Chapter 5. Express Loop Train Armand V
Episode 5.
The Express Loop Train Armand V
In the game, combat begins immediately after the train overturns. Normally, that's the first battle in <FoS>.
Of course, the enemy you fight then isn't a shadow.
Shadows aren't enemies you encounter all that often in the first place.
So who exactly is the main enemy in this game?
At this point, we need to recall the name of this game.
<Forest of Shadow>
Forest.
In other words, the forest is the main stage of this game, and all the bizarre life-forms that exist in the forest are the Delvers' main enemies.
......Naturally, Magical Beasts are among them.
* * *
Thud, thud.......
The Shadow, the "Binding and Crushing Black Octopus," was gradually drawing closer.
Our current position was Car 7...... no, around Car 8?
I could roughly guess why the bastard had stopped chasing us.
'It's eating the corpses.'
The distance to Car 13 was five cars. Given its size, it wouldn't take long to clean up every corpse in the space between.
'Fuck.'
How many times had I cursed today?
It felt like I was using up a year's worth of profanity in a single day.
"Th-thank you."
At that moment, the man in the robe spoke to me.
Dark violet hair, a fine robe, and clean-cut features that didn't suit his timid, wary expression. He was tall and lanky, as if he'd grown up well-fed.
Judging by his expression and manner, he didn't seem to be a noble.
"If you hadn't saved me, I would have been......."
"Hard to believe."
"Pardon?"
"Was his name Alec? How did someone that careless end up as the leader?"
The broadcast, the voice...... the more I thought about it, the more suspicious things piled up.
Any normal Delver would have started suspecting something the moment they heard a voice from Car 4.
The man swallowed dryly and spoke.
"I-it's not entirely beyond understanding. First-class Delvers were aboard from the front of Car 4 onward....... Even I find it hard to believe that all of them were wiped out."
"Probably not all of them."
"Pardon?"
"Probably only Car 4 got hit. The people in the cars ahead of it are likely safe."
"Then that monster in Car 4......?"
"Who knows. The Delvers in front of Car 3 probably had it temporarily confined. Until some idiot broke the lock, that is."
The lock had been made of silver.
That alone meant it had the effect of confining the shadow trapped inside.
He probably didn't understand the full chain of cause and effect, but the mage's expression changed as if he'd grasped the general context.
"Ah......! Then if we wait here quietly, the Delvers in the front cars will come rescue us!"
"......Who knows."
As if that would happen.
If those bastards had been that devoted to rescuing people, they'd have dealt with that Shadow long ago.
The very fact that they had simply sealed it away meant they weren't willing to take unnecessary risks.
'That's just how Delvers operate, anyway.'
......So, what now?
Since we'd fled all the way back to Car 13, it was fair to say our survival rate had dropped below ten percent.
Thud, thud......!
That rotten bastard. It wasn't even giving me time to think.
The sound was closer than before.
I was thinking through various things with a grim face when the mage, who still hadn't fully grasped the situation, spoke to me.
"I'm Kazen. Your name...... it was Kaindel, right?"
Exchanging names at a time like this?
Well, maybe this was the only time we'd have.
"Yeah."
"That one over there is Kria."
"Kazen and Kria?"
Come to think of it, their hair color was the same.
The mage smiled bitterly and said,
"She's my younger sister. And those people just now......."
"We don't have time, so cut to the chase. You two, what are your classes?"
"Ah. I'm a mage."
When I sent a glance over, the sister spoke in a slow tone.
"I'm a Spiritist......."
How could she be sleepy at a time like this?
Her drowsy voice left me dumbfounded.
On top of that, her hair was so long I couldn't even see her face clearly.
Anyway.
'A mage and a Spiritist?'
I'd thought they were trash-tier, but both of their classes were top-tier.
Feeling a small spark of hope, I asked,
"What magic can you use?"
"Light."
"And?"
The mage blinked.
What's with that look? It's making me uneasy.
"That's it......?"
"......."
The words 'Are you kidding me?' rose to the back of my throat.
"You can only use one spell?"
"I-I'm sorry......!"
"What about you?"
The sister blinked slowly, then avoided my gaze and muttered,
"I contracted with a Sylph......."
"A low-grade wind spirit, then. What else?"
"......."
"......."
The self-proclaimed Spiritist stayed silent and avoided my eyes.
'Fuck.......'
A mage who could only use Light, and a Spiritist contracted with just one low-grade spirit?
How did that qualify them as a mage and a Spiritist?
They were a lightbulb and a hand fan.
'They really are trash-tier.'
If anything, those three who died earlier had prickly personalities, but their skills had looked decent.
"Kaindel. What do we do now......?"
Unlike the ones who'd just died, the mage openly asked for my opinion.
That wasn't because this guy was a person of upright values who didn't care whether I was a stoker or a slave.
'He's the type who hates taking responsibility.'
People like that hate bearing the responsibility of a choice even more in a crisis like this.
It gave me a headache, but somehow it also felt familiar.
Yeah. This is the flavor. This is what FoS is all about.
Most early-game companions were like this, each missing a screw or two.
'The problem is they're missing dozens of screws, not just one or two.'
......First, let's sort out the situation.
As I said, a high-grade Shadow was closing in from the cars ahead with every passing moment.
That meant joining up with the first-class Delvers they'd mentioned was impossible.
'What about jumping off the train?'
I looked out the window.
The scenery whipping past felt faster than before.
I wasn't sure whether it was my imagination, but we seemed to be well past sixty kilometers per hour.
'Did the train start running wild when the conductor died?'
Either way, we seemed to be doing at least eighty kilometers per hour, maybe more.......
Jumping off a train moving at this speed was no different from throwing yourself off a ten-story building.
Even with my physical abilities having risen considerably, the odds of dying were still higher.
In that case, the remaining option was.......
'Hide in a Car 13 compartment and wait.'
The room where Derek's corpse had been—no, was the corpse gone now?
Anyway, going back to the room where I'd regained consciousness.
'Because in the game, that method let you survive.'
As a veteran player, I'd run the <Instant-Death Route> quite a few times.
Naturally, I'd gotten game overs too.
But across all those runs, I'd never once died from being caught up in the train overturning.
'So.......'
Couldn't I trust that flow now?
Before that shadow bastard arrived, the train would overturn, and I might survive by getting swept up in the chaos.
Throb—
At that moment, the wound in my side throbbed. The place where Derek had clawed me.
"Ha......."
A laugh escaped me.
Because it happened that way in the game, it would happen that way this time too?
As if that would happen.
As I'd said earlier, the flower garden in my head had long since withered away.
"Kaindel?"
As I stood there frowning, laughing, and generally acting like a lunatic, the mage's expression grew serious too.
Even looking like that, he was waiting for my answer. It was ridiculous.
"Let's head to the cars further back."
"The back cars? Wasn't Car 13 the last car of the train?"
"For passenger cars, yes. Everything behind this is basically freight."
"Freight cars......? Ah. Where the food and supplies are stored. There might be useful tools there......!"
The mage spoke with a hopeful face, but I shook my head.
"There won't be. At best, it'll be full of food, old farming tools, and coal."
"Th-then why go all the way back there......?"
"......Just follow me for now."
The thudding sound had grown much louder.
About two cars left now? For its size, it devoured corpses quickly.
'It took about five minutes per car, so we have about ten minutes left.'
We passed Car 14, the food storage, and Car 15, the supplies and coal storage, and reached Car 16.
The last car of this express loop train.
"Ugh......!"
The moment we reached the last car, the mage pinched his nose.
"What in the world is this smell?"
"Who knows. Probably the smell of animal shit and piss."
I'd smelled something similar at a zoo.
"A-animals?"
"To be precise—"
I said as I opened the door.
"Magical Beasts."
Grrrr......!
Dozens of hostile, hungry gazes locked onto my face.
A different kind of pressure from a Shadow's—more primal, a rawer sort of fear.
It hit me anew that what I was about to do was an absurd gamble.......
'Goddamn it.'
No matter how I thought about it, this was the best option.
"Urp......!"
That was the moment.
The mage finally clamped a hand over his mouth and ran to a corner. Then came the unpleasant sound of splattering.
'Is this bastard seriously throwing up?'
At this point, it was so ridiculous I couldn't even laugh.
I checked on the sister, and fortunately, she wasn't showing trash-tier behavior like her brother.
Anyway, I left the two siblings alone and looked around.
[Lv.18 "Scythe Mantis"]
[Lv.17 "Black-Scaled Crocodile"]
[Lv.13 "Three-Eyed Crow"]
I could see the names and levels of the Magical Beasts locked in cages.
A few of the stronger ones were over level 20, but of course, that still wasn't enough.
'There should definitely be one somewhere.'
The Magical Beasts in the cages were enemies you'd normally fight only after the train overturned.
'The ones whose cages break from the impact when the train flips, allowing them to escape.'
By that point, the player would have secured a weapon too.
In other words, these were the first combat opponents a player faced when running the Instant-Death Route normally.
'And since the player's level at the start is 10.......'
It wasn't strange for these things to be between levels 10 and 20.
'If the difficulty is Hard or lower, that is.'
But if I had set the difficulty for this run—
Then it was definitely not <Normal>, not <Hard>, and the odds of it being <Easy> were even lower.
'Hell difficulty.'
The hardest, most unreasonable, most bullshit difficulty—
If that was the case, then there was one entity that absolutely had to be present.
I suppressed my impatience and checked the Magical Beasts one by one.......
"......!"
Finally, I found it.
[Lv.33 "Silver-Maned Wolf"]
A level that jutted out alone like a protruding nail.
Unlike the other growling Magical Beasts, this one sat quietly in its cage.
"Hoo......."
For now, the first step of the plan had been successfully set in motion.