Chapter 12

The express train departing from Saint Matilene in thales and arriving at Pritchenkaya in Krasilov passed through four separate military zones.

Once through the territory of thales’s Third Guard Division, and once while crossing the northwestern border.

Then once more through the Krasilov Border Defense Division’s jurisdiction, and finally past the Pritchenkaya Defense Headquarters.

Since the route lay close to the former front line against the demon race, military forces had been deployed along it with almost excessive thoroughness.

Therefore, by process of elimination, there were only three stations where a terrorist attack was realistically possible.

Of the roughly thirty stations along the route, only those three were isolated, surrounded by harsh terrain, and more than a day away from military reinforcements.

One.

The train carrying Ivan and Isabel passed the first possible ambush point.

There were no suspicious figures attempting to interfere with the tracks, nor any mounted bandits firing spells or artillery at the train.

Two.

The train sped through the second ambush point without incident as well.

Ivan stared out the window for a while, then let out a sigh and sat back down.

Several hours later, amid complete silence, the train passed the third ambush point.

What is going on...?

The train had now crossed the Krasilov border.

If it continued straight ahead, it would reach Pritchenkaya within a day.

All that remained was to cross the plains and pass over a single mountain.

There was a forest along the way, but a division-sized military force was stationed nearby.

Which meant that from this point onward, even if someone tried to carry out an attack, it should have been impossible.

Ivan anxiously stroked his handgun.

Was my prediction wrong?

Had the tutorials not all been designed around train attacks?

Had Eshidis simply been extraordinarily unlucky?

Or had the tutorial in the “original” game been designed differently for each character?

He had already considered the possibility that every character would follow their own unique story.

But the early stages could not have been designed that way.

This was supposed to be an academy story.

It had to be.

It absolutely had to be.

Ivan bit his lip.

What was he supposed to do if he had misjudged everything again?

If this was not even an academy story, did this damned fantasy world have an ending at all?

Should he kill himself?

Was there any answer besides suicide?

If he could not identify the genre, then he could not predict the ending.

And the worst possible assumption was this:

What if the ending belonged only to the protagonist?

What if the previous war—the Hero’s orthodox RPG journey—had been the true nature of this world?

Was the Hero’s seclusion not decisive evidence?

Why had the Hero withdrawn from the world?

Had that been that man’s “ending”?

Then what about the fantasy world left behind?

What about all of us?

No.

What about me?

What am I supposed to do?

Ivan’s thoughts became increasingly tangled.

No.

I hate this.

I do not want to remain in this damned world any longer.

He wanted to rest.

He wanted to abandon everything and leave.

He wanted to lie in a soft bed inside a warm house with proper heating, wrap himself in a microfiber blanket, and sleep for an entire week.

He wanted to order everything he craved and eat until he felt ready to burst.

He wanted to talk about games, novels, movies, dramas, and variety shows with people who spoke Korean.

He no longer wanted to live in this accursed premodern fantasy world, where death, poverty, starvation, and terror were everywhere—

and where even the concepts of “welfare” and “leisure” barely existed.

“Ghk... hng...!”

The man sitting beside him turned deathly pale and let out a strangled gasp.

The thick killing intent leaking from Ivan’s body was spreading through the carriage like poison.

But Ivan—

No.

Kim Sunwoo had no presence of mind left to control himself.

The pressure grew sharper and denser, until it became intense enough to physically harm the people around him.

Just as Kim Sunwoo’s panic was reaching its peak—

The train passed through a tunnel beneath the mountain and began crossing a bridge over the valley.

Then the carriage jolted with a heavy thud.

It was the warning.

KABOOOOOM—!!

SCREEEEEECH—!!

RUMBLE—!!

The explosion did not merely destroy the tracks.

It brought down the entire bridge.

Caught in the collapse, the train slid helplessly into the valley below.

The body of the train twisted violently, and the carriages began spinning through the air with all the momentum they had carried at full speed.

As his body became weightless and the world overturned around him, Ivan instinctively seized the luggage rack and steadied himself.

At the same time, he surveyed his surroundings on pure reflex.

Amid the violently rotating compartment and the scenery flashing past beyond the windows, he assessed the situation with perfect accuracy.

The train was falling.

They were currently crossing the mountain range west of Pritchenkaya.

The train was falling.

A terrorist attack had occurred.

The tutorial was not over.

He had not been wrong.

There was still an ending.

Inside the plummeting train carriage, a smile slowly spread across Ivan’s gaunt face.

Slowly—

and deeply.

He forcibly shoved the useless, panicking Kim Sunwoo back beneath the surface of his consciousness.

It was time to deal with what had to be done.

Fear, hatred, and confusion were of no use during a mission.

People often said to keep one’s head cold and one’s heart hot.

But that was wrong.

The Extermination Corps taught something different.

Keep your head, your heart, and even your fingertips cold.

Cold like Krasilov’s merciless winter.

Like its endless nights.

Cold.

Silent.

Precise.

Amid the chaos consuming the carriage, the officer of the Extermination Corps erased his presence and quietly disappeared.

Using the railing as a foothold, stepping across the luggage racks, and batting away the piles of baggage twisting through the air—

up, up, and farther up.

The last thing Isabel remembered was a sequence of fragmented impressions.

Her body being hurled away.

Her vision shaking violently.

A surge of unbearable pain.

The shattered window and the earth pouring through it.

The carriage crumpling and tearing apart.

And one more thing.

“Hngh!”

Isabel opened her eyes, drenched in cold sweat.

Darkness surrounded her.

The incident had occurred just as she had been looking out at Krasilov’s coniferous forest, watching it pass beneath the evening glow.

A stabbing pain ran through her as she forced herself upright.

The compartment had been buried beneath earth and rubble.

As her eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, she began to make out the mound of soil that had poured in through the broken window.

Then came the steady sound of droplets falling.

Drip.

Drip.

And a frail, ragged sound—

someone breathing heavily.

“Are you... huff... are you awake... my lady?”

“Sir August...?”

A man stood in front of her.

No.

He had been pinned there.

One arm was buried beneath the rubble, and a long piece of reinforcing steel protruded from his side.

The dripping sound came from the blood falling from his mouth, his nose, and his waist.

“Why...?”

He had thrown himself in front of her.

He had blocked the rocks falling toward her with his own body and taken the collapsing pieces of the train across his back.

Isabel stared at the knight in horror.

As always, he wore a pleasant, good-natured smile.

“My lady... you must flee... hngh...! You have to escape. The culprits will come looking for you. This attack was aimed at—hngh...!”

“Stop, stop! A-answer me! Why...? Why would you do something like that? Are you really that much of an idiot?”

Isabel glared at him, her eyes trembling.

“Do you seriously think my father would become angry if I died? No! That man doesn’t care about anyone!”

“I know.”

The knight smiled weakly.

Who in thales did not know about that strange man who had abandoned his wife and child, secluded himself deep in the mountains, and refused to allow anyone near him?

At first, people had believed he had left to recover from the wounds he received after killing the Demon King.

Later, they began whispering that the Demon King had twisted the Hero’s mind.

And before even four years had passed, they had begun to forget him.

From the moment he killed the Demon King—

no, perhaps even before then—

the Hero had ceased to be an individual.

The man named Maximilien had faded away beneath the title of Hero.

Now only his achievements and legends echoed hollowly through the world.

“You hate me.”

“That is correct.”

“Then why...?”

“Because you are the Hero’s daughter.”

Even as he lay dying, the man’s eyes shone with an almost unnerving clarity.

Despite the situation, Isabel let out an incredulous laugh.

“So what does that have to do with anything? Do you truly think my father cares even a little about that ‘daughter’ of his?”

“No, my lady. I have never once considered Maximilien’s personal concern.”

But she was still the Hero’s daughter.

“Because a single individual was able to plant hope in the hearts of all humanity. Because I lived through that era. And because... even a man that great was still only a person—someone who left descendants behind and would eventually fade with the passage of time.”

Maximilien was human.

It was a statement everyone could agree with, yet almost no one could truly comprehend.

But Isabel was different.

She was human.

She became angry, jealous, and sad.

She was a young girl starved for affection.

Therefore, Isabel’s very existence proved that the Hero had ultimately been human.

And conversely—

it meant that so long as one was human, one could become a Hero.

That was what he believed.

Even if he hated Isabel as a person, he had no choice but to affirm what Isabel represented.

She was hope.

The final seed left behind by the Hero.

The mere fact that it could sprout symbolized hope in this age, when those left behind after the war were rebuilding the ruins of their world.

It was hope that could bloom even in this devastated era.

Not the hope of conscripted soldiers fighting the Demon King—

but hope for ordinary people simply struggling to survive each day.

If the Hero himself had been called the symbol of victory, then the Hero’s bloodline was the symbol of reconstruction.

The symbol of an age beginning anew.

That was why he had thrown himself in front of her despite hating her.

Because he was a knight of thales.

Because he was a man capable of discarding the individual for the sake of a greater cause.

And because he, too, was merely an ordinary citizen who desperately wished for humanity to rebuild.

“Splendid.”

The moment his words ended, there was a muffled thump.

An arm suddenly burst through the mound of soil that had poured into the compartment.

The arm groped through the earth for a while before slipping back out.

The cold air of the late-winter night flowed through the opening, cooling the compartment.

Pale blue moonlight seeped in through the gap.

“Knight, what is your name?”

“Dian August. And yours?”

“Ivan Petrovich.”

The mound of earth collapsed, and a man stepped into the compartment.

The moonlight shone behind him, casting a long black shadow.

“Do you want to live?”

“If possible.”

“It will hurt.”

Ivan tore the cap from a healing potion.