt coats, and the fatal wounds were in the head, with bullets piercing their skulls.
But that wasn't the only attack they received, Hitzfeld had Ashley pull their clothes off, exposing their rigid chests.
"This..." Ashley stared, because what was revealed was not thick chest hair or yellow-white skin, but a steel plate embedded with bullets.
"Pry it open," Hitzfeld said. "Use a pistol."
The iron plate had long been deformed by the impact, and there were cracks at the joints that could be drilled. Ashley gritted her teeth and poked the muzzle of the gun in, gradually exerting force, and ripped the iron plate apart with brute force.
There was flesh and blood stuck to the edge of the steel... The feeling made Ashley feel sick, but the scene under the iron plate made her forget about the disgust - they were actually some mechanical parts piled together?
It was like the internal structure of a disassembled clock, with fine gears interlaced and interlocked with countless large and small parts that she couldn't recognize. Rows of neatly tied cable tubes connected two dead white lungs. Only the most ruthless people could see the heart through those mechanical gaps.
Dirty corners.
It seemed as if it still hadn't stopped beating, and from time to time it would arch up against the gear set.
Ashley was startled when she noticed it. She immediately punched the thing, and her fist hit the heart through the gear set, making a "puff" sound.
It's only the 6th day, it looks like the battle ahead will be even more intense...
He shook his head and asked Ashley to kick the other corpses in the chest. The two continued to move forward and found more corpses along the way.
There were police officers wearing black coats, grey coats and uniforms. The more we went forward, the more bodies we saw. There was even an axe stuck on the door panel of carriage No. 1, with a head on top of the axe. The stiff expression on his face was still laughing wildly.
Just as Ashley was about to touch the axe, the door was pushed open.
Hitzfeld raised the white whale and aimed at the person who came. When he found out it was Leon, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Ten minutes later, all the free survivors on the bus gathered together to discuss what to do next.
"I carried Bilis to carriage No. 3, and Mrs. Charles and Miss Charles were also moved to carriage No. 2. The remaining carriages are useless and are just a burden. I plan to throw them all away later."
Li Ang was holding a small notebook. Everyone else was sitting quietly on the berths on both sides of the aisle, but he was the only one walking back and forth.
"You are so energetic..." Sheriff Rand slumped in the seat nearest to the inner door, looking at him with admiration in his eyes.
The desperate fight just now could be said to be the biggest scene he had ever experienced personally. His fingers were cramped from pulling the trigger, and in the end when the bullets were all used up, he had to pick up the fire axe and fight hard, but this man still looked full of energy.
Should I say he is worthy of being called the Man in Black?
I don’t know if Cornerel is a superhuman, maybe his specialty is physical strength.
"Ahem... Let me count the number of people again." Li Ang used his right hand to point at the heads of the people present. "Me, Hitzfeld, Ashley, Ms. Roma... These are the four of us."
"And the sheriffs...Officer Mike, Officer Bieber...That's 7."
"Counting the little prince and his bed-warming maid, oh and Mr. Boris... there are 10 of us now."
"Woof!" Lily climbed up and barked.
"Oh, sorry, I missed you." Li Ang raised his eyebrows and pretended to make an extra note: "10 people... plus a Sherlock dog."
Hitzfeld frowned: "Boris...?"
"He was injured and was resting in the back. He helped to open the lock. You would never guess what he did before he became a policeman..."
"I wonder where we are now." Aman said.
The train was moving, and the scenery on both sides was receding. From the lights that occasionally passed by, they had not completely left Blackwood, but he was not a native of Sara, so he couldn't tell where they were, whether they were in the southern suburbs or had already passed it.
"The building we passed by half a minute ago is the Lille Monastery in the southern suburbs," Barriu said. "After that, we are almost out of Blackwood."
It sounds a bit too fast, but you have to know that the Red Leaf District is located in the southernmost part of Kuroki City. It is the outermost district in the southern part of Kuroki, and it is very fast to get out from here.
"Can you escort us to Nancinze?" Miss Mary begged, "I know this request is a bit harsh, but for the long-lasting friendship between Goli and Sarah..."
"Don't try to fool the maid with that trick." Leon interrupted her, "If you really regard Sarah as a friend, you shouldn't have concealed anything from His Majesty in the beginning."
Sheriff Rand also frowned and looked gloomy, not saying much.
If we were to say who suffered the biggest loss, it would definitely be him.
There were at least twenty police officers in total who were pulled into the car, but in the end only three of them survived, including him.
This was not just a simple death toll, he knew every dead person - he could even call out their parents' names.
But those people can never get their children back.
The nightmare that had been lingering in their hearts finally came true today, at this moment, and he couldn't even figure out how to organize the words to comfort them when he returned.
This man, who was already a bit old, couldn't help but bury his face in his hands, rubbing them together and then exhaling.
Next to him were young Mike and another police officer named Bieber. Compared to the sheriff, they had more confused expressions on their faces.
Did Agent Cornerell mean no?
However, if we refuse, the car is already on the move. If we don't send these people to the port, do we have to take them off in the next city?
As police officers, they are certainly not like most ordinary people who have never left the "area" where they live since they were born.
Just like Mike, he had been on several business trips before, but if he knew anything about the surrounding cities, he just hoped that he would not get lost.
"At this rate, we can reach Nanling City in 13 hours." Miss Mary whispered, "You can drop us off there, and we can walk on our own."
Baliu thought that they could stay there for a while and wait for Wayne's reinforcements, and there were also the Nanling City Police Department and the Shadow Lion Team to support them, so it wouldn't be a big problem. But before she could say anything, her spell was interrupted.
"...I'm afraid not." The speaker was Hitzfeld. "I just told you that Ashley and I cut off the carriages in the back and chased away another 'Black Flame Knight'."
"Are you afraid it will catch up with you?" A'man narrowed his eyes.
A journey of more than ten hours, it's impossible...
"The question is this." Hitzfeld pulled a wrapped handkerchief from his coat pocket and handed it to Aman across the aisle, "What was found in those people's bodies."
A'man was puzzled, took it and opened it, and found a combination gear inside.
"What do you mean?" He didn't understand and held it up to look at other people.
Mary couldn't understand, and the three policemen were as confused as she was. The tree man and the tall girl were frowning and thinking. It seemed that only Officer Cornerel understood.
"Is this a refined level 3 gear?" Leon stared at it closely, his face changed drastically, "Shit... those damn traitors!"
"What happened?" Baliu asked.
"Only a few factories have the ability to forge precision level 3 gears, and they are almost all suppliers to the aviation industry!" Li Ang gave the answer and turned to look at the girl: "You mean they have airships...? They can come down from the sky?"
“I didn’t say that,” Hitzfeld said, unsure. “But I don’t agree with stopping at South Ridge.”
There is a risk of being too close, and this is one.
Another thing is... although her condition has improved, she has not fully recovered. Sometimes her left eye still hurts and she sees broken fragments.
This meant that the ominous feeling was still there, and they still hadn't completely escaped.
"Is there enough coal?" Leon turned and asked Miss Mary.
"Not enough to get to Nanxinze, but enough to get to Barov." Miss Mary gave the answer.
Barov - the city is very close to the old site of Bartlett, located in the southwest corner of the Pusen Fjord, and is the fifth stop on the route of Line 4 of Resin.
"Where is the sand?" Li Ang insisted on asking.
The train needs to carry sand. There is a pipe in front of the train rollers that can spray sand onto the rails. This action can effectively increase friction and prevent slipping.
Especially now that it is snowing and icy, the consumption of sand will be very large if you want to pass smoothly through the severely frozen sections of the road.
"I'm not sure..." Miss Mary hesitated.
When it comes to driving a train, she is a complete novice. She has been on the track for many years but seldom works on the front of the train. Although she knows that sand is needed, she has no idea how long the remaining sand can last.
This uncertainty cast a shadow over everyone's future. The atmosphere became even heavier, and even Leon stopped talking.
Hitzfeld was thinking about the "traitor" he had just called.
Elwin's rise to power was accompanied by a coup, which gave her ample excuse to raise the guillotine and cut off the rotten flesh. Many former large enterprises and companies, such as Skye Airlines, were sanctioned and incorporated for supporting the old royal party. Logically, such an oversight should not have occurred.
So the problem lies at the bottom of the supply chain?
Those people at the bottom... kind-hearted but ignorant workers, they are too easily deceived and coerced. If it were me, I could easily get these parts.
"Why not ask Bilis?"
After thinking about it, she decided to break the silence.
"Mr. Bilis is their man. He might know what means they have to catch up with us."
Aman, Leon, Baliu, and Sheriff Rand looked at each other and nodded in unison.
……
Amid the clanging vibrations, a crack appeared in the darkness.
The blanket covering him was thrown aside, and Roan Bilis was dragged out of the bed and made to sit. When he woke up, he found a large group of people surrounding him.
"What are you doing?" He was terrified. "I didn't do anything! I just called him out... It wasn't me!!"
"Then if I lock you outside and you freeze to death, you can't blame me?"
Sheriff Rand raised his shoe and kicked him.
"be honest!"
"Tell me how you did it?"
"I...I was really only responsible for telling him to get out..."
Bilis's face was as white as paper, and he huddled in the corner of the bed, shivering. "I stole his hat and asked him to go out with me... Then I looked at the watch, counted the time and lay down... He was hung up and hit his head... Then I went straight back to the carriage..."
"Did you lock the door?"
"……Correct."
"Other people said that the sound of iron hammering was him knocking on the door?"
“…I think so.”
"What did you put on it?" Sheriff Rand became more and more angry. "Poison needle? Dipped in fire bee poison? Why is there no poison on the corpse's head?"
"I don't know..." Bilis shook his head frantically, "It was too dark, I didn't notice it... I really thought it was a poison needle..."
"It's ice."
A voice interrupted.
Sheriff Rand, Aman, Mary, Leon, Baliu... everyone looked at the gray-haired girl leaning against the door.
"They made a long, thin ice needle... It was filled with concentrated fire bee venom. It happened to be snowing heavily that day, so it was mixed in with a row of ice cones and was inconspicuous. After piercing the top of the head, it would be melted by the body temperature, and the toxin would go directly to the brain."
"That's why we can't find the murder weapon," Hitzfeld concluded. "It must have been something that the 'Doctor Mechanic' tinkered with..."
"Ask him something else." She looked up at Sheriff Rand.
But the sheriff didn't move.
Looks like he's in a daze.
Chapter 43: Dead Souls Fragment 1
The interrogation of Bilis ended and the news was not optimistic.
He was just a contact person, who had been providing financial support to the other party through the tobacco merchant's business for many years. To be frank, such a person could get as much as the other party wanted, and he could not get too many secrets.
Bilis had no idea whether the evil followers of the Eclipse Church had an airship, let alone whether they had plans to hijack the airship.
However, Aman received an unexpected surprise - Bilis knew a lot of evidence of his uncle Mokeli's collusion with Eclipse, and he even had a letter from Mokeli in his arms.
"It's probably because his business overlaps with that place..."
In the corridor, A'man and Li Ang were smoking and chatting.
"He is a tobacco merchant after all... He has to go to the south to buy tobacco. He can just bring the letter here. It should be addressed to the mechanical doctor."
"It seems that's what happened." A'man nodded, shook the letter and handed it to Li Ang, "Take a look... He was very careful with his wording."
"So we are finally starting to build trust." Li Ang smiled, took the letter and began to read it carefully.
Maybe he was confident that he would not be discovered, or maybe in the land of Sara, even if he was discovered, there was no way he could do anything to him who was far away in Goli. Mokaili was very arrogant and did not even bother to use secret codes.
He described his demands very directly in Sarai, asking them to "not return Aman to Goli" and "it would be better to cut off Aman's head and send it back to him."
