That Goddamn Train
I first rode one when I was seventeen, back when Homerus had stepped down from instructor and started dragging me around by the scruff of my neck. At first it was nice. You couldn’t expect modern cushioning, but compared to a carriage or horseback it felt like heaven.
“Hehe. What an uninvited guest. Lend me your strength.”
“Huh?”
The pleasant feeling lasted about two seconds before I had to throw down with the cultists who’d snuck aboard targeting Homerus.
I could’ve let it slide up to that point.
But every time I remembered what came after, my hands clenched on their own. The first incident could be blamed on Homerus, but the rest had zero to do with me. Three times. That pervert’s dryad and its grotesque breeding habits, the gremlin swarm, the cursed mask going berserk. After the mask incident I refused to even look at a train.
If it hadn’t been something I absolutely had to attend within a deadline, and if the distance hadn’t been too far for horses and carriages, I never would’ve set foot in this rotating hellhole of misfortune.
“Hm?”
In an already irritating situation, I felt a strange gaze. Normally I would’ve ignored it, but the oddly sharp prickle made me turn my head. Short ponytail, black hair, black eyes—a rare color in the empire. The novelty lasted half a second. She was staring so hard I unconsciously glanced at the window beside me.
Okay, he’s not bad.
It looked like his testosterone had taken a vacation, but the face staring back was the kind women would actually fight over. While I was busy confirming I wasn’t completely dead yet, the train arrived. It was ordinary, yet noticeably more upgraded than the last one I’d suffered through. Technology marches on, sure, but I still couldn’t make myself board the damn thing.
Nothing bad will happen this time. Please.
Praying I could at least avoid the Five Senses King, I forced my feet forward.
I take it all back. Whatever I said about my face looking better? Cancel it.
This woman is weird. The black-haired, black-eyed girl who’d been assigned the same room wouldn’t stop staring even though we sat across from each other. There wasn’t a trace of any female-to-male signal in that gaze. It was the look you’d give something filthy.
“Excuse me. Got a problem with me?”
“You’re an exorcist, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. So?”
An exorcist hater? The saying “no news is good news” existed because it was safer when exorcists stayed out of sight. Of course there were always idiots who flipped that logic and decided problems only happened because exorcists existed.
“You’re lazy.”
“Sorry?”
I was lying in a hammock in a first-class cabin, but apparently that was enough to earn a lecture.
“What the hell are you on about?”
“Every exorcist I know recites prayers while traveling, filling their shortcomings and tempering themselves.”
“Uh… and?”
“Because you show none of that.”
Ever since my birthday it felt like I’d been walking around with a giant “bully me” sign. Every woman I met for the first time acted insane. One crazy bitch wouldn’t even give her name, and now another crazy bitch was calling a complete stranger lazy to his face.
“Sigh. Just like there are many demons, there are many exorcists. Stop bothering random people and keep your mouth shut until we arrive, yeah?”
I was already dying from anxiety that something would go wrong. The last thing I wanted was to brawl with a lunatic on top of it.
“If you’re truly an exorcist, you must know one named McDowell.”
“What the fu—”
She was finished. Of all the names, why did it have to be that one? My classmate, my nemesis, and that goddamn social butterfly bastard—Yuri McDowell.
“Why is a guy like you even here?”
That was what he’d said the first time he saw me when we started exorcist training at age ten. With a mental age past twenty I couldn’t let a rude brat talk to me like that, so I charged him.
And got my ass beat.
I got beaten so hard it still hurts to remember. We fought constantly after that until we somehow became something like bad friends. He kept calling me his friend, but even if my mouth split open I could never call that bastard the same. It’s definitely not because I got dog-walked the first time we met!
“Don’t compare me to that bastard.”
“That bastard?! Take it back! He is my senior disciple!”
“He’s the kind of guy you’d want executed, though.”
“How dare you insult a disciple of the Sword Saint Lichte!”
“Sword what now?”
No wonder his sword skills skyrocketed every time we sparred. He’d been learning from a one-hit instructor. And the crazy woman who trained under the same master was currently picking a fight with me.
“I speak of Lord Lichte, the last Sword Saint of the empire—no, of the entire era!”
“Yeah, cool. Good for you. Now shut up. That Mad Dog bastard knows me too, so let’s hear what he has to say before you decide to curse me out, yeah?”
“It’s McDowell! Why would you attach such a vulgar nickname!”
From the look on her face she’d never seen him fight. He looked normal on the surface, but the moment he faced demons he stuffed his mercy in a back pocket and went full slaughter mode. We also shared a mutual hatred for the “one warning” rule, so in that sense we actually got along.
“There’s no way my senior would know someone like you!”
If he ever called me his friend in front of her she’d probably foam at the mouth.
“If you really don’t believe me, get off the train and ask him if he knows a guy named Dante.”
“Dante…?”
I owed the Empress one this time. The moment my name left her lips, the woman finally shut up. Just as I was about to close my eyes after silencing the annoying mosquito—
The train suddenly lurched violently.
“Let’s go check.”
“No need. Stay here.”
“I apologize for my earlier rudeness. So please, come with me to confirm what happened.”
Did this crazy woman eat rat poison? After dumping every criticism imaginable on me, why was she suddenly acting polite?
“If it were monsters, the impact would’ve started from the rear cars where passengers like us are, not the front. But it came from the front, didn’t it?”
That was usually the work of train robbers. And I was an exorcist, not a cop. Unless they were demon worshippers or cultists, no sane person messed with exorcists.
“It’s definitely train robbers. They’ll probably just shake down the passengers for money. No one’s crazy enough to kill or seriously injure anyone.”
“How can you be so sure? What if—”
“I know for a really shitty reason, so can you just stay put?”
While the woman hesitated because I refused to move, the obvious train robbers kicked the cabin door open.
“Get out here!”
“Yes, yes.”
“Touch that sword and I’ll blow your head off!”
“This is all because of you…!”
“Hey, can you not glue that woman so close to me? She looks like she wants to bite my face off.”
“Yaaah!”
“Shut your mouth!”
It was an old breech-loading rifle that looked retired decades ago. Still, at close range it didn’t matter if you used magic or not—a hole in the head was a hole in the head. The woman grit her teeth but stuck to my side and moved obediently.
“As expected, there’s no way my senior would know someone like you.”
“Can you be quiet? Why are you trying to provoke them?”
Even while we knelt with the other passengers on the regular car floor, her mouth never stopped.
“Provoke—!”
“Should I kill the loud one first?”
Her face was flushed red and she was huffing like an angry bull. Looked like she still had a long, rough road if she wanted to follow in Yuri’s footsteps. That bastard could carve people up without changing his expression no matter how furious he got.
“Consider it an honor, everyone!”
Yeah, yeah. They were probably pretending to be some independence army to extort money. This damn empire. It wasn’t necessarily evil, but the previous generation had stirred up way too much trouble everywhere.
“By becoming sacrifices for Lord Pazuzu, you shall walk the path of glory alongside us!”
What-zuzu?
“……”
“Hey. You said they were train robbers. Hello?”
Why the hell was a cult god showing up here? If they crossed the ocean, they should’ve stayed hidden in some mountain range kidnapping people for sacrifices. Why crawl all the way out here!
“If I ever ride a train again I’m burning my own hands.”
If anyone told me to board another train in the future, I’d smash their face in—even if it was the Empress.
Crack. I snapped the rope binding my wrists with raw strength.
“Don’t move!”
“I’ll give you a chance to escape the cult god. Will you take it?”
“It’s an apostle of the Sun God!”
“Kill him!”
“Get down!”
“Kyaaa!”
“Uwaaa!”
The screams of cultists, the woman, and the other passengers blended into a single deafening noise that hammered my skull.
Swish!
Their eyes had rolled back at the sight of their mortal enemy—an exorcist—so they never even noticed the flying daggers. They were too busy focusing on pulling triggers.
“Urk!”
“Ghk!”
Three men had been guarding my car. Two dropped instantly from the thrown blades. There was one more in the back, but someone had already taken care of him. The woman had choked out the cultist who’d been focused on me. It must’ve been her first real fight; her breathing was ragged.
“Hoo… Hoo…”
“Not bad even without a sword.”
“A swordsman doesn’t die just because she lacks a blade.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I’m heading to the front. You check the rear.”
“Hmph! I’ll do as I please.”
She snatched the cultist’s machete and skillfully sliced through the ropes on her wrists. It clearly wasn’t a weapon she was used to, yet she swung it lightly, her movements growing smoother by the second.
“And don’t kill them.”
“Is it strange to hear mercy from your mouth?”
Coming from the guy who’d just killed two people with thrown daggers, that was rich.
“I’m not saying it for their sake. I’m saying it for yours. We probably won’t meet again, so can you just listen to me this once?”
“Hmph… Fine. Just this once.”
God, who would even take a girl like her? She clearly had a thing for that guy, so she could figure it out herself.
“You people stay hidden. I don’t care if you die playing hero, but if you kill someone randomly you won’t be able to handle the consequences.”
Click.
“Sigh.”
I’d left Horizon back in the cabin, so I grabbed one of the robbers’ outdated breech-loading rifles and some ammo before heading forward.
First-class cabins held two to four people max. Every door was open. No signs of life.
I sent holy power flowing from my fingertips throughout the entire car. No reaction.
“Hmm.”
But the air was growing strangely dry. It told me these things were already moving.
Pazuzu. God of drought and famine. A cult deity that had drifted in from the New Continent. If it had abandoned human sacrifice I might have treated it as just another foreign god, but of course it hadn’t. Creatures that maintained their strength by devouring human blood, flesh, and souls were trash that didn’t deserve to be called gods.
Nothing was visible, yet the farther forward I moved the drier my throat became and the more cracked my lips felt.
“Sun God. I’d appreciate a nice shot right about now.”
Holy power flowed into the barrel, forcibly carving rifling that the old rifle never had. Since this was a one-time-use piece of enemy garbage, I didn’t need to worry about a next time. I gripped the shaking rifle tightly, forcing the altered internals to obey.
The endless stream of holy power ran down the gun, reinforcing my body and expanding my senses. I could feel the presences in the car ahead.
“Hoo.”
I shouldered the rifle, dropped to one knee, and braced for the recoil. I held my breath and waited three seconds.
Then I pulled the trigger.