chapter 7

 Joshua couldn’t help the faint smile that tugged at his lips.

“Mmf… yum… mmhg… crunch… crunch.”

Chew. Chew.

The hurried sound of the young boy devouring a piece of bread shattered the cabin's silence. His cheeks puffed out like a hamster's as he chewed, swallowing greedily and licking every single crumb from his fingers.

For a moment, Joshua worried the kid might choke. But by the time he opened his mouth to tell him to slow down, the bread had already vanished into thin air.

The scene brought back a pang of nostalgia. It reminded him of his daughter when she was little; every time he brought her something sweet, she’d inhale it in seconds. The girl had a black hole for a stomach.

Though, obviously, this situation was nowhere near the same.

Joshua looked down at the small girl standing nearby. She was scrawny and frail, showing clear signs of severe malnutrition. Her unwashed hair hung in tangled matted clumps, and she wore little more than stitched rags. No shoes, either. Yet, her large eyes blinked at him with a mix of surprise and discomfort.

She seemed terribly shy around strangers.

A heavy melancholy settled in his chest. A child her age shouldn't be trapped in a tragic state like this, crammed into a train car full of refugees carrying broken, terrified expressions.

She ought to be in a classroom, studying and making friends.

Right. Different world.

This wasn't Earth anymore. He’d likely see far worse in the days to come, so he needed to start adapting, and fast.

After finishing her food, the little girl shrank back behind her mother, peeking out with hesitant curiosity. Her mother—the woman who had desperately tried to offer herself to him earlier—was now kneeling on the filthy floor, pressing her forehead firmly against the boards.

“Thank you so much! Thank you, truly!” she sobbed, her voice breaking beneath the weight of her tears. “May the gods bless you, sir soldier!”

Beside her, two elderly people lowered themselves to the ground with trembling knees and frail, decrepit bodies. From what Joshua could gather, they were the woman's parents—the little girl's grandparents.

“Please, stand up,” Joshua said, feeling deeply awkward under such an overwhelming display of gratitude. Forcing a smile to mask his discomfort at being the center of attention among the refugees, he helped the mother and the elders back to their feet. “You don't need to kneel like that. A simple thanks is more than enough.”

He stepped back slightly, adding, “Besides… let’s just say hard bread like that doesn't agree with my teeth anyway.”

The woman rose slowly, wiping her tears with the back of a smudge-stained hand. Remembering something, she gently patted the child hiding behind her skirt.

“Go on, Miki. You need to thank the nice soldier for the food, too.”

The child flinched and retreated further.

“I-I’m so sorry, she’s just shy.” The woman’s voice grew tense, terrified she might offend him.

Joshua quickly dismissed her fears with a light wave of his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Kids are always shy at that age.”

He dropped to one knee to bring himself down to the child's eye level. She flinched again, prompting a soft chuckle from Joshua. He extended an open hand.

“Hi there. I’m Joshua. What’s your name, little lady?”

The girl peeked out again, looking from Joshua to her mother. The mother practically held her breath, terrified her daughter might act ungrateful.

“…Miki. My name is Miki… I’m nine years old…”

“Nine?” Joshua blinked in surprise. The girl was so tiny and thin he’d assumed she was five or six at most. Nine was usually the age kids started hit their growth spurts.

A pang of pity hit him. Poor diet and harsh living had clearly robbed her of the chance to grow properly.

Noticing his disbelief, Miki nodded sharply, repeating herself with more force. “Yes! I’m nine, sir!”

Her small brows furrowed in a slight, pouting scowl, and Joshua couldn't hold back a laugh.

“Alright, little lady. I believe you. You're nine.”

He reached out and gently ruffled her hair.

The girl let out a startled gasp, staring up at Joshua with wide, curious eyes before offering a faint, timid smile.

The metallic clatter of wheels against the rails vibrated continuously through the floorboards. Joshua moved down the corridor, watching a few loose rivets in the walls shake with the train's momentum.

He paused near a narrow slit of a window—scarcely wide enough to thrust a spear through—and peeked outside.

There was no twilight sky, no trace of the sun. Only a wall of pitch-black fog violently scraping past the armored plating at breakneck speed.

The Abyss.

He noticed the temperature had plummeted a good few degrees. The mist itself looked noticeably thicker and more viscous than it had just a couple of hours ago.

“Joshua! Where’d you run off to, man?”

A voice echoed from behind.

It was Tomy, strolling up while aggressively chewing on something.

“Want some?” Tomy offered, holding out a crude cloth wrapper.

“What is it?”

“Liria roots,” Tomy replied, unfolding the cloth to reveal odd, pale roots from an unfamiliar tree. “You can’t swallow them, but they’re sweet if you just chew on ’em.”

Joshua gave Tomy an incredulous look. First it was dried meat, now tree roots.

“Hey, Tomy,” Joshua coughed lightly. “Won't Saki and your dad get pissed if they find out you’re… well… taking food from the emergency rations?”

“Taking? Hey, I’m not stealing!” Tomy scoffed defensively. “My dad would beat me to a pulp and leave me swollen like a pig if I touched the family reserves!”

“Then what is this…?”

“It’s my stash! I found these plants and dug 'em up myself! Same with the dried meat from earlier—that was stuff I managed to drag onto the train on my own.”

Joshua nodded, feeling a twinge of guilt for assuming the worst. “Sorry. My bad.”

“No big deal,” Tomy grinned, holding the bundle out again. “So? You want a piece or what?”

The root didn't look much different from regular tree bark, but Joshua nodded and popped a small piece into his mouth.

His eyes widened instantly.

“Good, right?” Tomy boasted with a smirk.

“Surprisingly good,” Joshua agreed. A burst of sweet juice flooded his mouth as he crunched down on the fiber. It tasted almost like candy—or chewing gum, he thought.

“Just squeeze the juice out,” Tomy added casually. “The fiber’s indigestible, so make sure you don't swallow it unless you want your ass to explode later.”

“Cough! Hack!”

Joshua choked instantly, spitting the pulp onto the floor.

Night fell, and their watch shift officially began.

Tomy and Joshua climbed the narrow ladder leading up to the observation cupola.

The mounted clock ticked away, minute by minute, while Joshua leaned against the slit, scanning the roof of the train through the violent blizzard of dark mist. Behind him, Tomy chewed lazily on another root, his furrowed brows and frequent yawns betraying his sheer boredom.

Three hours left until dawn.

Joshua glanced up at the reinforced ceiling, the memory of the previous night flashing through his mind.

“Hey, Tomy,” Joshua called out. “In all the time you guys have been traveling on this train, has anything like last night ever happened? That thud that dented the roof… I can't get it out of my head. You, Saki, and the rest looked terrified, but not necessarily surprised. Do you know what it was?”

“Probably an Abyssal Entity,” Tomy replied around a mouthful of root. “They’re not uncommon out here. In fact, we got hit by one the very first day we escaped. That first night, everyone was a nerve-wracked mess. The soldiers were exhausted, the civilians were panicking, my dad was wounded… and right then, an Entity caught up to us. It latched onto the tail end of the train.”

Tomy’s tone sobered slightly. “My dad and the patriarch ordered everyone to stay down and not look back. We had to detach three whole train cars just to shake it off. Lost a ton of supplies.”

Joshua listened in stunned silence.

An Abyssal Entity? What in the hell was that?

Tomy caught his bewildered expression and snapped his fingers. “Right, I forgot—you lost your memory. Look, Joshua, the Abyss mutates and drives everything mad. Livestock, insects, plants… anything alive that gets exposed to it mutates. Even the terrain isn't safe. Those rats that attacked you earlier? We call those monsters—creatures that used to be normal until the Abyss twisted them.”

Joshua nodded, remembering the hideous three-eyed rat.

“But Entities are different,” Tomy continued, lowering his voice. “They don't come from our world at all. They don't have a natural origin. Entities are born directly from the Abyss itself. They’re... things that shouldn't exist.”

A sudden memory flashed in Joshua’s mind—an image of a colossal, grotesque tentacle rising out of the pitch-black void. An abominable sight that defied natural law.

A cold shiver ran down his spine.

“Have you ever seen one?” he asked quietly.

They can’t all be that massive… right? If every Entity was a world-ending leviathan, this reality was doomed.

“Not personally, but my dad and older brother have,” Tomy said. “They entered the dimensional rift when it first tore through the city. Took a hundred of our family’s best soldiers, alongside the Mayor and his vassals, to seal it… but…” Tomy scowled, his voice dropping an octave. “…they failed. Dad came back missing an arm, carrying my brother. Half our soldiers never made it out. And the Mayor? Him and his entire retinue were wiped out.”

Joshua stayed quiet, processing the grim reality. He remembered Patriarch Arkas—a towering, muscle-bound man who carried the imposing presence of a lion. It was hard to imagine a man like that coming back broken. He could still smell the medicinal incense and see the blood-soaked bandages littered around his quarters.

What could have done that to him?

Tomy seemed to read the question on his face and shook his head. “Don't ask me. I don't know what happened inside that rift either. Dad’s always been a proud warrior—always held his head high. But when he came back from that hole… he was terrified. Looked like he’d stared straight into Hell. My brother was unconscious for a full day from severe mana depletion. Whatever they fought on the other side… it was bad enough to break my dad and take his arm.”

“…An Abyssal Entity.”

“Yeah. A nasty one,” Tomy spat, biting down hard on his root. “Dad wasn't the only one who came back ruined, though. Patriarch Cervius was just as badly wounded. Worse, actually—because he came back alone.”

“Alone?” Joshua frowned.

Tomy nodded glumly. “Yeah. His eldest son didn't make it out.”

“Eldest son?” Joshua connected the dots, his eyes widening. “Wait. That arrogant loudmouth who was harassing me earlier… isn't he the heir?”

“He is now,” Tomy snorted with disdain. “But the real prodigy was his older brother. He went into the rift with Cervius. That idiot down there doesn't even have the family’s magical weapon—his younger sister has it.”

“He has a sister, too?” Joshua asked, feeling the complex hierarchy of the noble houses aboard the train slowly click into place.

“Yeah, though the Patriarch keeps her out of sight. You know how it is—it’s humiliating for a noble house if the daughter inherits the crest weapon instead of the son. So she stays hidden.”

“I see.” Joshua nodded slowly. “Guess nobles have their own set of headache rules in this world.”

Tomy chuckled, pointing a finger at him. “Look at you talking. You're a noble too, man. Even with those filthy, ragged clothes, your speech gives you away. You come from high stock.”

“I suppose,” Joshua muttered, deliberately turning his gaze back toward the window.

It wasn't that he couldn't remember—it was that the person inside this body was entirely different. He didn't even know how he’d react if he ever met this body's original family.

Parents, siblings, relatives...

He had zero desire to seek them out. Right now, his only goal was understanding the rules of this new world so he could survive.

Joshua prepared to ask his next question when a sharp, deafening metallic alarm shattered the silence of the night.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

“What the—?!”

“Emergency alarm!” Tomy bolted upright.

Joshua snatched his binoculars and pressed them to the observation slit, squinting through the dense fog. Visibility was nearly zero.

“What the hell is going on?!” Tomy yelled.

An amplified voice bellowed down the corridors: [Enemy attack! All soldiers to your stations! Mutated creatures closing in on the left flank!]

“Flipping the spotlights!” Tomy roared, slamming his palm onto a console switch.

Beams of harsh light cut through the dark fog, and Joshua gasped.

“Rats! Those damn three-eyed rats are back!”

Dozens of giant rodents were leaping through the air, clinging to the outer armor of the train cars and scrambling upward like a dark, chattering tide. Below, an even larger horde sprinted alongside the tracks, screeching wildly, fearlessly throwing themselves against the steel.

Some were crushed instantly under the heavy iron wheels or hurled away by the wind, but the rest surged forward relentlessly, digging their claws into the metal plating and swarming toward the roof.