章 23: chapter 23

We boarded the train and then spent a minute or two looking for our seats and then sat down to continue our conversation while waiting for the train to depart.

Ten minutes into our conversation, we were interrupted by the train caller announcing that the train would be departing immediately.

The interruption also allowed to survey the surroundings without getting anyone's attention as all the train passengers' attention was focused on the caller.

Most of the passengers in our train cart seemed like regular people except several of them, who had weapons like guns and knives on their person. But there wasn't anything interesting about them as they looked like your average outlaw or bounty hunter, so I just ignored them.

The only person who drew my attention was a man dressed in a black, white striped suit with a gray overcoat hanging on his shoulder as he seemed to be scouting the people in the cart just like me.

My gaze lingered on him for slightly longer than the other passengers, but I soon shifted my eyes from looking in his direction when I noticed he was about to turn around and spot me.

"the guy with the fancy suit up ahead, keep an eye on him Laffite, he might have something to do with the upcoming robbery," I said to Laffite, who was chatting with Wilson about the soru technique. He was very interested in said marine power because he can perform something similar to it in nature.

"good eye, captain. This person seems to be very suspicious indeed," Lafitte remarked as he took a quick glance at the man while turning around his face to look in my direction. "he might be an accomplice. A scout or something of similar nature." he concluded as he spoke in a hushed tone while facing me.

"Well, whatever he is, we need to keep him in our sights for now in case he's really involved with the attack on the train," and with that, we stopped talking about him and sank back into our small talks to pass the time.

For the next hour and a half of our journey, I, Wilson, and Laffite continued to chat about all kinds of topics, both complicated and not. But our conversation was interrupted as the man we were keeping a close eye on stood up from his seat and started heading into the train cart behind us.

"Laffite, go after him and see what he's planning to do," I said, and Laffite immediately tried to stand up, but I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "remember, don't act against him, only observe him for now. We need to know who's attacking the train to determine whether to stop him or rob him after he does the dirty work for us."

"That was my intention from the beginning," Laffite said with a smile. "that said, however, being meticulous is a good trait for a captain to have, so you will not get any complaints from me about that, captain," he continued with an even bigger smile.

I just nodded at him and then closed my eyes and rested my head against the soft seat as he stood up and left.

'having someone competent at more than just fighting sure is convenient,' I thought as I opened my eyes to shoot Wilson, who was picking his ear with his pinky finger a dirty look and closed them again.

After several minutes that passed quietly and peacefully, I suddenly opened my eyes again as I looked outside the train through the windows after my enhanced hearing picked up on the sound of running horses coming from the side of the train.

After several seconds the source of the noises made its self apparent as a group of people mounted on horses were now heading in the direction of the train, but I ignored them in favor of waiting for Laffite to come back.

BOOM, suddenly there was a loud explosion strong enough to shake the train, and Laffite chose that exact moment to appear by my side with a severe expression on his usually carefree face.

"the man in a suit I just followed has planted a bomb on the last train cart which contains the tributes to and detonated it to separate it from the rest of the train," Laffite said quickly and precisely in favor of not wasting any time.

"what's more, he is probably the person in charge of the attack. I identified him as the son of a high-ranking member of the local crime family. I didn't recognize him at first because he was wearing an elaborate disguise which he threw away after completing his objective." he explained with some disappointment in his voice at his failure to recognize the man.

"well, there's nothing we can do about that now, So don't overthink it," I remarked with a consoling voice, placed a hand on his shoulder, and continued. "More importantly, does the guy have a bounty on his head? and what do you know about him when it comes to his strength?"

"Unfortunately, he doesn't have a bounty since this seems like a rite of passage for him to start working on a high level in the crime family," he said and stopped talking for a second to reorganize his thoughts.

"he's said to specialize in the use of guns and poisonous gas bombs. I'm afraid that's all I can tell you about him at the top of my head," he said again as he sat back down in his seat.

"then, you guys stay on the train, and I'll go ahead and follow the man until he's a safe distance away from the train since he doesn't have a bounty," I remarked. I then opened the train's window to make my exit, only receiving a nod of agreement and a grunt from Laffite and Wilson, respectively.

I then geppoed my way to the tribute cart that the speeding train had already left behind due to the conductor being too scared and underpaid to try doing anything about the robbery.

I stopped once I became close enough to observe the cart and made myself scarce as I looked at the outlaws while they took out a small black safe from the train cart. They then loaded it into a horse-drawn carriage with several wooden boxes, which contained the silver bars after they dealt with the guards assigned to protecting the tribute.