The black-haired young man lay quietly on the cold ground.
The intense pain throughout his body brought him back to consciousness.
He felt as if his ribs were broken.
After struggling for a while, he finally managed to open his eyes.
“Hey, you’ve got quite a strong will to live,” came a slightly husky female voice from the side.
The black-haired young man turned his head and saw a long-haired woman wearing a black tank top and camouflage trousers.
Her outer garment was hanging on a nearby branch.
“Where am I?”
The black-haired young man propped himself up on his arms and sat up, looking around.
He saw eight other people:
four men and four women, who were the trainees that had been eliminated along with him from the carriage earlier.
These eight people were looking at him with strange expressions.
The black-haired young man didn’t understand the meaning behind their gazes, but after counting them, he realized
…
one was missing?
He remembered that there should have been five men and four women besides himself, but now one man was gone.
At that moment, his left hand pressed against something.
He turned his head and saw a headless corpse lying quietly beside him.
The part above the jaw was nowhere to be seen, and the torn muscle tissue and skin were visible at the cut.
Blood had stained the ground red.
He finally understood why those eight young people were looking at him so strangely.
It turned out that he had been lying next to a headless corpse, and had been lying in the still-not-fully-dried pool of blood.
The back of his clothes was still sticky, clinging to his back, and exuding an inexplicable chill
…
“Ugh!!”
His stomach slightly convulsed, and the feeling of nausea made him involuntarily retch.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t eaten much all day, so he couldn’t vomit anything.
“Hahaha!”
The long-haired woman laughed and slapped her thigh.
The black ponytail tied at the back of her head swung with her laughter.
“Oh, your reaction is really amusing, hahaha!”
The long-haired woman walked over and pulled the black-haired young man up.
“To be honest, there are no medical facilities around here. We all thought you were done for, which is why we left you together. I didn’t expect you to have such a strong will to live and survive such severe injuries.”
She paused for a moment, then pointed at the headless corpse and said, “But he wasn’t as lucky as you. A piece of the carriage’s broken steel plate got stuck in half of his head and flew out of the train. We still haven’t found it.”
The black-haired young man was silent for a while before he spoke, “Thank you.”
Afterward, the black-haired young man moved away from the headless corpse and found a stone to sit on.
His ribs still ached slightly, but after feeling them, he was relieved to find that they were not broken.
“Can we go back?”
—— Among the eight people, a black-haired girl suddenly asked the young man beside her.
Judging from the way their hands were tightly clasped together, they seemed to be a couple.
“If they discover the train has been destroyed, they will definitely send a rescue team,” the young man replied.
Although his clothes were a bit dirty and his skin was somewhat tanned, he looked very healthy and energetic.
His voice was also very infectious.
After hearing his words, the girl’s emotions eased significantly.
“Go back?”
The woman with the black ponytail sneered, “The defense line near the outpost that General Andrei set up this morning has already been breached by the Black Gold Heavy Industries’ rebels.Otherwise, do you think the train track for transporting you trainees would have been attacked?”
The words of the woman with the black ponytail stunned everyone.
“Now we are already behind enemy lines. Unless the front line can be pushed back, don’t expect a rescue team to come and save us,” the tanned young man tightened his grip on his girlfriend’s hand and couldn’t help but ask, “So what do we do?”
Three men and three women nearby also cast hopeful glances at the woman with the black ponytail.
She was the one who knew the most about the situation and was the most familiar with the surroundings.
“Two options,” the woman with the black ponytail smiled and pointed to the left, “Cross the most intense front line and return to the area under General Andrei’s army’s protection.”
“How is that possible!”
another blond young man exclaimed in shock, “My God, you want us to cross the firing line where both sides are engaged in combat? Are you asking us to commit suicide!”
“If we suddenly appear at the front line, we will also be shot on the spot as spies,” the tanned young man frowned, “I don’t think that under the current situation, General Andrei’s soldiers will let us pass.”
After all, Black Gold Heavy Industries had already broken through General Andrei’s defense line.
Even if this group of people could avoid all the Black Gold Heavy Industries’ rebels and safely reach the front line, they would still be shot on the spot by General Andrei’s soldiers as spies or special forces operatives.
The identity of trainees would not serve as their protection.
“Is there any other way?”
The blond girl with long hair, who had not spoken before, also joined the discussion.
Although she looked quite disheveled, she had no wounds on her body.
Moreover, judging from the quality of her clothes, they were high-end.
The black-haired young man glanced at the button on the chest of the blond girl.
Like the clothes of the
“young master,” they were tailor-made at Lady Jinsha’s shop.
Only that shop used this kind of gold-inlaid jade buttons.
Just this button alone was enough to buy a clean and beautiful female slave.
He had once gone to that shop on behalf of the
“young master”
to pick up clothes and had seen a baron being thrown out by the shop assistant for haggling.
The clothes from this shop were not only outrageously expensive, but also not necessarily available for purchase if one did not have the right status.
It seemed that the blond girl noticed the black-haired young man’s gaze focusing on her chest.
She pressed her left hand against her lapel and then glared at him fiercely.
The black-haired young man quickly averted his eyes.
The woman with the black ponytail paid no attention to the little actions between the two. With her usual cheerful smile, she looked at the blond girl and replied, “The other option is to follow me and go around from behind, through the Black Gold Heavy Industries’ headquarters, to the seaside. There is a speedboat hidden there that I drove here with.”
The woman with the black ponytail grinned and looked around at the nine people.
 “So, what’s your choice?”
The young men and women exchanged glances.
“Go around.”
“I agree.”
“Me too.”
“Go around… I guess?”
“I think going around is a better option.”
“Then let’s go around.”
“I, I’ll do the same…”
“I’ll follow you guys. Wherever you go, I’ll follow.”
Obviously, compared to the almost certain death of heading to the front line, the option of going around the Black Gold Heavy Industries’ rebel headquarters to the seaside, which was a gamble with a high risk of death, seemed more worth taking a chance on.
“Smart choice. Since everyone agrees to go around, we are temporarily teammates. Let’s all introduce ourselves first,” the woman with the black ponytail pointed to herself with her right thumb. “I won’t say my full name. Just call me Aka. I’m a member of General Andrei’s direct Black Hawk Squad.”
After Aka finished her introduction, she pointed to the blond girl on the far right and said, “It’s your turn.”
“Alice Principality, Mia.”
The blond girl flicked her golden long hair, her movement graceful.
However, after she introduced herself, she noticed that no one reacted, and she immediately glanced at the people around her with a hint of disdain.
“Hua Ying Federation, Huang Weihong.”
The tanned young man.
“Hua Ying Federation, Xu Jiaying.”
The black-haired girl, who was also the childhood friend of the tanned young man.
“Norton Republic, Roel.”
The blond young man.
“Hua Ying Federation, Chen Weilong.”
A thin and seemingly malnourished young man.
“Hua Ying Federation, Chen Weihu.”
He was tall, the opposite of Chen Weilong.
Judging from their names, they should be brothers, but they didn’t look much alike.
“Yun City, Scorpion, just call me Scorpion.”
Scorpion was a girl who looked very gloomy.
Maybe due to the injuries from the train crash, her left eye was bandaged.
She hadn’t spoken a word from before until now.
Her voice sounded as if it were the grating of sheet metal, hoarse and a bit hunched.
After glancing at the people around her, she took a step back and hid in the shade of a nearby tree.
“Elhua Kingdom, Luo Luo.”
The girl with silver short hair was very tall.
She was wearing a snowstorm hat that seemed out of place in the current weather.
Finally, after a moment of silence, the black-haired young man gave the name of his family’s
“young master”:
“Alice Principality, Kasa.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the blond girl immediately narrowed her eyes and turned her head to stare at him, as if trying to see through him.