Captain – Chapter 238 – The Carriage Raid

“Not my people.”

Facing the Colonel’s questioning gaze, Roy shook her head slightly and spoke rapidly: “Before leaving, I clearly expressed my stance to my First Mate. If nothing unexpected happened, the Mermaid should still be docked at Elvet port, so those can’t possibly be my people.”

Hearing this, Berney’s eyes flickered intensely as he gritted his teeth and said: “Then according to you… they’re the Governor’s men?”

“That’s one possibility, but I think with his patience, even if he knew about our plan, he wouldn’t act so hastily.”

The Captain lifted the carriage curtain slightly and looked outside through the glass window.

At this moment, the soldiers were forming a protective circle around the carriage, arranged in a volley firing formation. Further away in the hazy night fog, shadowy figures occasionally flashed past, moving as swiftly as ghosts.

In the previous exchange, the soldiers had temporarily driven back the ambushers with a volley of fire, but being caught off guard, they had still lost several men.

For a team of fewer than twenty men, this was already a devastating blow. But more desperate than the number of casualties was the fact that after discovering the enemy attack, their first coordinated volley hadn’t taken down even a single enemy.

In the dense hail of bullets, there wasn’t much space to dodge. Although the ambushers’ reactions were extremely quick and their movements terrifyingly swift, several of them had still been hit.

The problem was that not a single bullet had caused a fatal wound. So after leaving just a few traces of blood, the ambushers disappeared back into the night fog, seeking opportunities to attack again.

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Throughout this process, these ambushers hadn’t made any unnecessary sounds. Even when wounded by gunfire, they retreated in complete silence, as if they couldn’t feel pain at all.

Lowering the curtain, Roy sighed quietly. Just from briefly assessing the situation, she knew these soldiers wouldn’t last much longer.

This ambush had clearly been planned for some time.

Just from glimpsing how the ambushers retreated into the night fog in an orderly and efficient manner after being shot, the Captain could determine they were well-trained assassins born for killing.

In the wilderness, with fog serving as natural cover, the threat of firearms was greatly diminished.

Additionally, with the limited number of soldiers, it was already difficult to cover one direction. To protect the carriage from these well-prepared assassins of unknown number who could launch surprise attacks from any direction at any time was simply wishful thinking.

“Regardless of these people’s identity and origin, they only have two objectives: either to capture the carriage or to kill all of us. So, Colonel, we should prepare to escape.”

Hearing the girl’s emotionless words and watching her pick up a sharp piece of broken wine bottle to begin cutting open the front of her slightly dusty wedding dress, the Colonel’s face twitched involuntarily, his tone becoming somewhat hysterical with fear.

“Escape? How? If they’re targeting us, leaving these soldiers now would just be rushing to our deaths!”

Roy’s movements paused slightly as she cast a cold glance at Berney: “Staying here is equally a dead end. While they’re still not paying attention to us, escaping on horseback might give us a slim chance.”

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“Besides, instead of shouting at me, you’d better find that key before all your subordinates are wiped out. Without these shackles, our survival probability would increase significantly.”

The Captain’s words were like a bucket of cold water poured over his head, instantly awakening this seemingly arrogant, meticulous nobleman who had actually never experienced bloodshed and darkness.

Hearing the second round of gunfire outside the carriage, Berney swallowed hard, nodded with difficulty to the girl, and then trembled as he went to open the carriage door.

Seeing this, Roy shook her head, completely tore the wedding dress, then casually tossed aside the glass shard. Just as she was about to remove the tulle skirt from her body, her peripheral vision suddenly caught a black shadow.

In the process of opening the carriage door, the Colonel’s shoulder accidentally brushed against the curtain. It was precisely because of this that the Captain was able to spot a black shadow flashing past the window through the gap exposed by the swaying curtain.

“Don’t open the door!”

Roy yanked the tulle skirt off her body, restoring her agile appearance, then unhesitatingly overturned the table and reached out to grab the young man.

But everything was already too late.

By the time the girl’s warning sounded and she made her move, the carriage door had already been pushed open.

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Berney instinctively looked back, but before his gaze could land on the girl, a gleaming silver knife had already pierced his chest.

“Thud.”

A muffled sound, and the Colonel’s pupils suddenly contracted. The silver knife had precisely pierced his heart, with its crimson blade protruding from his back.

“Oh…”

Watching the young man’s gradually dimming eyes, seeing the lingering terror and despair on that face she so despised, Roy raised both hands in front of her as if to prove her innocence, and softly exclaimed: “This wasn’t my intention, Colonel.”

As the blade left the Colonel’s body, warm blood splashed, spraying all over the carriage interior. He collapsed limply, finally falling at the Captain’s feet, his wide-open eyes expressing his disbelief. Until death, he never understood why he met such an end.

Hearing the sound of arrows penetrating bodies and screams of pain from behind, knowing that the battle on the other side of the carriage was also coming to an end, Roy, instead of rising up to fight and seek a breakthrough, slowly sat back down and squinted, examining the person before her.

The figure was heading straight for the carriage door, clearly targeting her. They must have made thorough preparations, so even if she killed the person in front of her, the hope of breaking through on horseback was very slim.

Besides this, there was another reason that led the girl to make this choice.

After killing Berney, instead of immediately attacking her, the person slowly put away the silver knife and raised their empty hands in front of them.

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This gesture was considered a code among pirates, representing surrender or indicating no ill intent.

Given the current situation, the person’s meaning was clearly the latter. And in Roy’s eyes, the person before her didn’t have any pirate aura, yet they displayed the most common friendly gesture from the Southern Islands, obviously something deliberately learned to reassure her.

Through all this, the Captain could determine that this ambush was aimed at her, but they had no intention of killing her. Everything else remained a mystery, and no matter how much she pondered, she couldn’t judge what stance these people represented.

That being the case, the best choice was naturally to wait quietly to avoid triggering any unfortunate misunderstandings.

Soon, all sounds outside the carriage disappeared. After another brief wait, dense yet hushed footsteps rapidly approached the carriage door.

Standing outside the door, the person whose face was shrouded in shadow reached out to the side, and after receiving something, ducked into the carriage.

Only when they were close enough did Roy, by the faint light from the kerosene lamp lying on the floor, clearly see the visitor’s appearance.

It was a middle-aged man with a beard, his face bearing a warm smile. His deep chestnut-colored hair suggested he likely came from the Federation.

Meeting Roy’s scrutinizing gaze, the man raised his right hand. On his ring finger, adorned with a diamond ring, a strangely shaped key was gently swaying.