Chapter 413
Chapter 413
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 413
Chapter Title: Chapter. 18. Railed (17)
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“Naelda. This time around, it seems...”
“I know~ I know. Ever since the subjugation battle, we haven’t had a moment’s rest. Everyone’s heads are all twisted up from it, including me. It was just a minor misunderstanding.”
What? A minor misunderstanding? After turning a boy not even in his teens into a one-eyed monster?
Before I could say something more as Naelda was about to pour oil on cooked rice,
Sssslip—
Clank!
The dedicated shooter slipped from Volteus’s hand and fell.
“...Volteus?”
“I, I... the banner of goodness... at the very least, for as much of my life as remains in my memory...”
Uh...
I’d thought Volteus was just deeply shaken, but his condition was off—not just a little, but very much so.
Having dropped the church-pew-sized arcane shooter, Volteus clutched his head with both hands. Muttering to himself, his shoulders bore the telltale ‘fragments’ that flickered unstably, growing and vanishing in cycles.
It was clearly an abnormal state, plain as day.
“Dear. We’ll apologize plenty—more than you might think excessive—so could you hold it together just a bit longer?”
“Uh...”
“Shard Knights are terribly unstable. Like a frozen lake. Solid, but once it starts to crack, it spreads uncontrollably.”
Naelda sat on the floor of the tail car, cradling the completely broken Volteus in her arms.
If I looked in a mirror right now, my expression would probably resemble Volteus’s when blood streamed from his eyes.
“You’re not just some nine-year-old, are you?”
“Huh? Oh, well, since I’m a bastard son, that’s...”
“Never mind. Don’t answer. The world’s full of questions without answers.”
She dismissed my response in one breath.
The way she held the shaken Volteus carried echoes of the old elf she used to be, different from the Naelda I’d known until now.
“Sorry for all the suspicion. Folks who live in sin jump at the slightest toll of the guard bell.”
“No, I...”
“Up you go. You risked your life to push past our doubts, so we owe you the same in return, right?”
Naelda carefully laid the unconscious Volteus down, then drew a sturdy-looking box from her waist.
Click—
An oil-smeared box with a worn, rounded edge. Once luxurious, but someone had stripped off all the decorations and jewels, deliberately making it look shabby.
“This is...”
“Careful. I’ve etched in a separate suppression mana circuit, but it’s the kind of thing that seeps in just from getting close. A Lord’s fragment. A piece of the evil god. Or what soul mages call a Jewel Beyond the Circle. Just like you said, we stole it.”
Nestled in the soft lining inside the box was a fingernail-sized gem emitting a murky, seductive glow.
Like the nauseating sweetness oozing from mutant blood, a small stone trailing hazy purple smoke.
“Why... did you steal it? To use it? To sell it?”
“Are you mad? Use a monster that devours minds and turns people into beast leaders? Sell it, and some lunatic who wants that power becomes another Lord, builds dungeons, kills people...”
Then why? An item that should’ve been sealed away tightly in the hands of one of the two subjugation battle leads—Brasstoll or Straug—why was it in this shabby box?
“Hmm... Professor Brasstoll. Don’t take this the wrong way, okay?”
Naelda leaned close to my ear, whispering like it was a secret.
“Brasstoll... they’re insane.”
“From the family head to every member, everyone in the family and the city they live in. All of them.”
“...Yes?”
“Hee hee hee hee. Hard to believe, right? That’s because you’ve been ‘Professor Brasstoll’ this whole time, part of Pardau Fortress. As long as you’re one of them, Brasstoll and their livestock seem endlessly peaceful and serene to each other.”
“But... do you know what happens when they encounter a group their ‘master’ labels a threat from outside?”
“You’ve seen it, haven’t you? People who’ve researched taming humans for over a century, and the humans tamed across generations—how perfectly they become master and subject, how far obedience goes.”
[Those above are mere livestock.]
I’d heard it straight from Delpiad Brasstoll, the family head.
But insane?
The city’s daily life, with its strange but charming flavor—all of them insane?
The laborers and women, the folks fanning themselves with oil-smeared faces—all of them?
‘Why does Catreia take such good care of me?’
.
.
.
.
.
‘Because you’re the young master, sir?’
...Even Catreia?
“I can’t believe it...”
“Straug family’s fortress city, Straug.”
“Beyond Straug, up the line, the fortress city of Oton Hill, ruled by the Oton Hill family.”
To my disbelief, Naelda sang out cheerfully.
“Then, who rules Pardau Fortress?”
“...The Brasstoll family.”
It should’ve originally been the Pardau family’s Pardau Fortress City. And what the current Brasstoll family’s Pardau Fortress meant was...
“Occupied territory. No, a colony.”
Suddenly, the underground lab I’d followed the family head into came to mind.
The most precious colored fragments weren’t stored deep in vaults—they were neatly displayed right at the entrance, visible at a glance.
As if they needed to show off their long-hoarded collection to someone.
“Delpiad Brasstoll... wasn’t the family head.”
“Spot on. Folks cut off from outside news don’t know, but an elf like me who’s lived long and wandered hears things.”
“I’ve caught whispers that this Brasstoll name is all over the mainland across the sea.”
A colony. An outpost built in occupied land for exploitation.
The real family head would be far away, across the ocean on the mainland.
Here was just the colonial administrator.
Delpiad Brasstoll was the one who extracted and stored fragments from dead people and knights’ bodies.
Probably displayed them to proudly offer as tribute when some higher-up from the shattered continent’s family arrived, squeezed from the humans.
“During the subjugation battle, I slipped out for a breather and overheard it. The Brasstoll family’s true nature and purpose, and the position of this Tarigden Archipelago in the entire shattered continent.”
“Tarigden Archipelago? It’s like a massive farm for the great families on the mainland over there.”
“Not just Brasstoll. Straug, Oton Hill—they all ship regular quotas of colorless fragments across the sea to their overlords, if not as blatantly colonial as Brasstoll.”
[Those above are mere livestock.]
“Those above” didn’t just mean Pardau Fortress.
“Especially, they prioritize collecting the rare colored fragments. Raw stones are fine, but ones used by suitable Shard Knights hold even more value.”
“Because Shard Knights absorb colorless fragments to grow while using them...”
“Exactly. Those damn mainland scum are pasturing Shard Knights here in Tarigden Archipelago like livestock.”
“And when they judge them strong enough...”
Sshk—
“They harvest them.”
Naelda mimed slitting the throat of the fallen Volteus.
“A Lord Slayer’s fragment. Something farm lords drooling to impress the mainland would kill for. Whether frame-up or raid, it was clear Volteus’s ‘slaughter’ day was coming.”
“So we stole it. For blackmail.”
“Black...mail?”
“Yeah, blackmail. The other family heads know we took the Lord’s fragment. The act itself is a declaration. If they corner us for real, we’ll use it.”
“Use the Lord’s fragment...?”
“Yeah. If Volteus dies, whoever killed him—I’ll sneak into the heart of their territory and swallow the Lord’s fragment whole!”
The Lord’s fragment. A crystal holding the queen’s power to seize everything from its absorber and turn them into a mutant Lord hating humanity.
To protect Tarigden Archipelago’s fated-for-slaughter Lord Slayer, Naelda chose blackmail bordering on suicide bombing.
“They went quiet for a while. So we kept running, eyes peeled—sold off empty cars to other trainmasters, borrowed cash from guys we knew. Used the money to give severance to folks with places to go, letting them escape this damned suicide train~ And before long, only us leftovers remained. Really no-place-else-to-go types except Rail Sheep.”
“Our last hope was sailing out of Tarigden Archipelago to the mainland... but the only ships that can brave those rough waves are owned by nobles? No way those bastards ferry an eyesore elf blackmailer and her crew.”
Kekeke kekeke.
“We held out for years like that... but looks like our farm lords’ patience hit its limit. A Lord Slayer’s fame could reach the mainland, so why haven’t you chopped his head off for the elders yet! Maybe they got chewed out. Either way, they’re in the same boat—if they don’t want to go from farm lord to livestock, they have to catch Volteus.”
Naelda muttered with hollow, resigned laughter. “Soul mage. Soul mage... smart one,” she added.
“Volteus... he’s good-hearted by nature. Still believes we can escape alive. Keeps recruiting people, and when he spots promising kids like you, he insists on raising you into our train’s firepower.”
“That’s how he believes in a future where we—you and I—make it out alive. Force-feeding himself fragments, a Lord Slayer no less, thinking getting stronger from there leads to some bright future.”
“...Foolish guy. Forgetting this and that, not even knowing what he’s forgotten...”
Naelda’s hand stroking the fallen Volteus’s cheek held affection beyond mere camaraderie.
“Pathetic, isn’t it?”
“...”
“Dear, if you want to go back to being their livestock, I won’t stop you. Their words aren’t entirely wrong, you know? Get a little dumb, and at least you live more humanely than us, necks always on the chopping block for the human farm lords. In this world, that life’s not so bad.”
“If not... well. You look rootless, and not the type for that killer den, so I let you on. But I’m not keeping you on the train that’s most in their crosshairs.”
“Stay as long as you want, get off when you like. No hobby of dying with bright-future kids.”
“Naelda...”
“Now get out. Two adults in a dark, cramped space need some kid-free time. Go on!”
She waved me off with her usual playful tone. But as I stepped out the tail car door and glanced back one last time, what I saw was.
In pitch darkness where nothing was visible, two lovers leaning on each other.
...Clunk.
“Little one.”
“...Gerry.”
“Volteus aside, sis is sentimental by nature—talks a lot of useless crap. As an adult advising you: get off.”
The dwarf who’d been nothing but playful all along. Now that I knew the truth, his jests felt born of defiance and pathos.
“Why’d you... stay, Gerry?”
So I had to ask.
“Me? Nowhere else for me. What dwarf clan takes in a ‘dark-fearing dwarf’? Uhahahaha!”
“Dwarves live for digging caves, but afraid of the dark? No weirder freak out there. Born that way, tried fixing it—didn’t work.”
“Serious?”
“Damn straight. Thirty seconds in a tail car like this, and I’m out cold. That’s why I’m the fireman. To stay by the flames. Wake up in a panic if they even flicker—made me useful here.”
The dwarf, hands scarred with burns and blisters, stroked the sooty car body.
“After the world shrank, people cling to their spots. For me, Rail Sheep’s that spot.”
“So get off quick, noble young master. Run before you stick here like rust. Stay, and you die? Hahaha!”
He let out a sheepish belly laugh, waved, and headed to his post.
Now that I knew, things stood out.
Gerry’s staggering steps picked spots in the dim passenger car where light filtered through windows. His hurried gait was likely still not enough—he wanted back to the flames fast.
Baut Blackfoot, the other dwarf called Gerry’s friend, wasn’t just stooped—he was a hunchback. Too short to notice at first.
The engineer, always buried in his maintenance suit, bustled about; his revealed face was twisted, slick with beads of sweat.
People discarded in a harsh world. From a once longer train, those with places went; only the stranded remained, keeping it moving.
A train of the world’s rejects, crossing soft earth’s perils in perfect condition.
Lacking or special, they found their niches everywhere, like a cathedral’s stained glass pieced from irregular shards—beautiful.
Unable to rest easy anywhere but thundering over rough soft ground.
A train racing on disaster’s rails: Rail Sheep.
“...I have to get them out.”
Muttered unconsciously, passing engineers clapped my shoulder. Like I’d done well, like they approved.
Sorry, but not in the way they thought.
“I have to... get you all out.”
World 4. A world where overwhelming villains hunt the good and slaughter each other.
Rail Sheep was a train carrying the righteous, refined by blades of exclusion and death, racing through that world.
I wanted to save them. Show them their place wasn’t just cramped stations and rough tracks, but wider lands and free lives beyond this island.
Break them from the archipelago’s eternal wheel breeding humans.
Out of the train.
Off the rails,
To the sea. To broader lands.
I wanted that.
From the heart.
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