The tiring journey

"I'm so sorry for this! I really thought Sadanandan would comply with it. What are you gonna do with those sleeper coach tickets?" Thankappan asked the master while waiting at the ticket counter to purchase the general compartment tickets. Since Taro was before them, Thankappan made sure to whisper or else considering Taro's varying mood at that time, he had no idea what might happen.

"Ah, you're worried about these tickets? Well, don't; since I'll get a refund anyway!" The master replied with a smile, waving around the tickets.

"Three general compartment tickets for Trivandrum, please!" Taro walked towards the counter and spoke. However, unlike Thankappan and his master, who had a basic idea of what he meant, the man at the counter blinked at this.

Upon seeing this, Thankappan stepped forth and handled the matter. "Ah, what he meant was if we could get three general compartment tickets for Trivandrum?" He asked.

"Okay, sure! Wait a minute." The man inside quickly handed them their ticket and the matter was settled.

Receiving a train ticket for the first time in his life, Taro was excited. Although Taro tried searching in the internet about the trains and their structure and stuff, he had never seen one and this was his opportunity. However, he was worried about something. "Well, how will we know where the train's gonna come? Also, how will we know which one's the general compartment?" Even though he did surf the internet about trains, he didn't look into the compartment classifications. Hence, he was curious about it.

"Well, as of where the train's arriving, it's on our ticket and they will also announce it, so that's not a problem. If we're to talk about the general compartment thing, well, you'll know it as soon as the train arrives here. There's no way you'll miss it!" The master assured.

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"Holy shit!" Taro couldn't comprehend what he just saw. His master wasn't lying about it. One could easily guess which one's the general compartment by looking at the sheer number of people in there. The compartment was brimmed with people and the train hadn't even reached its halfway point.

"See? What did I tell ya?" The master gave out a nervous laughter. He really didn't want to enter this mass of extremely sweaty people enclosed in a compartment which seemed really tiny now.

"What the hell are you guys doing?" Thankappan shouted. However, when the other two looked around for him, they couldn't actually see him. "Guys, I'm here! Come on! Or you're gonna miss the train," Somehow, Thankappan was seen in the middle of the compartment. Even when people pushed him around, he slithered his way into there, something the other two didn't even dared to do. However, seeing Thankappan's tenacity, the other two had no choice but to go in head first. That wasn't a very successful plan though! By the time the train left the station, the two were barely hanging on the edge.

Thus began the long and tedious journey to Trivandrum. Although the beginning was really difficult, they slowly headed towards the middle part. They didn't get there though, but they secured a place where they wouldn't actually fall off from the train. Meanwhile, Thankappan somehow had already found a place to sit in this rush. The two of them were really envious of Thankappan's godlike skill in this.

Rather than worrying about himself, the dojo master was worried about his pupil. In his mind, there was no way Taro would be a hundred percent for the tournament. He regretted not persuading Taro to leave a day early. However, there wasn't anything he could do at that moment. Although he did want Thankappan to vacate that seat for his pupil, he knew how trains worked. Once you vacate a seat, someone else will grab it for sure. Hence, it wasn't guaranteed that his pupil would be able to get that seat. Therefore, he didn't make that request. Instead, he asked Taro to place his duffel bag in a way that he could sit on it.

However, Taro refused to do so since he respected the uniform inside it. He wasn't considered about sitting anyway, since he had an inhumane amount of stamina. Although, he was concerned about a few things though, and one such thing was his proximity to the toilet in the compartment. Unlike the other compartments, the toilet in the general compartment was poorly managed. Well, even if they were well managed, people out there would make a piss pool out of it. Hence, it was really hard to take in a breath or two without actually smelling the stench from the toilet.

The second thing which concerned him was the enormous amount of people beside him, who seemed to be pushing him every other chance they got; unsuccessfully, of course. However, since these people were so close, he had to restrict his upper body movements, because he worried that one wrong move might throw many people out of the train and that wasn't ideal in his eyes.

The main problem was when someone tried to enter the toilet. They had to pass by him every time they had to take a piss. This proved fatal for two reasons. One, Taro had no idea whether they washed their hands or not. This was vital because sometimes they had to touch him to get past him. The thought of them not washing after entering the toilet was terrifying for Taro. Although he wasn't a germaphobe, things like this still disgusted him.

And the second reason was the suggestive touches he had to endure along the way as they entered and exited the toilet. Taro wasn't attracted to human beings of any gender since he couldn't imagine them as sexy after meeting up with many beauties as he ventured throughout the universe trying to find his attribute. That's why he never understood why the Earthlings conducted a Miss Universe beauty contest without actually bringing in the beauties from the entire universe. It also pissed him off when he realized that the Miss Universe pageant was a step below Miss World, which made no sense! Anyhow, the point is, he didn't find the Earthlings attractive. And even if he did, that doesn't mean he would allow random people to touch his body without his permission. Granted that it was crowded, but he could sense certain people's intent by looking at their faces.

For example, a certain old woman coursed her hands through his chest and nether regions, giving out a smile which she considered as seductive. However, he considered it as plain creepy. And it wasn't just women; certain male humans did so too. Disregarding the gender difference, he just wanted to smash their faces to the ground. However, he controlled his urge to do so and complained about the blatant sexual harassment to Thankappan with his eyes. However, Thankappan did nothing and asked him to endure; again with his eyes. Without any other choice, Taro endured this, or so he thought to do first. That day, many people left the train with utterly broken feet. None of them had any idea as to who stomped their feet. This minuscule thing gave immense pleasure to Taro. Although his upper body functions were limited, his legs did the job here. Couldn't smash their faces, so smashed their feet instead.

As time passed, the crowd thinned out and finally Taro was freed from having to stay near the toilet. At around six hours since their journey began, Taro was finally able to have a seat alongside Thankappan and his master. However, this run was short-lived since they had already arrived at their designated station, hence the peace was short lived.

After six hours of hardship, they had finally reached Trivandrum at about four-thirty in the morning. The three of them were tired. Thankappan tried to call a kuber taxi, however his internet was dwindling for some reason. Hence, when an auto driver sweet talked them into riding his auto to the arena, they let them be sweet talked as they couldn't give a damn about it.

However, once they entered the auto, the driver's behavior changed entirely. Rather than taking them straight to the arena, he started taking short stops and chatted with random people. Although they didn't care for it since they had plenty of time till the tournament began, this kind of action from the driver sure made Taro and Thankappan miss Gopan and his mad driving skills.

In the end, the journey which should've been fifteen minutes, took them an hour, which was still early seeing that the arena hadn't opened up yet. Hence, they didn't complain. Hell, they didn't even complain when the driver tried to swindle them and asked them about five hundred rupees as the fare. Taro didn't particularly care about it. Meanwhile the two humans beside him were too tired to have an argument.

"Taro, we got about three hours. Take a nap. I'll wake you up." The master suggested. Since Taro knew that his master would probably cause a fuzz if he didn't do so, he acted as if he was sleeping for about fifteen minutes. Once he opened his eyes, he saw that his master had fallen asleep beside Thankappan. Therefore, instead of sleeping around, he warmed up his body for the entire three hours, before waking the two up.

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