...
After a while, somebody else spoke up.
"What the heck are you talking about, I can't even feel his aura."
"Yeah, move aside, even though he's a child, he's obviously the weakest so he has to die." Said another person.
"Are you guys dumb or something. There are only two situations where you can't sense someone's aura. Either, they're too weak, which can't be possible as we are all (F) rank or above, or..."
As he fell silent, everybody else completed his sentence and came to the same conclusion that he had come to much earlier.
'or he is so strong that we can't even feel the aura.'
As the realized this, they all looked at me in amazement.
"Uhm, kid, what rank are you?"
I replied as bluntly as possible, "(D-)".
With that proclamation, I released my aura, making them all fall to their knees.
Of course, as the guy in front of me had figured this out beforehand, he was obviously strong enough to resist it and stayed standing, although his legs shook a bit.
'Oh, come to think of it, this guy is probably Markus Lochen.'
Markus Lochen, one of the original 5 survivors of the Train to Purgatory, the son of the Assassin's Guild leader, and the future guildmaster of the Assassin's Guild.
He was actually a pretty powerful character, but because he was an assassin, making him only good at one-on-one battles, he was basically useless to the protagonist who had to participate in a war, which made it so that he was only a side character that they only mentioned in passing after they all left the academy.
I didn't really need him either because I already had the two sisters, so I just curiously watched him as he handled the situation.
Taking the role of the bellwether from Eddie, he asked everyone, "Now that you all know that he is the most powerful of all of us, how about we continue to proceed in an orderly manner."
After that, the two weakest people who were both ranked (F) were quietly killed without that much of a struggle due to Markus, and so we finished.
The childish voice came over the loudspeakers again.
"Oh! It looks like you are the first team to finish, and you killed them cleanly too! So exciting! There will definitely be a lot of strong ones in this generation's first year class."
We listened to the AI ramble on and on before it finally got back to the main topic.
"So, the team test is simple. As you all know, we are on a train with hundreds of cars in it. All you have to do is somehow get to the first car, but, to do that, you'll have to kill either the monster or the other team that is in the cars on the way there, is that fine with all of you guys?"
And even though it asked that question, we all knew that we had no say in the matter anyways,
"Well, if everyone agrees, let's start!"
This time, there were no noticeable changes as the next test started.
I immediately started moving, taking out two of the weapons on my back for the first time.
Using quick draw, I quickly unwrapped them from the cloth, revealing two wicked looking sickles that had lengths of chain wrapped around their handles, the ends of each chain holding a weight that hung from the bottom of the sickle.
This was my improved version of the Kusarigama, a traditional Japanese weapon and also the weapon that was used in the manual, "A Whisper in the Night".
I unraveled the chains just to the point where they barely touched the floor. I started swinging them and then, when I had judged that there was enough power, I kicked the weights at the wall of the compartment, letting the chains unravel.
"Crash!"
The weights easily broke through the wooden walls of the compartment before falling limp.
Recalling them back like a yo-yo, I expertly maneuvered the chains so that they wrapped around the handles of the kusarigama again.
I then went up to the holes and then kicked down the already weak wall, watching it break off before flying out into the wind.
Peaking my head outside of the hole, I estimated the distance to the next car before throwing the sickle parts of the kusarigama at the roof of it.
As I felt the chain run through my hands, I watched as the sickles dug into the roof of the next compartment before launching myself at it whilst pulling with the chains, in an action similar to that of Spiderman, if he used grappling hooks that was.
I landed softly on the roof of the car, and then pulled out the sickles that were stuck there.
Not even looking back at the gaping expressions of the other kids, I imbued both of the weights with spiritual energy before just letting them drop, causing them to create another two holes.
Kicking down, I quickly broke through the roof so that I could get off the dangerous top of the train, where the wind was constantly pushing you as if you were an umbrella in a hurricane.
Falling down, I looked around the dark compartment.
'It seems like this is one of the monster compartments.'
'Well, I can probably handle all of the monsters by myself anyways, I mean, the other guys would just hold me back.'
That was the whole reason I had decided to do this alone after all, as it would also give my more points to contribute to my ranking.
As I sensed the surroundings with my increased hearing, I noticed that the space inside the carriage was a lot bigger than what it looked like from the outside of the carriage.
'Definitely space magic at work.'
As my only source of light was the two holes above me, I continued to rely more on my hearing.
"Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump."
Hearing the weight and echo of the "thumps" in the distance, I quickly deduced that it was a heavy monster that seemed to move slowly.
As it finally got closer, I got a good look at it as it stepped into my halo of dim light.
'Fuck, this is troublesome. If I'm not wrong, then that's a snallygaster.'
The snallygaster was a beast that was between a reptile and a bird, with a big, long, thin body and a head that just extended from the body, with one eye and a mouth that opened sideways, spewing out long tentacles. (Image in comments)
"What the heck is the AI thinking, putting a (D+) ranked monster on a train full of (E) and (F) ranks?"
If I was at the power that I originally had when I first came to this world, then I could kill it with some light work, but now that it was a full two sub levels higher than me, it would take a lot of risking my life before I could kill it.
I inwardly cursed at the gods as I tried to think up a strategy to deal with this retched beast.
With my past knowledge and the OCD art helping me, I quickly thought up a plausible plan to deal with the Snallygaster.
'I pray that this works, it has to.'
With that, I charged at the beast.