Hell Train [7]
Four billion won!
At that astronomical figure, the passengers' eyes rolled back in their heads.
"I want to live! I'm gonna live! I WILL live, so let me enter the lottery, please!"
"Suicidal urges!? There's no such damn thing, so let me buy a ticket right now!"
"If first prize is two billion won, then what's the other two!? How much are second and third place!?"
Ah, what a magnificent display of the will to live. Long live capitalism—hurrah, hurrah, hurray!
"No, shit, hold on! I want to live! I want to live too! But the train's about to reach the terminus, isn't it!?"
A collective pall spread across the passengers' faces at that skin-crawling announcement.
"No!"
"My two billion!"
"Why is it YOUR two billion!?"
But they weren't afraid of the announcement itself—they were furious at the thought that they might not get to enter Cosmos's special lottery with its four-billion-won prize pool.
"Please don't worry about that part. The preparations are already complete. All you need to do is burn with the will to live in real time."
In truth, thanks to Cosmos moving faster than anyone could have imagined, everything had been ready for quite some time.
"What a wicked creature. Deliberately waiting until we arrived at Gonghwa, the end of the line."
"Fey, if you put it that way, you make me sound like a bad guy."
Fey, her body woven from Han River water, crossed her arms and stood beside me.
Needless to say, there was a reason I had deliberately waited for Gonghwa Station—or rather, Hapjeong Station.
It was to buy preparation time. Not merely to save the passengers, but to properly exorcise the Suicide Train itself.
Fortunately, I had managed to make it just under the wire.
"Master Kim."
Hwang Young-gyu's voice came through the in-ear radio.
"Are the preparations complete?"
"Yes. The lockdown of Hapjeong Station is complete. The concourse and platforms, and the line itself are all under control."
Hapjeong was the busiest station on Line 6, practically the beating heart of Mapo District's transit. Locking down a station like that in such a short window...
Factor in the negotiations with the government and the rest of the red tape, and it was a staggering display of operational muscle.
So this is why everyone keeps going on and on about Cosmos.
The world's number one corporation really was a different breed.
"But... will this really work?"
"It will."
I had confirmed it firsthand when I got off at Dongjak Station. And the station corresponding to Gonghwa—a place name no longer in use—was Hapjeong.
Terminus or afterlife or whatever, the train had to actually arrive at a station for any of it to mean anything.
But Hapjeong was sealed. As long as the Suicide Train's stations mapped onto reality, reaching its terminus was simply impossible.
"So where do you think the Suicide Train will go?"
"Hmm... I honestly couldn't say."
"It's simple."
Tap.
I looked down at the surface of the Han River I was treading with the Water-Walking Art.
"Noh Seonpyo modeled his route on a Joseon-era Han River ferry dock. So it'll come to a wharf—the way it always has."
That was why I'd asked Cosmos to moor a whole fleet of boats nearby.
What is a ferry dock, really? Where enough boats gather, that's a dock.
Which meant—
"...You're saying the Suicide Train is going to rise up out of the Han River!?"
"Precisely—we're going to make it. That's why I told you to bring that gentleman along."
"What could she possibly have to do with this operation...?"
"Ah, here they come now."
Vrrrooooooooom
A boat carrying the guest we had specially invited for this operation drew near.
"It's been a while, Ms. Shin Han-hee."
"M-Master Kim, what is all this... no, more importantly, is this even allowed!? Even if the Paranormal Administration Bureau isn't what it once was...!"
"Shh—sorry, but there's no time to chat. You've been briefed on the situation, I trust?"
"Yes, yes! But why did you call me of all people... it feels strange to say this, but will I truly be of any help?"
Not her.
To be precise, the one I had summoned was—
"Gyeonggang Jeokryong. I trust you understand why you were called."
Ssssssssss...
At my summons, the red serpent coiled around Shin Han-hee's shoulder lifted its head.
Gyeonggang Jeokryong—the Red Dragon of the Han River—was a dragon deity of the river, worshipped since time immemorial by the Gyeonggang merchants, the traders who had plied their trade along the Han in the Joseon era.
And at the same time—
"You're the one who's been guiding the people who reclaimed their will to live from the Suicide Train, aren't you?"
Ssssssssss...
The red serpent nodded its head.
Yes—the red snake that had been shepherding those who found hope aboard the Suicide Train had been Gyeonggang Jeokryong all along.
And now, with the Red Dragon added to the makeshift wharf, the station for those who reclaimed their will to live—as defined by the Suicide Train's own narrative—was complete.
The ferry dock and the Red Dragon. That was the one-two punch I had prepared to bend the Suicide Train's story out of shape.
And finally—
Vrrrooooooooooom
"Oh, you actually made it on time?"
"Oh for fuck's sake! You're genuinely insane, you know that!?"
Choi Eun-ha arrived on the second boat and opened with a curse.
"Hey, watch the language. Cursing the second we meet?"
"What did you expect!? No—seriously, is it right to hand something with countless lives riding on it to someone who learned alchemy TODAY!?"
"So? Did it work?"
"Ugh, you piece of—!"
Fweeee!
Eun-ha hurled a fist-sized bottle at my head.
Pop.
"Nice pitch."
"Aargh, I swear—!"
Ignoring her fuming, I popped the bottle open. Inside was a silver powder.
A product of the alchemy recorded in Paracelsus's Alchemy Workshop.
"A neutralizing agent for peeling away the boundary of reality and stepping into the domain of mystery."
Like the magic powder from Harry Potter, it was dust used to dissolve the wall of the real world and open a road into a space of mystery. And the "space of mystery" in question meant, of course, the Inner Space.
In other words, this powder could tear open the boundary of an Inner Space.
Granted, the stronger the anomaly, the thicker and sturdier that boundary—and a high-grade one would shrug it off entirely—but—
"I've kneaded the narrative nice and pliable, so that part won't be an issue. Good work, Eun-ha."
"...You think a little praise is going to make me drop it?"
"What? Wasn't that exactly the right amount of pressure? Thanks to you, I pulled off alchemy several stages beyond the Sun Stone."
"I swear, I can't even bring myself to hate you when you talk like that..."
"A mouth that never rests is part of my charm."
I scattered Eun-ha's special Fairy Powder across the Han River.
At once, the water blackened outward from where the powder fell.
It was the phenomenon that occurs when the boundary of reality begins to blur.
With this, the full combo—one-two and the finishing straight—was assembled for twisting the Suicide Train's narrative.
By sealing Hapjeong Station and creating the wharf, I had built a replacement terminus in reality. To anchor it more firmly, I had summoned Gyeonggang Jeokryong, who existed within the anomaly's own story, and stationed him there. And last of all, I'd sprinkled Fairy Powder so the Suicide Train could surface with ease.
"I've laid out the stage this far, so read the room and come on out."
Then—
Bubbling, bubbling, bubbling, bubbling—
The blackened surface of the Han River began to boil like a kettle.
And immediately after—
SHWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
A subway burst up through the black water.
"KYAAAAAAAACGH!?"
"What the hell is that!?"
"A subway!? Why is a subway suddenly—!?"
Letting the horrified onlookers' cries wash past one ear, I glared at the Suicide Train as it rocketed up out of the river like a missile.
And in that instant—
FAAAAAAAASH!
The Suicide Train deployed its Inner Space once more.
It meant to swallow the makeshift wharf—its new terminus—into that Inner Space whole, and force its narrative to completion by brute means.
"Not a chance!"
FWOARARARARARARAR!
I perceived the plane of the Inner Space the Suicide Train had deployed and sent do-ryeok flooding out.
In that instant, the Inner Space that had tried to swallow reality a second time crumbled into ash.
A new technique I'd picked up in the course of the Lostco incident. It was far from omnipotent, of course.
The only reason I'd been able to perceive and burn Lostco's Inner Space, conditions met or not, was that the Count of St. Germain had arbitrarily refused me entry. The principle here was the same.
The Suicide Train, repelled from its own Inner Space by the new narrative I had written, had been forced to open a hasty replacement. A slapdash Inner Space like that, I could burn all day long.
The Suicide Train, having failed to write its Inner Space, shrieked.
And then—
Writhing, writhing, writhing—
"Ugh...!"
"What is that thing!?"
It revealed its true form.
A grotesque train stitched together from waterlogged human flesh shrieked through swollen faces so bloated that their features were beyond recognition, their bodies distorted just the same.
This was the Suicide Train's true identity.
Nothing more, nothing less than a mass of defiled emotion—born the moment the image of the Han River as the city's great suicide spot swallowed up the grudges of those who had died there.
There were no souls of the dead inside it.
Only a monstrosity cobbled together from the negative images people attached to the Han River, Korea's most infamous place to die.
Ssssssssssssss!
"R-Red Dragon!?"
Then Gyeonggang Jeokryong launched itself from Shin Han-hee's shoulder.
In the space of a breath it swelled into a colossal dragon and coiled itself around the Suicide Train's body.
Ssssssssssssssssssss!
The Red Dragon bared its fangs. Its eyes seemed to say: I can't hold this thing down for long. You DO have a plan, don't you, whelp? Get to it!
"Glad I called you after all."
I'd assumed it would be enough for the dragon to play the totem its narrative demanded—but it seemed capable of more.
"A Hero of the Crimson Bow, of Ten White Arrows!"
I chanted the spell aloud, wove the seal with my hands, and refined do-ryeok through my body all at once.
What an unbearably gauche triple-channel technique! No wonder this school of sorcery never went mainstream!
"O Divine Arrow that Shot Down Nine Suns—Cleave the Heavens, Annihilate the Calamity!"
⟨ Houyi Shoots the Sun ⟩
But then again—what else would you call a water god that feeds on human sacrifice, if not something to be slain?
And for slaying such a god, nothing in the world beats Houyi Shoots the Sun.
I drew the string of the crimson longbow I had brought back from Yeoin Island.
FWOAAAAAAH!
A bow of light took shape along the string.
A modest glow, compared to the shot that had slain the fake Dragon King on Yeoin Island.
Still a long road to the Express grade, I suppose.
But for dispatching the Suicide Train, this was more than enough.
Then, astonishingly, the Suicide Train began to beg for its life.
In other words, it was protesting: I only ever carried humans who wanted to die, so why is this happening to me!?
Hard to say. Leaving aside the people who got swept up in it without any wish to die—
"Everyone, at some point in their life, reaches a moment where they think they want to die. But emotion and action are two separate things."
Thinking about dying didn't have to end in so I will die.
Thoughts of death were, in the end, nothing more than a byproduct of real-world suffering. What people who thought about dying actually wanted, in truth, was to overcome the pain that was grinding them down and stand back up on their own two feet.
Of course, some would fail to overcome that pain and suffering, and break in the end. But—
"A monster like you has no right to mock that. No right to sneer at it and shove people over the edge for sport."
PEEEEEEENG!
The arrow of light left the crimson bow and punched clean through the Suicide Train.
The Suicide Train, skewered through by Houyi Shoots the Sun, collapsed with one final death rattle.
And then—
"KYAAAAAAAH!"
"Wh-what is it!?"
"WAAAAAAAH!"
"My two billion!!"
The passengers who had been riding the Suicide Train plummeted into the Han River.
"Now!"
At my shout, Cosmos's search-and-rescue team, standing by in advance, dove into the river.
Meanwhile, Wang Lingguan and another of Fey's avatars seized Yoon Soo-ah and leapt down after them.
Grrrrrrrowl!
Wang Lingguan tossed Yoon Soo-ah up to me and plunged in after the others.
"My, what a diligent guardian deity."
I caught Yoon Soo-ah in my arms and checked her over.
"Mmm..."
Just then, she opened her eyes.
"Hnnnngh—!"
And then began thrashing like a woman possessed.
"What the—!?"
Her body twisted in on itself, and human-faced boils began sprouting from her skin.
I remembered those swollen, bursting faces. That was exactly how the bloated passengers clinging to the Suicide Train had looked.
So THIS is what "contamination" meant!?
Human beings could turn into anomalies.
It had happened at Seonhwa High, and again on Yeoin Island. And now the same thing was happening to Yoon Soo-ah.
"Damn it!"
Every person who had turned into an anomaly so far had died. The reasons had differed—at Seonhwa High, at Yeoin Island—but the ending was always the same. No exceptions.
As I racked my brain for some way to save her and tried to buy time with the Ksitigarbha Ten Wheels Sutra—
"What!?"
Golden light began pouring from my chest.
Or, to be precise—
The Philosopher's Stone!
The stone I'd received from the Chairman and had been carrying around with no idea what to do with it had finally started to react.
Golden energy welling up from the Philosopher's Stone seeped into Yoon Soo-ah's body.
And in that moment, I knew it instinctively: I could not let this moment slip away.
I took Yoon Soo-ah's pulse-gate and sent do-ryeok flowing in, fused that energy with the light of the Philosopher's Stone, and drove it all straight into her body.
Writhing, writhing—
The human-faced boils rising on her skin sank back down, and the twisting stopped.
The fusion of do-ryeok and the Philosopher's Stone's power had rolled Yoon Soo-ah—midway through being rewritten into an anomaly—back into a human being.
"...Did it work?"
"Mmm..."
Faster than I could finish the sentence, her eyes fluttered open.
And to my eyes, at least, she was no anomaly.
"I told you to take better care of yourself..."
"Where am I...? No—more importantly, where are all the other passengers—!?"
"Don't worry. It's all over."
Letting out a long breath of relief, I explained everything that had happened.
"...Thank goodness."
Yoon Soo-ah smiled a gratified little smile.
And that smile made my irritation spike.
"Thank goodness my ass. This whole thing blew up because of YOU, Yoon Soo-ah, and you're standing there saying 'thank goodness'?"
"...I'm sorry, what?"
"You're the one who summoned the Suicide Train."
"Wh-what on earth are you talking about!?"
The med student—the most likely suspect among the passengers—had just been bait.
According to the testimony of everyone around him, he talked about wanting to die at the drop of a hat, but there was never any sign of him actually attempting it—not even the faintest gesture in that direction. Cosmos's medical experts, after combing through his history, concluded that his talk of suicide was nothing but a ploy for attention.
And it wasn't only the med student. Most of the people caught up in the Suicide Train were the same.
They were, on the whole, constructive, unremarkable people living ordinary, workable lives—people whose will to live could be recharged to full with nothing more than a simple carrot and stick.
Which meant the person on that train more numb to death than anyone, the one who truly wanted to die—was Yoon Soo-ah.
"...You're telling me my sense of duty, my sense of responsibility, is a suicidal impulse?"
"Can you look me in the eye and swear it isn't?"
"Th-that...!"
Her rebuttal caught in her throat.
She probably knew it herself, deep down. That her duty and her responsibility were not so far removed from a suicidal impulse after all.
Whatever the reason, whatever the justification—as long as she treated her own life as worthless and used it as a tool, that was all it was. A suicidal impulse.
"Th-that's absurd! You've only met me a handful of times—what gives you the right to say that about me with such certainty!? On what authority!?"
It was the first time I'd ever seen Yoon Soo-ah angry.
But I had my say as well.
"The authority of the man who's saved your life three times."
"Th-three times? ...Did you miscount? Seonhwa High and now— that's two, isn't it?"
Yoon Soo-ah asked with a faintly dazed expression.
Good grief—screaming at me in fury one moment, dead precise with her arithmetic the next.
But it was three.
"You spent an entire week owing your life to someone, and now you're going to play innocent?"
"......Ji-woo?"
"Wow, you catch on fast. And here I was, sweating bullets over when I'd get found out by someone this oblivious. Idiot move on my part."
After venting my disbelief for a good long while—
"So."
"Yes?"
"You think I don't know you after all that? A whole week caring for you—how many sugars you take in your coffee, what kind of fried rice you like, what you usually drink, which cosmetics you use, your favorite celebrity, the music you're into, your clothing size, how many times a day you use the bathroom—"
"KYAAAAAAAH! I get it! I GET it! You've made your point, so STOP!"
Flustered, she shot a look at Eun-ha and Shin Han-hee and clapped a hand over my rant.
"...Of course, I'm not stupid enough to claim I know everything about a person from a single week at their side."
But—
"As someone who's seen you at your best and your worst over that week, I've earned the right to offer you one piece of advice, don't you think?"
"......"
"I don't know what your ancestors, your grandparents, your parents and siblings mean to you. But if they told you to live a life worthy of the Yoon family name, then here's what I'd say: don't let the family or the bloodline chain you down. Go find your happiness. It's your life, isn't it?"
"...But—"
"But this, but that—listen to the man who's saved your neck three times! Without me, you'd have died a death with nothing to be ashamed of ages ago! So chalk it up as three times you didn't die in shame, and live your fourth life for yourself. That's allowed."
"...I—uh...!"
Yoon Soo-ah opened and closed her mouth, hands flailing in the air, trying to force some words out.
In the end, nothing came.
And then those wandering hands seized my collar, tight—
and, face buried in my chest, she burst into tears.
"You're a grown adult, you know..."
Pat, pat.
Saying that, I rubbed the back of the sobbing Yoon Soo-ah.
Then I suddenly remembered the broadcast and pulled out the phone I'd been streaming with through Environment Transformation, checking the live viewer count.
"Ha!"
The live viewer count had broken one hundred thousand.
I was wearing an awkward smile at news I couldn't exactly celebrate when—
Vrrroooooooom
A boat carrying Hwang Young-gyu approached from the distance.
For a moment I tensed, wondering if the Philosopher's Stone had been spotted—but the words out of his mouth were nothing like what I expected.
"That was a remarkable performance, Master Kim. And it seems I owe you an apology first."
"An apology?"
"We appear to have been misunderstanding you all this time, Master Kim."
"...What exactly do you mean by that?"
"Exactly what I said. Master Kim—you are, in every sense, the talent we have been searching for. A talent far better suited to our ideals than Gongnosa could ever be."