A knock came from outside the train compartment. Only then did Zhang Tie pull his gaze away from the roof of the Ancient God Church in the distance.
Though the person outside had not yet entered, Zhang Tie already knew who it was from the sound of the footsteps alone.
"Come in," Zhang Tie said softly.
Wajid, a Berserk Bear Warrior of the Icefield Giant Bear Tribe and Zhang Tie's personal guard, pushed open the door and entered with several people.
"My lord, the people you wished to see have been brought."
"Good. You may leave."
Upon hearing this, Wajid glanced at those people, seemingly warning them to mind their manners and boundaries, before quietly backing away and pulling the compartment door shut.
Everyone who entered was familiar—at least, familiar to Zhang Tie. They were several death-row prisoners who had once been sent to the Selnes War Zone as cannon fodder: Old Dog Ximan, warehouse keeper Shamir, veterinarian Figo, shopkeeper Dinar, and Da Vinci, a slave-trade broker from Star-Gazing City in Huaiyuan Prefecture.
Back then, Zhang Tie had saved them in the Selnes War Zone and brought them to Huaiyuan Prefecture. Then, together with Da Vinci, he had sent them to carry out a mission—to give ship tickets to those pitiful slaves who wished to leave the continent and get them to the Ice and Snow Wilderness.
For the past two years, they had been doing precisely that. With the cooperation of the Spencer Family, they had transported more than two hundred thousand slaves to the Ice and Snow Wilderness, one batch after another, and had established three towns outside Eskil City. They had, more or less, saved over two hundred thousand lives.
After two years apart, these former swindlers, thieves, twisted doctors, and counterfeit-document dealers had all changed. Old