Constant rumbling sounds and intermittent vibrations made Inaba Tsukiyo open her eyes.
The pungent smell of gunpowder and the foul stench of blood made her frown in discomfort.
Before she had truly explored this world, it had already told her in this way that there was something seriously wrong with it.
Taking a deep breath, as her consciousness gradually cleared, Inaba Tsukiyo slowly opened her eyes and surveyed her surroundings.
The humming sound of steam. Inaba Tsukiyo felt that she was on a fast-moving train.
No, this was not an ordinary train, but a steam train.
Inaba Tsukiyo, who had ridden steam trains before, was very familiar with this sound. She was on a fast-moving train.
This steam locomotive, made of steel, was constantly vibrating violently due to its high speed.
"What's going on? Is this what they call a spontaneous trip? It seems alaya, who helped you with world travel, is quite enthusiastic."
"That's not it at all, and you haven't ridden this kind of steam train. Even if this train is different from what I've seen before, this speed is still too fast."
It was abnormal, no matter how she thought about it. Didn't they consider slowing down when the train entered a station?
Inaba Tsukiyo stood up, preparing to go to the driver's cab to see what was going on.
She came to the door of the carriage, opened the door to the front carriage, but the scene that appeared before her made her close the door again.
[Thump! Thump! Thump!]
The next moment, a violent impact caused the door to bulge inwards, and then the door was knocked down, revealing several monsters that could no longer be called human.
"Ah ah ah ah!!!!"
Beast-like roars erupted from the monsters' mouths. Staring at Inaba Tsukiyo before them, these monsters pounced without hesitation.
"Zombies? Is this another world with zombie mutations? But aren't the zombies in this world too powerful?"
The zombies she saw in the first world didn't have such great strength, and these guys were incredibly fast, at least several times faster than the zombies she had seen before.
These monsters wore tattered clothes, and at the center of their chests, a heart glowed.
Veins extended from around the heart, spreading throughout their bodies.
Undoubtedly, these creatures were already dead, but due to some special power, they were able to move again with their deceased bodies.
Skillfully slashing at the monster's neck, the next moment, its head was separated from its body.
But these monsters did not stop; they still lunged at Inaba Tsukiyo.
"You can't even die by having your head cut off? What's the principle behind this? Is the head no longer the most important part?"
Her body lightly dodged to the side, evading the monster's attack, her silver twin-tails swaying in the wind.
The monster reached out, trying to grab the light twin-tails. The next moment, a sharp edge flashed, and the monster's hand flew into the air.
Immediately following were several more flashes, and these monsters lost their limbs, falling helplessly to the ground, emitting ear-piercing roars from their remaining heads.
"Since beheading doesn't work, then I'll chop off your limbs. That way, you won't be able to attack, right?"
She flicked the blood off her blade and approached these monsters.
Although it had lost its arms, the monster that had lost its head still wasn't dead; its glowing heart was beating continuously.
She poked the glowing heart with her blade and found that the surface of these glowing hearts was wrapped in a steel-like membrane. If this membrane couldn't be breached, the heart likely couldn't be damaged.
"Wow~ This feeling is totally telling you, 'My weakness is my heart, but my heart is protected by a steel-like membrane. If you can't break it, you can't kill me. Isn't that infuriating? Rua!'"
"Stop messing around, this isn't the time for you to complain. But you're right, the weakness of these monsters is this protected heart. If I'm not mistaken, this train has probably already fallen."
The reason the train was moving so fast was probably because the driver in the cockpit had already turned into one of these, and no one was controlling the train's speed, which is why it was going so fast.
Judging by this steam train, humanity's technological level wasn't very high; they didn't have weapons that could effectively break through this membrane, otherwise, this train wouldn't have fallen.
"Pfft!"
Piercing the monster's heart brought an end to its life.
The heart was the weakness of these monsters. Was there no other way to stop them?
No, if the brain, which controls bodily actions, was lost, these monsters would also lose their ability to move, but they wouldn't die.
Gripping the hilt of her blade tightly, Inaba Tsukiyo stepped over these monsters and headed towards the cockpit.
Almost every carriage she passed had a few monsters, just like the ones she first encountered, all with glowing hearts.
These monsters were dressed in cloth, and some wore armor, like samurai attire.
The weapons she saw along the way were firearms dropped on the ground.
They weren't gunpowder-based firearms, but steam guns that used steam from a boiler slung on the body as ammunition.
Inaba Tsukiyo tried using a steam gun to shoot at the monsters' hearts. The power was decent, but it still couldn't destroy their membrane.
These weapons being unable to kill the monsters indicated that humans couldn't effectively fight them.
Therefore, the city where this train originated must have been overrun by these monsters, leaving no choice but to escape the original city.
For unknown reasons, those who were bitten boarded the train, which led to all the humans inside the train turning into monsters.
On the way to the cockpit, the surrounding light suddenly disappeared, and the roaring sound of the train grew louder.
"Did we enter a tunnel? Are we almost at the next city?"
There were no living people left on the train. If it continued to travel at its current speed, when it entered the next station, the monsters inside the train would flood into the city.
There weren't many monsters inside the carriages, but many were hanging on the outside of the train, like a train in some country overloaded with people.
"Hey! Although you already know, I still want to remind you. After this tunnel, you'll enter a city. At this speed, you should know what will happen, right?"
Herrscher Tsukiyo's schadenfreude-filled voice came through. She clearly knew what kind of disaster would result if things continued this way.
To describe this situation using a game she had played, it would be: "Your delivery has arrived! Please sign for it!"
"No, it shouldn't be. There should be freely adjustable bridges between the city and the tracks. If humans have been fighting these monsters for a long time, they should have some countermeasures."
For example, before a train enters a town, it needs to stop outside the town for inspection. Only if the inspection is clear will the bridge be lowered, allowing the train to enter the city.
Although still inside the train, by using the power of the portal, she didn't have to worry about being affected.
"You're right, but humans can also be careless. Weren't the humans on this train forced to abandon their original city because of the monster invasion?"
Herrscher Tsukiyo smiled indifferently. At this moment, the train also left the tunnel, and just as she imagined, the city people lowered the bridge without any inspection.
By the time they noticed the train's excessive speed, it was already too late.
Through a portal, Inaba Tsukiyo left the train before it crashed into the raised bridge.
"Bang! Rumble!!"
A huge crash sounded as the fast-moving train directly hit the drawbridge, which hadn't even had time to be fully raised.
The rear of the train, under the violent impact, tilted upwards, flying directly and smashing through the city wall.
The couplers between the high-speed carriages broke, and several carriages even smashed into human living areas, causing innocent casualties.
(fuhai: People sitting at home, carriages falling from the sky.)
The explosion spread to at least half the city, and at the same time, the monsters from the train crawled into the city.
"Dong—Dong—Dong—"
Inside the city, urgent alarm bells rang one after another, and soon everyone in the entire city heard this alarm.
This alarm bell had almost never rung except during drills. What it meant to ring at this time could be figured out with common sense.
"These people… why didn't they build ramps at the entrance? Even if they didn't build ramps, they should at least build a big curve so that if the train goes too fast, it can just fly off!"
Inaba Tsukiyo, emerging from the portal, was also exasperated by this sight. She didn't know if her ideas were too advanced or if these guys' thinking was too backward, to not take such preventive measures.
And they even designed the station in the city center. Couldn't it be arranged on the city's edge with a few more isolation measures?
Or was the purpose of building it in the city center just to make it easier to escape?
The staff guarding the entrance were too careless, weren't they? They lowered the drawbridge without checking. Could this person be a monster spy planted in the city?
The breach in the city was too large; from afar, large numbers of monsters could be seen approaching the city from the entrance.
"So I already told you that there's a high chance this city will fall, but you still didn't believe me. You thought you were in a very safe place, but you just exchanged one cage for another."
"Don't make such sarcastic remarks! There must be some emergency measures here! This city must have specific measures to prevent this kind of situation."
"Isn't it just abandoning this city and moving to other cities via a train like that steel train from before? In the end, it's just changing places to hide."
Hundreds of monsters had already poured into the city from all directions. This city no longer had any hope; they had to leave this city.
She gritted her teeth. Screams echoed throughout the city, and firelight gradually enveloped it.
"Damn it! Why did you choose such a world for me, alaya!!!"
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