The Protagonist's Party is Too Diligent

Even after that, I continued my firearm training.

I was also dragged into physical training by the Sword Saint, alongside Claire, Leo, and Alice. Since my stamina had improved a bit, I even started learning swordsmanship—clumsily, but still.

And then there was Jennifer, who had followed the Sword Saint out of curiosity, only to decide that she had to teach me close-quarters combat. She tossed me around relentlessly.

To be honest, it didn’t exactly boost my confidence. The certainty of success was gone. If the reason I had never been shot in the head while traversing battlefields was because the goddess had calculated my survival odds, then that advantage was no longer guaranteed.

But that didn’t mean I could just give up.

According to the Sword Saint, if nothing else, I at least knew how to put in the effort. So all I could do was improve my skills as much as possible.

And—

A horrific scream rang out from outside the train.

It wasn’t the same as the screams that had followed the gunshots earlier.

To describe it accurately—

"Aaaaagh!"

It was the sound of something plummeting from the sky and crashing violently into the ground.

As if it had been timed just for me to hear, the impact landed right by the window, and I could vividly hear bones breaking.

The distant gunfire became erratic.

“...Uh...”

Yeah, not what you were expecting, huh?

Claire and Leo were at a loss for words.

They had both experienced the horrors of battle before, but watching people kill each other and witnessing monsters mercilessly slaughtering humans were two entirely different kinds of terror.

"I had the Gryphon tail us the moment we crossed the border. It must have heard the gunfire and descended."

That’s right.

Since my own skills had deteriorated, I had to compensate by leveraging everything at my disposal.

Airplanes were still far too loud. If we had stationed an aerial force behind the train, Belvur might have reacted aggressively. Even if they didn’t cross the border, moving troops up to the border was still considered an act of military intimidation.

But a Gryphon could fly much more silently. In the dark of night, it would be nearly invisible at high altitudes.

And most importantly, it wasn’t officially considered part of the military.

To onlookers, it was just a pet beast that I happened to be raising.

As long as it didn’t attack Belvur’s people, I had plenty of excuses to justify its presence.

...That being said, considering its personality—the way it tended to ignore my orders when it felt like it—I wouldn’t be surprised if it hadn’t just stopped at the border but had flown deep into Belvur’s airspace.

A flash of light burst outside the window.

The Gryphon was unleashing its magic.

Aerial strikes from the sky. A massive army attacking from the ground.

Unless the enemy had brought in armored troops from a formal military force, there was no way they could win this.

Claire and Leo looked slightly shaken, but I—

I felt relieved.

See? When preparing for something, you have to really prepare.

For the record, I had even arranged for the Imperial Army to mobilize the moment our train failed to arrive on schedule.

In other words—

No matter what happened to us, the enemy was already as good as dead.

*

Who the hell were these lunatics?

If they hadn’t known who we were, that was already a serious problem. It would mean that armed robbers were lurking along Imperial railways, targeting trains.

And the idea of stopping a train by placing a drunk man on the tracks was strange in itself. Wouldn’t most trains just run the person over and keep going? If the conductor hadn’t been an experienced veteran, he probably wouldn’t have stopped the train at all.

“What’s the situation?”

“Yes, we’ve captured them all. Twelve dead, seven survivors.”

That number was oddly low.

“Are they completely disarmed?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

I rose from my seat.

With Claire and Leo on either side of me, I put on a wide-brimmed hat with a veil covering my face. In daylight, my features might have been faintly visible, but in the darkness of the night, unless someone got too close, my identity wouldn’t be exposed. Claire and Leo, meanwhile, wore plain, featureless masks.

Led by a knight, we arrived at the scene. As he had reported, seven men sat bound in restraints.

All of them were male, unkempt, and reeking from neglect. Their beards were overgrown, as if they hadn’t had the chance to trim them for a long time.

As for their clothing... it was mismatched. Since it was winter, they all wore thick layers. Some had ragged coats, others wore worn leather.

“P-please spare us...!”

As I approached, the bound men fell forward, pressing their foreheads to the ground as they begged.

“Who are they?”

“We’re not entirely sure yet, but they seem to be armed robbers.”

“Armed robbers? Near the border?”

Border regions usually had better security due to their strategic importance. Unless the two neighboring nations were extremely friendly, to the point where the border was merely a symbolic line, or if there was a severe economic disparity causing mass illegal immigration, border areas tended to be well-policed.

Belvur, despite being smaller than the Empire, wasn’t destitute to the point where people had to abandon their country.

And if security were to collapse due to economic conditions, it should have been on the poorer side of the border, not here.

The knight seemed to take my question as criticism and slightly lowered his head.

...Well, this wasn’t his fault.

If these truly were bandits, the blame would fall on whoever was in charge of maintaining order in this region.

And the one overseeing this land was—

“Crowfield...”

“......”

At my muttered words, Claire and Leo exchanged heavy glances.

Given the Countess Crowfield’s current condition, this was likely due to neglect, not intentional malice.

At this rate, Mia was practically guaranteed to become the next ruler of this land. But for now, she was not the lord. The one managing this territory was still the Countess.

And, of course, I had given no advance notice to Crowfield.

Apologies to Mia, but she didn’t even know I had been in Belvur.

I shook my head, pushing those thoughts aside. That wasn’t my immediate concern. Right now, the priority was deciding how to handle these captives.

“Was there anything notable about them?”

“Yes. Look at this.”

The knight held out a sheathed sword for me to inspect.

Taking it in both hands, I unsheathed the blade.

The edge was dulled from repeated impact, showing clear signs of wear. However, it hadn’t completely chipped away.

It was neglected, but not for years—only for a few months at most.

The blade itself still gleamed under the light.

“......”

But more than the state of the blade, its shape triggered a realization.

“...Holy Nation?”

This was the type of sword used by knights of the Holy Nation.

I didn’t even need to think hard about what had happened. It was obvious.

“...It seems some remnants of the Holy Nation managed to slip into the Empire.”

“We can’t be certain yet, but...”

They weren’t wearing the uniforms of the Holy Nation. And they looked too disheveled to be proper knights.

But they had a Holy Nation sword.

“If they really are from the Holy Nation, why are they carrying this sword?”

Claire murmured beside me.

“Perhaps because this sword is... important.”

Like the sword Jericho once carried.

If this was a blade ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) forged using the goddess’s power, it made sense.

If these men had infiltrated the Empire, gathering intelligence, only for the Holy Power that sustained them to suddenly vanish...

If they had been completely cut off from their homeland, unable to continue their mission, and had only heard rumors of the Holy Nation’s collapse—

And if they refused to believe it completely—

“...They were armed robbers, yes. But not ordinary ones.”

I pressed my fingers to my temple.

It seemed I needed to reevaluate my assessment of Countess Crowfield.

She hadn’t failed to maintain order. She had likely been trying to keep control.

It was just that these so-called bandits were simply too skilled for ordinary soldiers to handle.

Raiding villages, ambushing merchants—such attacks would have inflicted serious economic damage on any territory, even one with a sizable population.

So her forces must have hunted them down, pursuing them relentlessly, trying to wipe them out.

And as their numbers dwindled, the bandits had grown desperate.

Until they decided to take one final gamble.

We had deliberately scheduled this train to avoid standing out—running at night, blending into the typical freight schedules.

But to bandits who had simply been waiting for the next train to come along, that didn’t matter.

“...You lot had the worst luck possible.”

If this had been just another cargo train, their plan might have succeeded.

There wouldn’t have been many people onboard, and the armed personnel wouldn’t have been on the level of former cathedral knights.

Had they succeeded in looting supplies and making it across the Belvur border, they might have found a shred of hope.

But instead—

They had run straight into us.

A sharp cry pierced the air.

Fwoooosh!

High above, the Gryphon let out a long, eerie shriek.