As its gaze swept over her, Angel actually felt a flicker of fear. It was an instinctive dread of an unknown mystical object, but she quickly suppressed the emotion in her heart and kept swinging her arms. That was the best way to deal with 2-049.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Lorotta's arm suddenly freeze in midair. Angel hurriedly reached out to help, but the next instant, her own thoughts rapidly froze as well. The hand she had extended moved forward frame by frame in her vision like a slideshow, yet so slowly that it seemed it would never arrive.
The negative effect was stronger than before...
That thought flashed through her mind.
Klein and Borgia, across the carriage, remained highly alert and simultaneously reached out to dispel Lorotta and Angel's sluggishness.
"The negative effects of 2-049 have become stronger. We should find Ray Bieber as soon as possible and seal it again."
Lorotta, having been rescued, let out a long breath and made the suggestion.
Standing in the center of the carriage, 2-049, the Antigonus Puppet, saw that the humans around it were fully prepared. The corners of its stretched smile drew back, restoring the eerie expression it had worn when it first crawled out of the iron box. It tilted its head slightly, chose a direction, and slowly walked toward one corner of the carriage.
Knock, knock—
Borgia knocked on the carriage, stretched his hand through the small window, pointed in the direction the puppet was facing, and said, "It moved. It's heading that way."
Leonard outside the window nodded. A few seconds later, the carriage began moving again, turning from one side of the street into a narrow lane and traveling in the direction chosen by the puppet. Borgia called out directions from time