Chapter 91
The orcs, driven mad with fury, came charging toward us, shaking the ground, and I smiled instead.
“You’re smiling in this situation? Have you gone mad with fear?”
The woman with the red sword snapped disdainfully.
But I had a reason for smiling.
My previous life-or-death struggle with the dullahan had taught me two lessons.
First, getting cut hurts.
Second, the outside of the train is a hell of a place, and the safest place is inside the train.
After learning those lessons, I hadn’t simply sat around doing nothing.
I had persuaded the elf to hand over some precious herb seeds and planted them in the cultivators inside the magical train, preparing to mass-produce recovery items in real time.
Above all, I had devised a reliable means of escape for unexpected situations.
The moment to use it had arrived.
I smiled at the thought that it had been wise to devise that escape method beforehand.
“Golem, let’s go!”
I quickly climbed onto the golem’s back.
The female leader wore a puzzled expression as she watched.
Actually, her expression was closer to bewilderment than puzzlement.
If the dullahan had been capable of expressions, would it have made a face like that earlier?
“What do you think you’re going to accomplish by riding on top of the golem...?”
“Jump.”
No sooner had I spoken than the drones all descended at once.
As if they had planned it, the drones clamped their pincers tightly around the golem’s sides.
Whirrrrr—!
Then they slowly began pulling the golem upward.
Naturally, the weight of the golem and me made it impossible to lift easily.
ㅡFor now.
KWAANG-!
At the same time, the golem’s legs forcefully pushed off the ground, sending it soaring upward.
The golem shot straight into the air and activated gliding mode.
Once gliding mode engaged, the drones’ strength alone sent the mass of steel gliding through the air as though it had defied gravity.
“W-What?! It’s flying?!”
The woman’s complexion turned ashen in an instant.
She frantically swung her red sword and shouted,
“What are you doing?! Grab them now!”
The red-eyed orcs roared and leaped with terrifying force, using the ruins of buildings along the roadside as footholds.
They smashed through walls and broke through ceilings as they pursued us, but they were no match for us now that we had taken to the sky.
What could orcs do against an opponent that was flying in the first place?
From atop the gliding golem, I leisurely waved at them.
Below our feet, the furious monsters rampaged, smashing through buildings, while we casually passed over the top of their encirclement.
“You think fleeing into the sky like a rat is enough?!”
The female leader’s vicious shout rang out from behind us.
The red-eyed orcs, drunk on madness, kicked off the ground.
The drones occasionally poured out covering fire to keep them in check, but the orcs’ muscles had swollen abnormally, and the bullets didn’t seem to inflict fatal wounds.
But I didn’t panic. I had no intention of letting them go, either.
“Running away...”
I couldn’t let an incarnation who went around smashing vending machines and casually took human lives live.
I wasn’t flying through the sky to escape.
“They should be coming into view soon.”
The moment I murmured that, a massive black lump of iron appeared beyond the ruins.
It was my train, boasting a fearsome appearance.
The orcs were so focused on catching me in the air that they ran straight ahead without looking anywhere else and failed to notice the train standing directly in their path.
Or perhaps, since they were being controlled, they would have continued chasing me even if they had seen the train.
I slowly lowered my altitude toward the train’s doors.
As I approached, the train naturally opened its doors.
“I’m back.”
I lightly jumped through the train’s open doorway.
The golem and drones quickly returned inside after me.
“Wait, don’t tell me you ran all the way here just to get inside... Guh, charge!”
The woman who had been following with the orcs hesitated for a moment, then raised her sword.
Even after seeing my train, she chose to charge.
“Get as close as possible! Then it won’t be able to fire the turrets!”
In a way, it was the right decision.
Normally, no one would think of firing missile turrets near their own train.
The red-eyed orcs drooled as they swarmed toward the train’s exterior like a cloud.
KOOONG! BANG!
They pounded the armor plating with their massive fists and struggled to get inside, pulling at the metal plates with their entire bodies.
I naturally looked back at the siblings and Ha-seon.
“What is it?”
“Sis...”
“Yeah, sorry. It’ll be over soon.”
Everyone looked startled by the sudden commotion, but no one was trembling in fear.
They all trusted that this train would remain safe, and so did I.
I went to the cockpit and pressed a button.
“Kids, it’s going to shake a little.”
With a click, the turrets on top of the train raised their barrels.
At the very moment the orcs were straining to break through the train doors, the turrets’ launch ports began glowing red.
SHWOOO—! KRAAA-BOOM!
With a burst of noise, dozens of small guided missiles shot out from the side of the train, trailing flames.
“W-What?! What is this?!”
The woman’s horrified scream was drowned out by the chain of explosions that followed.
KABOOM! KRA-KRA-KABOOM!
The bodies of the orcs that had crowded around the train were turned into chunks of flesh and scattered in every direction by a single strike.
Even their supposedly tough skin was more helpless than paper before the missiles’ firepower.
“Damn it, but if it’s this powerful, even the train—”
The female leader’s face turned pale, then bluish with terror.
Contrary to her hopes, the train was perfectly fine.
Aside from dust smeared across the windows, it remained where it was as though nothing had happened.
As she stared at the absurd sight, her actions no longer resembled those of a rational person and had become little more than desperate flailing.
“W-What kind of Constellation did you make a contract with to gain that kind of power—?!”
A Constellation, huh.
I had merely sacrificed my masculinity to the train.
“This is impossible!”
She hurled her red sword at me.
The sword traced a dark arc as it flew toward the cockpit window.
CLANG-!
But the window didn’t even get a scratch.
Instead, before the deflected sword could hit the ground, an automated collection claw shot out from beneath the train and snatched it out of the air like lightning.
“Huh, what?”
Even I blurted that out in confusion.
After losing her sword, shock rippled through the woman’s eyes.
But the tragedy didn’t end there.
Whether it was because of the explosion’s impact or because she had thrown away her sword, the red madness vanished from the eyes of several surviving orcs.
The first thing the orcs, returned to their senses, saw was the woman who had used them like tools.
“Grrr! Kyaaaagh!”
The enraged orcs bared their teeth at her instead and began charging.
It was a rebellion by orcs trying to devour their master.
“U-Uaaagh!”
She screamed and backed away, but the orcs’ massive hands had already seized her by the shoulders.
“Tsk.”
I lightly pressed the button once more.
This was mercy, in its own way.
I didn’t want to watch anything more brutal, and I had to deal with the orcs anyway.
SHWOOOOSH—
The second missile struck the spot where the orcs and the woman were tangled together.
KRAAA-BOOM!
A massive cloud of flames swallowed every sound for an instant, and soon the surroundings fell silent.
“...Hey, hey, is it over?”
“Looks like it.”
“Isn’t the building going to collapse?”
“Get out of here!”
As the acrid smoke slowly settled, the people hiding in every corner of the abandoned buildings cautiously poked their heads out one by one.
So they hadn’t gone very far.
Their gazes, no longer filled with fear, now poured toward my magical train with awe and wonder.
“What kind of train looks that terrifying?”
“Huh? You don’t know that? What do you even look at on the Gallery?”
“No, I knew about it... but wasn’t it definitely not that intense?”
Clunk.
When I opened the train door and stepped outside, the people standing near the train all cleared a path at once.
Without anyone having to ask, they gave me the front of the line.
“Hey, hey! Make way!”
“W-Wait. You go first.”
A middle-aged man who had been slowly approaching the vending machine wiped his sweat and bowed ninety degrees to me.
He was still trembling as he looked at the remains of the orcs scattered around him.
It wasn’t just him. Every time I passed someone with an expressionless face, they spoke to me.
“D-Don’t hurt me. I like that train and the drones.”
“M-Me too! I’m going to Demi-Human Town!”
“I always post praise for the mod on the Gallery!”
“Ah... um, I’m more of an elf supporter, though...”
“.....”
I didn’t know why, but people began making excuses to me.
Feeling awkward, I scratched the tip of my nose and walked toward the vending machine.
In any case, thanks to them, I was able to use the vending machine without waiting.
Although it was scorched by the explosion, the vending machine was surprisingly functioning normally.
With everyone watching in bated breath, I bought a large number of skill boxes and returned.
I needed to use this opportunity to firmly increase my skills, my train, and our overall strength.
I had a goal.
“...Because the monsters and dungeons have gotten stronger.”
Higher-grade mana stones should be appearing more often.
If that was the case, I could finally start aiming for it.
Track modification.
A modification that created tracks in front of the train wherever the train headed.
I set gathering high-grade mana stones and freeing up the train’s mobility as my first goal.