Instead of heading straight to his cabin, Yeomyeong walked around the train, familiarizing himself with the layout.
The cabins occupied by rcenaries, the café car, the shower car...
It was luxurious and spacious—more like a small hotel than a train—but it was still a train.
Given the narrow hallways and the staff constantly moving about, it’d be a miracle not to run into the CIA agent before reaching the LA Dinsional Gate.
No matter how he looked at it, the best option was to keep the Tears of Blood illusion over his face and stay low.
So much for a pleasant journey.
Just as that thought passed through his mind and his ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) hand reached for his cabin door—
He heard Corvus and the Saint talking on the other side.
“No, that’s not what I—!”
“What’s... the prob...? So of the Ear... th...”
“But that’s... greedy...”
He couldn’t make sense of the conversation, but their tone was off.
Especially the Saint. Just hearing her voice brought to mind her flushed face, clearly flustered.
...Are they talking nonsense again?
Shaking his head, Yeomyeong opened the door—and the Saint jumped like a guilty puppy caught doing sothing bad.
And that wasn’t the end of her reaction.
The mont she saw his illusion-covered face, she scrambled to draw her revolver and pointed it at him.
A deadly muzzle. A brief silence.
By the ti Yeomyeong ignored it and walked in to take a seat, Corvus clacked her beak sharply, breaking the stillness.
“Saint, take a closer look. It’s our disciple.”
“Huh?”
Only then did the Saint realize his face looked familiar, and she lowered the gun.
“...Why are you walking around with an old man’s face? You scared .”
“You think I’m not scared getting a gun shoved in my face? Can you cut it out with that habit of drawing first?”
“....”
While the Saint gave a sheepish cough, Corvus asked,
“Did you not say you were eting with old comrades? Why the illusion over your face?”
“Sothing annoying ca up... I’ll explain that first.”
Yeomyeong gave a short, condensed summary of what happened outside.
That there was a CIA agent on board, and he’d need to keep his face hidden for a while...
When he finished, Corvus offered a brief comnt.
“Well, that’s a bother.”
“What should we do about it?”
Yeomyeong directed the question specifically at her.
The others could just cover their faces with illusion, but Corvus, being a beastkin, was a walking target even from her sheer size alone.
She must’ve been thinking the sa thing—she clacked her beak in thought.
“Disciple, could you... step outside for a mont? No, just turn around.”
What? Yeomyeong raised a brow, puzzled, but turned his back without complaint.
Then ca the crack—the sound from where Corvus had been.
Skin stretching, muscle shifting, bones snapping into place.
She’s transforming here?
In her beastkin raven form, she’d draw even more attention...
As Yeomyeong mulled over that, he heard the Saint gasp in amazent behind him.
“You may turn around now.”
“....”
He turned—and a strange woman was standing in front of the Saint.
Long black hair down to her thighs, taller than Yeomyeong, and unmistakably wearing the Saint’s dress.
Whether it was her ghostly pale skin or the heavy dark circles under her eyes, she looked like a witch straight out of a fairy tale.
“...You can transform into a human?”
It was a question loaded with Why the hell haven’t you done this until now? Corvus waved it off.
“You think I don’t know a simple polymorph spell? It’s just a damn hassle, that’s all.”
“....”
“Imagine a human trying to... hnnngh... hold in a giant—ahem—holding your core tight all day. That’s what it feels like. Look, my mana’s already bubbling inside.”
Grumbling, Corvus glanced at the Saint and added,
“Then... I’ll leave the Saint to you. I’ll head next door and inform Miss Seti of the situation.”
Really? Before Yeomyeong could say anything, Corvus opened the door and stepped out.
Raven feathers drifted in the air. An odd silence remained.
With just the two of them left, the Saint began fidgeting with her fingers without saying a word.
Yeomyeong watched her for a mont, then stood and approached her.
“Let’s cover your face first. Will you take off the blindfold?”
“...The blindfold?”
Sothing about it clearly rubbed her the wrong way—she instinctively leaned her head back. Now what?
“No blindfold.”
“....”
Was that a pun? Yeomyeong tilted his head slightly, wondering if she was joking, but the Saint covered her eyes with both hands like she was dead serious.
“If it ans taking off the blindfold, then I’m not doing it. I’ll just stay in the cabin, okay?”
“...So no eating, no bathroom, no shower?”
“....”
“All because of a blindfold? Are you serious?”
“...Can’t I?”
Yeomyeong stared at her in silence.
The Saint pressed her lips together and turned her head, just as stubborn.
And so the two of them sat in stubborn silence, pride versus pride, for quite a while.
Only after more than ten minutes did the Saint finally give in and wave her white flag.
“Fine, fine! I’ll take it off, okay!”
“...Don’t say stuff that could make people think we’re doing sothing weird.”
Ignoring him, the Saint clutched her blindfold but hesitated again.
Just as Yeomyeong was about to use force, she let out a heavy sigh like soone preparing for the worst.
“...Don’t look at my eyes. If you do, I’m never speaking to you again.”
Hesitantly, the Saint slowly pulled off her blindfold.
And finally, her eyes were revealed...
...Tightly shut.
But even just from the long white lashes resting on her cheeks, it was obvious—her eyes were probably just normally beautiful.
Why go so far to hide them? Sothing wrong with her irises? Or just a complex?
Either way, if she wanted to keep them hidden that badly, there was no need to pry.
Yeomyeong placed a hand on her forehead and cast the Tears of Blood illusion.
“It’s done.”
“Already?”
Maybe it was the fact that it ended faster than she expected, but the Saint blinked in confusion and looked toward the mirror by the bed.
“Huh? Uh...”
But her reaction... wasn’t exactly thrilled.
“This ajumma face... what is this?”
As she said, the face reflected in the mirror was that of a warm, middle-aged Korean lady.
Touching her transford face, the Saint asked cautiously,
“Whose face is this? Is she... soone from your family?”
Yeomyeong shrugged.
“No? It’s the soup lady from the rice stew place.”
A favorite haunt back in his janitor days, a place he often visited with his brothers. Yeomyeong steeled himself, suppressing a sudden wave of lancholy.
What’s she doing these days? Still running that place, I wonder...
...
“That place had really good blood sausage soup...”
Yeomyeong was drifting into a wistful mory when the Saint stood up, scrunching her face in utter disgust.
“Hey! Change it back right now! I hate this face!”
“What now?”
“Are you seriously asking because you don’t know?!”
“...Don’t judge by appearances. She was a kind person.”
At the words “a kind person,” the Saint flinched. She glanced back and forth between the mirror and Yeomyeong, then asked cautiously,
“...Did you have so kind of history with her?”
“Hmm... Not a big one. She used to give a lot of extra food. Said I looked just like her husband when he was young—before he ran off with so other woman.”
Yeomyeong answered playfully, and the Saint couldn’t take it anymore—she smacked his forehead.
“You little—ugh, whatever! Just change it already!”
Slap, slap— After letting her soft palms hit him a few tis, Yeomyeong chuckled.
“It’s just a disguise. What does it matter what the face looks like?”
Logically true, but the Saint kept pushing her unreasonable argunt.
They were alone in the cabin. If she had to wear this face all the way to the LA Dinsional Gate, there’d be zero chance of any “mood,” let alone a kiss.
Unacceptable. For the sake of the three of them and the future they’d share, she needed at least one heartfelt mory now...
Just as that romantic notion passed through her head and she pinched Yeomyeong’s side—
The cabin was swallowed in darkness.
****
*
...A dream?
*
The mont darkness fell over the cabin, that was the word that ca to Yeomyeong’s mind.
That sticky, crawling sensation on his skin, the weightless feeling like he was falling—
It all resembled the sensation of being pulled into a trance-like void.
The only difference this ti... was that he wasn’t alone.
“Yeomyeong, what... is this?”
The Saint gripped his hand tighter, clearly unnerved by the sensation.
Yeomyeong gently patted her back to calm her, then walked alone to the window to check outside...
“...Tch.”
As expected, the grassy plains they’d seen earlier were completely gone.
Now there was nothing but a vast, endless swamp beneath a smog-choked, gray sky.
The tracks still appeared to be intact—at least, the train seed to still be moving.
Though it could very well just be an illusion.
“God... every damn place I go, sothing happens.”
Ignoring the Saint’s grumble, Yeomyeong stepped away from the window and opened the cabin door. The Saint followed behind, loading ammo from her bag.
Outside, the train hallway was pitch black as well.
Spreading mana to sense their surroundings, Yeomyeong confird that—sure enough—there was no sign of Seti or the others in the cabin next door, where they should’ve been.
Had only he and the Saint been dragged into the dream? Or had the others been pulled into a different one?
But the most pressing question of all was: who had brought them here—and why?
Is the Saint the target? Or... is it ?
As those tangled questions spun in his mind, another voice cut in with a new one:
[What—is—this—? Why—not—one—but—five—?]
A distorted, whining voice, like dozens of mouths speaking in unison.
Yeomyeong turned toward the sound—and saw a corpse standing at the far end of the hallway.
It was shriveled like a mummy, holding a grotesque staff made of twisted bone and muscle, with a slimy, twitching eyeball embedded at the tip, scanning Yeomyeong and the Saint.
[What—are—you—? You—are—not—Aricans—?]
“...”
[Strange—? There—should—n’t—be—so—many—Huaxi—]
The mummy’s words didn’t go any further.
Because soone behind it fired a shot.
Bang!
A crimson bullet—clearly magical—pierced the mummy’s forehead. Its head burst with a pop.
As the headless corpse collapsed to the floor, the sound of the Saint resting her hand on her revolver’s trigger echoed quietly.
Footsteps clicked toward them from down the hall. A woman with bright orange-red hair in a bob cut and glasses.
“...CIA agent.”
Yeomyeong whispered it to the Saint, and her eyes narrowed to slits.
If that bitch dies, we won’t even need disguises anymore, right?
As that blasphemous—no, downright evil—thought crossed the Saint’s mind, the agent stomped on the mummy’s corpse and strode toward Yeomyeong.
She stopped at just the right distance—not too close for fists, but close enough to shoot—and opened her mouth.
“...Mr. Rhett Butler?”
“Fancy seeing you here, Miss Scarlett O’Hara.”
“I’m not hallucinating, am I?”
When he shook his head, Scarlett glanced over his shoulder at the Saint.
“...And she is?”
As Yeomyeong tried to think of a suitable fake na, the Saint cut in without hesitation.
“I’m his wife.”
His wife? Scarlett’s eyes widened slightly before she quickly looked away and said,
“Oh... a couple, I see. Well, if it’s not too much trouble, could I ask for your help?”
“...No, you may not. It is too much trouble.”
Only after Yeomyeong jabbed her in the ribs with his elbow did the Saint pout and take a step back.
“We’d be happy to help. But Scarlett—do you have any idea where we are right now?”
“Yes... I have a rough guess, at least.”
Just as Scarlett began to explain—
The headless mummy suddenly sprang to its feet.
[Found—the—Aricans—!]
Even with only a jaw left, its grotesque voice rang perfectly clear.
Of course it did—because it wasn’t coming from its throat, but from the entire train hallway.
[The—fallen—star—will—be—eaten—!]
And with that nauseating proclamation, the entire hallway began to twist.
Flesh oozed across the walls, windows shattered, and darkness poured in.
In that sa mont, Yeomyeong drew his sword and the Saint pulled the trigger.
A radiant sword aura and a blessed bullet tore through the darkened hallway.
Two lights—one red and one white—flashed past Scarlett as she ducked in terror, flooding the corridor with their brilliance.
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