Since opening my eyes, I judged two factors as top priority.

One was whether the people around me were hostile. The other was the condition of my body.

I was pretending to still be unconscious, but at least I wasn’t tied up.

If they intended to harm me, they’d have bound me tight with rope or just killed me and tossed me beyond the ash-gray wasteland.

My physical condition was fine.

No—more than fine.

I didn’t feel the slightest pain, and I even had the refreshed sensation of waking up from a good night’s sleep.

No wounds on my body. No sign of internal damage.

Even the burns I’d feared left no trace—not even a hair out of place.

But there was bad news, too.

My gear was gone.

Food, weapons, Jon Nae-non, even my axe—which was practically a part of me—had all vanished.

The culprits were probably the ones pulling the train.

In some form or another, I’d eventually have to speak with them.

The best-case scenario would be resolving this peacefully.

Without weapons, I couldn’t take on what appeared to be around 80 people by sight alone.

Some of them might have guns, or even my confiscated gear.

The fact that they hadn’t restrained me suggested there was a possibility for dialogue.

But before that, it wouldn’t hurt to figure out what kind of people they were.

Eavesdropping is a time-honored, historically validated method of gathering information.

With my eyes closed, I focused on the train crew’s conversation.

Creak—creak—

Creak—creak—

Only the rhythmic clatter of the wheels rolling down the tracks reached my ears.

No voices.

Doing this kind of labor, you’d expect at least some complaints, but they didn’t utter a single word—as if they were cogs in a machine, pulling the train in complete silence.

Even during rest periods, they didn’t speak.

Each sat silently in place, staring blankly—maybe even lifelessly—at the ash-colored world with empty eyes.

The chewing of the steamed bun-like flour lumps they were issued was the only sign they were alive. But that life felt less beautiful and more grotesque and horrifying.

“······.”

I hadn’t misread the gray hue I sensed from them earlier.

Their humanity was faint.

These people resembled the Rift.

Now it was time to try talking to them.

I wasn’t confident.

But I couldn’t pretend to be asleep forever.

I felt hungry.

Not Rift hunger—just good old hunger in my stomach.

The fact that I was lying in the food car probably made it worse.

I sat up.

Watched my surroundings for a while.

The tracks.

The train slowly moving along the tracks.

The assorted cargo loaded onto the train.

The ship-grade hawser lines connecting the train cars.

The people pulling those lines.

I looked especially closely at the people, but none of them spared me a glance.

Even when I stood up, it was the same.

They just kept facing forward, dragging the train.

I checked around for any weapons or my belongings, but saw nothing.

I got up.

Still no reaction.

After a moment’s hesitation, I stuck my fingers in my mouth and whistled loudly.

Only then did a couple of people glance at me—but just for a second.

They ignored me and continued dragging the train, myself included, toward the far edge of the ash-colored land.

I got off the train.

The landing was clumsy—probably because they’d tried to remove the exoskeleton on my lower half and failed, leaving it partially strapped on.

The Rift’s soil was soft enough to keep me from serious injury.

Besides, the exoskeleton framework around my feet and ankles served to prevent such harm.

Once off the train, I cut across the people.

I felt a few eyes on me, but they still pretended not to see.

There was only one answer left.

I passed by dozens of workers and blocked the front of the train.

“Hello!”

It wasn’t very Professor-like to greet ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) people first, but I had no choice.

Only then did the workers’ footsteps halt.

Soon, a woman stepped forward from among them.

She had quite a bit of white in her hair, and her cheeks were sunken with age.

Wearing a gentle smile, she calmly asked me to step off the tracks.

I nodded and walked toward her.

“You’re awake?”

She spoke first.

Her face seemed familiar.

Someone I didn’t know, yet with the same unsettling warmth you often saw in overly religious people—friendly, but off.

“Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s talk while we walk. We’re already behind schedule due to the heat zone anomaly.”

Before talking further, I asked for water and a bit of food.

Since the train didn’t stop, the conversation and meal took place as we walked alongside it.

They gave me a preserved pound cake.

It was mildly sweet and soft, but honestly, not something I’d want to eat often.

I forced it down with water and listened to the woman speak.

“You were lying unconscious right at the edge of the heat zone. We rescued you and loaded you onto the train.”

I asked where my gear was.

She replied.

“I’m not sure. Maybe it was left behind in the heat zone?”

A lie.

But she said it with the kind of shameless composure only habitual liars possess.

She was likely someone who had plenty of practice lying in her life.

My gear was probably hidden somewhere on one of these train cars.

I asked again.

“By any chance, did you see a mouse? About the size of a fist, long snout.”

I had to confirm whether my partner was alive.

For the first time, the woman looked genuinely puzzled.

“A mouse? No, I haven’t seen anything like that.”

That, at least, didn’t seem like a lie.

Habitual liars tend to believe that as long as they sound confident, their lies won’t be caught.

But that’s not true.

There’s always a subtle yet distinct difference in their tone and behavior when they speak the truth.

Maybe out of guilt or a compensatory instinct, they often express more emotion when telling the truth.

After hearing her response, I briefly thought about Jon Nae-non’s fate.

He couldn’t have died.

He’s smart, alert.

If he had died, it would’ve been in my pocket.

But the fact that he got out means he’s alive somewhere, watching me with those tiny, glittering eyes.

For the first time since regaining consciousness, I felt something like hope—but the situation hadn’t improved.

The only small mercy was that these workers didn’t intend to attack me.

They said they were heading to the end of the tracks.

“We’d love to escort you beyond the Rift, but we have our own destination. Once we reach it, you can come along. We’ve got just one spot open.”

So basically, she was saying I should help pull the train.

Not ideal, but not bad enough to refuse to her face either.

Until I get my weapons and gear back, I have to stick with them.

Only then can I secure precious resources like food and water.

Besides, they had experience in the Rift—especially this outer rim, which was as incomprehensible as it was dangerous.

Through them, I might learn things I didn’t know.

The labor didn’t look too intense either.

The train might be heavy, but with over 80 people pulling and wheels invented specifically to ease transportation, it wasn’t unmanageable.

The high number of women and elderly among them suggested this wasn’t some galley-slave-level extreme labor.

By modern standards, it was definitely easier than warehouse loading.

I say this from experience, having done loading work myself.

Of course, there were issues.

Being around these near-psychotic, silent people posed a serious threat to my stress management.

I could probably control it with mental discipline, but the biggest issue was the destination.

“Crevasse? No, we don’t go that far. The tracks only go as far as Outpost 88. Beyond that... we call it the dragon’s lair.”

“The dragon’s lair?”

“It’s just a saying. Not an actual dragon. Just means an unknown, unexplored area.”

Whatever they called it, the train wasn’t heading where I needed it to go.

Jo Yong-gu lied.

The tracks didn’t reach the Crevasse.

It lay beyond.

Possibly a very long distance beyond.

I’d suspected it, which is why I prepared my gear so meticulously—and now I’d lost it all.

But all hope wasn’t lost.

These people had my gear.

And for a while, their path overlapped with mine.

For now, I had no choice but to become a train-puller and tag along.

If they touched my belongings, that might actually be better.

That would be my chance to retrieve them and return to the original plan.

“······Understood. Let’s do that.”

The woman smiled with a mystical but clearly unsettling expression.

“Welcome, brother.”

And just like that, I became a laborer.

I donned a harness like a draft horse pulling a cart, and pulled a train car connected by a ship-grade hawser.

The labor was just as expected—not overwhelming, but not easy either.

Even with the aid of wheels, the sheer weight of the cargo and cars was several dozen tons.

Going uphill, the strain was significant.

Their routine resembled the schedule I once devised.

Split into 10- and 14-hour segments: work, rest, work, then sleep.

There were two types of meals—one was the same pound cake as before, and the other was freeze-dried combat rations.

The former was bad enough, but the latter was worse: like military-issue freeze-dried bibimbap without the gochujang.

It was literally just flavorless rice-grain-like pellets and frozen vegetables.

So repulsive I could barely eat it, but the silent laborers devoured it like ruminants—chewing without pause, expressionless, until every bite was gone.

Whatever else, it was clear my intestines were affected.

Gas came frequently, but actual bowel movements didn’t.

Probably laced with antidiarrheal components.

In terms of nutrition, it was just barely enough to work and survive.

There were no stated bans on entertainment or leisure—but no one even tried.

The empty-eyed people behaved like machine parts—and maybe thought like them too.

“······.”

Three days passed like that.

My body had adjusted.

But mentally, the stress was overwhelming.

I thought I was used to spending days in bomb shelters without speaking, but I was wrong.

Staying silent among people was far harder than I imagined.

It was the kind of environment that could drive you insane.

Then again, maybe that’s what it took to survive while pulling a train in a place like this.

The thing I’d been hoping for didn’t happen.

They performed their routines like machines, never once touching my hidden gear.

I’d prepared one last resort, but using it would hurt my pride.

Basically, yelling: Hayang-ah! at the top of my lungs.

If that mouse was on this train somewhere, he’d react.

But that last resort could wait.

Before yelling Hayang-ah!, I’d try shouting Jon Nae-non! at least once.

Despite these plans, my patience reached its limit.

I needed something—anything—to break the tension in my mind.

During a meal, I approached the woman who’d spoken with me.

“What is it?”

She responded as if she’d been expecting me to come.

I hesitated.

Should I ask about my gear?

Or hold off a bit longer?

Probably best to wait.

“How long will it take?”

I ended the conversation with a standard question.

She said that barring any major incidents, we’d arrive in five days.

Five days.

Doable.

But then she added a condition.

“If nothing happens.”

Ominous.

And sure enough, less than a day later, it happened.

A monster.

One was standing on the tracks.

A type I’d never seen before.

It had three legs like a tripod, a short, thick torso, and a head with a long, flexible, trunk-like appendage—resembling an elephant’s—but with a sharp, hooked sickle at the end.

By standard volume classification, it was a small type.

A sudden development—but for the first time since joining these soulless people, I felt something like excitement.

I’d always wondered.

In the Rift—especially this place called the outer rim—encounters with “antibodies,” or rogue monsters, were common.

So how had these slow train-pullers survived years of missions?

No one talked about it, but I had a guess.

After all, I was filling someone else’s spot.

My predecessor had either died or gone missing.

But based on what I’d seen with Jo Yong-gu’s group, monster encounters rarely ended with just one or two people disappearing.

It could collapse the entire transport unit.

How would these regular employees with no weapons or self-defense gear handle it?

The train didn’t stop.

It kept inching forward toward the monster.

I unhooked my harness and stepped aside.

One worker looked at me, but no one stopped or questioned me.

From a distance, I watched.

A small part of me even hoped the monster would go berserk and scatter them.

Now it was time to observe.

How would these soulless people survive in this madman’s dream of a world?

The monster slowly approached the train.

The workers stopped.

I focused.

Maybe they had some hidden weapon or ability I didn’t know about?

If they had some Rift-specialized ability, now was the time.

They’d never get another chance.

But reality—often, no, very often—betrays expectations.

The workers behaved just as bizarrely as I’d felt when I first saw them.

They all dropped to the ground.

Heads bowed into the ashen dirt, like they were praying, frozen in place.

The monster passed by them.

It walked indifferently past the prone figures—until it suddenly lashed out with its hooked trunk, skewering one person and flinging them into the air.

A pitiful scream rang out, but only for a moment.

The people on the ground didn’t move a muscle.

As if all they could do was wait for the typhoon to pass.

“······.”

I thought of the sedatives in my pack.

Watching their utterly pitiful submission, I felt I might need something stronger.

That’s what I thought.