Chapter 144: Using A Train

As we moved through the silent corridors and tunnels of the shadow society, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened just a few minutes earlier.

Almost dying…

Never thought I’d miss a feeling like that.

Been a while since my body was forced to move like it was actually in danger.

[Level II Clearance]

I read the sign aloud as we stepped into another sector of the society—obviously far better armed and reinforced than the areas we’d just explored.

Dozens of people were already sprawled on the ground, knocked out by the fog.

But seeing all those bodies did nothing to calm my nerves.

If anything, it made them worse.

It was impossible to tell if all of them were truly unconscious or if some were faking it. Still, as long as no one tried to fight, it would be fine.

I fired the gun straight into the air.

BANG!

“W-What was that for?”

“For safety.”

I scanned the bodies, watching for even the smallest flinch. Even if you’re part of a secret society, death should still be a problem. Not because you’re afraid of it, but because your body should still react to a sudden threat.

There was no way everyone down here had the same level of training. Some of them had to be far less disciplined than the rest.

“Seems like no one took the bait here.”

“Warn me before you fire a gun in the middle of a quiet tunnel…”

“It wasn’t that loud.”

“It was!”

***

We moved on. Despite the Level II area clearly being more advanced and secure than the previous one, it still wasn’t where I needed to be if I wanted to gain control of this society.

And now that I was seeing it all firsthand, I had to admit something.

It was ambitious—borderline stupid—to think I could infiltrate a place like this in just a day or so.

[Level III Clearance]

By this point, I was getting very annoyed. God knows how many more levels there were. Navigating a place without any prior information wasn’t my style.

Especially not something that seemed to stretch across the entire size of the district above us.

“This is getting annoying.”

“Where are you going?”

Fiona watched as I headed toward a nearby train that had stopped in the middle of the tunnel. As expected, the conductor was knocked out cold. But…

The mechanisms were much easier to figure out than I’d expected.

It wasn’t a fully modern train, so of course the controls were simpler. All I needed was a bit of improvisation—and I definitely wasn’t lacking in that department.

click!

click!

fwish!

“You know how to drive this thing?”

“No, but I can guess how to use it.”

“You’re just pressing buttons until something works, aren’t you?”

“Do I look like someone who knows how to operate a train? Or would you rather we just walk?” I glanced back at her with a teasing look before turning to the controls again.

“I mean… walking would give me more time to spend with you~.”

“Well, too bad.”

I pulled on what looked like the accelerator. The massive hunk of metal responded, releasing a thick billow of steam all at once.

CREAK!

Would you look at that, I actually got this thing working!

The engine groaned like an old beast dragged from sleep, pistons shuddering in protest as pressure built inside its iron ribs. It sounded less like a machine and more like some chained creature being forced back to its feet before it was ready.

Fiona grabbed onto the side railing as the entire carriage lurched forward, her boots skidding for half a second across the metal flooring. The vibration traveled up through the soles of my feet and into my teeth.

“You’re going to kill us before the Shadow Society does!” she snapped, half-panicked, half-angry, voice raised to be heard over the rising mechanical howl.

“If that were the case, we’d already be dead.” I kept my hands firm on the controls, more to look confident than because I knew exactly what I was doing.

Steam vented violently from the side valves as the train began to roll down the track, first crawling like it was reconsidering its life choices… then picking up speed, fully committing to our terrible idea. The car clattered and shook, metal joints complaining as if they hadn’t been asked to move this fast in years.

Ka-thunk.

Ka-thunk.

Ka-thunk.

Each gap in the tracks telegraphed itself through the frame, a steady rhythm that beat in time with the engine’s breathing. The sound bounced off the tunnel walls, turning the enclosed passageway into a metallic drum.

The fog still lingered along those walls, clinging like spiderwebs soaked in moonlight. It drifted lazily in our wake, disturbed only by the rushing wind chasing after the speeding train. Where our passage cut through it, it curled and twisted, slow to reform, like it resented being moved.

I leaned forward, peering past the glass and the faintly glowing gauges, scanning the tracks ahead for anything that might decide to kill us before we had the chance to crash on our own.

If this underground fortress really mirrored the district above, then Level III wouldn’t be the end of it. Places like this didn’t stop at three floors and a smug sense of security. Organizations like this don’t stack their leadership directly on top of their soldiers.

No.

They bury them.

They hollow out the ground, carve secrecy into bedrock, and let the world walk above, none the wiser. The upper levels are just pretty wallpaper. The real rot settles deeper.

“Try not to fall off,” I muttered, eyes still on the tunnel ahead.

“You’re the one driving blind!” Fiona shot back, fingers white-knuckled on the railing as another jolt rocked us.

She wasn’t wrong. I had no formal training on underground death trains, surprise. But this was a train, not a car. It only went where the rails allowed. If she somehow managed to throw herself off while we were bolted to a fixed track, well… at some point, personal responsibility had to enter the conversation, no?

The tunnel lights flickered as we passed them, their dull glow reacting faintly to the lingering spell that clung to the air like stale perfume. Sickly red and cold whites pulsed in uneven waves, never fully stable, as though the fixtures themselves were trying to shake off sleep.

Most of the bodies near the tracks were still motionless—slumped against the walls, sprawled on the gravel, draped over railings in awkward, puppet-like poses.

Helmets askew. Weapons half-loosened from limp hands. Armor gleaming dully beneath the low light.

We even ran some over…

Some was the keyword.

BADUMP.

There it was again.

That pulse.

Not fear of death this time.

A warning from my body.

It rose up from somewhere in my chest. Calm and sharp at the same time, a familiar tension tightening around my lungs.

I narrowed my eyes, letting the tunnel ahead pull into sharper focus.

Up ahead, just past the next bend in the tunnel, the air felt… wrong. Not in the vague, everything-here-is-probably-a-bad-idea way.

But in a ’Holy shit someone’s strong is waiting’ kinda way.

The fog changed first.

The closer we got, the more I realized it wasn’t merely thinning the farther we traveled. It was being absorbed. Eaten away by a small rift in the air ahead of us.

It was dispersing.

Not everywhere.

Just in one specific section of track, like someone had drawn a boundary and the spell-wrought mist simply refused to cross it.

“…Oh?” The sound left me before I thought to keep it in.

“What?” Fiona asked immediately, her earlier irritation dropping into something brittle and focused. She shifted her stance, boots planting wider as the train rattled beneath us. “What did you see?”

“Looks like I’m not the only one who hates being told to sleep.” My lips twitched, though I wasn’t sure if it was amusement or unease.

The train rounded the bend with a grinding squeal of metal on metal.

And there—

Standing directly on the tracks ahead of us.

One figure.

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