Train (1)
“Whoa….”
The white moon rises at dawn.
The cold weather that coldly sweeps the cheeks from the breath flowing from the mouth.
It is said that winter is passing by, but the dawn of the Balkans is still chilly.
As he walked down the deserted street with a bag in his hand and his coat collar tucked in, his mood naturally changed.
“Gig kick…”
“Pooh—what are you doing?”
Of course, there are also gangsters who still walk around the city without sleeping.
It’s full of guys who stare at Lennok in a dark place, lighting a cigarette, and then walk out when they think they’ve got a decent estimate.
After putting the bolt down a few times and making him shut his mouth, he moved on.
In general, there are three ways to get out of the metropolis.
From a ship using a port, a car using a lane heading out of the city, and even a skyway using an airship.
However, there is one more transportation method that most citizens living in the Balkans do not know about and that the city government implicitly turns a blind eye to.
It is a railroad track using old railroad tracks.
When you think about it, that’s not too surprising. In the past, when Lennok followed Aris to the conference, there was a precedent of using a similar train to go out of the Balkans.
However, it was comfortable to think that the method was not formalized and was secretly used for the convenience of others.
It is the same now.
Officially, the Balkans and the Philenom Dominion signed a truce, but after the death of Cheon Gyeon, it is not strange that war breaks out at any time.
It is unreasonable to use transportation that has an official entry record.
outskirts of the city. As I walked all the way along the place Jenny taught me, the already faint presence disappeared and my breathing became shallow.
Only the smell of cold concrete stung my nose.
As I walked to the edge of the outskirts, I saw a man with a hunched back standing with his back to the moonlight.
“You are here. I was waiting.”
He let out a sullen laugh and led Lennok over the barbed wire.
It’s a rough road, like a dog hole, but Lennok didn’t complain.
It is a transportation prepared by Jenny herself. There was no room for doubt.
The man in front of me said while rubbing his dry hands.
“I can’t tell you how thrilling it is to hear you contact me directly. It’s fortunate that I was able to help after all this time.
“thank you.”
“What? Don’t talk like that.”
The man who waved his hand laughed.
“It won’t take too long to get to the Dominion… It’s a lot of old stuff, but it’s not slow either. There will be no more than one day.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?”
“On the road between the Balkans and the Dominion, there are always scouts preparing for wartime situations. But at this time, which comes once a month… Rather, it will be a reliable fence.”
You seem to be retelling the story of feeding money at length.
But the fact that the train only runs once a month bothered me.
Did Jenny keep all her schedules in line with the timing of the train going to the Dominion?
It was too perfect a time to be a coincidence.
Thinking so, Lennok turned his back.
“If we leave now, we will arrive before sunset.”
“After choosing a time when customs would close their eyes, I had no choice but to turn around and do business at dawn like this.”
The night wind is cold. Even though he was maintaining his body temperature with the warming magic, it was clearly touching his skin.
While talking to the man, I walked a little through the barren wasteland and saw a railway station in the distance.
“This way.”
Saying that, the man headed not to the railway station, but to a small guard post right next to it.
A shabby guard post with yellow lights flickering.
It’s an incredibly shabby facility guarding the outskirts of the Balkans, but it’s not too surprising when you consider that the station is officially completely closed.
The opponent there is a public official in the city government who is rumored to be corrupt. It is also part of the outskirts.
A middle-aged man, who was staring at the newspaper with both feet propped up on an old desk at the guard post, glared at the two.
“You brought another guest, yes. I mean, I’m sincere when I report it.”
There is no motivation in the expression of the man muttering while chewing on the tobacco in his mouth.
No, the fact that he can maintain such a lax attitude at a time like this is, in a way, a very bold heart.
While Lennok was thinking about this and that, the man took something out of his pocket and handed it to the official.
I didn’t even have to think about what it was that I took for granted and packed into my arms.
There is no reason for him to turn a blind eye to the guests who come and go in the middle of the night unless he accepts this back money.
Leaving behind the government official waving his hand, the two of them walked back to the railway station.
“How many guests am I?”
“Let’s see… not so much today. About ten people.”
When I got up to the moss-covered railway station, I finally saw the train.
A rusty five-car train that was incomparable to the one Aris and I rode on was standing on the old railroad tracks.
The man bowed his head looking at Lennok as he got on top of the rattling train on the railroad tracks laid as if being sucked into the darkness of dawn.
“Have a nice trip.”
“…”
As I left behind the closed door and climbed onto the train, I could feel my eyes turning to me at once.
The faces of the guests who were seated first were also different.
A cyborg whose entire body has been remodeled so much that it is impossible to distinguish whether it is a robot or a human
.
Since he had transformed his face and magic pattern a long time ago, he has no fear of revealing his identity as Ban.
It was necessary to thoroughly conceal the fact that they were heading to the Dominion of Philenom on the Lenoch Peninsula as they did not know what would happen.
Now, is it not a double status, but a triple status?
It wasn’t a big deal anyway, but I couldn’t help but laugh at my situation.
As soon as I sat in the back seat of the dusty train, I opened the window wide.
He took out a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, held it in his mouth, and waited. Before long, the train rattled.
The train started to advance along the rusted tracks into the darkness.
In the dim moonlight shining through the window, I could see the empty plateau dimly.
The air inside the train was infinitely cold and still.
Those who leave the metropolis and head for the Dominion at this time may not have ordinary circumstances.
If you think so, this empty atmosphere is understandable in its own way.
Lennok thought so, crossed his arms and looked out when suddenly someone sat down next to him.
“It’s nice to see the same wizard here.”
A woman who hides her presence by wearing a mask that does not reveal her face.
However, the voice heard through the mask made me guess that he was the same age as Lennok.
Her extraordinary power of magic and her relaxed tone are proof that she herself is a wizard of a considerable level.
As I inadvertently turned my gaze around, the woman raised a finger as if waiting.
“It’s okay if you don’t have to worry about the words leaking out. It’s because I’ve already spread a magic field around me.”
When Lennok didn’t answer, the woman continued.
“It’s comforting to know I’m not the only one heading to the Dominion at a time like this.”
Rather than approaching him knowing who he was, he seemed to feel a sense of kinship with the fact that he met the same wizard in a place like this.
Lennok, narrowing his eyes, answered, letting the smoke flow.
“…Do you have anything to say?”
“………”
Instead of answering, the woman glanced around and reached for the bag she had brought with her.
Then he lifted the bag upside down and brushed it off the table between Lennok and her.
In an instant, the contents of Gosran spilled onto the table.
“…?”
Lennok opened his mouth in a daze at the sudden eccentricity, but soon realized something far more important than that, and smiled dejectedly.
All of the dozens of items she poured out of her bag were artifacts containing magical power.
She said, revealing the items she had in her hands to Lennok.
“I heard you need a price to do a favor.”
“however?”
“Choose one you like. I want to talk about it first.”
“……..”
Lennok stared up at the woman with a bewildered expression.
However, she calmly held out her hand and said, probably accepting the intention in Lennok’s gaze differently.
“Your introduction is late. My name is Cassia.”
Covering your face and proudly revealing your name is absurd. Their names and identities must all be fakes made up to cover up this moment.
Even though it couldn’t completely erase its magic pattern, it felt vague, so it’s clear that it has the artifacts necessary to hide its true identity or the skills equivalent to it.
But even so, he couldn’t block Lennok’s magical power.
The magical power that had flowed so secretly that even the magician in front of him couldn’t notice it suddenly squeezed into his arms and opened the curtain.
Lennok’s senses, which penetrated the security that must have been thoroughly prepared, penetrated her essence in an instant.
She herself would think that she was perfectly hiding her identity even at this moment, but Lennok had already fully confirmed her magic pattern.
Lennok, who searched through his memory for the magic pattern he had acquired, narrowed his eyes when he found someone else’s pattern that matched.
‘This… is a magic I’ve never seen before. Judging from what I have in my memory, it’s probably…’
It’s clear that once you see a magic pattern, you never forget it.
A short conversation I had with Aris on the way to the demonstration site to demonstrate the battlefield control ceremony at the conference.
A middle-aged woman who was questioning why Aris was working with Lennok while talking about talent.
The magic pattern of the young female mage who was assisting her next to the mage who was the director of Vaila Research was clear.
The moment the time and place were connected to her magic, related memories came flooding back.
The head of the Vaila Research Institute was in poor health due to the severance of her body’s magic power, and because of that, Lennok gave her advice on her condition.
It was hard to remember the specifics because it passed by so quickly, but I managed to get some key information.
If this woman who was assisting Bayla was boarding a train to the Dominion at a time like this, it wouldn’t make much difference to her status.
She stared Lennok in the face, then shrugged when he said nothing.
“If you don’t want to answer anything, let me do my business first. If that’s the case, it won’t matter.”
“…..Is that so?”
She is a woman with a very bold attitude for her cautious approach.
Lennok laughed at the thought that there was nothing he wouldn’t listen to even though he said things like the sudden reveal of the reward.
However, the words that came after a moment of silence were of a completely different kind than expected.
“The chances of this train arriving safely in the Dominion are very low. I would like to ask for your cooperation in solving this problem.”
“……..”
The reward is given first, and then the business is told. Sometimes it can be a pretty effective way of negotiating, but at least it didn’t suit the current situation.
It was clear that he hadn’t been through the shadows, since he wasn’t good at negotiating this way.
He must have prepared a lot for what he was about to say, but it was only natural that Lennok looked awkward.
However, the words she said were not something that could be passed off from the beginning.
Lennok idly smoked tobacco and sighed.
“I don’t know what you are talking about. Are you saying this train is going to explode all of a sudden?”
“Exactly. If left alone, something similar might happen.”
Cassia looked up at him with transparent eyes behind her mask and answered.
“As of 2:00 am today, all drones and reconnaissance forces circulating in the outskirts of the Balkans went into emergency inspection. When the eyes on the highlands connecting the Balkans and the Dominion of Philenom are turned off, there is a high possibility that the wanted outlaws will run free. Trains using unofficial routes are bound to be targeted.”
“……….”
“It was done under the pretext of replacing the scouting party’s equipment with new ones at the Toyna Research Institute, so I… happened to get the information. It probably wouldn’t have been easy for you to know.”
Toyna and Bayla Labs. Lennok had heard of both names.
One of the major research institutes providing technical support to Rabatenon University.
Was it a deliberate maneuver to realize and interfere with her movements in the rival Toyina?
Cassia’s demeanor was a little clumsy to hide it, but no one other than Lennok would have been able to pinpoint the cause-and-effect relationship.
“And if there is a target moving unprotected at that moment, surely…”
There was no need to hear more than that.
“Why do you bring up the story to me first?”
“It’s simple.”
Cassia laughed.
“Because you must be one of the most experienced wizards I have ever seen.”
