Chapter 37
I'll carry those bottles for you.
I soothed the bickering family and called over the combat drone hovering behind me.
The combat drone slid over, extended its mechanical arm, and effortlessly lifted the box of bottles.
The restaurant family gaped at the drone.
"Now that we've got the luggage, let's get going."
"Ah, yes!"
The family had just put on their coats and were about to step out of the shop.
Thud!
A loud noise rang out from the alley outside the restaurant.
When I peeked outside, the Awakeners who had destroyed the tracks in the reconnaissance drone's footage were huffing and puffing as they ran up.
They were the group led by the muscular man carrying a car door, and the group that included the Awakener firing fireballs nonstop from his hands.
They were in a miserable state after cutting their way through the zombie horde, but the moment they spotted us standing unharmed in front of the restaurant door, they lit up and charged at us.
"Huff, huff... What the hell, you! You're not trying to cut in line, are you?!"
"You got here before us?"
"W-why are those people acting like that?"
"Are they trying to loot us...? Going after my liquor!"
"Who'd want such liquor..."
The restaurant's family trembled and hid behind me, whispering among themselves about what was going on.
What a headache.
No way they both would show up at once—
Just then, the man who had been using fireballs caught his breath, stepped forward, and raised a hand high.
His hand was pointed at both sides.
One side toward us, the other toward the man carrying the car door.
A fireball as red as a human head blazed and roared above his palm.
"If you don't want to burn to ashes, back off quietly! We're taking these people to the safe zone!"
The man glared fiercely and threatened us.
But I didn't back down.
That fireball was nothing but bluster to begin with.
I remembered exactly what the Constellation's quest conditions were.
I was supposed to escort the family safely to the safe zone.
If that man threw a fireball here and even so much as damaged the restaurant family or those precious bottles of liquor, we'd gain nothing but the Constellation's wrath, not a reward.
"It should be your side that's raising its hands..."
And telling us to raise our hands is usually the line of the side with the gun.
Our clever drones immediately sprang into action.
I didn't even need to give the order.
Swish—click!
The combat drone that had been carrying the luggage gently set the box down on the floor, then aimed its gun straight at the fireball man's forehead.
At the same time, the sniper drone hiding overhead slowly descended and proudly displayed the barrel of its heavy sniper rifle.
"W-wha...?"
The face of the man who had been so full of swagger a moment ago turned deathly pale in an instant.
Fireballs forged through skills are scary, sure, but people are hardwired to fear guns.
Especially when emotionless-looking drones are the ones aiming them.
"A g-gun..."
"Is it real?"
"It has to be real... Want to check for yourself?"
The man drew a sharp breath and hurriedly snuffed out the fireball in his hand.
And before anyone could react, the man—and the other survivors from the rival group—threw both hands up in the air as if they had rehearsed it.
That was the power of guns.
"O-okay! We'll back off!"
The man with the fireball yelled in alarm.
I smiled at the ones with their hands raised, and said gently,
"That's a relief, then. You all look busy, so you should get going."
"We'll go! We will, so... don't shoot, okay? Really! Seriously!"
"Yes, yes, we won't shoot."
While the man who had been firing fireballs and his group retreated meekly before the gun barrels, the other group's atmosphere was far from normal.
Even as they reluctantly turned away, they kept fiddling with the car door they'd ripped off, or twitching the strings of their weaponized crossbows, casting us resentful looks.
If the protected family and the armed drones hadn't been right beside me, those looks probably would have turned into arrows.
Still, they did leave quietly for the moment.
"Let's hurry back to the train."
"Why on earth were they just aiming at each other...?"
The woman asked uneasily.
Come to think of it, they might not have understood what just happened.
I explained it as clearly as I could.
"...The reward the Constellation offered for this job was just too good, so the Awakeners are trying to claim it for themselves."
"Ah..."
She looked like she'd never imagined a problem like that could arise.
We retraced the route I had first taken while following the reconnaissance drone.
Beyond the alley, we heard booming crashes from the buildings, as if the two groups were fighting the zombie horde again.
Terrified by the noise, the family went pale and let out short screams as they slowly trailed after me.
After walking for quite a while like that, we had almost reached the place where my train was parked.
I spotted unfamiliar marks carved into the asphalt and came to a sudden stop.
"Everyone, wait a second... go hide inside that convenience store up ahead and stay quiet."
"Huh? Why..."
"...Ah, maybe there are zombies!"
"Dad, over here...!"
Though confused by my sudden order, the family obediently slipped into the broken convenience store and hid inside.
I narrowed my eyes and stared at the ground.
'It's different from when we left.'
Since I'd carefully memorized the cut surface of the severed track and the condition of the ground before we left, I could tell at a glance.
The scratches carved into the ground had grown longer.
Especially this deep, long gouge.
It matched perfectly with the scar the muscular man with the car door had left behind while raking the ground earlier.
They must have fought zombies here.
'They came toward the train before us.'
Since my train was parked right out in the open up ahead, it would have caught their eye too.
The look that had raked over me earlier flashed back through my mind again.
A look full of hostility.
"Recon drone."
I quietly called the drone waiting in the air.
"Go check around the train. Quietly, got it?"
The recon drone shot off like an arrow, and about two minutes passed.
It slipped back before my eyes and hovered in the air, staring at me through its camera lens.
"Anything unusual?"
The recon drone nodded, tilting its lens up and down.
Reflected faintly on the lens was the image of the family inside the convenience store, secretly peeking at us while tense with anxiety.
"That unusual thing... is it related to the train, by any chance?"
The recon drone nodded a little ambiguously.
"...Did they maybe cut the tracks?"
This time it nodded quickly.
As expected.
My train was practically immune to external impact, so I figured they probably hadn't done anything to the train itself, but to the tracks.
"Are those people near the train too?"
At my final question, the recon drone nodded vigorously up and down.
Why do bad omens never miss?
It was certain now.
A surprise attack.
They were after me.
I had sensed something off in the way they looked me and my drones over.
"Hmm... So that's how you want to play it?"
I fell into thought.
Cutting the tracks and hiding somewhere—that was malicious, all right.
It meant they had no intention of resolving this through conversation, and I had no intention of doing so either.
I could send the drones out and ambush the hidden enemies in return.
But if that happened and zombies swarmed this way, I'd have to fight alone while protecting the family without my drones.
...Fine.
I came up with one plan.
***
KWA-AANG! KREEEAK!
Every time he swung the ripped-off car door like an axe, the sturdy steel rails bent like dried noodles and the ground was carved up helplessly.
The muscular man panted hard as he looked down at the tracks he'd wrecked with satisfaction.
"Heh heh... just as expected."
Curling one corner of his mouth, he whispered to the companions hiding silently behind him.
"I was a little unsure because she was carrying a spear instead of a mace... but she was dragging drones around, so I had my suspicions. Turns out there really is a train."
The man's eyes gleamed.
They planned to hide in the abandoned building and, the moment that girl appeared, cut her down in one shot with a crossbow or a skill.
"...You're really going to do it?"
"We have to."
Of course, he wasn't without guilt.
But the reward was worth it.
A reward that was enough to make him forget his guilt.
Just then, one of the party members peered out the window at the train and spoke cautiously.
"But that train... It looks pretty dangerous, doesn't it? What if someone goes in and activates the turrets..."
"If it can't move anyway, we'll just wait outside the turret's range and sooner or later they'll come out on their own."
The train did seem far more threatening than he'd expected.
From the barbed spikes in front of it to the turrets.
Still, the tracks had been cut.
Even if they ended up missing their chance and hunkering down inside the train.
Even if there was an exchange in the gallery, they couldn't last long buying enough food for the family as well.
And if they kept those people pinned down too long just for the sake of the reward, the Constellation who posted it would be the one to get angry.
The man's fist gave a loud crack.
If he could fight this recklessly with nothing more than a level 1 strength skill, what about level 2, level 3?
"It should be about time for them to come back..."
As the man muttered and kept watch outside, the female Awakener leaning against the window frame and aiming a crossbow at the passageway flinched and cried out.
"Huh?"
"What's wrong? Did they show up?"
"No, not that... Something just whooshed into the train a second ago..."
"Whooshed in?"
Something?
The wording was vague, but I had a pretty good idea of what she meant.
"Ah... probably one of the drones that were hovering around earlier."
The man grinned, thinking it was fortunate.
If one of the troublesome drones carrying a gun had gone into the train first, that meant the chance of a successful ambush had risen that much more.
Wuuung- wuuung.
But at that very moment, something suddenly poked up from the tightly shut roof of the train, and an unpleasant vibration began to ripple across the ground.
"What is that vibration...?"
"What vibration? I don't feel anything."
"Neither do I, really..."
The people around him tilted their heads in confusion at the man's words.
That was when it happened.
"Kraaaaaagh!"
"Kwoooar!"
From the alley that had been quiet as a tomb, terrifying shrieks suddenly burst out all at once.
"W-what the hell, dammit!"
The moment the man, startled out of his wits, looked out the window, a horde of zombies—more than several dozen, easily—was pouring toward them like a tsunami, their eyes glinting, and he had no idea where they'd been hiding.
Luckily, their target seemed to be the train, because all of them were heading toward it and pounding on the windows.
"Shh... don't make a sound..."
"Huff..."
The man went pale and flattened himself against the floor.
The other party members also covered their mouths and crouched down on the floor, faces drained white.
The building they had chosen for their ambush was far too close to the train.
If the zombies found them—
Thud! Patter-patter!
"Huff..."
The sound of the zombie horde charging like mad and scraping past the building's outer wall rang out.
I wanted to avoid the situation of fighting that many zombies inside this cramped building with no way to retreat.
Just as they held their breath and desperately prayed that the zombie horde would stay fixated on the train,
'The vibration stopped.'
The zombie noises were still faintly audible, but the disappearance of the vibration was strange, so I carefully looked out the window.
"...What?"
The man blurted it out before he realized it.
The train that had been surrounded by the zombie horde had vanished like a lie.
'How?'
"Grrr...?"
"Kyaaa..."
With their target suddenly gone before their eyes, the zombies' steps came to an abrupt halt.
The aimless zombies soon began circling around the spot where the train had been, their gait slack and wavering.
Right now, inside the abandoned building nearby, they themselves were holding their breath.
The man's lips trembled.
They had planned to cut the tracks and isolate the train.
But when they came to their senses, they had become isolated in the middle of dozens of zombies.
notes":"Fixed the duplicated 'beyond' phrasing and normalized the broken quote punctuation in the draft."}]} trailing space? Wait final JSON must be valid. I inserted a space before closing quote in last string? actually the last string currently ends with `