[Death-Defying]

"Go." With a shove from Polina, the boy stumbled back two steps.

At that very moment, a dark-skinned girl a few years older than the boy finally reacted. She scrambled to her feet, caught the staggering boy, and glared at Polina, roaring in fury, "You witch, what did you do to my brother!"

"Ah, ah!" Polina tilted her head and smiled. "Such deep sibling affection. Fine, then you can come along too!"

With a dragon-claw strike, she dragged the dark-skinned girl toward her. The girl immediately tried to resist, but even though Polina was a year or two younger, she was a trained operative; with a single move, she twisted the girl's joints.

Following that, a small wooden carving was pressed into the center of the dark-skinned girl's forehead.

"You..." Polina released her hand after inserting the carving, and the girl staggered back a step or two. "What did you do to me, you hateful witch? What is that thing? Get it out of my head!"

Hearing this, Polina shrugged. "What I did? You should already know perfectly well by now, shouldn't you?"

The dark-skinned girl's expression froze. She did indeed know exactly what Polina had done, because the moment that doll was shoved into her head, she felt an absolute compulsion to do one thing: she had to find someone at least one meter ninety tall!

This task was more important than anything else—more than her brother, more than the witch standing before her!

It wasn't just her thoughts; her body was the same. Her feet had already begun to turn toward the rear of the carriage against her will, her eyes were unconsciously scanning every person nearby, and even the ideas in her brain were being forcibly twisted—

At the same time, her brother had already turned around and was stumbling toward the carriages behind them!

"I, I..."

Before she could even finish her last sentence, the light in the dark-skinned girl's eyes vanished completely.

The surrounding passengers shrank back even further. They didn't know why this was happening, and they couldn't even understand the Iberian being spoken; they only knew that the two neatly dressed people before them were not beings they could afford to provoke.

So, they simply curled their bodies closer to the edges of the carriage, praying that the same thing wouldn't happen to them.

Watching the two leave with increasingly fluid movements, Brandon couldn't help but shake his head, sighing, "No matter how many times I see it, your Secret Art is quite terrifying. I'm actually curious what kind of desire would awaken such a Secret Art."

"Relax, relax." Polina chuckled. "My Death-Defying can only control mortals; it's useless against spellcasters."

"You know that's not what I meant." Brandon sighed, sounding somewhat helpless. "But if it weren't for your Secret Art, we'd probably be heading back to Vienna to report for duty right now, instead of coming here to lock horns with the Vessel."

"The bounty for taking down the Vessel is certainly high, but that's only if we can survive long enough to spend it."

"Exactly!"

Polina crossed her arms over her chest and nodded heavily, clearly in full agreement with Brandon.

They had both seen the data on the Vessel. It was essentially a Lion Dragon that couldn't fly or breathe fire, but it was far more cunning than a real one. After all, the Lion Dragon they had dismantled back then was one that Professor Beshe and Aleppo had captured together!

"So, Brandon, hurry up and use your Secret Art. I don't want to get grabbed by the collar and beaten to death in the next moment!"

Listening to Polina's merciless words, Brandon's expression grew even more helpless; this girl was becoming less and less respectful toward him. However, he knew they were racing against time, so he simply raised his hand and swept it across the air, activating his Secret Art.

Sky Coating!

"Sausage stew, black bread, buttered oatmeal porridge—coming through, watch your legs!"

A conductor was pushing a cart loaded with a steaming stainless steel pot, moving along the center aisle of the carriage toward the front. From time to time, he used a large ladle to stir the stew, letting the aroma drift into the noses of the passengers.

In a world where the train was the core mode of transportation, there were naturally cheap civilian meals available on board.

Because the average temperature of this world was about 10 degrees Celsius lower than Earth's, most leafy vegetables were considered quite precious. In this massive soup pot, there were only cold-hardy crops like cabbage, carrots, onions, and potatoes.

Aside from that, there was the lard added when sautéing the vegetables, and less than two taels of meat scraps in the entire barrel of soup.

But even with such meager fare, at this lunchtime hour when everyone was feeling quite hungry, the scent of animal fat still made many children stare wide-eyed, and even the adults were secretly swallowing their saliva.

However, they mostly couldn't afford the train's food and could only pull black bread and Scorched Leaf Potato from their own bags to stave off hunger.

Come to think of it, the population of this world relied heavily on the Scorched Leaf Potato.

This was a crop unique to this world, capable of growing in environments as cold as minus twenty degrees without depleting the soil's fertility.

The Scorched Leaf Potato yielded about five thousand kilograms per acre, and in good years, that could increase by another fifty percent. The leaves could also be eaten as vegetables. The downside, however, was its coarse and bland taste, with a texture like burnt dregs, while the charred black leaves carried a stinging, spicy flavor.

But this thing was food nonetheless—it grew just by scattering seeds on barren land, and it was a life-saving crop that could keep people alive during famine years.

Still, among these refugees, there were some with a bit of wealth; they pulled out black bread instead of Scorched Leaf Potato. A calloused hand reached into a pocket, pulled out a roll of crumpled bills, and extracted a blue 10 Pfennig note to hand to the conductor.

"All—right," Lude said, drawing out the syllables as he ladled a large scoop of stew into the customer's iron lunchbox.

He had been wearing the conductor's uniform for half an hour. The conductor was the only role with a reason to walk from the dining car at the rear all the way to the front without raising any suspicion, and he enjoyed using this identity to understand the local customs of this world.

However, while conducting his grassroots research, Lude hadn't forgotten to search for traces of the enemy.

Most of the people on this train were refugees fleeing the impending civil war, and the majority had bought the cheapest standing-room tickets. To maximize profit, twelve of the train's twenty-four carriages had their seats removed entirely.

As for the agents of the Black Tide Society, backed by their organization, they certainly wouldn't be short of food or clothing; they would never look as gaunt and sallow as these people.

Just as Lude's stomach began to ache with hunger and he started considering whether to grab a sausage to tide himself over, a short figure suddenly darted over from the carriage ahead. The boy's gaze looked somewhat dull, and he scanned his surroundings with a vacant expression.

When his eyes landed on Lude, his body suddenly arched, like a leopard ready to pounce.

"Target... located."