Under the blinding sunlight, yellow sands swirled across the vast desert. A steam-belching locomotive barreled down the tracks, dragging a long line of cars behind it toward the horizon at the far end of the railway.
Near the front of the train, inside one of the luxurious passenger compartments, Vania sat quietly in her white nunâs habit. Eyes closed, she was deep in prayer, praying silently for a future shrouded in uncertainty.
Suddenly, her body tensed slightly. She slowly opened her eyes, having just received a familiar voice from the heart. She murmured softly to herself.
âMiss Dorothea⊠wants me to look out the window?â
Muttering, Vania turned her head to look out the window to her right. In the distance, on a small rocky hill, she noticed a tiny flash of light. Activating her ability to focus her vision, she was able to make out the details of the glint.
âThat person over there⊠just looks like a regular local. Heâs holding a telescope and watching the train, but doesnât appear to be doing anything suspicious. His clothes are a bit shabby too⊠no different from the North Ufigan commoners living outside the foreign quarters in KankdalâŠâ
After identifying the source of the flash, Vania kept watching the local man observing the train until the train moved out of view. The man never made a move.
âNo suspicious behavior⊠looks like he really is just a curious local,â
she thought, closing her eyes again.
She conveyed this information to Dorothyâwho was on the same trainâby offering a prayer to Aka, relaying what she had observed.
âŠ
âJust a local with a telescope watching the train?â
Dorothy mused after receiving Vaniaâs message. She had initially thought it was a sniper taking aim with a scopeâthe glint coming from a sniper lens. But it turned out to be a plain old telescope.
âSo he was just watching the train from afar without making a move⊠doesnât seem hostile. Maybe I overthought it. But a telescope? Those are pretty expensive these days. North Ufigaâs economy isnât anywhere near the level of the mainland. Could someone dressed like a local really afford one?â
Having spent several days in Kankdal, Dorothy was familiar with the general economic conditions of the local people.
Outside of the foreign district, most of Kankdal was essentially a slum, packed with destitute North Ufigan residents doing the hardest, dirtiest jobs. They served as cheap labor for the massive port that connected the mainland to North Ufiga. Their greatest aspiration was to land a job in the foreigner district waiting hand and foot on colonial masters.
âSomeone from that group using a telescope?â
Dorothy considered. Though the world had reached the industrial age, it hadnât yet seen a second industrial revolution. Many goods were still handcrafted. Telescopes, for instance, were typically made in artisanal workshopsâluxuries for the average person. They werenât strictly unaffordable, but for people barely scraping by, a telescope was a completely unnecessary purchase. They were mainly used for things like exploration, sailing, or war.
So seeing a seemingly ordinary local with such an expensive item did raise some suspicion. But Dorothy reasoned it couldâve just been obtained by chance and used on a whim when he spotted a passing train.
âNormally, I might ignore a small detail like this⊠but given our current diplomatic situation, Iâd better err on the side of cautionâŠâ
With that thought, Dorothy relayed a message back to Vania, asking her to inform her guards to increase their vigilance on both sides of the train. If anything suspicious occurred, she was to report it immediately via the Literary Sea Logbook. In emergencies, she was to pray to Aka.
After sending the message, Dorothy recalled the bird corpse marionette flying overhead, then lay down on her bunk to take a nap.
Some time later, gently rocked by the trainâs motion, she slowly opened her eyes. Rubbing her head and sitting up, she looked outsideânothing had changed. The same bleak and lifeless landscape rolled past.
After confirming from her pocket watch that she had napped for over two hours, she stretched, rubbed her eyes, and returned to the seat by the window. She opened the Literary Sea Logbook to check Vaniaâs page for updatesâand sure enough, found a message written there.
âMiss Dorothea, Iâve done as you asked and told the guards assigned to me to be more attentive to the surroundings. At the time Iâm writing this, itâs about 3 PM. So far, none of us have discovered anything out of the ordinary.
âThat said, while thereâs nothing major, there are a few small points of concern. For example, the local man watching us before wasnât the only one. Since then, two or three others have appeared. Just like before, theyâre observing us from a distance with telescopesâsome alone, some in pairs. All are dressed like locals. One even had a pocket watch and kept checking it while observing the train, which does seem a little suspicious.
âMy guards are keeping a close eye on them, ready in case of any sudden movement. But so far, like before, none of them have made a move. They just stand and watch us from afar, and make no attempt to follow once the train has passed. So we havenât taken any further action.â
The words from Vania appeared on the pages of the
Literary Sea Logbook
, and Dorothy studied them carefully, momentarily falling into deep thought.
âSo there really is something going on. These people secretly observing the train arenât just a one-offâevery so often, one or two more pop up. This clearly isnât just idle curiosity after running into the train by chance. This is deliberate surveillance. And not just by one personâthis is a coordinated groupâŠâ
Resting her chin on her hand, Dorothy mused silently. What she most wanted to know now was what exactly this group was trying to achieve.
âWhatever theyâre up to, itâs definitely not âwatching trains for fun.â Theyâre not children. But if they mean harm, theyâve shown no signs of taking actionâjust quietly watching, without any hostile behavior.â
Despite how suspicious the group seemed, Dorothy couldnât justify making a move against them just for that. The train was in constant motion, and she had no time or means to track them down and figure out what they were planning. But ignoring them entirely made her uneasy.
âTch⊠thinking it through carefullyâwhy are these people observing the train every few kilometers? What exactly do they want? If theyâre trying to gather intelligence on the envoyâs group, theyâre too far away. At that distance, all they can see is a train in motion, not anything inside the carriages. No way theyâre collecting intel.
âUnless theyâve got some mystical ability or artifact I donât know about, something that lets them spy on the inside from afar. But if they really had that kind of power or item⊠then itâs a bit too convenient that so many of them have it. Why would every observer spaced along the line have access to such tools?
âOr maybe Iâm overthinking this. Maybe they donât have any mystical power. Maybe the information they want is simpleâsomething they can determine just by watching from afar. Maybe it doesnât require mystical means at all. Just a glance, but repeated several times at intervals.â
Leaning against the seat and watching the landscape blur past the window, Dorothy considered this more seriously. The more she thought about it, the more the latter hypothesis seemed likely. Whatever these suspicious individuals were trying to learn, it probably wasnât complexâit was likely something they could determine at a glance⊠provided they saw the train multiple times along the route.
So then⊠what kind of information could be gleaned just by looking? What kind of knowledge can one gain just by watching a train from a distance?
As her thoughts fell into place, a new possibility began to form in Dorothyâs mind.
She shifted her gaze to the table, where a thin booklet lay. On its cover was a stylized illustration of a locomotive, and the title was written in Falanoan.
âDesert Arrow Observation Guideâ
Dorothy picked it up and flipped through it casually. It was a promotional booklet introducing the luxury express Desert Arrowâthe very train she was currently riding.
Desert Arrow was a premium train line funded by the Kankdal Railway Company, designed for upper-class mainland tourists. It was one of the companyâs most prestigious projects. As a gesture of goodwill toward the Church, the company had offered the train to the envoy delegation, allowing the ecclesiastical party to travel to Addus in optimal comfort.
The booklet covered all sorts of detailed information about Desert Arrow: engine models, production years, average speed⊠even onboard amenities and scenic highlights along the route, estimated times between stopsâeverything was laid out clearly. It was public information, and every private compartment came with a copy.
Since the brochure was promotional, it meant that everything inside was completely public and easy to access. If those suspicious locals really just wanted general info on the Desert Arrow, it wouldâve been easy to find. Thereâd be no need to stake out the train every few kilometers.
That they resorted to live observation instead suggested that the public information was no longer usefulâbecause the Desert Arrow had been reconfigured.
At Vaniaâs request, the original high-speed luxury train had been restructured: most entertainment carriages were removed, and heavy cargo cars were added to transport large volumes of relief supplies for the people of Addus. In other words⊠the modified Desert Arrow now had entirely different specifications from what the public brochure stated. You couldnât rely on the old numbers anymoreâand the most critical change among them was likely the trainâs speed.
âThose suspicious individuals, stationed at regular intervals along the tracks, must be taking measurementsâcalculating the current speed of the Desert Arrow. By assigning observers at different points and recording the time it passes, they can compute the trainâs speed. The more points they have, the more precise their data will be.
âNormally, a trainâs speed is public infoâeven for something like Desert Arrow. But this is different. Itâs no longer a streamlined luxury express. Itâs now a hybrid freight train hauling a ton of relief supplies. That added weight has undoubtedly caused a dramatic drop in speed. The original plan was to reach Addus in two days, but with all this added cargo, it might take an extra day or even two.
âAnd no one knows exactly how long itâll take. This train has never run with this much weight before. All these supplies were hastily gathered from across Kankdal and loaded without even being weighed. No one has a clear estimate of how long itâll take to get to Addus. And with war disrupting normal operations, Desert Arrow is the only train currently running this route. It can take however long it needs.
âSo, if someone really wants to know the trainâs arrival time, their only option is to time it manually along the way.
âAnd because this is the Churchâs envoy train, and no other trains are running this route, every station along the lineâregardless of who controls itâhas been locked down and reserved exclusively for this train. Which means these people can only station themselves far away from the tracks and observe from a distance.â
Staring out at the landscape flying past, Dorothy pieced the logic together. She now had a complete theory for what these observers were doing.
âBecause of Vaniaâs suggestion, Desert Arrow was reconfigured and burdened with freight. The drop in speed extended the expected travel time to Addus by at least a day or two. But some parties couldnât tolerate such a large timing discrepancyâso theyâve resorted to real-time measurement to determine the new average speed and predict when the train will reach a specific location.
âAnd once they know that arrival time⊠what will they do with it?â
Dorothy continued pondering, her gaze slowly shifting to the train brochureâs simple map of North Ufiga, eyes settling on the border of the Kingdom of Addus.
In that moment, from the depths of her past-life memories, a Chinese place name surfaced in her mindâHuanggutun.
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Huanggutun (çć§ć±Ż) is most historically known as the site of a political assassination that had far-reaching consequences in early 20th-century China. It is located in the outskirts of Shenyang (then called Mukden) in northeastern China, also known as Manchuria.
On June 4, 1928, a powerful Chinese warlord named Zhang Zuolin (ćŒ äœé)âthen the leader of the Fengtian clique and de facto ruler of Manchuriaâwas assassinated via a bomb planted on a railway at Huanggutun.