Ghost Train (2)
The gunshot cracked through the air as I hurled myself toward the door. Boom! Through the shattered remnants, I caught the startled eyes of the cultists inside. I tackled the one at the front and ripped the machete from his belt. In that same instant, the holy power-infused bullet detonated.
Kwaaaaang!
A brilliant flash of light erupted alongside roaring flames. The bastards who’d been casting their filthy sorcery burst into fire the moment the blaze touched them. The rest could only clutch at their eyes, completely disoriented.
“Hup!”
The narrow corridor of the first-class carriage was perfect for slicing through the tightly packed group all at once. Shluk! Blood sprayed from severed necks, further blinding the regenerating freaks. Behind the two who collapsed, another one frantically raised his rifle.
Crunch!
Without hesitation, I hurled the machete. It punched straight through the rifleman’s forehead. Using his falling corpse as a shield, I charged forward.
“Uwaaaaah!”
“Die!”
Bang! Bang bang!
You really shouldn’t spray a lever-action rifle like that, dumbass. Click click. Just as I thought, the ammo jammed halfway, producing a pathetic grinding noise. I flung the corpse I’d been using as a shield and yanked the embedded machete free, swinging it in a wide arc.
“Gurgh!?”
The man tried to block with his rifle. I cut both him and the gun clean in half. Another one crawled out from beneath the body that had crushed him.
“S-Spare m—”
Crunch!
I drove the blade into his throat, then spun around.
Bang!
“G-Got him!”
“Hey… doesn’t that sting?”
The guy I’d knocked out with a tackle had woken up and immediately shot me in the head. All it left was a tiny scratch on my scalp.
“Hiiik!”
“Sigh… You wanna repent?”
“I-I have nothing to say to the Sun God’s dog!”
“Thanks.”
I really meant it. Honestly, the situation was so fucked I was half-afraid he might actually repent.
“Aaaaaagh!”
I grabbed the kneeling bastard by the hair and lifted him up so we were eye-level. How considerate of me, right? Even with an enemy, I was making sure we spoke on equal footing. The Sun God would surely praise me for this.
“How many of your comrades are left and where are they?”
“Ptooey!”
This son of a bitch. Was this the same guy who’d been trembling in fear moments ago? When someone starts a conversation, you’re supposed to answer with words, not spit. Looked like I’d need a different approach.
“Burn. Roots! Roots!”
“U-Ugh! Uwaaaaagh!”
I poured a heavy dose of holy power into the hand gripping his hair. The divine energy flowed through his scalp, heating his brain nice and toasty while reminding him of his mistake.
“Lost little lamb. Ready to answer now?”
“Y-Yes sir!”
Looked like I’d done a fine job guiding the flock again today.
“So the ones in the lower cars are just disposable fodder?”
“Y-Yes! They’re sacrificial pawns meant to buy time!”
Seemed like the woman wouldn’t have much trouble subduing them without killing. Good.
“You’re going to spare us?”
“Nope.”
“Aaaaaagh!”
Leaving the man burning to death behind me, I returned to my original compartment. The place was trashed, but it didn’t look like they’d found my kids.
“Didn’t think I’d have to use this so soon.”
I grabbed Horizon, the black-gold iron weapon that absorbed and amplified holy power, along with the newly acquired pump-action shotgun. Still, I hoped I wouldn’t need them before we arrived. Sure, I killed every bastard I saw, but I was technically a pacifist. I simply eliminated those who disturbed the peace in order to restore it.
After gathering my basic armaments, I left the wrecked compartment and climbed onto the roof of the train.
“Whoa. It’s disgustingly bright.”
The Moon, sister to the Sun God, was shining brilliantly overhead.
“Tsk. Reminds me of that crazy bitch.”
That only soured my mood further. The woman I’d met on the train with the Empress was insane, but the one called the Saint of the Moon was on another level. She’d seemed normal enough during our training days. I still couldn’t understand how she’d ended up like that.
“So you lot got drunk on the moon too?”
“Grrrrr.”
Instead of guns, they were wielding machetes. A pack of bipedal beast bastards. Their faces resembled lions, and scorpion tails protruded from their rear ends. Definitely not werewolves.
“Fucking lunatics.”
It was the only thing that came to mind. To think the price of selling your soul to an evil god was turning into these grotesque monsters. I couldn’t comprehend their mindset, nor did I want to.
“Kwaaaaaah!”
The one with the mane—probably the leader—let out a monstrous roar, and the rest began moving with surprising coordination despite their beastly forms. At least the space was narrow…
Tap tap! Tap!
“Ugh!”
I’d been an idiot for thinking there was no way I’d get surrounded just because we were fighting on the narrow roof. A few of them used nearby trees to quickly circle behind me. I sprinted straight ahead to avoid them.
The two in front charged first, swinging their machetes. I stomped down hard, shattering the blade aimed at my lower body, then slapped away the one swinging for my neck with my palm and slipped between them.
Shiiiing!
I heard the sound of something cutting through the air from behind and fired the shotgun without even looking.
Kaaang!
Using the recoil to roll forward, I checked and saw that a scorpion tail had been aiming for me. It wasn’t exactly elegant—venom dripped from the tip, the poison it had been ready to inject.
“Grrrrr!”
The leader from behind charged in, refusing to give me any breathing room. I stowed the shotgun and dove straight into his embrace. His panicked face filled my vision for a split second.
Whoosh!
I grabbed the arm swinging the machete and flipped him over my shoulder.
Kwaaaaang!
I slammed him headfirst so he couldn’t even attempt a proper landing, then backed away. While waiting for the leader embedded in the roof to get up, I waved at the clustered group.
“Off you go to your master.”
A metal ring nestled between my shaking fingers rattled along with them.
Kwaaaaang!
Unlike me, who had ducked to avoid the blast, the tightly packed bastards were completely devoured by the grenade’s explosion. Thick smoke and a pungent stench filled the air, but the dry night wind swept both away in an instant.
“Hoo…”
Leaving the ones who had vanished without a trace behind, I headed toward the luxury-class carriage. It was a place I’d known about for a long time but had never wanted to think about. If this had been a normal situation, the Empress would have reserved the luxury compartment for me.
“What a load of bullshit…”
The moment I opened the door, what greeted me were the faces of naked men and women. And by faces, I meant exactly that. A tower made entirely of severed heads sat at the center of a fully completed altar. It looked like they’d thrown one last orgy before entering the strict academy, only to be slaughtered without even being able to resist.
Since I knew the entity called Pazuzu, dismantling the ritual itself wasn’t difficult. I scattered holy power, and both the traces of the altar and the heads that had been used as offerings burned away. Holy power normally didn’t burn inanimate objects, but if I knew the name, I could burn anything that carried its lingering trace.
After passing through the luxury carriage that was now burning to ash, the situation in the engine room was even worse. The fanatics who had resolved to die here had killed both engineers. They’d left only the speaking tube that could contact the rear cars intact and smashed everything else.
“This is the engine room. All train hijackers have been subdued. As of this moment, all passengers are to disembark immediately. If you don’t want to die, get off the train.”
I’d given all the warnings I needed to. If they stayed behind and died after being told to get off, that was their own damn fault.
I checked the ammunition for the shotgun and Horizon, along with the two grenades I had left, then found the liquor the engineers had stashed away and took a few sips.
“Krrgh.”
“You! What do you mean, get off!?”
“I just want to sigh in peace for a moment. Why the hell are you here again?”
The woman arrived in the engine room carrying a clean machete without blood on it and her own sword. The moment she saw me sitting there drinking, it was obvious she wanted to lecture me.
“Looks like you didn’t kill them after all.”
“Of course not! Even though I don’t like you, I figured an Exorcist like you must have had a reason.”
“Then why didn’t you listen to this exorcist and get off? What are you still doing here?”
“You’re the one sitting here drinking alcohol!”
“Geez, so damn noisy… Why don’t you look over there and then talk?”
I pointed. The two engineers’ corpses were twitching as if they’d become zombies. Then the bodies split apart, and a being made entirely of bones emerged from within.
“T-That’s…”
“We can’t touch it, and it doesn’t care about us, so just ignore it.”
“What is that thing?”
“Engineers possessed by the Ghost Train?”
The reason I’d told the woman not to commit murder was precisely because of the Ghost Train. An evil spirit that only appeared when the elements of night, a train, and murder combined. Anyone involved in the killings aboard this train would be cursed to die regardless of whether they were good or evil. A truly terrifying existence.
Chh. Chh-chh. Chh-chh-chh.
The sound of an early-model train slowly grew louder. By the way, there was only one track, obviously.
“Then you’re cursed too, aren’t you?”
“That’s why I’m here. The Ghost Train is difficult to exorcise, but its real problem is that it travels across the entire empire using the rails, gathering resentment.”
What if we could gather all that resentment into a single ghost and periodically weaken just that one?
A new hypothesis has been born.
📍 Result: A nation with almost no evil spirits was created.
🎁 The One Thousand Religion only issues orders to periodically weaken it. They have never assigned an official exorcism mission.
“So you’re just going to die?”
“I’m trying to survive. Whether I have a mission or not, I kill anything in front of me.”
Homerus had ground his teeth until he became head of the Exorcism Bureau. As for me, I had so many other things to deal with besides the Ghost Train that I hadn’t paid it any attention.
In the end, including the woman who hadn’t gotten off, there were only two passengers left. The damned hell-bound train began to move.