Blood on the Holy Train
“Blood? What blood?”
At Simon's question, Lethe sniffed at the air herself, frowning.
“I can't really tell. There's something faintly... coppery, I guess? But it could just be food smells drifting over from another compartment.”
“......”
While Simon rose from his seat with a grave expression, Lethe kept talking.
“Anyway, I can't place the smell, but the train has suddenly slowed down. And it's shaking like crazy— the ride's gone to hell...... Huh? Wha—what?”
Her eyes, turned toward the window, went wide as saucers. She shot up and pressed herself against the glass.
“What the hell is that?!”
Across the vast pasture spreading out beyond the train, hordes of blood-red zombies were streaming toward the cars, dripping gore with every lurching stride.
And that wasn't all.
Thud! A sudden impact rattled the very window the two of them were watching. Lethe shrieked and staggered backward—straight into Simon's chest.
“What the—those things—what ARE they?!”
Keeeeeegh!
A zombie was clinging to the window. Judging by the panicked screams erupting from every direction, the other cars were faring no better.
The zombies, worked into a frenzy at the sight of living humans, howled and hammered their fists against the glass. Some of them were already crawling up onto the roof of the train.
“Lethe, hold on.”
Simon strode boldly over and pressed himself flat against the window crawling with the undead.
When did they even—?
Between the swarming bodies, he caught sight of it: a crimson magic circle etched onto the train's outer hull. That was where the zombies were being summoned from.
CRASH!
At that moment, the glass at the back of the car exploded inward, and zombies came pouring through the breach like water from a bursting dam. Screams of horror rang out on all sides as the first-class cabin descended into utter chaos.
“Tch!”
Lethe was the first to dash into the corridor, raising her hand. From the magic circle unfurled before her index finger, countless holy arrows came surging forth, spearing through zombie hearts and skulls.
“Red zombies like those—that's the Blood Sky Cult, no question!”
WHAM!
Simon appeared, kicking away a zombie that had been lunging for the back of Lethe's neck.
“That heretical sect everyone's been on about lately?”
“Looks that way. They use their own modified undead—Blood Zombies. They've even got resistance to purification magic, which makes them a real pain in the ass.”
Lethe, still firing holy arrows in rapid succession, planted a foot on a cabin seat and launched herself into the air.
Skirt flaring, she caved in the skull of a zombie head-on, then rode the recoil into another leap. In an instant she'd marked a full ten zombies clinging to the ceiling and traced a holy sigil in the air.
⟨ La Broche ⟩
Fwoooosh!Thk!
The zombies pawing at the ceiling were impaled from behind by lances of holy light bursting up through the floor, and collapsed in heaps. By the time they hit the ground, a radiant magic circle had already spread across the cabin floor beneath them.
SLAM!
Beyond the falling zombies, another one came flying through the air, hurled several meters before slamming into the wall with a wet splat.
“Hooooh.”
As Simon walked slowly down the corridor, zombies came shrieking at him from either side.
Strength.Haste.Endurance.
Three blessings stacked on himself, Simon swung his fist. With a bone-deep impact, one zombie's face caved in and it went sailing out the window.
Keeghhh!Kiiii!
The zombies grew only more frenzied, and Simon's arms carved through the air.
Crack! Crunch! Thud!
A zombie's leg shattered; a jaw caved in and flew free. Behind him, a zombie that had sunk its teeth toward Simon's thigh found itself stopped dead by skin hardened under Endurance, unable to bite down.
Simon brought his elbow down on the crown of its skull and burst it like a rotten fruit.
No need to rush. Keep breathing, and finish them one by one.
No matter how many came swarming, Simon's movements remained stripped of everything unnecessary. Lethe, watching him fight, tilted her head.
“Since when did I ever teach you holy martial arts?”
“This is Magic Combat. A punch is a punch, whichever school it came from.”
Pop!
A measuring jab shot out like a bolt of lightning, and a zombie staggered back spitting blood. Simon flowed straight into the follow-up, stepping in deep and driving a right straight. The zombie crashed backward into its fellows with a thunderous clatter and went down in a tangle.
Thanks to the two of them, the tide turned quickly. The other priests, who had been flailing behind their barriers, regained their composure and began to counterattack.
Among them was Ellen, blanketing the car in area-of-effect holy magic.
“Ellen, ma'am!”
Lethe shouted over the din.
“Everyone's gonna be fleeing toward first class where the priests are! Please take charge and protect the people there!”
“Y-yes, of course! But what about the two of you?”
Simon and Lethe met each other's eyes and nodded. Simon spoke.
“We're heading for the engine room.”
“That's far too reckless! To get there, you'd have to cut through how many enemies—?!”
CRUNCH!
A zombie's brains erupted as Simon's casually thrown fist put it flat on the floor without his even looking.
“We'll be back. Ellen.”
“Stay safe out there!”
The two strode through into the next car.
Second class, naturally, was in just as much chaos. Terrified passengers wailed as they scrambled toward first class, fleeing in the direction Simon and Lethe had come from.
The two hugged the wall as they walked, passing through second and third class and into the common car. Rows of cramped seats with no berths to speak of—this car had been carrying the largest number of passengers.
“AAAAAGH!”
“P-please! Stop! Ghhk—!”
With so many people packed in, the carnage here was far worse. Zombies and humans were tangled together in a mass of flesh—people being bitten and torn, people collapsing in pools of their own blood. And then there were those sitting frozen in place, something locked around their necks, pinned where they sat.
Beside them stood men and women dressed in red.
Who are they?
Simon's gaze went cold. The zombies weren't touching them, and they wore long, extravagantly embroidered crimson robes.
“Stop struggling and put on the collar.”
“Wear it, and you'll be one of us—a member of the Blood Sky Cult.”
They were tossing red, dog-collar-like things at the passengers. Anyone who put one on became untouchable to the zombies, just like the people in red.
“You there. Why not give up resisting and put on a collar yourself?”
A middle-aged man, his leg already bitten by a zombie, was bleeding out as he resisted.
“D-don't make me laugh! I am a servant of the Goddess—!”
“Bullshit.”
Thud!
The Blood Sky Cultist kicked him square in the jaw.
“Then hurry up and pray to your precious Goddess, why don't you? Pray for rescue! Pray for divine punishment to strike us down! Doesn't work, does it? Of course it doesn't! Seriously, use the head on your shoulders for once! If your god is so mighty and all-powerful, why won't it save any of—?!”
CRACK!
The man's face was obliterated mid-sentence, and the surrounding cultists flinched back in horror.
Lethe, who had floored a cultist with a flying kick, spoke as if spitting out something bitter.
“There you go—one order of divine punishment, delivered as requested.”
“You—!”
A Blood Sky cultist swung a club-like weapon at the back of her head the moment she landed.
BANG!
Simon was suddenly there, arm raised, blocking it—appearing at her back as if he'd materialized out of thin air.
Fast!
Simon seized the man's wrist and hauled him forward, driving his other fist up into his chin. The cultist went airborne—and the instant he did, Lethe and Simon kicked off the floor in unison.
Blood sprayed. Bones snapped. Faces caved in.
The two of them tore through the car in every direction at once, wielding Magic Combat and holy martial arts respectively, beating down cultists and zombies alike wherever they found them.
“Ah—quit coming over to my side! We keep getting tangled up!”
Lethe snapped, driving a kick into a cultist's stomach.
“That's the third time I've almost eaten your foot.”
Simon replied, wrenching another cultist's arm out of its socket.
The passengers watched the two of them fight, more or less dumbstruck. None of them realized that these were Kizen's Special Admission No. 1 and Efnel's top-ranked freshman—the students who stood at the very pinnacle of their respective powers.
“S-save us, please!”
“There's more undead coming from the rear cars!”
The real problem was the people streaming in from the other cars, fleeing the wreckage. Humans and zombies came pouring through in a hopeless jumble, making it nearly impossible to sort friend from foe mid-fight.
Time and again, the holy lances on Lethe's fingertips wavered—stymied by screaming civilians running straight into her line of fire.
“Okay, new plan.”
Lethe said.
“I'll drop back and play support. You fight alone. You can manage that, right?”
It sounded reckless on its face, but Simon smiled as if he'd been waiting for exactly that.
“Deal! I was about to suggest the same thing.”
“Ugh, my pride.”
She muttered it, then dropped to one knee right where she stood.
Tracing a holy sigil, she spread a barrier around herself, pressed her palms together, and began to pray.
Vuuuuuuuum!
Explosive divinity began to rise around her, centering on her body like a storm given form.
With Lethe backing me up, I couldn't ask for a safer feeling.
Simon had been stunned by her skill more than once back when he'd studied white magic under her.
Before long, a blinding radiance was whirling through the car as a party of blessings descended.
⟨ Mass Haste ⟩ · ⟨ Mass Endurance ⟩ · ⟨ Mass Downer ⟩
WHOOOOOOSH!
Beyond all expectation. Countless white magic circles bloomed across the train's ceiling and began showering light down onto the passengers. High-performance buffs settled over the bodies of everyone in flight.
The fleeing passengers' speed spiked in an instant. Even when zombies got their teeth into them, the creatures' claws and fangs could no longer break human skin.
The zombies' attacks simply ceased to be a threat. On top of that came white magic that soothed the mind itself—and Simon let out a breathless sound of admiration as the pandemonium settled in the space of a heartbeat.
⟨ Mass Heal ⟩ ⟨ Curse Break ⟩
Now it was healing and purification. Bite wounds closed up clean, and even the creeping infection of the zombies' venom vanished without a trace.
And Curse Break reached even those wearing the red collars. The potent purification effect detonated the curse-wrought collars right off their necks.
Simon shouted.
“Everyone! It's safe now—please evacuate in an orderly fashion!”
With Lethe on support, casualties might as well have been zero. Simon guided the passengers toward safety even as he fought the Blood Sky Cult.
Crunch!
Simon's fist obliterated a zombie's face. At that moment, a cultist at his flank finished weaving a blood-arrow and fired it straight at him.
BANG!
Lethe's barrier unfolded before Simon like a painted screen, blocking the shot. Simon flicked a fallen water bottle up with the tip of his toe and spun into a roundhouse kick.
Lethe released the barrier with perfect timing, and the cultist's face met the flying bottle with a wet smack. He hit the floor screaming and didn't get up.
“What's all this racket?!”
“You still can't clear one lousy train car?”
More and more cultists kept pouring in from the rear cars. And then—white magic flared to life beneath Simon's feet.
⟨ La Vitesse ⟩
WHOOOOSH!
A gale of light coiled around Simon's body. Inside the car, his hair and clothes whipped around wildly.
Simon grinned and dropped low into a crouch. It was Lethe's own signature blessing—short in duration, devastatingly potent.
Now we're talking!
Simon launched himself at the onrushing cultists. His body stretched out in a brilliant streak of green, moving faster than the eye could follow.
He ricocheted off the ceiling, the floor, the walls—kicking aside every cultist in his path like so much litter—before coming down to the ground.
Before Simon had even landed, five cultists were rolling across the car, blood fountaining from their mouths and noses.
“Whew.”
Lethe shook out her sweat-damp hair and rose up from behind the cabin seat.
“All done in here, then?”