Chapter 32
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 32
Chapter Title: Memories of Murder (3)
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Going on about some taboo I couldn't understand.
Just thinking about the jerky I ate back then still turned my stomach.
Using the Line, I cleanly severed Ria's arm.
According to the god Soter, this skill could cut through anything with the utmost precision.
As the massive arm fell away, a look of bewilderment crossed Ria's face.
I spun around and swung my sword, ready to take off her other arm.
She must have realized the danger, as she hastily retreated.
That retreat was a wise choice.
“Aaaaargh! My arm! My arm, my arm!! How dare you touch my arm!!”
Ria screamed, her arm severed.
Seeing her scream with those monstrous arms attached was unsettling, to say the least.
Ria, who had been screaming like a madwoman, suddenly burst into laughter.
I beckoned to Ria with a single finger.
Ria's furious claws lunged at me.
I twisted my body slightly and sliced off her fingers with my sword.
Three fingers I failed to cut off pierced my shoulder and thigh.
“Shit.”
I staggered back, pressing down hard on my bleeding thigh.
It hurt.
It hurt like hell.
The kind of pain that forces a curse out of you.
Before I could even fully register the pain, Ria attacked again.
I jumped, lifting myself just enough to dodge the attack.
Twisting in mid-air, I thrust my sword.
I swung not at her arm, but at her neck.
I didn't know how her body was constructed, but unlike her arms, her torso was clearly that of a normal human.
“I just... wanted to know...”
Ria's head was severed, tumbling off the train.
“Spouting nonsense I couldn't understand.”
Going on about some taboo.
I didn't know what it was, and I didn't want to.
For a while, I stared down from the train.
Surely she couldn't still be alive after I'd cut off her head.
I was worried, but thankfully, that wasn't the case.
*Thud.*
Her headless body collapsed forward.
“It hurts.”
I limped.
Blood gushed from my thigh.
The floor beneath my feet was soaked in blood.
At the same time, I felt dizzy.
If this kept up, I'd be in real danger.
I took out all the small health potions I could from my item window.
They seemed to work pretty well on the wound I got from the goblin on the first floor.
But lately, they didn't seem very effective.
It was like a panacea had suddenly been downgraded to a simple ointment.
I guess that's why they gave me a hundred of them.
I sat down on the roof of the train and opened a health potion.
If mana potions were like candy, health potions were more like cheap junk food.
They felt like those wax bottle candies you'd buy in front of school, but they tasted like the fever medicine I used to take as a kid.
Both the mana potions and the health potions...
At this point, I didn't know why they even called them "potions."
I opened one health potion after another without pause.
My mind was hazy, and all sorts of strange thoughts drifted through it.
By the time a pile of empty health potions had formed on the floor, the bleeding finally stopped and the wound began to close.
Even if the effect was minor, a medicine that could heal wounds just by drinking it was still pretty amazing.
It felt completely different from drinking a recovery potion in a game.
The wound had closed, but I'd lost a lot of blood, and the internal damage remained.
“Meow.”
Hearing a cat, I turned around.
A white cat was looking at me.
Why is there a cat in a place like this?
I drew my dagger, wary of the cat.
The cat leaped.
I was so startled I almost swung my dagger.
The cat approached none other than the headless corpse of Ria Angelina.
More than the headless corpse, the jerky that came to mind when I saw it was what tormented me.
I had a feeling this would be a lifelong trauma.
The cat swatted Ria's body aside with its front paw.
Ria's corpse, along with the massive arm barely attached to it, tumbled off the train.
‘What did I just see?’
Ria's body was one thing, but that arm was easily over a meter long.
It was the size of an arm you'd expect a giant to have.
And it just knocked it away with a single swat?
I backed away, my hand on my sword.
Thankfully, I'd chugged enough health potions to be able to move.
Surely I'm not going to be killed by a cat.
[It is I.]
“What?”
[Major Decant, that is.]
“Dead?”
[Yes.]
That cat is Dead?
Dead was definitely killed when Ria ran him through.
I even confirmed he was dead myself.
I couldn't make sense of it. I asked Dead for an explanation.
“What happened?”
[I was resurrected.]
“It hasn't been three days yet.”
[I don't know what you're talking about, but I was indeed resurrected.]
Dead approached me.
Still, the gap between a middle-aged man and a cat was a bit much. Besides, this one looked like a female...
As my mind raced with various thoughts, the train lurched violently.
It had shaken a few times before, but this jolt was much bigger.
So much so that I thought it might derail.
[This is dangerous. We're going to derail.]
It seemed Dead was thinking the same thing.
Some of the cars at the back of the train broke away.
The car Dead and I were on also began to tilt.
I scooped Dead into my arms and climbed through a window back inside the train.
The inside of the train was still a mess.
“What happened to the infected?”
[They are still here.]
“There's no chance they'll turn back to normal, is there?”
[I wish that were the case, but it will not happen.]
Dead's voice was firm.
“Do you think there are any survivors?”
[That, I do not know. But one thing is certain.]
“What's that?”
[The infected are still alive.]
There was no other way but to deal with the remaining infected.
Dead, who had been in my arms, jumped down.
[I have a favor to ask of you.]
“Go ahead.”
I had a good idea what he was going to ask.
In this situation, there was only one thing he could possibly ask for.
In fact, it was almost laughable that Dead was asking me for a favor.
After all, in a way, this whole mess was my fault for not killing Ria.
[Kill all of the infected on this train.]
“Understood.”
[You don't hesitate? They were once human. No, they are still human.]
“Failing to deal with Ria properly was my mistake. And it's fine now.”
Ria was right.
Both Ria and I are murderers.
If the infected count as people, then I've already killed my fill.
Killing one or two more—no, a few hundred more—wouldn't change anything.
Dead warned.
[They must not reach the capital.]
I recalled the train station I saw before boarding.
Even at the station I saw, there were countless people.
The capital would have even more.
It was obvious what would happen if the infected were unleashed at the station, just as Dead said.
So this is what that guy meant when he said no one should be left on the train.
While talking with Dead, I continued to open and drink small health potions whenever I could.
[By the way, what is that thing you've been consuming this whole time?]
“Junk food. You don't need to worry about it.”
With that, I popped another wax bottle candy-like health potion into my mouth.
“Let's go.”
I drew my sword and advanced to the next car.
As soon as I entered the next car, the infected all turned to look at me in unison.
I raised my sword high.
That day.
On the train, I killed countless infected people.
By the time I looked up, the faint light of dawn was rising beyond the window.
* * *
“S-spare me! I'll give you as much money as you want!!”
A man hiding in the corner of a first-class car poured out the gold coins from his pocket.
On his shoulder was a bite mark from one of the infected.
As I approached with my sword, the man brandished a self-defense dagger, eyeing me warily.
“What are you doing? You're not infected! Hurry and heal me! D-do you not know who I...”
He babbled on, tears streaming down his face, his words a stream of consciousness.
Looking at the dagger in the man's hand, I let out a hollow laugh internally.
It wasn't because the man was amusing.
It was because I felt he resembled the me of a few months ago.
The me who trembled after killing a single goblin upon entering the Tower.
‘Pathetic.’
It was a self-loathing second only to my failure to kill Ria.
I understood what Dead meant about "that look in the eyes."
In the lower-floor lobby, there was a group that called themselves the "Central Guild."
When I first entered the Tower, I could never forget the way they looked at me.
The way I was looking at this man now was the same way the Central Guild members had looked at me when I'd just arrived in the Tower.
You couldn't climb higher in this game without going mad.
It was as if the rule had been designed that way from the start.
I kicked at the man's hand, the one holding the dagger.
The man bent down to pick up the fallen dagger.
I brought my sword down on his neck.
I closed the door and quietly left the first-class car.
[A pity.]
Dead, who was in the hallway, muttered as he saw me.
“It was my choice.”
This is the kind of world it is.
I won't hesitate anymore.
All that remained was the driver in the very front of the train, in the conductor's cabin.
‘It's a relief it's not a coal-powered engine, at least.’
The train ran on something called a "mana stone."
It was similar in size to the mana core I saw on the second floor.
But it definitely seemed to be something different from a mana core.
There was no way it had features like autopilot or anything you'd find on a modern train.
If it had, this train would have derailed long ago.
The fact that the train was still moving despite this disaster meant that someone in the conductor's cabin was still driving it.
Perhaps they weren't infected.
After dealing with the infected near the cabin, I broke down the door.
‘What if I find someone who isn't infected?’
It was one of the thoughts that began to surface as I grew accustomed to killing like a machine.
Dead's request was to stop the infected from spreading outside the train.
That's why he asked me to kill the infected.
He never said to kill the living.
On the other hand, that guy had said something different.
Thankfully, I hadn't come across a single uninfected person on my way here.
Well, there was one guy who tried to hide his infection before I found out.
The door flew open, revealing the train conductor clutching the controls.
The moment I saw him, I realized how pointless my earlier worries had been.
There was no one left uninfected on this train.
Both of his arms were tied to the controls with rope.
When I entered, he made a grotesque noise and craned his neck, but his hands remained firmly on the train's controls.
It wasn't his mind driving the train, but his body, moving from long years of practice.
It was a sense of duty so profound it was terrifying.
[Stopping it will be impossible.]
Dead inspected the train's controls for me.
He didn't seem like a layman, so if Dead said it was impossible, it must be.
The train will arrive at the capital in three or four hours.
There are no survivors.
I'd checked thoroughly with Mana Detection, so this was the last of them.
I don't know how to drive a train, nor how to stop it.
“What should I do?”
One option was to leave him be until we reached the capital.
[You may kill him.]
“What about the train?”
Killing the man was one thing, but the train was another problem.
[I will drive. It seems too cruel to leave him like this any longer.]
Thankfully, he wasn't ordering me to drive.
Of course, this was absurd in its own right.
“How is a cat supposed to drive a train?”
He had to say something at least plausible for me to take him seriously.