Chapter. 18. Railed (20)
****
Kang!
Kaang!
What looks like an ax pitchfork tied to a rope gets caught on a train that is starting to speed up and shouts,
“Stick!” Hold on even if you die!!! “They started shooting from the walls!”
“Take it off! If you delay here, you will be exposed to artillery fire! “Kill them all!!!”
A wet and sticky sound was mixed in between the explosions of the arcane shooter, which felt like the air was exploding.
Quad deuk!
I rushed at it clumsily and was torn apart between the heavy wheels.
Paang!
A bloodshot eyeball exploding from a single magic bullet.
Quaaaang!
It explodes and burns down under the shelling of the fortress city, turning into a handful of meat.
The machine, thickened by human growth, let out a heavy groan as the number of casualties passed by two in an instant.
“The ‘obstacle’ Naelda was talking about… was this?”
“okay. “Are you shocked?”
no. No way. This sight was familiar enough to make me sick of it.
The reason I was confused was why they rushed to me so desperately.
‘Brainwashing? no. Those are… eyes that rush at me of their own will.’
Desperation. The desperation of soldiers rushing towards the hill where the machine gun battery was located implied that the ‘last pillar’ that held them in this harsh world was something beyond life.
The answer is a house that passes by among the people passing by. There was a shadow flickering by the window.
‘….Credentials. ‘It’s about moving people as a reward for their contribution.’
[You can get in this time!]
[It even set off the city’s alarm bells!]
These were the words screamed by the now-dead man as he ran into the train.
It goes without saying, but the places where people can live in a fortress city are limited, and those who cannot occupy a place are left out in the dangerous, dry land.
The only place they can live is the land around the railway line, which was built for the railway as part of the city’s long-cherished project. They are building houses and making a living on land that is only about four or five steps on either side of the railroad tracks.
It’s like living in a place full of man-eating sharks right behind your house, but you can even see that the sharks are monsters that have a clear purpose, hate humans, and can jump as close as 2 meters out of the water.
[You can go in this time!]
The man’s single scream was not directed at him. These words are probably directed at his house, which was built on the edge of a cliff without a cliff. Desperate hope for someone left behind in a shack.
“If I die so meaninglessly… will the city even notice?”
Clap!
Bang!
“Don’t ‘pretend’ that you understand. When a crisis occurs in the fortress city. “Of those who rushed in like this, we will pick out the houses of a few of the dead ones and hand over the citizenship of the fortress city to the remaining family members.”
“Pull it out…stand?”
“okay. When the scribe pulls out a list, I just roughly pick out a few names that I can reach. It’s gambling. It’s gambling. The stake is your life, the reward is the lives of the rest of your family. Even though Seonro Village is built on artificially reinforced terrain, if you walk around with your heels on, you can see tunnel bugs jumping like salmon on the outskirts of Seonro Village within five steps. “Most people who live there die.”
Teuong!
“Uuwaaaaa!!!”
Tsk tsk!
“So, as you can see. Even if there is no food at home, everyone has at least a handful of hallucinogenic mushrooms and is waiting for the city’s alarm bell to ring. “I want to escape as quickly as possible from a place where the sound of footsteps causes a child to crawl until he or she is five or ten years old, and then dies before long.”
Paaang!
“That… is miserable.”
I muttered as I shot the forearm that had just broken through the guest room window. The train was shaking violently, as if it had been hit directly by the fortress city’s magic cannon, and one side of the ceiling was dented.
Quang!
“Oh my gosh, some idiot shot the wrong train.”
“Are you shooting wrong?”
“okay. In the context of what we were talking about earlier, will the city guys be targeting us or will they be targeting other guys? “You shot so many times, but now you’ve barely landed one direct hit.”
“ah.”
“Oh, don’t stick your head out, you’ll get cut off. Wouldn’t it be obvious even without looking at it? “The railroad village we passed through must have been completely devastated by the bombing of the fortress city by now?”
The fortress city is saturated. Having people gain new citizenship and positions in such a city was the same as having someone lose their position.
The reason the city’s bombardment did not target the train was not because of envy toward the engineer or the magic train. He just wanted to kill as many of the remaining people of Seonro Village as possible to protect his position.
Things that were invisible when I was a member of the city began to become clearly visible as soon as I took a step outside the city.
Extremely survivalist, selfish, and desperate. The citizens of the city live a life filled with labor and pain, and the people who throw away their lives like stubble to achieve that slave-like life.
Puuuuuu-!
“sister! “The engine is all hot!”
Taaaang!
“I’m craving grass. “I’m finally getting out of this damn city.”
Hearing Naelda’s words, stoker Gary pulled the lever. With a clanking sound, the magic engine latched onto the engine and the train began to accelerate in an instant.
widely!
Ttuduk!
“Aaaah-!”
“Aaaah-”
The last intruder on the rail ship disappeared as Volteus, covered in blood, cut the ropes of people hanging like kites.
“…I got out.”
“There’s nowhere to sit. Shit.”
dump. dump!
The train drivers begin to sit down one by one, looking more exhausted in mind than in body.
The sight of the magic train running, leaving a long trail of soaked blood, seemed to tell the story of the future fate of the rail ship.
Crackling- Crackling!
[It’s long. The master’s role has become a little more important than expected… The catalyst is still in Volteus’ bedroom, right? Are you in a state to carry out your plan at night?]
“…Yes. There is no problem here. “No problem.”
I finally cleared my throat and spoke as the soul mage’s voice permeated through my tired breathing.
So, from April World’s perspective. There is nothing wrong with what happened today.
I had to accept it that way.
“Can you please explain to me what the hell is going on? young master? How did this happen?…”
Not only me, but also Katrea, who unintentionally turned from their livestock into a wild animal.
****
Rattling rattling. Rattling rattling.
The train that departed in the morning was already heading toward the evening sunset.
The train, with only the bloodstains barely wiped off, still smells of blood, and Katrea succeeds in making food fit for human consumption despite the train’s poor facilities and only dried mushroom lard for preservation.
I’ve been wondering why people are only eating these mushrooms so much, but it turns out that farming is not possible in April World due to the rocky terrain and limited living range. Fortunately, the dwarf special ‘oyster mushroom’, which is a nutritious all-purpose food and can grow up to almost 2 meters, could be grown with just a little moisture and organic matter, and thanks to this, mankind’s staple food shifted from grain to mushroom.
Thanks to that, the only food on board the rail ship is dried mushrooms, non-dried mushrooms, mushroom powder, mushroom tea, pork that grows well even when fed only with mushrooms, pork fat, pork skin, and mineral seasonings such as rock salt. If it weren’t for Katrea, who is good at cooking, I would have been chewing dried mushrooms for months.
Rattling rattling. Rattling rattling.
“So, the Tarigden Islands….”
“…. You might be a little shocked, but that’s the truth and the reason we’re being chased…”
A few blocks over, Naelda tells Katrea the truth about the Tarigden Islands and us. A voice was heard explaining the situation.
“What are you thinking like that?”
“….just. “Just this morning, I massacred over a hundred civilians whose faces I don’t know, and now I’m worried about making a living… I wonder if I can return to my daily life so easily.”
As the rail ship returned to normal, I was doing push-ups in front of Volteus, who was drinking tea at the end of the cabin.
Chizzijik-
[….Theus crackle- Catalyst sleep is still in- crackle!]
“Not yet…. Lord Voltheus is on watch duty! “It will take some time until you are defenselessly exposed to the catalyst!!!”
dump!
“Huh oh oh oh oh! “I did all five sets!”
“Good job. I think I just received another communication from the soul mage. “Is it okay to give a rough answer like that?”
“Hey, the signal over there is shit anyway, so you can just cut it off! “Huh!”
“but. Originally, the magic train was an environment where magic could not reach. There are a lot of magic circuits using magic stones all over the place. “If it goes on for about a day, long-distance magic communication will not be possible at all.”
Just as he had promised, Volteus was punishing me very harshly, saying he would train me. I clicked my tongue at the evil spirit of handing hot tea to a boy lying down exhausted, and carefully lifted the teacup. Oh, it’s hot.
“Communication is cut off… So there is a possibility that Brastol will give up on my plan?”
“I don’t know. Spiritual arts is especially unique among magic and has a wide range of branches, so you never know where or what kind of tricks you will perform. Even if it is the same technique, the way it is used is very different. “For now, I can only consider myself fortunate that there is no pursuer and I can only focus on that.”
“Umm….”
‘Another way. ‘It’s a different way…’
It was definitely hard to think that Brastol had risked everything on a nine-year-old who suddenly intervened. Before I intervened, there must have been some preparation in place for the original plan to attack the rail ship.
‘It would have been great if they had just planned to take the losses and attack by loading a train full of drivers. If that was the case, everything would have been resolved by cutting the line.’
I briefly imagined happiness, but considering the number of soul magicians gathered in the basement of Brastolga, I thought it would be better to give up such hopes.
Soul liquor. It’s soul art…
“Lord Voltaeus. Are there a lot of soul magicians?”
“…Well. “It depends on what you’re basing it on.”
“What if I catch it as a normal wizard?”
“There are enough. “It may be three or even four times that of the most numerous Earth Wizard.”
“….why?”
In Aldrich’s past story, I was able to hear in detail how a soul mage is created.
When a tragedy occurs and the soul is split, a magician with spiritual talent makes a contract with an evil spirit and fills the split soul with an evil spirit, creating a spiritual symbiote called a soul magician.
Is it a tragedy? Let’s say the world is full of tragedies. Since there are so many dead people, how can anyone understand why there are so many people who see ghosts? But where and how did they get the evil spirits? Where can you easily find a soul that is broken enough to burrow into a person’s broken soul?
… ‘….Hmm?’
“Uh… do soul magicians… use shards?”
“You found the answer on your own without me having to tell you. Spiritualists are made of spiritual talents and tragic evil spirits. After the Dragon Vein Twisting, children with spiritual talents began to be born in great numbers. As the cause was a tragedy, most of them had a huge gap in their souls. And if there are souls that are extremely evil, I have several of them now.”
Oh my god. Is that why so many soul magicians were created?
“If you were to choose the discipline that has developed the most since the world became like this, everyone would pick soul arts first. Shard Knight is also one of the branches that developed in the research of soul magicians, so it is true that its remarkable progress cannot be ignored. Incidentally, the spirit mage school is one of the largest forces on this fragmented continent. “If they were determined and took action, it would still be too early to feel at ease.”
“So you’re alone in this far-away guest room? “Are you afraid that I might fall victim to a trick other than the catalyst I brought?”
“….”
Slurp-
“I’ve told you this many times, if I go crazy here, we’ll all die.”
“Then what about me? “What about me?”
“There should be at least one person next to you.”
Voltaeus said so and looked at the pistol sticking out of my inner pocket. This is the item Naelda threw when she killed the person earlier.
“I hope you don’t hesitate to write it when the time comes.”
“I will shoot you even if you don’t ask me to. “I don’t want to die.”
“Even if you don’t ask, it’s your duty. “You are my squire.”
Rattling rattling. Rattling rattling.
Amidst the regular noise of the train, I could vaguely hear different women’s voices gradually becoming sharper.
“It looks like they’re fighting?”
“That’s usually what happens when Naelda and someone she meets for the first time are together.”
“Can I not go?”
“Stay here. “If you go, things only get bigger.”
Amid the clamoring, Volteus calmly reached into his arms and took out a leather map.
“Naelda plans to live and die like this, but I think there is still hope for the rail ship.”
“Ohh.”
“Our current destination is also part of the process of chasing that hope.”
“Hope… where are you going?”
“Relay station.”
widely.
Voltaeus pointed his finger at a point on the map. A small green dot among the black dotted lines.
“If you follow the track you are currently on, you will come to an area that Straug and Brastol are jointly developing. “There are quite a few Brastol troops dispatched there, so it’s best not to go that route unless you plan to clash head-on.”
“Luckily there is a station where you can transfer to another track before you get there. It serves as a stopover for trains, and is built to act as a relay station for magical communications and retransmit them when long-distance communications, like you and the soul mage, become unusable. “It is a kind of small outpost built on rocky terrain that is not large enough for a city.”
Um… a stopover. It’s an outpost…
“So it wasn’t a facility built by a noble family after all? “I don’t think it’s any different from the development area where the dungeon was conquered.”
“You can trust this place. A person we know well is working here as the station manager. “This place is managed by the railship engineer whom I mentioned earlier, who gave me a generous severance pay before retiring.”
“oh.”
Voltaeus said with a very faint smile.
“You can rest a little here. “Because Bedar is a trustworthy guy.”
“…I hope so.”
There are only so many ways the train can travel anyway, so for now I have no choice but to trust it.
“I guess so. Let’s go to sleep now. “If you don’t want to fall asleep during the wake-up call, you’d better fall asleep quickly.”
Rattling rattling. Rattling rattling.
Just like that, the sun was setting and the drivers, except the stokers and watchmen, were ending their tiring day with heavy eyelids.
Me, Naelda, and Katrea, who had come by before we knew it, each of us leaned back on a chair and a small blanket in the room and closed our eyes.
….sweet.
It was too tiring a night for everyone to even hear the sound of small pieces clicking.
****
