C73: Compartment Fight

"Ahhhh!"

"Damn it!"

Spine-chilling screams rang out. Corpses littered the ground, and blood covered the train's hallway.

No matter how often I experienced it, carnage wasn't something I got used to, and the smell of blood was sickening.

Everyone had someone waiting for them to return from this exam.

I looked around for anyone who might attack us; my heart beat like an engine.

Even though attacking someone who wasn't on a train cart was illogical, not everyone acted with logic in mind.

Some of the carts had injured teams; one had only one person with an arm missing. The latest one I walked past had a man who had half his belly missing and his guts falling out. He looked at us with fear, as if we were going to attack him. But seeing we weren't doing anything, he grabbed at his own guts and tried stuffing them back in his body.

Tears rolled down his eyes. "I don't wanna die! I don't wanna die! I don't wanna die! Mom was right. I shouldn't have taken this exam!"

There was no saving him. So we walked past the cart. The further we went, the fewer people were around.

"Why didn't we take that cart?" Asked Gem. He appeared calm. "It would have been a freebie."

A couple of students ran through the train hallways; some rushed in and battled it out in the train compartments.

The whole vehicle was bigger than it looked on the outside. The hallway was wide enough to fit six people side by side. But outwardly, the train would barely fit six people in width overall. Not to mention all the compartments.

"If we went in, someone else would attack us. So we must wait until the train has almost reached its destination." That was technically the truth. But having compartments at the beginning of the train wasn't a good idea.

I went from compartment to compartment, checking through the windows, and tried to find the silver-haired team. Some teams had blocked their windows, so I made a mental note to come and check them later if the silver-haired team was nowhere to be found.

Knocking that team out of the tournament would fix some big divergences. The timeline was already changing beyond my control, and I accepted that. But it didn't mean I would just let wild shit come and do nothing about it!

We stumbled upon Mino the coffin-guy's room and some others as we approached the end of the compartments. But just three carts before the end was the silver-haired team. There were three bodies outside their doors, leaning against the compartment walls.

The corpses were taken out with some fast slashes to their necks. Likely by some kind of blade. Maybe an appendage? But the cut was a bit weird, as if it was carved with a chainsaw and not a sharp item.

Was there a weapon like that on them? They didn't have any weapons visible on their person. Maybe one of them had a storage special ability? Though it was very unlikely from what I knew of the organization.

But they might have special abilities like that; it wasn't smart to go into a fight with preconceptions about the enemy. I didn't know anything about these silver-haired kids except where they maybe came from. I had to be careful.

Entering the carriage, all gray eyes turned on us, and their gazes sharpened. The only guy in the silver-haired team was the first to come to his senses and smiled. "I think you would have an easier time fighting other teams."

He was probably right. "Maybe we would. But I like this compartment room." I turned toward my teammates. "What do you guys think?"

"Yeah, it has a nice shine to it, and the view is beautiful," Gem smiled like a shark.

The youngest on the team clenched her fists and stood up. "I don't care anymore! I'm just going to kill them all! Even if-"

But before she could say anymore, the other girl covered her mouth. "That's enough out of you, Twenty."

The two girls's eyes widened as soon as she said that last part. They realized the slip-up; the little girl sighed and pushed away the hand covering her mouth. "Fine, let's leave."

Leave?!

They walked past us without a fight or even a word of disagreement.

What was this? Why didn't they want to fight us? Did they think they couldn't take the three of us out without revealing her secret?

Still, I didn't let my mind wander too much. We entered the compartment and closed the door. I even put a locking talisman on the door, creating a small barrier.

After sitting down, I breathed a sigh of relief. None of us were injured. The compartment room was big enough to stretch my legs.

I was tempted to chase the silver-haired team, but we couldn't. It would be a reckless move resulting in heavy injuries or even casualties. Maybe I would've been more comfortable attacking if we had more information on them.

"Twenty? What a weird name. Did her parents name her after a number? She must have had a lot of siblings," Gem leaned back on the seat, and he let his thoughts be known to the team.

Well, he wasn't necessarily wrong. But the organization assigned numbers to their successful experiments. They were ranked from strongest to weakest.

The little girl was the 20th strongest of the experiments. That was quite a high number. She was overqualified for the exam.

At such a young age, to be at an Elite Exorcist level of power. I was almost jealous.

Putting the barrel of water on the floor, I opened the lid and let Carpy's head poke out of the water.

Boom!... The compartment door got blasted apart by an iron ball the size of a human's head.

A guy our age barked through; he had a big nose and oily hair. He smiled toward us and had his hand in a flicking position. He turned toward Gem and shot something.

"Flicking a booger?" Gem had a disgusted look on his face. Their opponent was flicking their nose filth at him.

Shit! Dangerous!

I tackled Gem out of the way. The booger turned into an iron ball mid-flight but didn't lose its speed.

Baam!... The ball smashed above our heads and almost burst through the thick steel of the train, which was reinforced by Ord.

"Oh? Usually, people underestimate my ability," the big-nosed ability user sighed in disappointment. "Your teammate saved your life there, little guy. My 'Dirty Bowling' ability doesn't lose its speed of being as fast as a flicked booger. So it's quite the devastating attack."

Disgusting, but a good ability. How fast could humans flick boogers? I didn't know. But it was fast as hell. It was devastating when that kind of speed was added to a heavy iron ball.

This ability was probably created when he was a kid. So the restrictions on it are either very loose or close to none.

The big-nosed guy put his finger in his nose and pulled out another booger. A line of snot connected the booger to his nose. "Oh! It's a big one this time!"

Fucking gross!

I unsheathed it with a normal sword and charged at him. But his teammate, a well-built young man almost big enough not to fit through the door, stood before his team. He had his eyes closed.

Despite that, I didn't stop my swing and went for the kill.

Clang!... But instead of my sword cutting through flesh, there was a sound of metal meeting.

A covering of Ord formed around him, showing that he was a Warrior. He smirked arrogantly and still had his eyes closed. "Sorry, but my body is as tough as diamond."

Despite having a good chance to counterattack, he kept his eyes closed and didn't move. His ability was of the Warrior affinity, probably something that made his aura hard to penetrate as long as he kept his eyes closed and didn't move.

He might be faking some conditions so he could trick me later. But whatever it was, it didn't change anything!

The big-nosed exorcist was ready to attack again, his hand was aimed at my face, and there was no way I could attack him.

But before he could do anything, the shadow under his arms gurgled. Then two small wolves jumped out and bit down on his arms.

"Ahhh! Damn it!" He yelled out in pain; shadow wolves the size of dogs chewed on his elbows.

The last member of their team manifested one yoyo in each hand. With a cold look on his face, the yoyos, who had a lot of Ord imbibed into them, smashed into the small wolves and destroyed them.

"Shit! I can't lift my arms up!" Yelled out the big-nosed exorcist as he was bleeding profusely.

Water flew from overhead and covered the Warrior guy's head. He scrunched his face but stood his ground.

Without needing to look back, I knew this was Carpy's doing.

The battle had turned around. Whether the guy stood there and drowned himself to unconsciousness or dared to move and get cut by my sword. It was his choice!