Arcadia's Ignoble Knight: The Sorceress of Ashtown

Raiding a Train Isn't for Amateurs

It wasn't long before the bandits, or whoever these cloaked people were, began descending from the cliffs. It was hard to determine at this distance, but from the way they scaled down the sheer face with large leaps, Caspian suspected they were using some kind of grappling system, even though he could not see the lines being used. His eyesight, keen beyond anyone else he knew, only had perfect vision at a range of about one and a half kilometers.

Not that how they got down was important. At least not to the average joe currently sitting on board the train.

The sight of over a dozen figures decked from head to toe in all-encompassing outfits that disguised even their gender and brandishing weapons sent all of the regular people into a panic. Since pretty much everyone on the train was just a regular citizen and not a trained warrior, that meant a lot of people were freaking out.

Caspian was probably the only person on the train who wasn't hyperventilating at the sight awaiting them just outside of the window and closing in fast. Yet just because he wasn't on the verge of panic didn't mean he knew what to do. Naturally, he wanted to take the fight to the enemy and all that, but there were way more of them than there were of him. He had to be smart about this.

He also had to consider the civilians. They needed his protection. However, there was a lot of train to cover, and he couldn't be everywhere at once. That meant he had to decide who needed to be protected first. For most people in his position, nobility would get first priority, but Caspian had never been one to distinguish people by rank or lineage. There were more commoners on this train than nobles, which, to him, meant the common folks needed more protection.

It was still a difficult decision to make.

"Ha... times like these make me wish I had some kind of doppelganger ability." Those Sorceresses really didn't know how easy they had it. How convenient was it to have the ability to summon and form contracts with spirits in exchange for incredible powers?

I could use... no. Caspian dispelled the thought. I don't need it.

Well, there was nothing to be done about that. He wouldn't use magic, but that was okay because he had a sword, which he did not hesitate to pull from its sheath. A good thing he did, too, because just a few moments later, the outer wall of the train car tore open like aluminum foil and two of the cloaked figures flew in on swift feet.

Caspian clicked his tongue. "Tsk."

Like those strange automatons he'd heard so much about, the heads belonging to the cloaked individuals swiveled to look at him. Caspian froze. For one second, his mind blanked as he tried to think of what he should be doing in a situation like this. Fortunately, while his mind might have fritzed like a piece of MagiTech suffering a power surge, his mouth hadn't.

"I really hope you guys plan on fixing that wall, because I doubt this train will be moving until all the damage is repaired, and I really do need to get to Ashtown soon."

The two cloaked figures looked at him for all of one second before charging. Huh. It looked like these two weren't fans of pre-battle banter. Well, fine. He didn't need to rile up his opponents to gain the upper hand all the time. Besides, they might be fast, faster than him even, but they were confined to an enclosed space. Speed of movement meant nothing here. Speed of reaction was where it would count.

As the two closed in, the one trailing in the back leapt up along the wall and used the muscles in their legs to run up the wall until they were rushing along the ceiling. That was certainly new. He'd never seen anyone do something like that before. Weren't there supposed to be laws that kept people from doing stuff like defying gravity, or did these people have the ability to defy the natural laws that governed the cosmos?