Chapter 1. Express Loop Train Armand I
Episode 1.
The Express Loop Train Armand I
Do you like games?
If you do, how much do you like them?
Let me answer first.
[Warning!]
[If you hear a knock at the window, close the curtains immediately.]
[Do not forget. The place where you are sitting right now is inside a train racing along at 60 kilometers per hour.]
I must have liked them far more than I thought.
Seeing hallucinations like this.
"Hoo......."
I slowly inhaled, then exhaled.
After repeating that a few times, I looked ahead.
The message window was still there.
'Damn it.'
So I really am seeing this correctly.
"......If you hear a knock at the window, close the curtains immediately."
When I muttered the message I could see just as it was, a baffled reply came from across from me.
"Are you drunk?"
"......."
"Or is that a joke?"
I raised my head and looked at the one-eyed man.
Above the one-eyed man's head, text was floating.
[Stoker, 'Derek']
It was an unreal sight, but paradoxically, the sheer absurdity of it made the scene feel strangely real.
"Would you believe me if I told you something true that sounded like a joke?"
"Ha."
The one-eyed man snorted.
"Hey. Do you know how fast the Armand is?"
"......60 kilometers per hour, was it?"
"Right. You know your stuff. It's as fast as a horse at full gallop. And it never gets tired—it just keeps a constant speed. As long as you refuel it, it can run all day. The very essence of magical engineering, you might say?"
"Impressive."
"Then why are you spouting nonsense about outside the window or whatever? Especially right now......."
The one-eyed man's gaze and mine naturally turned toward the window.
It was the middle of the night, but beyond the rattling window it was somewhat bright.
It wasn't dawn breaking.
The night sky still shimmered in the dim light, and the full moon emerged through the dark clouds.
A huge lake was reflecting the moonlight, and I swear I'd never seen such an enormous lake in my life.
'This really isn't reality.'
Just taking in the scenery was enough to make me think that.
The train was racing along tracks laid over that lake.
"You saw that, right? Even those high-and-mighty mages wouldn't dare chase a train speeding across the lake."
That was probably true.
If the thing knocking on the door were human, that is.
"If you understand, then just sleep. Don't talk nonsense in the middle of the night....... Damn it all. I'm dead tired and you're making some stupid joke."
Unfortunately, it wasn't a joke.
Not if this train was <Armand>, its destination <Eternal Forest>, and the lake we were crossing <Horizon Lake>.
"Ah! Don't forget to do your patrol rounds before you sleep. If you skip it, that Train Manager bastard will throw another fit."
Patrol?
Ah.
'The tutorial for learning the basic controls.'
Then I couldn't skip it.
I got to my feet reluctantly.
"I'll be back soon, so absolutely do not open these curtains."
"You're still not done with that joke?"
"Joke or not, if I say don't open them, don't open them. Got it?"
The one-eyed bastard grinned without a hint of tension.
"I'll think about it. Now I'm going to sleep."
"......."
I tried to warn him two or three more times, but before I could even finish speaking, the one-eyed man wrapped himself in his blanket at lightning speed.......
And before long, he was even snoring loudly.
Could someone really fall asleep that fast?
"......Shit."
In the end, I closed the curtains myself before leaving the cabin.
Rattle.......
The only things lighting the pitch-dark train corridor were a few flickering bulbs.
As I slowly walked through the space steeped in darkness, the hopeless reality of this situation finally began to sink in.
Thirty minutes had passed since I'd opened my eyes in some unknown place.......
It seemed pretty clear that I'd been transported into <Forest of Shadow>.
* * *
Creak.......
I walked down the dark train corridor.
With each step I took, memories about 'Forest of Shadow'...... <FoS> surfaced one by one.
An indie game made overseas.
The genre is roguelike dungeon RPG.
The setting and worldbuilding are quite vast.
Looking at it this way, it seems like a fairly plausible game, but the reality is completely different.
Now, to list the flaws of this trash game.......
An atmosphere dark enough to be classified as dark fantasy.
Mediocre graphics and shitty optimization.
Horror presentation.
And above all, a difficulty so high it makes you curse.
Thanks to that, even when new users come in from concept art or trailers, most of them leave before long.
Even when word of mouth spread a few times by luck, interest quickly died down.
That's how <FoS> became a game only people in the know had heard of, and games like that tended to meet the same fate.
'It becomes a toy for hipster bastards who can't be satisfied with famous games.'
In other words, bastards like me.
'So?'
How did I end up getting sucked into the game?
I tried to recall my last memory, but my head was foggy, as if shrouded in mist.
To be honest, I was still dazed.
Was I dreaming, or was this some kind of hidden-camera prank?
Creak.......
But then there were my clothes, changed in an instant, and the one-eyed man's behavior, which looked nothing like an act.
Above all, the scenery and textures, too realistic to be mere props, ruled out that possibility.
"Hoo......."
Stop acting like an idiot and pull yourself together.
It had already happened, and I was past the point of wondering whether this was a dream.
If I still couldn't accept it at this point, that was no different from denying reality.
'More than anything, I don't have the luxury to do that.'
<FoS> has various start points.
That said, it's not completely random; it varies depending on race, of course, as well as character settings, initial stats, age, and gender.
Of course, there are hundreds of branches.
If you start as a stoker on a speeding train, then probably.......
'Race is human. Gender is male, age around the twenties. Initial setting stats are.......'
Because I knew the formula, I could work backward from the results, and I could also infer my current state.
Not that knowing that made my situation any better.
'Goddamn <Armand Route>.'
In other words, it's also called the <Instant-Death Route>, or the <Wall of Lamentation>.
The reason is simple.
Of all the starting points, this route has the highest chance of death.
Thinking about the events about to unfold sent a chill down my spine.
'......What do I do?'
Even after asking myself, no clever solution came to mind.
In the end, I checked my condition and the state of the train, then went back.
"......."
But when I came back to the cabin, an eerily cold silence had settled over the room.
The interior was unusually bright, so I turned my gaze to the curtains.
"Ha, fuck."
The curtains I had definitely closed just before leaving were thrown wide open, and the moonlight that had invaded in the meantime was quietly settling over the seats.
[Stoker, 'Derek' (Deceased)]
The one-eyed Derek was dead, his face drained white, his tongue stretched out to an eerie length down to his chest.
And then—
Knock, knock, knock.
Someone knocked on the train window.