In what looked to be the control room, now infested with corpses and magic residues, a showdown had halted.
A showdown between one relaxed hooded figure and four exhausted students.
At first glance, one may think the scale was tipped to the hooded figure...
-Huff
"It's...your loss..."
The boy with messy black hair declared, his spear pointed at the figure, panting excessively all the while.
In agreement with his words, the other three nodded and stared decisively at the hooded figure, looking for a reaction.
"...Pfft!"
"What's...funny about this...bastard?"
The wavy blue-haired girl, supporting herself with a cane, yelled with her remaining strength.
"Pwahahaha...It's my loss, it seems."
"That's...it?"
"Yes. That's it."
Boasting an uncaring tone, the figure spoke as if they had nothing to do with anything in the first place.
"What? You still wanna go? I personally don't see the point at all."
Such casual statements surprised the four, but more than that, most of them felt somewhat relieved inside. If they kept fighting, it wouldn't have ended well for them.
Both the figure's killing intent and Ether's presence have ceased completely. Like an actor whose role has ended, the figure slowly turned away and headed backstage.
Nevertheless, they still waited until the figure was far enough, keeping up their guard until the last minute.
Clank!
"Phew! That was tense!"
Settling down a heavily damaged metal door at the exposed entrance to the control room, the fiery-haired girl breathed a sigh of relief. And so did the other two, who either dropped down with their weapon or stood still with relaxed handling.
Only one kept up the guard.
"Tch! I was hoping to pummel that bastard, dismissing my spells like that."
The blue-haired staff user complained bitterly.
"Dahlia, even mosquito sting itches. What did yours do?"
"Shut up, Ange. You didn't do any damage either."
"Says the one who moved carelessly and made me tank all the unnecessary shots. Go ahead and tank next time then."
"..."
While the banter continued on, the brown-haired geek and the black-haired spearman stayed quiet, both for different reasons.
On the one hand, the former who activated the protocol was not well-acquainted nor well-versed in communication. Thus, he decided to fake-check the protocol's progress so he didn't look too awkward.
His name was Vin who, before all this happened, was tucked in the corner and minded his own business.
On the other hand, the black-haired spearman felt uneasy and contemplated possibilities.
'That figure...'
They were strong. Really strong.
Their spells were strong, fast, and accurate to a frightening degree.
Possibly lethal if faced head-on, yes.
There's no doubt that they didn't go all in, even though they were fully intent on keeping his group away from the emergency option.
However, that sounded contradictory.
If one was fully locked in on something, why would they not bring their all to the table?
Did the result not matter?
Did they underestimate his group?
To be fair, their group was a bunch of scattered students unaffected by the miasma.
After that traitor conductor left for some time, they took their chance and broke through swarms of monsters fighting one another to reach the control room.
Maybe the underestimation was expected, given the fact that their force had halved when they encountered their final obstacle, and they weren't even in top conditions.
'But we won...and he just gave up like that?'
There was certainly time to shut the warp protocol down as such wide-scale teleportation requires time to initiate.
If that figure went all out right there, they would've been doomed anyway.
'Unless...?'
Recalling the fight before, he noticed there were instances where the figure's focus drifted off. Even more, it was one of those instances that helped them get through and activate the protocol.
'Was there something more important than giving us access to our only escape option?'
"Diego, why are you standing around like that?"
Ignoring the call, he decided to dig deeper into his memories.
When those mercs invade his carriage, they force students from other ones into his.
After everyone was grouped up, they began demanding compensation in exchange for freedom. A ruthless beatdown would ensue if anyone refused to comply.
By then, it was a typical kidnapper - hostage, but their conductor and instructors were nowhere to be found.
A while passed, and when almost everyone began coughing and headbanging from the miasma, the conductor walked leisurely into the carriage.
What he said made Diego believe that he was the traitor.
'After all that boasting, he started asking where the CHILD was...'
What the word meant, he didn't know. Though, he was partially sure that the conductor was looking for a human.
After all the useless questioning, the conductor just left the room before all chaos ensued.
'So something might have happened over that direction...'
If the figure wanted to leave the train outright, the system would have detected it.
With that thought in mind, he turned to the activity report screen near where Vin sat.
"Any problems, Diego?"
"No, I just want to check something."
In between all the Ether activities were several magic activities spread throughout, indicating fights happening all over.
'So there were those like us too.'
The number began thinning out from 9:30, replaced by the ever-increasing foreign energy that the system didn't recognize.
'And that decreased too?'
A sudden surge of Ether activities was detected in Carriage 10 onwards at around 9:33, and just several minutes later, the foreign energy dwindled from the peak.
'It was around this time that we took action too.'
Scanning down toward the most recent activities, there was something that caught his eye.
"Carriage 20..."
There were records of Ether, Holy energy, foreign energy, and even something called Divinity all in the same place.
'Is that what he meant by the CHILD?'
However, all activities just ceased 2 minutes ago and...
'Something is heading this way?'
Right then, just 5 carriages away - Carriage 7, both Ether and foreign energy activities skyrocketed.
'So that guy didn't leave the train.'
He had a feeling they would meet that figure again quite soon-
THUMP!---CRASH!
The metal door laid at the entrance crashed to the floor. On it, the mysterious figure lay haggardly, their upper limbs missing and a hole blown through their chest.
"Eh?"
"What the-"
The first to jump was Ange, followed by an exasperated Dahlia.
Vin was quite shocked as well, turning his head out of curiosity only to find such a scene.
'Perhaps too soon.' Diego thought, sighing inwardly.
The surprise didn't end there, nonetheless.
Someone stepped onto the figure nonchalantly, causing a satisfying yet frightening bone-cracking sound.
"Looks like I'm in time. That's good."
It was a student like them, wearing that same iconic durable uniform. But...
'Is he OK?'
Burnt marks, lacerations, a bleeding eye, a dangling ice spear lodged through the lower abdomen...
Countless wounds were visible, yet he was smiling like a madman.
"Well, first things first, we need to shut off the warping thing."
And he uttered words no different than a madman.