Monster-hunted Chiyo

Two days had passed since I'd arrived in this world. I still didn't know its name, or if there were any people alive here but me.

Many signs told me that there were, or at least had been, more people, but no matter how far or how fast I went, all I saw was sand, buried houses, and the occasional set of unrecognisable footprints.

I spent the day heading east until the dunes became too irregular, thick, and frequent for my train to go over. The rails now sunk into the sand, no matter how carefully or slowly I chose my path.

I hopped out of the train.

“Stay here,” I patted the locomotive with a smile. She needed a name, but I couldn’t decide if I should pick something Japanese, Central-Asian, where her design seemed to be from, or something linked to this world.

She's old, and the paint is a bit peeling, but it's my own train!

The giddiness of owning something I’d loved the idea of for so long was keeping me going and grounded. I wasn't sure how long the novelty of it would last, though. I could almost hear my parents calling me ‘too much of a realist’ again for having these thoughts in this kind of situation.

I walked over the first dune and then the second. The sun was low in the sky, and I could see the white outline of the bigger of the moons on the horizon.

I was sweating profusely when I crossed the third dune.

< Faulty equipment detected. >

The message had become somewhat familiar now. The first night it'd given me cold resistance, and now -

< Conductor jacket upgraded to cooling conductor jacket. >

< Warming conductor trousers upgraded to thermo-regulating conductor trousers. >

I looked down at my clothes. The jacket turned shorter, its woven linen changing into a thin fabric, with a weave similar to a kimono. There must have been some extra magic involved, as the freshness I felt could not be explained by a change in fabric alone.

As soon as I find people, I'll give this magic uniform more thought.

There were animal tracks on a crescent-shaped dune up ahead. Three pairs of hooves travelled over it. The hooves looked similar to those of cows, only more elongated. I followed them up ahead. I was hoping for a group of travellers, but I gasped in shock when I crossed the crest of the dune.

Three horse-like animals lay on the ground. Their bodies were similar, if not for the split shape of their hooves.

A trail of blood led further up ahead, where a giant black wolf was hungrily scrunching a human corpse. It was at least three times the size of a regular wolf.

I froze in place. I clenched my fist, ready to give it my all, knowing that I wouldn't be able to outrun it.

I’ll at least give it a good beating.

The wolf stopped its macabre meal and turned its head towards me. Its eyes were an uncanny blue, and the expression was almost like that of a person.

I didn't know what to do. Scream? Run? Leap at it? Now didn’t seem like the moment to do any of these.

The wolf scoffed; queer sound for a creature like it. Then, it picked up what was left of the body in its maw and jogged away in a fashion that could be best described as ‘mildly hasty’.

I took a few moments to catch my breath. But as the sun continued to come closer and closer to the horizon, I finally got it together. If it got fully dark, I worried that I’d struggle to find my way to the train. The crescent dunes here looked no doubt even more alike in the moonlight.

How could that god not put headlights on my train? Did he not intend for me to travel at night?

I slid down the dune and cautiously approached the two animals. As I got closer to the scene, I noticed prints in the sand that were neither human, horse, nor wolf. Whatever that animal had been, it was the one that’d attacked the group.

I couldn’t stay there for long, in case it came back. So I whispered a prayer for the animals and their rider, and started going through the bags that’d been attached to the horse's backs, but now lay in the sand.

What I found didn’t reassure me.

There were a lot of provisions, water stored in corked hollowed-out dry fruit, and what looked like a foldable tent. I only undid enough of its straps to realise that I wouldn’t be able to fold it up again, but judging by its size, it would comfortably fit three people.

The owner was planning a long journey… This means there are no settlements close by.

I started gathering what I could carry for my first trip to my train. When I raised my eyes at the dunes, I jumped up in shock.

A black shadow was skittering towards me. It was larger than a wolf and had the body of a scorpion, with the added increased size of its front claws and a second stinger on its tail. It had deep dents in its carapace from something long and sharp.

I swore under my breath.

It didn’t even react to me spotting it, just continued skittering towards me. When it reached the furthest of the horses, it stopped and emitted a clicking noise.

Can it not see me?

Perhaps I remained as calm and reasoned as I did because the fear of giant scorpions had not been drilled into me from childhood the same way a fear of wolves had. With my eyes wide open and glued to it, ready to duck and run away if it were to start moving again, I tried something.

< Desire to modify equipment detected. >

< Conductor uniform modified to defensive armour. >

< Conductor gloves upgraded to sturdy gauntlets. >

The pleased grin that spread across my face vanished just as fast.

The giant scorpion leapt up, over the horses, and landed right next to me. It thrusted one of its stingers at my shoulder and the other towards my legs.

I dodged it just in time.

The movement felt weird, somewhat restrained by the armour, which I only briefly glanced at.

The suit overdid it …

Was all I could think before I had to vault over a horse to dodge the next attack. My feet sank into the deep sand as I’d underestimated my own mass.

I couldn’t feel the weight of the medieval-looking plate armour that’d appeared over my body, but it restricted my movements and interacted with the world all the same.

The scorpion opened its claw and ran forward with full intent to pin me in it.

In a fit of delusional optimism, I tried to use its momentum against it. I dodged the claw and grabbed the carapace right above the claw with both my arms. I planted one leg into the sand and the other into the side of the scorpion’s body.

The claw popped off the joint with a wet, sloppy sound, and the smell of rotting chicken hit my nostrils.

The scorpion tapped its other legs on the ground, clearly registering the pain.

I was too busy trying not to vomit to dodge its stinger.

It hit me in the chest, going right through my chest plate, but stopping right after it pierced my skin.

I swung at it, hoping to reproduce on the stinger what it’d just done to the putrid claw, but my arm fell to my side the second I lifted it.

“Huh?”

The scorpion scurried away, and I collapsed to the ground for the third time in as many days.

For the first few minutes, I thought that the god was going to send me to another world again. But the longer I lay there, staring at the night sky, slowly getting used to the rotting smell of the claw next to me, I became more and more certain that he wasn’t going to summon me again.

The scorpion had paralysed me.

This can’t keep happening … If the fauna is set on attacking me, I need to learn to fight back.

A few more minutes passed as I fruitlessly tried to move my limbs.

Suddenly, the sand under me shook. Sand rolled from the top of the dune onto my face, and I couldn’t even move to my side to avoid it; all I could do was close my eyes and hope none got into my nose.

An earthquake now? Did that god also curse me with bad luck?

I hadn’t seen much of this world, but I had yet to meet something that didn’t want to harm me, even the land itself.

Minus the wolf, but he'd already had his meal…

That thought sent shivers down my spine.

I spent a restless night beside the claw, its stench dragging me back from the edge of sleep every time I slipped toward it. By the time the second moon had risen, the temperature had dropped significantly. My outfit changed to its warmer version, but I still spent several hours shivering.

<MP: 175/1200>

The cold, the paralysis, and the fear that something smarter was going to come along and eat me made it very hard to take in the objectively breathtaking scenery above me.

Two moons, one larger than the moon I was used to, the other just a little bit smaller, hung high in the cloudless sky. A trail of very thin dust ran from the larger moon, creating partial rings around it, and extending a little past them like an arrow. There were also stars and constellations I did not recognise.

<MP: 390/1200>

To kill time and my growing anxiety, I tried to come up with my own names for them. An arrangement of six stars looked a little bit like the scorpion that’d paralysed me. Well, it looked like a box with several dots around it, but my interpretation was the only thing that brought some warmth to my heart.

<MP: 503/1200>

By morning, a freezing wind picked up. It brought sand down the dune, but strangely enough, the sand never rose more than several centimetres above the ground, getting into all of my clothes but avoiding my face. I could move the tips of my fingers and my hands again, but I was nowhere near being able to crawl long distances.

<MP: 600/1200>

Yes!

My train materialised in front of me.

It took me longer than I’d like to admit to crawl into it, in a manner that was all but graceful. When I finally reached the cabin in the locomotive, I yanked the potions drawer open and, after some rummaging, found an anti-venom.

I chugged it.

“Ahhh,” I sighed in relief as sensation returned to my body.

< New resistance acquired: paralytic venom.>

That’s a nice bonus, but I really can’t let this happen again.

I needed to get stronger, to defend myself in this crazy and dangerous place. But first, I needed to use the bathroom.