Returning to the Mysterious Era

Chapter 135 - Smuggling into the Rainy World

An afternoon passed, and he tracked down the poor, unfortunate soul. Correction: he found his partner in crime. Cassius and his large stack of cash were quite persuasive. Mr. Jiri Hradik, the recently inducted Hellsing, immediately agreed to work with him.

For Jiri, this was nothing but an extra day of work in exchange for five thousand Hongli Federation dollars. Despite some misgivings of the potential risks, it didn't take much for him to agree to the collaboration. He was a newcomer who had just become a Hellsing and found himself balancing on the precarious edge of life and death. With this large sum of money, he could at least enjoy a little bit of happiness during his missions. If he could occasionally indulge in the extravagant life of his dreams, even if he was killed by a dark creature, he'd die without regrets.

Cassius spent five thousand dollars to hire Jiri; naturally, he conducted some more experiments that afternoon. He also sketched the specific shape and structure of the black carriage, then went directly to a company specialized in making carriages to ask them to modify one according to his design.

The largest carriage company in Anta City was called Solar Steed, whose carriages were well-known in several nearby cities. They offered a range of styles from high-end to low-end. Clients needed to present their identities if they wanted a custom design and if the request wasn't respectable enough, Solar Steed would flat-out refuse to do business with them. They wanted to preserve an old-fashioned aristocratic style, which meant even custom orders had to adhere to the company's overall style. A fine carriage could take a month to half a year to make.

All of a sudden, said company welcomed a mysterious customer who asked to modify an iron-framed carriage and stack it with steel plates. He didn't need it to look good; he just needed it to be durable. Work around the clock if need be to finish the modifications by tomorrow.

"Does he take us for some cattle cart company?! We're Solar Steed! A prestigious high-end carriage manufacturer in Anta City, known throughout East Sea County! He thinks he can just wave a few stinkin' dollars and order us around? Ridiculous!!!"

The owner of Solar Steed originally wanted to rant like this in his office, but the customer was offering far too much.

A little money smells stinky, but when there's a lot of it, the scent turns sweet.

Customers had to present their identification? Custom orders had to follow the company's overall style? It took up to six months to complete a custom carriage? Those were merely excuses. The current owner of Solar Steed had long been dissatisfied with the old rules left by the previous generation; it had just been a coincidence when he agreed to take Cassius’s order to modify the carriage. Yes! That's right! His main goal was to break those outdated conventions.

To break these old rules, Fred, the owner of Solar Steed, personally oversaw the work, supervising the employees through the night as they modified the carriage, layering sturdy steel plates as per the customer's request.

"Put one here, yes, right there. And another one there. Just pile it all up like we’re making an armored vehicle." Fred waved his hand commandingly, one eye on the design in his hand.

An old employee wiped his brow. "Boss, if we put this much steel on it, I’m afraid the horses won’t be able to pull it."

"Who cares? We're just working with what he gave us. Maybe he's got it all figured out." Fred shrugged it off. Adding steel plates to a carriage didn’t break any federal laws.

By the next evening, the armored carriage was completed.

Cassius paid a hefty sum with gusto. He got exactly what he wanted. While his reckless spending wasn’t necessarily wise, nothing could buy the comfort he desired. In any event, he still had plenty of money left, and this currency couldn’t be taken back to the real world, so he might as well spend it.

On the night of February 8, Year 107 in the Hongli Federation calendar, two of the strongest horses pulled a heavy armored carriage to the edge of Anta City’s suburban train station. The horses were exhausted, so Cassius led them back. When he returned, he had a large black bag filled with heavy items.

With the horses out of commission, Cassius threw the items into the carriage and used his extraordinary strength to push the carriage forward. The wheels left deep tracks on the ground. He soon arrived at a carriage stop set up by the Black Rain Manor.

A somewhat anxious young man waited beside a mottled bronze pillar. He looked about twenty years old, with delicate features and golden curls. His demeanor and appearance looked very similar to Twilight before Cassius replaced him.

Cassius looked up at the starry sky. "We can start now, Jiri."

"Okay." Jiri nodded and took out a bell from his pocket. He shook it.

Out of nowhere, clouds obscured the bright moonlight. Half-hidden behind the clouds, the stars eventually disappeared as a light drizzle blanketed the grounds

At some point, a bizarre path replaced the surrounding dirt road, leading the black carriage over to them. Black cloth draped over it, the windows hung with a semi-transparent gauze, and the wheels and carriage surface were carved with incomprehensible twisted symbols.

"Wait." Cassius squinted. "Jiri, sit in the front carriage as usual. Remember, no matter what you hear coming from behind, don’t try to look out the window. If you die midway, the carriage is done for."

"Got it, got it." Jiri nodded vigorously.

Cassius got to work; he had about ten minutes before the black carriage started moving again. He pushed the modified armored compartment to the back of the carriage, securing it with special clamps at the front of the compartment, with levers on the sides. He then took out several thick iron chains, linking parts of the black carriage with the armored compartment.

Cassius gave the chains a yank, and they tightened under the immense force. These specially made chains were of excellent quality and exceptionally strong; they would not break.

"Great, that should do it." He nodded in satisfaction and instructed Jiri to get in the carriage. As for Cassius, he settled into the armored compartment.

Through his experiments, he discovered he couldn’t touch the manor’s black carriage. If his fingers lingered on the carriage for some time, it would disappear, seemingly recognizing him as a traitor, which meant his original plan of lying down on top of the carriage was rendered moot.

Thus, Cassius had to use this method of one carriage towing another to avoid contact. But this was extremely risky; the Rainy World had many strange phenomena, including mutated giant creatures and the Decaying Knights. Without the black carriage to shield his aura, Cassius would be like a giant piece of fish bait, practically begging for dangerous monsters from the Rainy World to attack him.

Thus, building an armored carriage to protect himself was necessary. When it came to his own life, Cassius was relatively cautious. There was no such thing as being too safe.

As Jiri got into the carriage, the two sleek black horses in front began to move forward on the path. The mysterious coachman, cloaked in black, remained as calm as ever.

Clop, clop, clop...

At first, the horses had to trot in place a few times, likely due to the weight of Cassius's specially armored carriage. After a few more steps, the black carriage began to move sluggishly forward, and the armored carriage followed suit.

Cassius felt the slight sway of the carriage and nodded approvingly. The black carriage, after all, was a supernatural creation and must have some special abilities. Despite his fierce game of tug-of-war with the giant ape through the window, the high-speed carriage had remained intact. Pulling the armored carriage was evidently not a problem.

With a jolt, the black carriage gradually picked up speed on the road, dragging the heavy, dark armored carriage behind it.

The black carriage took them on a different road in a completely different environment.

The black carriage entered a vast expanse of eerie gray grass covering the entire plain. A thin, winding yellow line stretched out in the midst of the gray where a small black dot was moving rapidly.

Clang!

Cassius lifted the iron plate outside the carriage window and looked out through the sturdy bars. There were no strange scenes, no mutated giant creatures. It was quiet all around him with only the soft patter of rain and the rumble of the wheels breaking the stillness.

The silence made Cassius uneasy. He would have felt better if there were one or two strange attacks. Instead, the situation reminded him of the calm before a storm, like the danger was gathering together, just waiting for a moment to erupt like a volcano.

Fortunately, Cassius was prepared.

He opened a black bag he had placed near him, revealing an array of military weapons. There was a silver Storm heavy machine gun, P11 grenades, a Tiger shotgun, and a Type-46 assault flame thrower. Yes, Cassius managed to get his hands on a flamethrower.

Although he didn't know why the arms dealer had such high-powered weapons, maybe someone in the military of a relatively high rank was selling them out the back door.

Cassius also had a batch of sticky incendiary oil, perfectly paired with a flamethrower that could shoot flames over ten meters. Obviously, he didn't want to use it if he didn't have to.

The carriage continued forward for about ten more minutes.

Cassius suddenly heard the chaotic sound of hooves mixed with the rain. He looked out toward the distant plains. Raindrops fell in a dark drizzle, slightly obscuring his vision, but not enough to prevent Cassius from seeing a squad of knights coming right at him.

One, two, three... six, seven, eight!

Eight Decaying Knights!

Some held spears, others wielded giant swords, some carried battle axes, and some swung flails. They all rode black warhorses and wore old, rustic armor with sinister spikes protruding out at the joint with their crimson cross-patterned knight's boots resting on the stirrups.

The lead knight raised his weapon, a conical lance, and roared as he stormed toward the carriage. His eyes, cold and cruel, glinted from beneath the snake-belly helmet.

Rat-ta-ta-ta-ta...

The helmet, along with the head, exploded.

Dozens of large-caliber bullets drilled into the head of the lance-wielding knight. Black liquid splatted. The knight fell from his horse with a thud.

A black machine gun muzzle was mounted on the armored carriage's window, and behind it were Cassius's cold eyes. He held the heavy machine gun, with a nearly five-meter-long fabric bullet belt beside him. The smell of gunpowder filled the air.

"Taste the power of technology, you fossils." Cassius pulled the trigger, and the machine gun trembled violently.

Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang...

Golden sparks burst from the surface of the charging Decaying Knights' armor. The machine gun bullets were much stronger than the arrows of ancient times in terms of penetration, power, and firing rate.

Cassius continued shooting, successfully suppressing the Decaying Knights. But the machine gun quickly overheated from the continuous fire, and the knights seized that brief moment when he switched to another machine gun to quickly close in on the carriage.

Clang!

A massive axe struck the window guardrail. It jolted violently and sparks flew, but the sturdy rail held firm. Cassius took the opportunity to fire off a rapid and wild round of bullets, shooting down another Decaying Knight off his horse. Now, the group was down to five.

Clang!

A cross sword slashed.

Boom!

A battle axe collided.

Ding!

A spear thrusted.

Bang!

A flail swung.

The entire armored carriage resonated with the raucous sounds of weapons striking iron plates from all directions, rumbling like thunder. Jiri, sitting in the black carriage ahead, felt it too. But he obeyed Cassius's instructions, merely gritting his teeth and curling up in the corner of the carriage, trying not to look or think about what was happening outside.

Inside the armored carriage, Cassius was steady as a mountain. Before setting out, he had tested the thickness of the carriage's iron plates and knew it could not be penetrated by continuous shelling. The Decaying Knights had almost no chance of breaking through with their melee weapons.

Since the defense was impregnable...

Boom!

A grenade exploded midair, smashing half of a Decaying Knight's helmet. Machine gun bullets followed, destroying the other half, and the headless corpse tumbled from the horse.

A glass vial shattered on a knight's armor, sticky black liquid splattering all over it, which was soon followed by a searing jet of fire, instantly engulfing the Decaying Knight in flames. The flames and incendiary oil reacted violently, creating an intense heat that even the rain couldn't extinguish; it burned ever more fiercely.

The metal can of a knight, now rendered a man on fire, toppled to the ground, black smoke billowing from his body.

The dark gun barrel spewed fire, and the shotgun roared...

This only went to show that until supernatural powers reached a certain level, human technology still had a crushing advantage. Because even if it weren't Cassius in the armored carriage but an experienced soldier, it would likely have been the same outcome.

The slaughter of the Decaying Knights by firearms!

It wasn't clear how long the whole fight lasted. The Decaying Knights died in batches, then revived in the rain and it went on and on like this. The machine gun roared hoarsely until it finally fell silent, as if it had jammed.

...

There was a rectangular carriage platform near Black Rain Manor. Two mysterious figures, a male and a female Hellsing walked, fingers linked together. The man was handsome, and the woman was beautiful; they appeared to be a couple. They looked a bit fresh-faced, likely having just become marked-ones not too long ago.

While chatting, they strolled to the platform. The man reached into his pocket to take out a bell and was about to ring it when a black carriage rumbled toward them from a distance.

"Perfect timing," the man said, exchanging a smile with the woman, then exclaimed in surprise. "Hmm? Why is there an extra carriage behind?"

They saw a heavy carriage tied behind the black carriage with chains. The surface of the carriage looked harsh and menacing with the entire surface covered with large black iron plates. Dense scratches from cold weapons and explosion marks that looked like blooming flowers scored the top. The area around the windows was scorched black like it had been burned by extremely hot fire for a long time.

The pungent smell of gunpowder lingered in the air, even in the rain. It seemed that the carriage had just been through a fierce battle.

"This is..." The couple on the platform couldn't help but gape.

A white-faced Jiri quickly stepped out from the black carriage, breathing a sigh of relief. The series of collisions and explosions from earlier had been absolutely terrifying. Through the gauze, he had vaguely seen a group of knights charging through the rain, besieging the armored carriage behind. Hopefully, Mr. Twilight was unharmed. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Under the astonished gazes of the couple, Jiri swiftly walked to the armored carriage and knocked on the scorching iron plate.

Knock, knock, knock...

He took a deep breath. "Mr. Twilight, are you alright?" There was no response. Jiri knocked again. "Mr. Twilight?"

Creak!

The front door of the carriage swung open.

"I'm fine, everything went well..." A tall, dark figure stepped onto the platform. His gaze swept past Jiri and to the distant manor's spire, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

The smuggling had been a success.