Chapter 891 - On the train

Two weeks later.

I push through the hallway of the moving wagons. The vibrations are sent all over, and, due to the sheer size, that swaying is unlike a normal train. It is just how it looks, the entire multiple story tall building swaying and rattling as we move on some really old tracks.

We had to switch to older tracks, as one of the kaiju passed through the ones the natives wanted to use. The kaiju, of course, is not an official name for these beings, the natives have some really long names that I did not even bother to remember.

Though they have a few cool nicknames like apocalypse bringers, the titans of the end, and such. They are cool nicknames, but I would rather not say them out loud to the natives of this nearly destroyed world.

“Nathaniel, Nathaniel, you feel angry, I can sense it from your heavy vibrations, yes yes, I am very perceptive and worried.”

“Not now, Pip, I need to talk to one of the engineers, those assholes are pissing me off.”

“Not so rude, younglings might hear! Yes yes, we cannot have younglings hear this bad language.”

Pip swiftly follows behind me as we pass the hallway whose sides are marked with tubes filled with water, steam, mana, and many other things. As with everything on this train, they are colorfully painted, often with the natives letting children draw over them, and damn, if the children do not enjoy it.

I pause just in front of one of the doors, and Pip is too slow to stop and hits into my backside as I stop.

When I look down at him, he looks up, twisting his faceless head.

Pip is a member of the race that calls themselves kindred. They usually shrink to an average human’s waist height when they are adults. The children are twice or thrice as big. And yup, their elders are the size of my hand.

The kindred are something akin to a combination of an insect and a golem. They each have a square face with a mostly smooth surface and no eyes, mouth, and such. The children like to draw on these faces. Then they have a crab-like body, four legs, and two arm-like appendages, each with four fingers that are surprisingly nimble.

Surprisingly, none of it makes them seem creepy like overgrown insects. In a way, they are even cute, though I made the mistake of watching them eat once, and I will never do that again. Even if they are mostly vegan and meat is a rarity for them.

“Pip,” I say.

“Yes yes, Nathaniel!”

“I was patient until now.”

"Not at all, you complain all the time, yes yes, 139 separate complaints, I remember it all!"

After every yes-yes, Pip clacks with his fingers twice, making a soft, deep, clacking noise. The kindred just like to do it. Stomp, clack, audibly twist the head, and it is different for every member and for different words.

“In my case, that is very patient.”

“Ohhh, yes yes, I see! Nathaniel is like that! But no can do! The engineers are carefully chosen, very strict, and no one is to be allowed into the sacred machine!”

“Even if that sacred machine stops working in a few weeks? Wouldn’t that be bad?”

“That would be bad, yes yes!” This time he clacks four times and even stomps with his left back foot, “But the last time we let a human into the sacred machine because they wanted to help, they stole one of the precious cores, damaged the delicate machine, and ran away!”

“One day we have to talk about your race's too-trusting tendency.”

He twists his head as he, probably, looks at me, “Are you not asking me to trust you, Nathaniel, and for us to let you into the sacred machine?”

“Yes yes,” I say.

“Yes yes!” Pip says back excitedly and wobbles from side to side, “I trust Nathaniel, so I will talk to the others!”

With a sigh, I stop myself from continuing further into the wagon and look out of one of the windows at the country we are passing through. “How long until the next stop?”

“If we take route one, three days! If we take route two, seven days! If we take route three, eleven days!” Pip bounces against me with his head, “Do not worry, Nathaniel, our elders know what they are doing, yes yes, and everyone else will work together and help!”

“Sure sure,” I say, which causes him to get more excited, especially as I tap twice on the top of his head and he bounces against me again.

Saying goodbye to him, I reach one of the balconies and for a moment feel the wind against my skin as well as hear the rattling of the train on the old stone railings. Even here, the landscape is post-apocalyptic, but nature is starting to take over. Greenery and trees are filling craters, buildings are covered in vines and flowers, and some weird animals are moving in the distance. In a way, it is pretty if you do not think about what led to it.

I then jump off the balcony and boost myself into the air and over the wagon. I locate the one where Sophie should be and boost myself that way, landing there. And for most of her time here, Sophie is surrounded by all that greenery, sitting under a nice covered terrace-like structure she grew from wood and plants.

I think out of all of us, it is her whom the kindred like the most. After all, she greatly helped with their gardens and, while making sure to keep their requirements and strict rules, she, in cooperation with the kindred’s gardening guild, improved some parts of it.

She also currently mind controls all the humans and other races present on the train other than the kindred. The kindred have a strong mental resistance, but it would not stop her if she really wanted.

“They refused to let you into the locomotive?” she snorts when she sees my expression.

Something in her tone annoys me, and I use kinetic energy to pop one of the tomato-like vegetables nearby, but just in time she lifts a shield in front of her to stop it from dirtying her.

“I will take that as a yes,” she says.

“They won’t even let me in the front wagons, much less their sacred machine.” In a blink, I form a manabloc chair and slide into it.

The view of the beautiful garden, with trees, flowers, plants, and many wooden structures painted by the kindred younglings, as well as the moving country outside, is beautiful and surely to be one of my favorites from the tutorial.

“Then go to Beyond and 'take a rest'? You wanted to start threatening guilds and all that nice stuff. Everyone else who could already jumped to Beyond at least for a bit.”

"I do not know, but I quite like training here for now, and I still have enough time. I can even challenge Nyssa if I time it well."

“Just say that you are annoyed that your head nearly exploded and yet you still couldn’t wound one of the Kaiepochjiu.”

“I forgot that name the moment you said it. It is kaiju. And yes, it slightly annoys me that it did not even bother to look my way.”

“How does it feel to be directly countered for once?”

“Fuck you, Soph, you know very well that barrier they have is bullshit. But yeah, whatever, I will just try to copy it and improve my own.”

“Black mana? Primordial energies? Just use them.”

“This is personal.”

“You are so childish sometimes.”

“It's one of my charms,” I wave it off. “How are things in Beyond?”

“One to two more weeks and we will attack a Champion. I already let Lily know, and she will be going to Beyond soon to inform Tacita.”

“Well, if you need help…”

“There is no need. We cannot always rely on you.”

“That is okay, but at some point I would rather you guys seem like a bully calling for your big bro to finish the fight you started rather than dying.”

She nods, “That much is obvious. And are we switching tracks again?”

“One of the kaiju damaged one of the main ones, so we swapped them. These ones are not in as good a state, and that explains the quality of our ride, but in a few weeks we will probably switch to the main ones. Somewhere around then we should meet to trade with one of the kindred's floating bases and floating cities.”

“Is the floating city one of the main communication nodes?”

“I think so? Pip said they need to fix some communication systems here on the train, but they do not have the technology, so the kindred from that floating city will help in exchange for fuel.”

“Kindred do not think like that, Nat. Pip more likely said they will help the city, and the city will help the train too. These naive, cute little things would do it for free,” she sighs.

I nod seriously, “I know. Izzy is still planning to stay on this floor until the end of the tutorial?”

“She… she does, and I can’t come up with a single thing to change her mind. I cannot imagine the relief it puts on her mind to not have to deal with all those ill emotions she would constantly have to sense.”

“Just tell her this is the tutorial. She has to use it to train.”

“I cannot.”

“Goddamn siscon.”

“You are the last fucking person I want to hear that from. And fuck you, Nat, you tell her.”

"Maybe I will! Maybe I'll adopt her into the Gwyn family, or into the clan that Vic, Vega, and I will create together."

“What are you even blabbering about?”

“I don’t know. It has been two weeks since I had a decent fight. The kindred are too nice, but their kids hunt me down, Soph. I swear they Hunt. Me. Down. They are using some secret method to track me down and communicate their savage attacks on me. Why me, Soph? Why? I call them little shits all the time, I even give them the cold shoulder. When they wanted me to draw on them, I searched through my mind to come up with the most despicable paintings. Yet these jerks kept walking around proudly with them.”

“You and Min-Jae almost disconnected the last wagon and nearly made it float to the sky during your training. You and Min-Jae nearly made a hole in the wagon as you attempted to make a high-gravity zone for training. You and Maya, by fighting outside in your war armaments, almost triggered the old automatic defenses of this train even the kindred did not know about. You and Izzy almost set three wagons on fire while experimenting with her fragment and blood.”

“See, I notice a certain tendency, it is always someone else who has a bad influence on me.”

Sophie sighs, “Just go to Beyond.”

“But I kind of like it here. I have time to train and work on my megaconstruct. My newest crafting arc is also going well with the help of kindred… and kaiju.”

“Then stop complaining to me.”

“But I like to complain. You surely have not forgotten the good old times when you were an intruder in my mental space.”

“It is one of my most terrifying and humiliating memories. But I know what might get you to stop aching like a hyper puppy on zoomies. Go and check on Lily.”

“She is done with her 10 day long closed door training?”

“I… you could say that.”

I look at her after that answer and even twist my head while narrowing my eyes. Sophie returns my gaze with a blank face. That mindblender is getting better and better at hiding her emotions, and her poker face is probably the best out of Group 4, though she cannot compare to Tess's lying face.

Still, I stand up and boost myself into the air to land on one of the wagons further back.

There are some kindred kids playing in the garden. They look more or less the same as the adults like Pip, except they are usually as tall as or taller than me. Naturally sliding into sneaky mode, I mask my presence and especially the vibrations caused by my movement that they are extremely sensitive to.

Passing beneath the trees, I watch them and only move when they are moving, as well as when they talk and play with each other. Slowly, I reach the door that, like most of the doors here, is round. Interestingly, inside of that door there are smaller doors… for adults.

Entering the hallway, I boost myself towards the ceiling and hide between the tubes as two more kids pass through, tapping and clacking as they enter the garden. Once they are gone, I land back down and walk carefully through the colorful hallway.

Lily's room is thankfully near the top and on the outer side of the wagon, also having a balcony to the outside and a lot of natural light.

In front of the door, I pause, look around, and only then knock in a signal way Group 4 has set at the start.

Lily calls for me to enter, and I quickly open and slide in, closing the door behind me.

“Sophie said-” I start, but my words get stuck in my throat.

I think this is the first time in a long time I want to scream. Or squeak. From sheer surprise, shock, and a hint of terror all combined. Mostly the terror.

The arm that I left with Lily is gone, and that much is okay. The problem is the little 5 year old or so girl sitting in one of the armchairs, opposite Lily. That girl stares blankly in front of herself and does not react to my appearance at all, nor does she react to Lily.

She has strikingly wavy, almost curly golden hair and looks ethereal as she sits there unmoving with her beautiful violet eyes.