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((The belated Monday Triple catch-up: page 3 of 3))
The Rainlords were dispersed at both the front and back of the train, while the Hun’Kui militiamen and hunters shared the middle.

However, Hector was quite surprised to find a small group of non-Hun’Kui among the hunters. At first, he’d thought they were Rainlords due to the climate suits they were wearing, but then he realized that the suits themselves were not identical, being slightly off-color and bulkier.

‘Who the hell are they?’ said Hector.

‘Oh, those must be the guys from Boland,’ said Garovel. ‘I heard Diego talking about them a couple days ago.’

‘They’re really from the surface?’

‘Yup.’

‘What are they doing down here?’

‘Hunting for treasure, what else? Though, from the way Diego talked about them, it sounded like they cared more about adventure than they did about money.’

Hector shook his head with disbelief. ‘What a bunch of lunatics...’

‘Hey, we’re on this train, too.’

‘Yeah, but... I mean, holy shit.’

They numbered only four, but at the very least, they did look prepared. He had never seen anyone carrying so many guns. Each man must have had six or seven different pieces of varying sizes, some of which were definitely ardor-fueled.

The subject of the ardor weapons had come up a number of times during negotiations between the Rainlords and the locals, and Hector knew that several of the Rainlords had been studying the weapons that they had confiscated very closely. In terms of design, the firearms themselves were not overly complex or otherwise difficult for the Rainlords to understand, but they had no idea how to get their hands on more ammunition--a problem with which the militia and government had agreed to assist.

Now, most of the Rainlords were carrying at least one ardor weapon of their own.