Chapter 4
I bent my knees toward the tank holding the marimo so I could meet it at eye level.
The green cotton-ball thing was strangely adorable.
Has even my sensibility turned feminine?
"Yeah. From today on, you're Donggeul."
I carefully spread blue and pink pebbles across the bottom of the tank with tweezers.
It was the kind of care that led me to buy a five-minute-fuel tank-decorating set in customization and add it in.
A green living thing in this bleak apocalypse world. Just looking at it made me feel cleansed.
This train car needed some green in it too.
In fact, this little guy had become our train's first resident because of an impulsive purchase made just a few hours ago.
***
Going back a little in time, I was able to sleep soundly and wake up.
The train shook and made little noise, making it the perfect place to sleep, and my body, relaxed from the bath, was begging for rest.
"Mm... huh?"
When I opened my eyes, morning was brightening beyond the window.
I stretched comfortably and checked the cockpit panel, and my eyes went wide.
[Automatic Operation Results] - 12 lowest-grade mana stones, broken bones, old leather
"Wow, 12 while I was sleeping?"
Automated hunting never lets you down.
Overnight, the train had diligently run over monsters and collected their mana stones.
Those mana stones were all turned into spare fuel.
"At this rate, I can buy what I put off last time."
I immediately opened the shop and bought the armory I'd been agonizing over before giving up on last time.
But a problem came up.
When I pressed internal customization to place the armory and looked for a spot to install it, I realized that, given its size, there was nowhere to put it.
"Ah."
Looking around, that made sense.
In the cockpit, there was a sofa bed, a minibar, a kitchen, and even the luxury bathroom I had installed yesterday.
The train was already packed in like a studio apartment.
There was nowhere to put the armory.
In the end, I made a bold decision.
[Train Car Expansion (1 car -> 2 cars)]
[Interior Space Expansion]
I poured in fuel worth 10 mana stones.
With a tremendous jolt, a new car was added to the back of the train, and the interior expanded dramatically.
"...Maybe I should've bought only one of the two?"
With the space expanded and a second car now attached, there was still plenty of room left.
There was enough room left even after installing the armory on one side of Car 2.
When I stepped into Car 2, the whole place felt empty, like I was left all alone.
Suddenly, loneliness washed over me.
"...I guess I should fill it with something."
While rummaging through the [Interior/Decor Items] tab as I stared at the barren space, something caught my eye.
Pet Plant: Marimo Growing Set - Price: 30 minutes of fuel
"Why are they selling something like this?"
So the train operator wouldn't get bored? Or for mental health?
I would normally have brushed it off as a waste of fuel, but 30 minutes of fuel somehow felt manageable.
I needed someone to talk to who could comfort me.
Even if it was a silent clump of moss.
It looked easier to raise than a plant, too.
The result of that impulsive buy was this little Donggeul.
I placed the tank on the center table in the empty Car 2, right next to the armory.
One tank in a huge, wide-open space.
It was unbalanced, but watching the green clump sway in the water gave me a strange sense of comfort.
"...You're really round."
I tapped the tank and stood up.
I headed toward the armory area tucked deep inside Car 2.
There stood a sleek silver machine, the kind you'd only see in a movie, grandly upright.
To one side, transparent reinforced-glass display cases for finished weapons lined the wall, but they were empty for now.
"Let's see, how do you use this?"
I operated the touch panel in front of the machine.
[Armory]
[List of Craftable Blueprints]
Sword: Metal 2 kg, 1 sheet of leather
Blunt weapon: Metal 3 kg, wood 1 kg
Bow: Wood 1 kg, plastic 1 kg, fiber 2 m
When I scrolled down, more complex weapons appeared, but they required too many materials, so the basic blueprints were the ones that caught my eye.
[If additional materials beyond the basic materials are added, the weapon will be further enhanced.]
"Additional materials... I guess—"
I now had a reason to stock up on monster byproducts besides mana stones.
Even though I still couldn't make any weapons, in situations like this it was practically a cliché to use monster byproducts to craft weapons.
Or maybe adding mana stones on top of them would make an even better weapon.
The immediate problem was the basic materials.
"Well, I only brought food, so I never even thought about gathering stuff like this."
Everything I looted from the convenience store was food, or at best consumables like cigarettes I figured might help in a trade.
Metal? Wood? There was no way I had anything like that.
I could probably use the chairs and tables inside the train, but making new ones would also consume fuel, and that didn't seem efficient.
"In the end, the answer is farming."
I left the armory and looked out the train window.
The train was still looping along Incheon Line 1.
Right now, everything around the tracks was gray.
A crumbling outer wall, a landscape of stacked rusted container boxes.
I could even see traces of a construction site where some huge commercial building had once been under construction.
'Metal, wood... a construction site...'
"Not bad."
A construction site.
Metal and wood, and if I got lucky, maybe even other resources all at once.
Screeeech-
I quietly brought the train to a stop on the tracks near the construction site entrance.
"Phew, good. Let's check first."
I took a deep breath and readjusted my grip on the hammer.
I had confirmed that this hammer could take down most monsters, but I couldn't afford to let my guard down.
I switched the external camera on through the cockpit monitor and swept it across the construction site.
The construction site was as silent as a grave.
Only the toppled fence and scattered safety helmets told me this place had been abandoned in a hurry.
"It's quiet."
Not a trace of a monster, not a human shadow.
It was the perfect timing to gather materials.
I grabbed the blue handcart I had left in the corner of Car 1 and took it outside.
Rattle-rattle-rattle-
The sound of plastic wheels rolling echoed especially loudly at the silent construction site entrance.
Tense and alert, I slowly entered while watching my surroundings.
The first thing that caught my eye was bundles of rebar strewn across the ground.
"Ugh..."
I bent down and picked up a rusty piece of rebar.
Of course it was heavy.
Just dragging it and loading it onto the cart was hard labor.
I gathered only the shortest pieces of rebar and loaded them onto the cart.
That amount would be more than enough whether I made swords or something else.
Next was wood. In one corner of the construction site, wooden pallets were piled up like a mountain.
"Phew... wood, taken care of."
I selected the lumber and stacked it neatly on top of the rebar.
Just pulling the cart already made the weight feel pretty substantial.
My eyes caught a container box that had been used as the site office.
The door was wide open and the inside was a mess, but work clothes, safety shoes, and thick gloves hanging on the wall rack were visible.
"A hard hat at least..."
I pulled the cart toward the container.
I came back out with just the gloves and a safety helmet.
They didn't fit well, but once I pulled the strap all the way tight, the hard hat stayed put.
Construction sites are dangerous.
Rattle-rattle-rattle-
The cart grew heavier and heavier, but my steps stayed light.
Watching the basic materials the armory required stack up bit by bit filled me with a strange sense of satisfaction.
"This should be enough, right?"
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and looked at the loot with a satisfied grin.
Everything was going too smoothly. No monsters, good weather, materials everywhere. It was quiet like the calm before a storm—
Rumble-rumble-!
At that moment, I felt an unpleasant vibration beneath my feet.
"...An earthquake?"
No.
The vibration was surging up from deep underground.
I could feel the source of the tremor getting closer and closer.
In an instant, the concrete floor in front of my feet
crack-
as if it were about to split open,
KWAAAANG-!
A tremendous boom burst the dirt into a cloud of dust.
And from within it rose a giant worm as tall as a two-story building.
No, it was far too grotesque to even call it a worm.
Its head was ringed by layers upon layers of huge, spinning saw-blade teeth, and its ash-gray skin looked as hard as stone.
"Damn... what the hell is that!"
Its overwhelming size stole my breath away.
While I was still stunned, the thing turned its body toward me.
I felt it.
That it had just chosen me as its target.
The thing twisted its body and shoved its giant maw toward me.
The sound of it forcefully digging through the ground and smashing it apart rang out like it would tear my eardrums to pieces.
"Ugh..."
I have to run.
I threw away the cart and everything else and ran without looking back.
"Aaaagh!"
Thud! Crunch!
Every time it slammed its body down on the ground, the whole construction site lurched.
A chilling sound of concrete being chewed apart came from behind me.
'It's fast!'
For something that big, it was fast.
It dug through the ground like it was swimming, then surged back up.
I bit my lip and squeezed out every last bit of strength I had.
But that wasn't enough to shake the monster off.
My stride was too short, and my physical abilities, compared to when I was a man—
That was when it happened.
"Aagh?!"
I got my feet tangled because I was worrying about my stride.
I tripped over my own feet, lost my balance, and pitched forward in a miserable heap.
Clang-!
The only weapon in my hand, the hammer, flew out of my grasp and bounced far away.
"My hammer!!"
I reached out, but it was too far away to touch.
I hadn't even planned on fighting, but now even my last means of resistance was gone.
In that moment, a huge shadow fell over my head.
When I looked up, the beast's maw, with hundreds of spinning teeth, was gaping open right above me.
A foul, slimy spit dripped onto my face.
There was nowhere to dodge, and no weapon.
I was going to die.
'No, I can't die like this!'
My brain, seized by fear, spun like mad.
If I had no weapon? If I couldn't stop it? Then there was only one thing left to me.
The one and only skill that could overturn this insane situation.
"Train!"
I screamed and reached out into the air.
There were no tracks. I just pointed above my head, at that monster's head. Please come out. Please!
Flash-!
At that moment, the air above the worm's head rippled blue.
With a sound like space itself was being torn apart, a heavy lump of steel appeared.
My two-car train.
A gigantic weapon with immense mass and spikes on its front.
"Hup!"
I squeezed out my last strength and crawled to the side.
And then—
Kuuuu- BOOM!
A deafening roar shook the world.
The train that fell from the sky crushed the monster's head with perfect accuracy.
"...Phew, it actually works."
The beast couldn't even let out a proper scream.
Before that overwhelming mass, its hard hide and saw-like teeth were useless.
The monster's upper body burst apart in a pitiful mess.
Thud, thud...
The shock from the heavy train and the monster kept the construction site rumbling and collapsing with big and small crashes even after the battle was over.
Because of that, I stayed frozen in place for a while.
Only after the dirt and dust settled did I brush myself off and stand up.
"It's dead..."
In front of me was the monster's flattened corpse, drenched in green blood, and my train standing proudly on top of it.
A moment later, the corpse vanished into smoke along with the blood.
"Haha..."
My legs went weak, and I sank back down.
A dry laugh escaped me.
The inside of the train was probably a mess, but I was alive, so that was enough.