"Mr. Prosecutor, you're the prosecutor, right? Everyone's been waiting so long... Are you really him?"
Tina blinked, the pleading and anticipation in her eyes almost taking tangible form.
Ye Qiyan looked at her, gave her a kindly smile, and nodded.
"Yes. You said anyone who arrived by train was the prosecutor. There's no one else besides me, is there? So I'm the prosecutor you're talking about."
"Yay! Mr. Prosecutor, come with me! Everyone's been waiting a really, really long time!"
"All right, just give me a moment. Oh, here, have this."
Ye Qiyan took out an ordinary Whiteforest Fruit and handed it to Tina. The little girl looked at the fruit without any fear or hesitation and took a bite.
"Wow, this is so delicious! Thank you, Mr. Prosecutor!"
He smiled without saying anything and checked over his equipment. Only after putting the Holy Church Cross hanging at the front of the train around his neck did he step out.
He reached back to close the door and turned the security system up to maximum power before looking at the little girl nibbling on the Whiteforest Fruit.
"Let's go meet everyone you mentioned."
"Okay!"
Following the little girl, he left the far-too-normal station. Outside lay a Small Town covered in a thin layer of snow.
There were no streetlights in the Small Town, only a single light hanging on a church in its center.
That was the destination Tina had mentioned. Ye Qiyan wasn't sure whether he was imagining it, but he kept feeling that the church looked like the front of a train standing upright.
The town was quiet, but he could feel gazes turning toward them from the darkness.
The occasional hushed whispers were even more hair-raising.
Ye Qiyan kept his hands on the Blacklight Pistol and the Holy Church Cross.
He certainly hadn't forgotten the notice on the platform. The threat this Small Town posed to him was "Danger!"
Compared with ordinary danger, it had an extra exclamation mark.
Such an eerie setting would have been too much for even some timid adults, yet the little girl, Tina, seemed unaware of it all. She skipped along as though she had become the only splash of color in a gray-white world.
"Huff, huff~ Hehe, Mr. Chief Prosecutor, we're here! Everyone's been waiting a really, really long time. Hurry inside."
Tina stood before the church doors, the light overhead falling squarely on her.
She invited Ye Qiyan in.
Ye Qiyan paused briefly, then climbed the steps built from jade-white stone bricks and came to the doors.
"All right, little Tina, you go first."
"Okay."
Tina pushed open the church doors, and bright light instantly revealed the scene inside.
Hundreds of Small Town residents sat on either side of the church, their heads bowed in prayer. The blonde nun dressed in black, the only person standing at the front, raised her head and set down the black-covered book in her hands. She saw Tina, then looked past her and saw Ye Qiyan.
"Sister, I brought Mr. Prosecutor!"
At these words, all the praying townspeople fell silent at the same time.
They raised their heads like marionettes, and hundreds of gazes landed on Ye Qiyan's face in unison.
Ye Qiyan stood where he was, the Blacklight Pistol's safety already off. At the slightest unusual movement, a bullet would go through the nun's skull.
"Mr. Prosecutor, there's no need to be nervous. We mean you no harm."
The nun smiled kindly.
"Everyone, just continue praying. Don't frighten our Mr. Prosecutor. Tina, go make the preparations."
"Okay!"
Little Tina ran toward the back of the church, and the praying townspeople all returned to their previous state.
Only the nun moved like a normal person. She took a few steps, retrieved a box from beneath the prayer stand, and walked toward Ye Qiyan.
"Mr. Prosecutor, this is your payment."
"I haven't done anything to earn it. I suggest you stay right there. What exactly happened here?"
Ye Qiyan raised his gun and aimed at the nun's head.
This town isn't normal.
No, anyone could see that.
Yet in this abnormal town, there was an excessively normal little girl like Tina, as well as this nun. That only made everything even stranger.
The nun wasn't frightened by this, but she stopped anyway. Bending down, she placed the box on the floor and opened it, revealing what was hidden inside.
One-third of a black-and-gold card.
Ye Qiyan had seen it before. Even without the train's appraisal, he knew what it was.
"The Blasphemy Card?"
Her smile unchanged, the nun knelt before the one-third fragment of the Blasphemy Card, clasping her hands in prayer.
"Only those who blaspheme against the gods can come to this world. My friend, you are the prosecutor I've been waiting for. Oh, no-to be precise, I should say Blasphemer."
"What do you mean by that?"
Ye Qiyan glanced at the cross on his chest. It hadn't reacted. This woman wasn't an evil entity.
The nun's gaze likewise flicked toward his chest. She lifted the one-third fragment of the Blasphemy Card in both hands and walked straight toward Ye Qiyan.
"Exactly what I said. Prosecutor is just the name I used for Tina. Only train conductors who possess a Blasphemy Card can come to this world. Of course, if you want me to call you conductor, that's fine too. Hehe~ Mr. Conductor, whose name I still don't know, which stop is this Small Town for you?"
She actually knows about train conductors.
Watching the nun draw ever closer, Ye Qiyan gave a cold laugh, then ran toward the station without a moment's hesitation.
The blonde nun froze for a moment, then hastily reached out toward Ye Qiyan's retreating figure.
"Huh? Don't-don't run!"
"Only an idiot wouldn't run."
Ye Qiyan showed no intention of stopping, and the blonde nun immediately grew frantic.
"Stop him!"
The townspeople praying in low voices all sprang into motion, racing toward Ye Qiyan.
They were far too fast, beyond anything an ordinary person like Ye Qiyan could match.
"Damn it, I knew this stop wouldn't be that easy!"
Seeing that they were about to catch him, Ye Qiyan gritted his teeth and chose to fire.
Bang!
The shot struck the head of the person in front, but the blonde nun lifted her chin smugly and said with a smile:
"It's useless. They're all Puppets I made. Mere bullets don't scare them. Besides, any conductor who can enter this place can only have a train of level 3 at most. A novice like you couldn't possibly have the means to defeat... them? Huh?"
The blonde nun had been feeling smug for less than a few seconds when she suddenly discovered that her connection to that Puppet had been severed.
In other words, this man really destroyed a Puppet I made?
You've got to be kidding!
Just as the blonde nun had said, ordinary bullets certainly wouldn't work.
But what about level 3 bullets with an armor-piercing effect? Ye Qiyan kept firing, each bullet striking the Puppets' joints and heads with precision.
Whenever he took a few down, he kept running. When they nearly caught up, he took down a few more.
With the Gunfire Judgment module, he could hit his targets without even deliberately aiming.
After repeating this several times, he was actually on the verge of escaping the encirclement and making it back to the train.
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