Bullet Train (XII)

The evening sun shed its rays of golden and bright orange light onto the giant wall and into a gigantic train car. 

The sound of wind whipping echoing in the battle-torn cafeteria was only overshadowed by the sounds of a group having a friendly conversation. The cafeteria's floor was ripped in various locations, half of it being caked in crusted blood.

The sun shone onto a group of eight students in various clothing, most seemed casual. There were rips and tears in the material, with various sleeves being entirely torn off of the shirts of a few of the students. 

Their faces were bloodied and caked with various grime, their revealed arms being caked in blood as well. Despite the state of their clothes, no visible wounds marred the student's bodies. Their hands were all clean, likely cleaned specifically to not risk contaminating the food that they were all-devouring.

Fifteen plates were spread across the table, and while most of the group was eating only one or two plates, there were two that had devoured three or four already.

Bellona voraciously worked away at a plate of spaghetti, of which the noodles were made from blue grains and the sauce made from herbs and spices collected within Domains. She didn't know exactly what the nutritional value of the meal was, only caring about its filling properties as well as its amazing taste.

'It has some kick to it.'

To most, however, it would be some of the spiciest food that they would have ever eaten.

The other symbol of avarice was Michael, who was putting away the same amount if not more food than Bellona. From an outside perspective, it would look like the two were racing to see who could finish their plates first.

Michael had a plate full of various meats and potatoes in front of him, with two more with similar foods. He stacked empty plates underneath the current one and said plate was resting on top of a tower of four empty plates.

Torm and Strella were engaged in a conversation about the different types of wood used in bows.

"-but lunar pine has better grain," Strella spoke between spoonfuls of soup, "But I do see how you would prefer using whisper yew."

"I just like how long it lasts." Torm took a bite of a bloodied piece of steak, it smelled delicious. "For actually hunting, though, lunar pine lets me shoot from farther, less chance to get noticed."

The two's conversation would continue forth about various animals to hunt and with what types of bows. When they got to specific styles of hunting and how to hunt most of the creatures of the forest, Bellona mentally checked out.

She hadn't struck Torm as the hunting type, but from his accent and the boy's Shard, Bellona could see a way for that to happen. From a bit of digging around in the past, Bellona knew that lunar pine was a particular wood found in Domains with colder climates.

Despite knowing where lunar pine trees grew, she had no clue about whisper yew, and even if she did, she didn't know exactly how the woods were used in bows. But the strange thing was how their conversation had found its way towards hunting materials and tools, but listening to it gave Bellona a few ideas for the future.

'Maybe I could take a wilderness class when we get there.'

Bellona started thinking about what classes that she would choose when they had reached the Terrarium, she would have just a bit more time to ruminate on her curriculum. After all, their journey had been stalled in the aftermath of the Pale Moon's raid on the train.

Bellona found it to be a shame that the train had to continue looping on the wall for so long. 'At least we can recover a bit more.'

Since it would take a while for them to leave, the rest of the group joined Bellona and Mona at dinner. As time passed, more and more students slowly funneled into the war-torn cafeteria and found places to eat.

Bellona and Michael finished a plate of their respective foods at the same time. They then shot a glance at each other before continuing their feasts.

Hilia had five sub sandwiches with a myriad of different ingredients in them. Bellona's only estimation was that Hilia would eat something as long as there was a copious amount of breading.

"Okay, but what about synthetic bandages, are hand-crafted ones really better?" Hilia had just finished one of her sandwiches and started eating another, allowing Jude the chance to answer.

Jude had long finished his salad, meat, and mashed potatoes. "There's nothing wrong with them, but I'd prefer having medicine that me or my dad made." He leaned forward, putting his forearms on the table while whispering to Hilia, "But between you and me, I only really use my stock."

Bellona wasn't too keenly interested in the conversation but was glad that her new friends were getting along well with one another. Most of the friendly conversations seemed to be about common interests, like hunting or medicine.

Mona and Pyralis were having a conversation about a television show that Bellona had not seen, deciding to not actively eavesdrop as she continued to eat.

Over the course of the next thirty minutes, the group's conversations would slowly shift onto other topics and their plates would grow emptier. Of course, Bellona and Michael had to refill their plates a plethora of times each, never filling their stomachs enough.

After their plates had long run empty, the group decided to leave the cafeteria and head to their shower rooms and change. Bellona found herself especially dirtied, seeing as how she had been the closest to the bloodied behemoths and fiends.

'I mean, I literally climbed two of them.'

They collectively headed down the hallway, carrying their conversations with them. Upon reaching the elevators, Jude and Torm went in one going up while the Erikson quartet went in an elevator going down.

Before the doors closed, they all bid their temporary farewells.

The remaining two, the swordswoman and the mage, continued down the hallway. A boy and girl walked up to the two and greeted them.

The boy smiled wide and pointed towards Bellona, "Oh hey! It's you!"

Bellona politely returned a smile, "Yeah, me?"

"Yeah! You're that girl who climbed one of those colossus, right?"

Mona interjected before Bellona could reply, "Yeah, she climbed another one after that, too." Bellona's annoyance died down a bit. "She even offered to fight Champion Bradley, too!"

'She's singing my praises.' Bellona noted, her annoyance of being interrupted completely vanishing, 'Epic.'

Mona and the boy struck up a conversation on Bellona's exploits, which felt slightly strange when she heard how highly the two regarded her actions.

The girl spoke up in a quiet tone, "If you... rain, I can- ...with spears." It seemed that she said something after that, as well, but Bellona could barely hear the girl.

So she leaned in to hear the girl better. Bellona asked the girl, "Could you speak up?"

The girl obliged, "If you want to train, I can help you with spears."

Bellona nodded with a smile as she leaned back, she then extended her hand. "I'm Bellona Finley, and I'll take you up on that offer whenever."

The girl shook Bellona's hand with a giddy smirk, "I'm Charybdis, let me know whenever you want some lessons."

'If she talks that big, she can probably back those words,' Bellona turned to the conversation between Mona and the boy, then smiled. 'I wonder how much she knows about spears.'

Mona bid the boy a quick farewell and the two continued to their rooms. Bellona reached into her pocket and her heart jumped a beat.

'Where's my key?' Bellona looked into her other pockets and calmed down, "It was in the other one...'

She pulled the key out and inserted it just below the door handle, which turned green after a moment. Bellona waved to Mona before entering the room, which seemed perfectly fine outside of a tossed pillow and a fallen blanket.

She crouched, grabbed the blanket, and quickly folded it before putting it back onto the bed.

'Huh, I expected a bit more... damage,' Bellona monologued as she pulled out her suitcase. 'But I also didn't expect to need a change of clothes so quickly.'

Bellona hadn't even left the city and she had already survived an invasion from an otherworldly force, fought a dragon, and nearly got stomped by a giant flesh monster.

Bellona looked around for a watch or clock but failed to do so. 

'I don't even know how long I've been on this damned train...'

With a sigh, she rummaged through her luggage and pulled out a change of clothing. With a few short strides, she opened the door to the small bathroom in her room and entered.

Bellona felt the wall to the side of the door for a light switch, finding one quickly. Upon turning the light on, she was pleasantly surprised to see a toilet, sink, and shower.

She hoped the shower was warm... it was.

Bellona found getting the bloodstains off of her skin to be quite difficult, having to spend another twenty minutes to make sure that she was spotless. After an otherwise pleasant shower, she changed and exited the shower.

Her new outfit consisted of a light blue t-shirt with a floral pattern on its short sleeves, around the collar, and along the base. She chose to wear a pair of beige cargo shorts to compliment the blue shirt, there was nothing of note about the shorts outside of having a lot of pockets.

Feeling refreshed, but a bit tired, Bellona strapped on a pair of sandals and looked at the pile of destroyed clothing that she had been wearing for the past few hours.

'Aw man, I really liked those ones,' Bellona lampooned as she destroyed that set of clothing with the second activation of Ruination. 'I'll miss you.'

After bidding a permanent farewell to her favorite set of clothing, she exited the room after turning off the only source of light in the room. Immediately after closing the door, she turned and headed towards the downstairs hallway. She passed through the cafeteria to see if anything had happened in the past short bit.

Bellona found that the blood had been swept and the gash in the glass windows had been patched with some sort of material.

'Concrete?' Bellona stepped towards the patched-up windows and tapped it, 'No, something more solid and lighter.'

For a moment, Bellona was stumped by the new wall. She then realized that the material used was probably from some sort of Akashic Shard ability or such.

Satiated by her answer, Bellona continued on her way. The window on the other side of the cafeteria was also reinforced by the strange material. Bellona found that she had no idea what time it was but felt that sunset had probably recently passed.

As Bellona took the stairs down, the sounds of conversation grew louder and louder. Upon reaching the base, she quickly found her friends playing a game of pool. Well, Jude and Pyralis were playing a game of pool while the rest were apparently betting on the game.

It wasn't uncommon practice to bet on friendly games in the ground layer, but didn't expect it to be a widespread practice. However surprising, it was a pleasant surprise.

Looking out one of the windows in the large lounge told Bellona that the moon was high in the sky. Apparently, Bellona took an extremely long shower while not noticing it.

In any case, she walked up and saw that Pyralis was winning by a landslide, which was another surprise. Bellona hadn't expected Pyralis to be the type of guy to play pool, and much less at such a level that he was playing. 

'So many unexpected things to happen today...' Bellona cried out in her mind.

She joined the spectators and the group started their games long into the night.

They would continue playing pool until the clear victors were announced to everyone. Afterward, they would take turns playing foosball and minigolf, of which Bellona was horrendous.

They then gathered as a group to play eight-way chess, which Bellona didn't expect to experience at any time in her life. Of course, the final few were Hilia, Jude, and Mona, while the rest were confused about how they had been checkmated.

After playing several more games, and losing a whole bunch of imaginary money, Bellona and a few others called it a night. Soon after, the rest of the gang would follow, and their night was soon to be over.

Bellona waved Mona goodnight and entered her room once more. She turned the light on and looked around for a sort of night light, after a minute, she ended her search disappointed and lightless. 

With a sigh, she turned off the light and fumbled around the dark room until she reached her bed and fell asleep before hitting the bed.