Walking into the next room, I saw that the door on the other side was still unlocked, meaning that the two people on that side hadn't finished fighting yet.
So I just sat down and waited.
As time passed, I could hear grunts, screams, and pleads for mercy, then the sounds of metal cutting through flesh, coming from the carriages around me, creating a horrifying symphony of sounds.
At first, I winced at every one of these sounds, jumping in fright, but after hearing them for more than an hour, my mind became numb and I felt that it had become normal for me.
'Well, I've gained a little bit of the thing that I want most from this train.'
Of course, this thing that I was talking about was a familiarizing with death.
This would probably be the most important thing that I got from this train, as getting used to death, in turn, let you deal death to others, increasing your chances of survival.
'I wonder if I had to do this again every single transmigration? It must have been a pain, especially having to throw up over and over again.'
As more time passed and I got even more used to the sounds of death, I came to realize that even though I was getting more used to it, that didn't mean that I could kill easily either.
'Hearing and doing are two completely different things after all."
I only had to wait a few more minutes before the door finally unlocked with a "clicking" sound.
Hearing this, I immediately sided up the wall on the side that the door opened on, hoping to stab the other examinee right when the opened the door.
But, as I waited, and nothing happened, I begin to wonder if the other examinee was currently dying from injuries sustained in their last bout.
However, just as I thought this, a blade tore through the wall and stabbed right between my arm and side, just below my armpit.
'Shit, I forgot that the walls weren't that hard to get through!'
I immediately distanced myself from the wall and waited for any more signs of movement.
The blade then slowly retreated back to the other side of the wall, disappearing from view.
Deciding that the door wasn't a viable entry option anymore, as the opponent could have used all that time to set up a trap, I launched both of my kusarigama at the wall, before making them rip through in a cyclical motion, creating a perfect circle.
Then, with a battering force from one of the weights, the circular part of the wall flew back, crashing into the opposite wall.
Not giving my opponent any time to react, I immediately ran through the hole before launching my kusarigama at them.
"Clang! Clang!"
He blocked both the kusarigama with a knife and a sword in each hand, respectively, before he started rushing at me after letting them fall.
"Hmm, dumbass."
Pulling at the kusarigama, the immediately shot from the ground, converging towards the opponent's back.
"Slich!"
The other examinee stopped running, looking down at the two sickles protruding out of his chest, before collapsing on the chains.
Again, I retched, but this time, nothing came out as I had already emptied my stomach earlier.
'Ugh, i-it's s-still h-hard, b-but, it's slowly starting to get easier.'
Wiping my hand across my mouth, I then walked over to the body before pulling both sickles out of the examinee's back.
"Slich! Slich!"
Grimacing at the sight of the blood staining my weapons, blood from the same species at me, I started gagging again.
'Pull yourself together you damn loser!'
Trying to motivate myself, I opened the door to the next room, taking one final glance at the bloody body before closing the door and imprinting that image in my mind forever, as it was my first actual kill that resulted from a fight.
'May god or whoever is up there in this retched world bless your unlucky soul.'
After sending my prayers to the departed, I checked if the next door was unlocked or not.
Finding that it was unlocked, I quickly rushed through, deciding that this time, I would take my opponent by surprise instead of having a drawn out battle like last time.
But, when I entered, it wasn't a bedroom like the last two rooms, but a huge stadium that appeared before me.
As I walked towards the center, I noticed a TV showing the "brackets" that were playing out right now.
Currently, my picture was the only one on the third row of the brackets, while the pictures of the two that I had killed were now dim.
And, as I was looking, Markus Lochen's opponent's picture on the second row dimmed, indicating that he was also moving onto the third round.
I watched as a door opened on the opposite side of the field, before a bruised, battered, and bloody Markus came drudging through.
Looking at the TV again, I realized that for the third row, the final row, there weren't any pairings, but instead, all of the pictures were connected together.
'So it's going to be a free-for-all.'
Seeing Markus stopping a distance away from me, I immediately tried to stop him from attacking suddenly.
"Hey, don't attack just yet, look at the TV."
I watched as he slowly too a look at the scoreboard, making sure to keep me in his peripheral vision at all times.
"You should be smart enough as you figured out my rank, so you should have came to the conclusion that this would be a free-for-all right?"
He nodded.
"And, as that stupid AI wouldn't make it so that only one person could pass the test, then that means that multiple people will pass right? So then, let's work together, so that we can end this quickly, and so that we can both smoothly enter the L."
He nodded again.
And, just like that, I basically guaranteed myself a seat in the academy.