Free Web NovelChapter 469: 469 Chapter: Farewell at the Train Station_1
Two days later, at midnight, Aiden arrived at the train station with his luggage, ready to depart for a "vacation."
The Imperial Gistas’s Royal Secret Police had arranged for a special train that only ran in the middle of the night, and it appeared to be a freight train with one of its carriages reserved for this purpose. The train’s route actually traversed the eastern part of the Empire, the autonomous states, and southern Gistas. Aiden guessed that the reason the Royal Secret Police were able to use this train to bypass customs and directly deliver him to Gistas was that the train was part of the Gistas’s spy network against the Empire, used for smuggling personnel and secretly transporting materials.
Before departing, Aiden thoroughly checked all of the preparations.
The handover of his prison duties was almost complete; the intelligence groundwork in Sunset City, though not entirely satisfactory, was done as well as possible; all the necessary items were packed, and lastly...
Aiden glanced at his side.
"A bit sleepy, I’ll have a good sleep once on the train," said the avenging goddess beside him—the Lady Phoenix—letting out a big yawn.
"You can let your consciousness sleep now," Aiden reminded her.
"I told you to sleep, that kind of hibernation just makes time pass swiftly," the avenging goddess disdainfully glanced at him, "Fatigue is a physical sensation, and I feel tired because you are. We are sharing one body now, and you hold the dominion over it. If you don’t rest, neither of us will recover from the fatigue we feel."
"So when I’m asleep, you’re unconscious too?" Aiden asked.
"Indeed, the point of sharing a body is that both our consciousnesses are connected to it, and if the body loses consciousness for any reason, we both do," replied the avenging goddess.
"Then, if it’s just my spirit that’s affected, being hypnotized or suppressed, or even directly obliterated, while the body is unharmed, you’d be able to take over, right?" Aiden vigilantly sensed something.
"In theory, yes," the avenging goddess said nonchalantly.
It seemed that even without surrendering control of his body, there were still risks involved in having the avenging goddess attached to him. The good news was that at least while he slept, she seemed to be quiet.
Ignoring the illusion of the avenging goddess, Aiden picked up his luggage and continued onward, entering the station.
For this trip, Aiden hadn’t brought any teammates or prisoners from the jail with him, only a fragment of the avenging goddess’s soul attached to him, to use her call of vengeance to sense Mr. Blood Coat’s movements.
The avenging goddess did offer to assist Aiden with her incomplete powers, but considering the goddess’s malevolent nature and the possibility of her exploiting loopholes in the Wordless Code, Aiden thought it best to minimize her opportunities to act.
Overall, there were significant benefits to having her with him, but the problem was that he had lost his privacy.
Even though he was temporarily away from the prison, Aiden was still acting as a warden, using his own body as a cage to imprison the avenging goddess within him.
The night breeze swept through the semi-open train platform; under the night sky, the platform illuminated by gas lamps was empty, like an isolated island in the darkness. The duty staff huddled in the chairs on the platform, dozing off. Everything was still; only the wind-blown fallen leaves and paper bags made one aware of the passage of time.
The weather had completely cooled down, and Aiden wrapped his coat tighter around him as he looked around on the platform.
The train hadn’t arrived yet; he had purposely set his arrival time a little early because he still had one thing to deal with.
He quickly found the person he was looking for.
Veronica was sitting quietly on a chair, waiting with a heavy sealed box at her feet.
Aiden strode over, and upon hearing his footsteps, Veronica turned her face and immediately got up reflexively, about to salute, but Aiden stopped her with a look.
Then Veronica remembered and smiled apologetically.
"You’ve really gone to a lot of trouble." Aiden nodded with a smile.
"It’s what I should do." Veronica answered with a smile.
For this trip, Aiden had entrusted Veronica with many tasks: maintaining order in the prison, managing and monitoring special prisoners, and then, he had also asked Veronica to disguise the mercury amalgam golems as cargo and hire someone to deliver them to the station that day.
When Aiden had first informed Veronica of his itinerary, he thought for sure that Veronica would insist on going with him. However, to Aiden’s slight surprise, Veronica had accepted his arrangement without any objections. In Aiden’s own words,
"These days might be tough on you, but if the situation gets out of control, use the trump card method I taught you," Aiden said.
"Understood." Veronica replied emphatically, almost reflexively preparing to salute.
"Still saluting?" Aiden raised an eyebrow.
"It was an accident..." Veronica said, embarrassedly lowering her head. fгeewebnovёl.com
"How’s your practice going?" Aiden suddenly asked.
Veronica was momentarily taken aback, then quickly understood what Aiden meant: "I have almost mastered it."
"Then I’m relieved," Aiden smiled.
After careful consideration, to provide an extra layer of security for the order in the prison, Aiden had decided to transfer a bit of his divinity to Veronica and taught her the "presence" authority of the "Wordless Code" to act as his proxy.
The so-called trump card method was, in fact, to allow Veronica to impersonate him at the right moments, leveraging his prestige to control the situation, though given that Daili and the others were already accustomed to following Veronica’s command and assisting the prison guards, it was unlikely that this trump card method would ever be needed.
Aiden also left her with a secret way to contact him—a secret police liaison’s contact channel. If any issue in the prison required consultation, Veronica would find the liaison to relay the message, and then the liaison would use the telegraph to inform Aiden, who was stationed in Sunset City.
This should be foolproof...
Thinking this, Aiden suddenly laughed silently to himself.
"What’s the matter, sir?" Veronica blinked.
"I was just thinking, here you are the person most worthy of my trust and confidence, yet when I really think about it, it’s been less than a year since you joined my team," Aiden reflected.
"...Is that so?" Veronica lowered her head.
Is she actually getting shy about this? Aiden laughed helplessly to himself.
The gas lamp’s light was dim, and Aiden couldn’t see if her face was blushing.
The train’s whistle pierced the silent night, and the light from the kerosene gas lamps illuminated the direction of the tracks.
"The train is here." Aiden glanced at the clock; this special train was right on time, "You should go back too."
"Um..." Veronica murmured softly in response, but did not move an inch.
