The Rats of the Endless Express (2)
The stage with the worst clear rate among all twelfth-floor stages: Endless Express.
The world outside the train was a frozen wasteland straight out of an ice age, a paradise for monsters.
Players had to survive inside the colossal train, adapt to its ways, and reach the engine room.
What made this stage unique was the presence of intelligent, living beings who were not players.
In other words, the native inhabitants of the dimension called Endless Express.
NPCs, but the kind that weren’t players.
The train was enormous.
Large enough to accommodate several thousand humans.
The natives carried out their social lives inside the train and defended it from monsters.
They traveled across the world, gathering resources from every corner.
“So this place is basically one giant society.”
The goal of the players dropped into the train was simple.
Reach the engine room.
The engine room. The foremost section of this massive train.
The place where the ‘engineer’ who operated the train resided.
Given that the train was the very foundation maintaining their society, it was a location only those with tremendous authority could reach.
To put it bluntly, reaching the engine room was horrendously difficult.
The train’s interior operated under a rigid, absolute class system.
There were two groups at the highest rank.
The engineers—including the driver—responsible for the train’s mechanical operations.
And the Guardians who protected the train from monsters.
The next class was the wealthy.
Those with literal riches and possessions.
They didn’t possess functions essential to running the train like the engineers or Guardians, but they held political influence and connections instead.
Whether by bringing in vast quantities of food during the train’s early days or by wisely resolving conflicts among the humans.
The largest group consisted of the families and relatives of engineers and Guardians.
Up to this point, they corresponded to royalty and nobility in a medieval hierarchy.
They made up roughly thirty percent of the train’s population yet could freely access more than ninety percent of its space.
The rest fell into two categories.
Those comprising seventy percent of the population.
The laborers, and the rats.
The laborers were exactly as the name implied—people whose labor was exploited to operate the train and to ensure the upper classes lived in comfort.
When Guardians hunted monsters, they became living meat shields. When engineers worked, they were assigned menial chores or tasks demanding brutal physical labor.
Finally, the rats.
Those who had slipped aboard the train—the last salvation of a ruined world—‘without permission.’
If laborers were commoners, rats were the lowest of the low.
Every native tried to exterminate rats the moment they were spotted.
The workforce supplied by the laborers alone was more than enough for the train.
The train’s size was finite, and an excessively large population would only accelerate resource depletion and invite monster attacks.
“Obviously, that means we’re ‘rats’ right now, yeah?”
Ran, unfamiliar with the background, asked again.
“Rats?”
Taeyang didn’t answer. He simply rose from his spot.
“First, we need to figure out exactly where we are.”
Though ignored, Ran showed no particular reaction.
After clearing several stages together, she had learned that Taeyang communicated with a ‘ghost’ she couldn’t perceive.
Surprisingly, the ‘ghost’ was intimately familiar with the dimensional labyrinth, so the smart move was to stay silent whenever he spoke to it.
Each player spawned in a different location.
The most common starting point was the laborers’ residential area—the ‘tail cars’—which housed sixty-five to seventy percent of the population. They could also appear in places like the ‘engine room,’ ‘cargo hold,’ or ‘passenger cars.’
Since the ‘engine room’ sat at the very front of the train, players who spawned in the tail cars had a much longer distance to cover than those who spawned in the passenger cars.
However, spawning near the engine room wasn’t necessarily better.
The privileged natives rejected anyone outside their own circle.
Moreover, every district—whether formally or strictly—verified identities during movement.
If someone unfortunately spawned in the ‘military sector’ where the Guardians lived, they could die before even attempting anything.
Hoooook.
Even breathing produced pure white vapor.
“That’s a relief.”
Laborers would also try to exterminate any ‘rats’ they found and act territorial, but they were still better than the high-ranking humans and wealthy classes.
They too struggled just to survive day by day.
Besides, with such a huge population spread throughout, they didn’t know everyone perfectly. So even if they spotted a player, they often failed to recognize them as a ‘rat.’
Roughly two hundred players were estimated to have been dropped into the Endless Express stage.
In truth, distinguishing them was extremely difficult.
There was no reliable way to tell ‘player’ NPCs apart from ‘native’ NPCs.
What was certain was that a significant number of people had suddenly been added to a train already carrying thousands of living souls.
In the early phase of the stage, a ‘Rat Extermination’ campaign occurred almost without fail. Successfully surviving it was the players’ first major objective.
The Guardian Route.
Participating in monster defense battles or subjugation expeditions and displaying overwhelming martial prowess.
Guardians who risked their lives fighting monsters received respect and enjoyed many privileges, but they also died in droves.
That was why they occasionally recruited skilled laborers into their ranks.
Monster defense and subjugation battles were the broadest opportunity for laborers to aim for upward mobility.
Broadest, yet the ratio was still only about one recruit per several hundred casualties.
“Let’s assess the situation. The most urgent task is to shake off the ‘rat’ label first.”
Removing the ‘rat’ label was simple.
Make at least one person who knew you—even if it was only one.
Build a network of human relationships from there. Once you blended into it, you could slip into the laborers’ sphere of activity.
Taeyang and Ran had been fairly lucky.
The place they had spawned was sparsely populated.
Thanks to that, they had time to grasp their surroundings and the current state of affairs.
The spot where Taeyang and Ran had landed was the ‘food storage car’ in the tail section.
More precisely, a food storage car that had already run completely empty.
There were signs of people coming and going nearby, but no one had entered their particular area. It seemed the food had been depleted for quite some time.
At that moment, Ran’s eyes flashed.
“Someone’s coming. This direction.”
At her words, Taeyang held his breath.
Soon two men walked over, chatting casually.
“Sigh. Damn it all. When the hell are they fixing the left wall of car eight? The wind leaks in every time I sleep and my bones ache like they’re freezing solid.”
“You actually expect them to fix it? Idiot. Haven’t you figured out those bastards above us yet? Grab some planks and nails yourself.”
Taeyang agreed.
“You want me to talk like shit? If I had the energy I would’ve fixed it already. I work so hard that the moment my head hits the pillow my eyes slam shut.”
“That’s true. Damn it. They’re not even repairing the train—they’re building a theme park in the passenger cars. I’ve got zero motivation.”
Taeyang and Ran’s eyes flashed at the same time.
Passenger cars. Theme park.
Valuable information for the pair who knew nothing about the train’s internal situation.
Thud. Thud.
As the men drew closer their voices grew clearer.
“Speaking of which, looks like it’s that season again.”
“What season?”
“You know. The ‘rats.’ I heard nearly twenty showed up at the steel polishing mill.”
“Ah, already that time. Ha. Guess we won’t be eating meat for a while.”
“I’m more worried about the smell that never goes away. Fuck. Why won’t they let us clean up the ‘rat’ corpses?”
Another reason Endless Express was treated as an entire dimension.
This place functioned as both a stage of the dimensional labyrinth and as a complete ‘world.’
Thud. Thud.
Ran picked up her fan. Taeyang began tensing his muscles.
Taeyang gave Ran a light glance.
Kill them the moment they enter.
Silently.
Ran nodded.
Having crossed the line of death together many times, they could now convey simple intentions with nothing but eye contact.
Sizzle.
The sound of a flint striking came from outside the door.
“Hoo.”
“Hey. Light it gently. If the smell spreads, those beggar bastards will swarm over begging for a drag.”
“Just finish it before they get here. What’s the problem?”
Thick smoke drifted in from the other side of the door.
Ran wrinkled her delicate brows.
The smell was fiercely pungent.
“Hoo. Ha. Those ‘rats.’ Wouldn’t it be nice if Lord Guhyul of the Dragon Slaying Sword just wiped them all out in one go right from the start?”
“Who knows.”
Taeyang’s eyes deepened.
Guhyul of the Dragon Slaying Sword.
The representative of the Guardians.
One of the three Transcendents who ruled the train.
He only revealed himself when dealing with predator-class monsters targeting the train.
“He cleaned them up like that last time too. That man even takes care of the corpses nicely. It’s convenient.”
“I hate it. My life is precious, you know. Didn’t you see Alri and Maru get dragged into it by bad luck last time?”
“…That’s true.”
Hoooook.
The acrid cigarette smoke continued pouring in from beyond the door.
The pair seemed lost in their smoking; no voices came for a long while.
From the opposite side, Ran mouthed silently.
Shouldn’t we secure their clothes?
Taeyang shook his head.
Since rumors of ‘rats’ appearing had already spread, the wisest course was to avoid all contact with natives for the time being.
Besides, Ran’s appearance was problematically beautiful.
Her skin was far too fair and smooth for a woman of the laborer class.
Engineers referred to technicians who maintained the train, but they also referred to mages.
Since the train itself was a gigantic magic artifact, handling it required deep knowledge of magic.
The problem was that Ran, being an NPC, had zero understanding of Endless Express’s background lore.
At that moment, the casual chatter resumed.
“Hoo, anyway. Think we’ll get any new recruits during the subjugation battle this time?”
“It’s tradition. Quite a few guys get scouted into the Guardians right before or after the rat hunts.”
“That Luke guy’s been running his mouth saying he’ll make it big this time.”
“That moron? I’ll bet a whole carton of cigarettes that he comes back crying after losing an arm or leg to a monster.”
“Same here.”
“Which side? The promotion side?”
“Obviously the crying-his-eyes-out side.”
“What? Then there’s no bet at all.”
“Damn it, trying to suck my wallet dry with such an obvious outcome?”
“Ahem.”
Then a loud voice boomed from the other side.
“Hey, you worthless vermin! While everyone else is working like dogs, you’re hiding in here smoking?!”
The authoritative voice was thick with rage. It seemed to belong to someone in the position of work foreman.
“We’re screwed.”
“You didn’t bring it in your mouth, right?”
“Just in case I brought four, but we already smoked two. Think they’ll overlook two?”
“Good. Two. I can trust that.”
After a hurried whisper, the door burst open with a thunderous bang!
Ran let out an involuntary “Hik!” and quickly covered her mouth.
“You damned bastards! How many times do I have to tell you the ‘dragon’s nest’ is right in front of us?! If you don’t maintain the train, both the tail cars and the front cars will get torn to shreds! Oh—what’s this? You even have two?”
“This is everything, I swear.”
“Light it.”
“Yes sir.”
Sizzle.
The man who appeared to be the foreman lit a cigarette first.
It seemed he had come expecting exactly this.
“Sorry, boss. Seeing you work yourself to death building that theme park in the passenger cars… I really wonder what we’re suffering for…”
“Hoo. Hey. Tastes good. Ahem. I get it. It’s not that I don’t. We’re not their damn foot-washers. Fuck. It’s not enough we wipe their asses—now they want us to make them bibs too. What the hell is this nonsense?”
“The wall of room eight that got ripped off during the last monster invasion still hasn’t been fixed. My back won’t straighten when I wake up in the morning. We’re going to freeze to death at this rate.”
“Hoo. Yeah. No word from above. I’ll bring it up to the supervisor again.”
“Please do, boss.”
Soon the three men’s voices faded into the distance.
“Yeah.”
A single word from their conversation had decided Taeyang’s plan.
Dragon’s nest.
It seemed the train was now entering the territory of the white dragon Untara.