Crownless: The Fallen World

Chapter 4: Death as Retribution

Sebastian finished the job before Hale could even alert the personnel. However, it was strange that it was taking her so long. No, it was suspicious.

He didn't want to sit the others into panic, so he immediately cleaned up the bloodied cabin. That way, it wouldn't arouse any unnecessary suspicions. After that, Sebastian hastened to change his bloodied clothes. He rushed out of the cabin but was met with a hijacking instead. Sebastian suddenly felt like he failed this time. He was too focused on eliminating the people who were after his life but failed to look after Hale. He was so used to traveling alone, doing everything alone. It was enough for him to forget the necessary mindset to protect someone. Should something happen to Hale, he didn't know what to do after this.

It wasn't that he didn't know. His brain failed to process everything around him. For now, he had to calm down. Hale was a person who could protect herself when a situation arose.

Hale only had an Analysis ability, so she had to train her body for self-defense. She might not be strong enough, but she could still target someone's vitals and inflict a fatal wound. Hale could instantly see if something was amiss. In those cases, she could run away if it got too dangerous.

With those thoughts, Sebastian slowly calmed down and sneaked into the engine cab.

There was a division between the operational cab and the passenger cab. There had always been a trained guard to protect the room where the conductor would operate the train. Since the traffic of people in the public passenger cabs increased significantly, train personnel couldn't serve the passengers like they used to. That was also one of the reasons why they installed private cabins on some trains in exchange for comfort for long travel.

Sebastian suddenly thought that the entire crew planned the hijacking since there still weren't any emergency signals or any signs of panic from them. The train's momentum gradually stopped after the engine cab detached from the passenger cabs. Hale wasn't the type that would confront people with brute force. She wouldn't put herself in danger since she knew Sebastian would also be in danger. That was what Sebastian believed after a few days of observing Hale from when he was in the Grafton Estate. She could be hiding in the second cab that detached from the rest.

There was an emergency button that could release all the locks in the doors. Since people were guarding the button, the passengers couldn't approach. There was a person who was shot in the leg and was crying on the cold steel floor. Fortunately, there was a doctor on board. If there weren't, she would have suffered from blood loss and eventually died.

The personnel didn't seem to have the intention of slaughtering the passengers. Instead, they seemed to be asking for a ransom. If all the employees were doing this, then there were problems in the company dealing with this train. Since trains were being made here to there, all around the globe, many companies made subsidiaries relatively focused on improving trains. Company employees got deployed to be personnel in their train company. Sebastian didn't know which company this train belonged to. He couldn't browse the network since they installed signal-jamming devices everywhere on the train.

Sebastian breached through and contacted Hale.

[Serberus: Hale, it's me.]

[Hatian: Sebby?]

[Serberus: Yes. Where are you right now? Did you manage to collect information there?]

[Hatian: ... how did you know I'm hiding somewhere here?]

[Serberus: Because I didn't see you here.]

[Hatian: ... true enough. I'm sorry. Anyway, they don't know I am here yet, but they are constantly in contact with the other side. It seems like they want some form of justice because the company has been mistreating them. This is not looking good, Sebby. From the looks of it, they would lose their lives once they got what they wanted.]