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Several porters, who hadn't had enough to eat, were busy between the train and the station on their way to the neighboring country. They not only had to move parts out of the carriages, but also sort the finished semi-finished products into boxes and throw the unfinished ones into the abandoned furnace at the locomotive to burn as firewood.

These porters were a group of pirates in disguise, but they were relatively thin pirates who wouldn't raise their fists to fight back just because they were being scolded.

The train conductor was an experienced jailer, or at least he used to be. He could tell the difference between outsiders and locals at a glance, because locals would almost never come to the mine in the rain or ride in mine cars without leather cushions.

Upon seeing the bard and his entourage, the train conductor, speaking with a heavy local accent, asked, "How come I've never seen you before?"

The pirate who had been captured earlier hurriedly came out to explain that he was going to see the mine owner.

The train conductor waved his hand, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

At that moment, the captured pirate pulled out a coin slightly larger than a gear from his pocket. The train conductor glanced at it and immediately said in a conciliatory tone, "Oh, so you're one of us?"

He took out the same coin, checked it, and realized it was a pirate's pass.

After boarding, the train travels eastward, with abandoned buildings and terrifying gear-like machines visible everywhere.

According to the pirates, the train they were on was number 225, a retired mining car. In the past, hundreds of trains would run on different tracks every day in the Steam Nation. 225 was a relatively late production number, mainly responsible for transporting processed products.

The pirates also said that the energy used to drive the train came from discarded gears. Just a few unfinished gears could keep the train running all day, but the same number of gears could only keep an airship running for an hour.

Besides vehicles and production machinery, steam-powered nations also used gears in weapons and lighting, and even in everyday household cooking, entertainment, and security.

Whoever controls the heart of the gears will dominate the future of the world.

"So, that's why your captain wanted to steal it?" Billis asked.

The captured pirate licked his dry tongue and said, “Sir, most pirates don’t have the guts to get involved in that. Before we became pirates, we were dockworkers or porters. We only joined the pirates after losing our jobs. No one would betray a steam-powered nation for money.”

"Including your captain too?"

“Sir, I really don’t know. He wasn’t like this before, ever since he met the Viscount.”

Could you describe this viscount in detail?

"The captain doesn't want anyone to see him when he's meeting with the Viscount; that's his usual practice."

The train entered an ivory-shaped tunnel, turning left and right. Sparks flew from the narrow rock walls scraping against the side panels, but this was a mine cart, not a traditional means of transportation, and accidents wouldn't happen due to strange friction.

A minute later, fifteen circular tracks built halfway up the mountain suddenly appeared, which were responsible for different processes, from ore mining to gear production, and then to finished product processing and packaging.

The abandoned marionettes are suspended in mid-air by sturdy telescopic ropes, with each of their six legs holding a piece of ore transported from the mine. They will then be assigned to the smoke-filled gear workshop for processing.

Although it is a mine, most of the rocks are covered with slippery lichen or moss, and lush flowers and plants grow at every bend of the stone steps. Even if they are burned or uprooted, they will grow back the next day.

The train conductor brought the train to a stop and warned the passengers not to step on the plants that looked beautiful and kept glowing before they got off.

"There is no sunlight in the mine, but the plants there are more resilient than the wild grasses under the sun outside. It's as if they have absorbed endless nutrients from the ground. Even if the whole mountain is burned down, you can still hear the plants crawling out of the cracks in the soil at night."

"Is this also related to the Heart of the Gear?" Billis asked.

"That's for sure, and most people in this country would say the same thing as me: the Heart of the Gear is the most magical creation in the world; it gives life to all things."

Several dusty miners passed by, their hands and legs covered in the color of seaweed washed ashore.

Billis then asked, "Are all these people here to mine?"

"Most of them are gold miners who lost their jobs, sir. The color on their arms must be from being immersed in the mines for a long time. Poor people."

"At least, they didn't steal or rob like pirates."

After hearing these words, the captured pirate lowered his head.

The mine entrance was cold. A man who looked like a foreman was guarding the entrance. The captured pirates chatted with him animatedly for a while before letting the group of people in.

They kept walking forward, and after an unknown amount of time, suddenly a mining machine appeared, even more ferocious than raging flames. It looked like a weapon stuck deep in the dark and sunless earth.

A few steps further in, you'll see a huge, vertically upward-facing opening. The cascading sunlight illuminates an underground fortress. On a rooftop even more spacious than the opening, two pirate ships are moored, just wide enough to pass through the opening when they take off.

It was undoubtedly the stronghold of the Sky Pirates.

Four lazy pirates stood guard at the door, two were drunk and asleep with their backs to the door, and two were telling vulgar jokes.

Billy strode over and slammed the two joking heads together, while at the same time, a string of curses erupted from inside the fortress.

"They promised 30 million gear coins, but only gave us 5 million!"

Then came the sounds of tables being overturned and bottles being smashed from inside, which frightened the captured pirates so much that they dared not go in.

The tall and imposing Billy pushed open the door and saw the pirate captain smashing nails on the wall with a broken, empty wine bottle.

The walls were covered with various bounty lists. Every time a pirate stole something, he would mark it with an X. On the list with the X in the very center, there was a drawing of a blonde girl.

"Hi, we meet again."

The pirate captain cursed, "Damn it!" and dozens of pirates grabbed all sorts of weapons and rushed in, their shouts and screams filling the fortress.

To deal with these paper-thin figures, Billis raised his towering knee, swept it counter-clockwise, then clockwise, kicking some of them more than ten meters away, instantly reducing the number of pirates by half.

The pirate captain realized that he had no chance of defeating this guy and tried to escape, but the back of his neck was firmly grabbed and he was thrown to the ground.

Upon seeing Billys, the captain glared with fear and exclaimed powerfully, "Whoever can kill him, I will hand over the title of captain to him!"

But the fortress was quiet; the captain's men had long since vanished.

"Oh, someone save me! Please save me!" The pirate captain was in tears, his face contorted with convulsions. "He wants to kill me! Help! Help!"

Still no one answered.

The pirate captain suddenly grabbed Billy's clothes, forcing himself to stand up: "Come on, hurry up and do it! What are you waiting for?"

Billy loosened his grip, and the limp, paper-thin captain collapsed again.

"I'm just here to ask you a few questions. Why did you become a pirate?"

As if grasping at a straw, the pirate captain immediately confessed: "I used to have a respectable job working in an arms manufacturing factory south of Bolit. But one day, the Viscount suddenly ordered the closure of all the arms factories in Bolit, claiming that this was an era without guns. All my suffering began from that time. My wife and children all looked down on me and left me. My friends also looked down on me, thinking that I was not as strong as them. So I became a pirate captain."

"Who is supporting you behind the scenes?"

"Viscount! He provided all the weapons and equipment!"

"Was stealing the Heart of the Gear also his bad idea?"

The pirate captain, seemingly slow to react, paused for a moment before asking, "How did you know?"

"There's nothing I can't investigate."

“Oh! But what I’m trying to say is that this wasn’t the Viscount’s idea.”

"Whose idea was that?"

“A favorite of a viscount promised me that I would receive a reward of thirty million if I handed over the Heart of the Gear.”

Where can I find this person?

"He often appears at noble mansions, viscount concerts, and wherever nobles gather. But I must advise you, you are no match for him."

"Why?"

“We’ve fought him before. He’s very similar to you in both size and strength, because you both come from the same world. I can tell that.”