Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, several hours have passed. The scorching sun in the sky is now close to the western horizon. The glow of dusk falls on the barren land and shines on the surface of the train that is still parked on the railway.
A long time had passed since the battle that took place at noon. In fact, it was not accurate to call it a battle, because the gap between the original ambushers and the Extraordinary Guards selected by the Church was too huge, and they were completely defeated without even having to fight back.
After the escort team's raiders climbed up the stone mountain, the entire battle lasted less than a minute before the ambushers lost their ability to resist. Among them, only the leader and deputy leader were Extraordinary Persons, but they were only at the Black Rank. After being hit by an inexplicable explosion, they were unable to resist the attack of the escort team. In the end, after the escort team paid the price of zero casualties, they completely eliminated the group of ambushers, while the casualties of these ambushers exceeded two-thirds.
The battle was over very quickly, but the post-battle situation took an unusually long time. The remaining prisoners were captured, treated and interrogated, the bombs on the iron bridge were removed, and other places were checked for bombs buried and ambushes, etc. This series of actions took half a day and was not completed until the evening.
In a compartment of the stopped train, Vanya was sitting in her seat, looking at Gaspare who was reporting in front of her with a respectful look.
"Sister Vanya, the interrogation has been completed. Through separate interrogations of eight different captives, we have roughly understood their identities. They are a gang of robbers called the Black Scorpions. They often roam the towns and major transportation routes near the border between Tosep and Adus, robbing caravans and travelers, and extorting border residents. They are habitual criminals who have committed many crimes.
"Their leader is called Benzab, a 'Ji' from the Black Soil. It is said that he used to be in a treasure-stealing gang, but when the gang broke up, he went out on his own. Since he didn't want to take the risk of going to the tombs again, he simply organized this bandit group and robbed ordinary people. Now Benzab is dead."
Standing in front of Vanya, Gaspare was reporting seriously. According to the instructions of the Cardinals' Conference, Vanya was the highest person in charge of the Special Envoy Group. So even though Gaspare was a senior Extraordinary who had been promoted to a senior executive, he still had to show respect to the sixteen-year-old nun in front of him.
"It's just a group of robbers? In other words, this group of robbers wants to rob us as ordinary travelers?"
After listening to Gaspare's words, Vanya murmured and Gaspare responded immediately.
"No, they knew we were a special envoy of the Holy Church. They had planned to ambush us long ago. According to the confession of their surviving deputy leader, they were hired for a small sum of money before they decided to attack us."
"A gold-winning job?"
"Yes, according to them, this reward is very generous. The deposit they paid in advance is twice as much as they have ever received from any previous operation. Although they knew the risks of attacking us, they were still moved by this unprecedented reward and decided to accept the commission. Since they knew they couldn't fight us head-on, they came up with the idea of blowing up the train.
"The Snake Tooth Abyss in front of our train is very high, and there is only one Harf Iron Bridge for passage, so they buried a large amount of explosives on the iron bridge, intending to detonate the explosives when our train passes through the iron bridge. The entire train will fall into the abyss after the explosion. If this really happens, even the Cretaceous Beyonders will have a hard time surviving.
"But fortunately, those guys didn't seem to know how to use explosives, so at the critical moment, an explosive that had not been installed on the train bridge was inexplicably detonated next to them. This caused them to fall into chaos, and at the same time, it also drew our attention to the situation over there, allowing us to respond in time."
Gaspare continued to report to Vanya. After listening to Gaspare's words, Vanya's face couldn't help but reveal a trace of worry.
"Hire... Does this mean that someone else wants to harm us? Can you tell me who it is?"
Vanya continued speaking with a hint of worry, while Gaspare paused for a moment before continuing.
"According to the confession of the deputy leader of the bandit group, their employer was very secretive and was unwilling to reveal his identity when communicating with them. However, their original leader, Benzab, was a good observer. He judged the employer's affiliation from some details of his words and deeds. He was a member of the Adus Revolutionary Army!"
"The Addus Revolutionary Army..." Vanya was slightly stunned after hearing Gaspare's words. She had heard of the Addus Revolutionary Army. Before coming to Northern Ukraine, she had been forced to cram all kinds of basic knowledge about Northern Ukraine, especially about Addus.
The Addus Revolutionary Army is the most powerful of all the Addus rebel forces and the main force to overthrow the government of the Addus Kingdom. It was this armed force that captured the Addus capital, Addis. It is the force with the strongest influence and appeal in the entire Addus territory, and is also Vanya's main negotiation target.
Vanya went to Addis, and her main goal was to negotiate with the leaders of the Addis Revolutionary Army. It turned out that they were the mastermind behind the ambush... This news made Vanya stunned for a while, and after a long pause she continued to speak slowly.
"Are their confessions...credible?"
"It's credible. I was also surprised when they confessed that the revolutionary army was the mastermind behind the attack. I immediately used the supplies allocated to us to do a tentative divination, and the result was successful. The result clearly showed that the Adus revolutionary army was the mastermind behind the ambushers. It was the revolutionary army that sent them to ambush us."
Gaspare said this seriously. After he said this, a hint of anger appeared in his eyes. He looked at Vanya who was surprised and continued speaking.
"Sister Vanya! The result of the divination that has been clearly implemented cannot be wrong. The Adus Revolutionary Army wants us to die tragically in the dark abyss. They are a group of shameless and despicable heretics! There is no room for sympathy at all! They deceived us, and they are not worthy of you coming all the way to teach them. The grace of the Holy Father is not worthy of being sprinkled on them! What should fall on them is the flames of the Son of God!
"So, Sister Vanya, stop thinking about saving this group of despicable people. Let's go back directly after the next station! Those heretics want your life, and it will be even more dangerous after you die in Addis! Those liars are not worthy of your teachings, and there will be a holy war to punish them in the future!"
Gaspare spoke to Vanya angrily, while the nun in white sitting in her seat looked at the scene in astonishment.
At this moment, at the other end of the train, in another compartment, Dorothy was sitting there, frowning and looking at the palm of her hand. On her palm was a "lamp" coin that had lost its luster and was facing forward.
This coin reflected the result of her divination just now. The content of her divination was the same as Gaspare's, which was to confirm whether the revolutionary army was behind the attack.
The result of divination was consistent with Gaspare's.
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