Henry's biggest regret was not being able to collect the money bags from the other bandits' bodies, only gathering 27, nor could he continue to shoot them in public.
But fortunately, the three bandit leaders of the Younger Gang had their wallets enter Henry's space.
The three lingering bandits, with no one to rescue them, finally went to where they belonged.
After some thought, Henry walked towards the small hill seventy to eighty meters away and inspected the eight bandit corpses—which actually meant opening their money bags, taking all the money inside, and then tying the bag openings shut.
After finishing these tasks, Henry walked back and waited with the others for the train tracks to be repaired and for nearby police officers to arrive.
During this time, Henry noticed that the release beads were of very high quality this time, with 16 new green beads, 49 white beads, and 3 gray beads, but only one green bead had a flowing halo.
The release life progress bar reached 3rd level 23.23%.
Below the progress bar were 264 gray beads, 106 white beads, and 22 green beads.
There were also 169 empty gray bead shells, 180 empty white bead shells, and 8 empty green bead shells.
Now, the release beads collectively amounted to the energy of 1014 gray beads, enough to raise one skill to LV5.
Henry suppressed his excitement, intending to upgrade later when it was safe.
Almost all passengers from the four Pullman carriages handed Henry their business cards, but Henry had not yet printed his own, so he could only apologize while accepting theirs.
Most of these cards only had names, identities, and addresses printed on them; 5 of them also included the person's portrait.
Two hours later, a local Sheriff Walter, along with a police officer Sam, arrived with six members of the Security Maintenance Association.
Although they had already questioned the train guards who reported the incident, these people were still shocked by the sight of bodies strewn everywhere.
Walter told the others to check the bandits' bodies, then asked, "Which one is Henry?"
Henry and Carlson walked over together, and Henry said, "I am."
Before arriving, Carlson had learned some of Henry's deeds from intelligence within the police system, knowing what kind of person he was.
He politely asked, "Henry, did you kill all these people?"
"Yes, these bandits used military machine guns to strafe a guard carriage of the train, robbed the passengers in the Pullman carriages, and even attempted to kidnap gentlemen and ladies from over a dozen families like the Aster, Vanderbilt, and Senma. I intervened to stop them, and the bandits fired wildly at me, so I had no choice but to retaliate. This is my entrusted lawyer, Carlson," Henry explained one by one.
Walter got a headache hearing about military machine guns, a headache hearing so many family names, and an even bigger headache hearing there was a lawyer.
"Two bandit leaders escaped. They claimed to be the James Gang brothers, Jesse and Frank."
Henry, accompanied by Carlson, gave a statement to Walter for over ten minutes. Then, he and Sam took statements from the two dozen people who had been hit on the head by bandits or attempted to be kidnapped.
At this point, the Security Maintenance Association members also reported to him that these were bandits from the James Gang and the Younger Gang.
The facts were clear, and it involved many upper-middle-class individuals from the Pullman carriages, especially Consuelo, Cathy, Chris, and Mark, who were connected to immense wealth or ancient families. There were multiple reporters and lawyers present, and Bruce didn't dare to harbor any ulterior motives.
Especially after Walter initially understood what kind of person Henry was, he dared not entertain any further thoughts of making things difficult.
In the West, it was all too common for police officers or Security Maintenance Association members to be ambushed.
In any case, with so many horses, money bags, and firearms, Walter and his men were sure to make a small fortune.
Carlson had his assistants, Mike and Danny, stay behind to handle the follow-up matters, including the bounty portions for the bandits Henry killed.
Reporter Tom had already voluntarily tallied the bounties to be 9450 us dollars—the four Younger brothers alone accounted for 5000 us dollars, with another twelve bandits totaling 4450 us dollars.
Consuelo and others decided to handle the aftermath for the sacrificed guards upon reaching Chicago Train Station 12 hours later, as that was the Vanderbilt Family's home ground.
After these tasks were completed, the train tracks were finally repaired close to 9 AM.
Everyone reboarded the train, and it slowly started moving, continuing its journey towards Chicago.
After the train traveled 6 miles, it stopped at Marshalltown Station for five minutes. Tom disembarked alone to the telegraph office to send his news draft to the New York headquarters—to be published in today's evening paper.
He would take the next train to Chicago.
Additionally, Consuelo had a male servant stay behind to send a telegram to the Chicago branch of her family's company.
When the train restarted, David, the editor-in-chief of the Chicago Tribune, came to Henry's compartment and interviewed him for an hour.
It wasn't until the train stopped at another passing train station that David, satisfied, disembarked and returned to his compartment in another Pullman carriage.
Henry finally had some free time. He greeted Linda and Peter—he was going to rest for two hours—then pulled open the partitions on both sides and lay down on the bed.
Henry silently thought: Use the green bead with the halo.
Instantly, Henry was enveloped by a warm sensation that appeared out of nowhere. He found his innate sense of smell to be incredibly keen, able to distinguish multiple scents within a 50-100 meter range in detail.
Two minutes later, Henry awoke and discovered a new talent, "Super Sense of Smell LV1"—Smell ×10.
Henry received mental feedback from the progress bar—his sense of smell was ten times that of an ordinary person, could be actively switched on and off mentally, with the default state being on, and required 400 gray bead energy to advance to LV2.
At this moment, Henry could smell the fresh scent of grass outside the train, the fragrance of various wildflowers, the odor of decaying animals and plants, the strong smell of blood from the adjacent guard carriage, the body odors of the people in this carriage, perfume, the smell of food, and so on.
This gave Henry a clear and transparent feeling, like suddenly pulling his head completely out of the water from beneath a swimming pool, with a sense of "only today do I truly know myself."
Westerners naturally have a relatively strong body odor, and the super sense of smell made Henry a bit uncomfortable, but he forced himself to gradually adapt to this sensation.
He would only temporarily close this talent if the smell became particularly unbearable.
When needed in the future, Henry would raise both his Detective and Tracking and Anti-Tracking skills to LV4. Combined with this super sense of smell, he would be greatly enhanced in reconnaissance and tracking.
Next, Henry focused his mind, keeping only 1 white bead and 9 gray beads, and used all other release beads' energy to upgrade Rifle Shooting to LV5.
Henry was instantly enveloped by a warm sensation that appeared out of nowhere, and a vast amount of techniques and experience in using various rifles surged into the depths of his mind.
A minute later, Henry awoke, feeling that his rifle shooting had reached the legendary realm of "divine and enlightened, residing in one's heart."
No matter the situation, Henry could quickly grasp the characteristics of a rifle, and swiftly and accurately deliver a fatal shot with the most suitable posture and angle.
Not only did his reaction speed greatly increase, but Henry even felt that the rifle had become an extension of his own limbs, making it almost possible to hit the target every time within the rifle's effective range.
This included sniping from distances over 1000 meters.
When shooting at long distances, the bullet's trajectory is an arc due to gravity, so the shooter must raise the muzzle according to the distance.
How much to raise it depends entirely on the shooter's mastery and experience. Besides gravity, wind speed must also be considered, and even the Earth's rotation.
When the enemy is moving, one must also predict their actions, as the bullet might take several seconds to reach its target due to the long distance.
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