Ye Qiyan’s words brought this non-human maiden joy, sorrow, and a tangle of all sorts of complex emotions.
These emotions intertwined, causing even more tears to stream down her cheeks.
She grabbed Ye Qiyan’s hand as if it were the only lifeline after falling into an icy abyss.
“Please, I beg you, Hero Sir. I—I’m not human, but, but...”
She wasn’t human.
But Heroes from another world only ever helped humans fulfill their wishes.
So Sherry didn’t dare hope for anything.
She was just a monster.
But even a monster had the right to want to live.
As time resumed its flow, the voices of a squad came from the village, drawing closer.
The leader was a woman commanding a group of armed soldiers.
The moment she saw Ye Qiyan and the train behind him, her earlier arrogance vanished.
It was replaced by an extremely fawning tone.
The leading woman knelt before Ye Qiyan.
“Greetings, Great Hero! You there, Snow White! Take your filthy hands off him! How dare a lowlife like you touch a Hero!?”
The tone directed at different people was completely different.
Sherry lowered her head in fear and quickly pulled her hand back.
“I—I...”
“Damn brat! Scram now! If you don’t, I’ll double your village’s Heart Tax, and then I’ll have your sister...”
“Enough.”
Ye Qiyan spoke calmly.
His gaze swept over the soldiers before settling on the woman’s face.
Who are you people?
Ye Qiyan didn’t use Bewitchment.
After all, before he got bored, he intended to follow the rules of this so-called war—though it could just as well be treated as a game.
But even so,
his words still made the woman obediently reply:
“Sir, we’re tax collectors from Dongbo City. We’re here to gather resource taxes from these penned monsters for the esteemed Heroes of Sky City~”
The woman crawled forward a few steps on her knees.
She glanced at Sherry sitting on the ground, a hint of malice flashing in her eyes.
[Damn brat, such an eyesore. If she gets in the way of me catching this Hero’s interest, I’ll make her wish she were dead!]
“Is that so? Hah, this is my first time in this world. You’re not bad. Tell me about it.”
The woman’s eyes gleamed with surprise, while Sherry, the Snow White, felt the opposite—despair.
“Yes, Great Hero! I’ll explain right away!”
From this woman’s mouth, Ye Qiyan roughly understood part of this world’s situation.
Dongbo City.
The center of this Station World.
Also the battlefield of every Wish War.
Whenever a Wish War began,
Heroes from other worlds would descend into Dongbo City all at once.
That city would automatically seek out the humans living within it, turning them into [Heroes] to fight each other.
The final victor would earn the right to make a wish.
Normally, the city’s prayer-givers would appear the next day, but Ye Qiyan had arrived a day early.
As for the [Heart Tax]—
it was a scheme cooked up by the various Guilds.
By monopolizing specific upgrade materials, they would rig the outcome of each Wish War in advance, ensuring the winner they designated would keep the largest share of material distribution until the next war.
Right now, before the war began, while these materials still firmly belonged to them, the Guilds were making their final harvest.
Snow White’s Heart.
As the upgrade material needed to reach Level 18,
this item was exactly the heart of Sherry, a Snow White.
Every war, every village, the penned Snow Whites, and countless other monsters, flowers, or whatever else that could produce materials—their fates were no different from Sherry’s.
Ripped open, gutted, the special materials crucial for train upgrades taken away.
This was the truth of this world.
The [Heroes] descended here only to play a game.
The [Native Humans] never helped the [Monsters].
They were servants of this world’s Guild Train Conductors.
Everything they did was to curry favor, hoping that one day they could board a train and enter an unknown new world.
“Great Hero! Please take me in! I’ll give anything to get on that train!”
The woman’s eyes burned with fanaticism.
“I know you must have come for Snow White’s Heart. Rest assured, I’ll cut it out for you myself. It won’t dirty your hands!”
She stood up, pulled out a special tool designed for cutting open human chests, and stabbed it toward the weeping, despairing Sherry.
But well...
“You’re right. There’s no need to dirty my hands.”
A silvery-white stream of light fell from the sky.
Eternal Cutter in hand, Eve instantly severed the woman’s arm.
“AHHH!!!”
The woman screamed in agony.
The soldiers behind her fell into chaos.
“Sir, I—I!”
Before she could finish her sentence, her eyes remained wide open.
A Skull-Piercing Thrust, which had silently appeared above her head, pierced through her brain.
Lisette and Eve,
the two Mechanical Girls appeared on either side of Ye Qiyan.
The soldiers tried to flee, dropping their guns as they scrambled back the way they came.
But they couldn’t escape.
The spikes on Lisette’s back spread out, and her Chrono-Mechanical Armament had already activated.
The flying arrows representing the Second Hand leisurely followed behind them, piercing through their hearts.
Everything fell silent.
A few Nanite Future Bees gathered whatever valuables remained on the corpses.
Among them was a low-grade spatial device.
Inside that device,
hundreds of still-beating white hearts were piled up, fresh and glistening.
Sherry stared blankly at Ye Qiyan.
And Ye Qiyan once again turned his gaze to her.
“Don’t be afraid, prayer-giver. Even if you’re not human.”
“I, Altos, accept your transaction. This is your wish. No one will take your heart.”
All for the mission~
All for Train Coins.
————
Guild Gathering Place · Sky Island Station
This world, jointly governed by three major Guilds.
The Presidents of all three Guilds were here.
Although none had reached the formidable height of Top-Tier Train Conductors, all had trains above Level 40—seasoned veterans who had been sailing for years.
But when Sky Island’s special warning system captured blurry photos of Ye Qiyan, Eve, and Lisette and presented them,
someone’s back was already drenched in cold sweat.
“This mechanical maid, that one with rabbit ears, this train, and... this feeling that can’t be observed...”
“He—he’s Altos?!”
Someone felt fear.
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