NOVEL NEXT Chapter 17: He's Chasing After Me
「What's that?」
As I raced out of the city, I stopped my gait upon discovering a strange item.
It was a kind of "road," starting from the previous city and heading off somewhere.
Was this some sort of path?
And yet, no one passed by that "road."
Curious, I approached it to get a closer look. The "road" was made of two iron poles laid on the ground parallel to each other, continuing past the horizon. Perpendicular to these two iron poles were wooden boards that came one after the other, far more than I could count.
Both sides of the "road" were covered with small bits of gravel. Why would they use something so difficult to walk on? Gravel was the archnemesis of human and horse feet.
「Does that mean this isn't the main highway?」
I tilted my head to the side as I pondered this mystery.
BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!
Suddenly, a deafening sound exploded from the city.
When I turned around, looking for the source of that loud sound, I unintentionally held my breath (not that I needed one).
A large, black object was heading toward my direction, spewing thick smoke into the air.
「A caterpillar monster?!」
Or so I thought, but upon closer inspection, it looked like a giant lump of iron.
Moreover, its body stretched on behind it as it ran on top of those two seemingly never-ending iron poles.
A short while later, that giant lump of iron passed right in front of me with unbelievable speed.
The wheels of that giant seemed to be made to fit the mysterious "road," and it traveled along that "road."
「Just what kind of power does it possess to run at such a terrifying speed…?」
Naturally, this thing didn't exist when I was still alive.
「~?!」
When I awakened from my train of thought, that giant lump of iron had almost become a small spot on the horizon.
So I chased after it in a hurry.
Although I expected that catching up to it wouldn't be a simple matter, it was surprisingly easy thanks to my powerful body.
Thus, I kept on until I was right beside the head of the giant lump of iron. As it spewed smoke from above, I ran parallel to it while observing it.
「C-Cool!」
I unintentionally let out a voice of admiration when I stood right beside its majestic figure.
◇ ◇ ◇
===3rd Person PoV, Locomotive Room===
Magic Locomotive—a giant magic item made for traveling long distances in the shortest amount of time. It ran on top of tracks that were laid beforehand.
Its general name was "train."
It soon became an indispensable means of transporting goods, humans, and produce all around the world.
Even so, despite being called a magic tool, the majority of its power source didn't come from magic.
The power source came from the heat of the burning coal, which was sold for a cheap price. That heat then boiled water, creating a lot of steam, and the pressure from that steam was converted into kinetic power that rotated the wheels of the train.
Maintaining the heat required people to shovel the coal stocked in the engine room into the heater. These people were called assistant mechanics.
Just like their name implied, assistant mechanics needed to keep feeding coal into the heater. It was an extremely labor-intensive job, requiring two strong men to work together.
「Hey, stop looking outside? Keep shoveling that coal. Do you want to get another mouthful again from our superior?」
When the other assistant mechanic's shovel stopped moving, his coworker reminded his mate to continue his job.
「Who knows… Maybe it's just my eyes playing a trick on me, but… I saw a human running side-by-side with this train…」
「Haah? What in the he―AAAAAAAAARGH?!」
The assistant mechanic who was focused on their job looked in the direction that his mate was looking and saw an extremely unbelieveable scene laid right before him.
There was a white-haired youth running alongside the train.
「W-What is that guy?!」
「So you can see him too? So it's not my eyes playing a trick on me…」
「This isn't the time to feel relieved!」
In that moment, the lead mechanic rushed toward them with a pale look on his face.
It seemed he saw the white-haired youth too.
「SHOVEL MORE COAL TO THE HEATER! WE'LL INCREASE THE SPEED! WE'LL OUTRUN THAT GUY OUTSIDE IMMEDIATELY!!」
「「… Eh?」」
「That white hair and red eyes! He's the one who appeared in this morning newspaper!!! That guy ain't human! He's an undead! We're doomed if he hops on this train!! And we'll be the sinners who kill everyone because we didn't increase the train speeeeed!!!」
「「~?!」」
The two assistant mechanics started shoveling the charcoal with frantic looks on their faces.
◇ ◇ ◇
===A Certain Middle Aged Merchant===
「B-Barely made it in time…」
I heaved a sigh of relief as I sat on my seat in the train.
Although my body was drenched in sweat from head to toe, it actually worked in my favor to hide my wet pants.
After I escaped from that terrifying undead, I left my car and hopped onto the train.
Fortunately, I managed to slip into the train right before its departure.
Naturally, I didn't buy a ticket, but I could take care of that later.
The train started moving along with the high-pitched whistle, picking up speed bit-by-bit as it left the city behind.
My head gradually cooled down after I heaved a sigh of relief.
「But still, could it be that undead… Didn't actually come after me?」
Back then, I was so frightened that I thought the undead would chase me to the ends of the Earth. However, thinking back now, I don't think he would go that far just to kill an insignificant human like me.
Now that I managed to escape, maybe I should look at the matter in a positive light and think that my life has been spared.
Naturally, I won't go back to that city again.
Even though my retirement had come sooner than planned, I had no choice but to entrust the company to my son.
My life was what mattered the most, after all.
I'll tell him about my retirement once I arrived at the last stop, the royal capital.
The matter of giving advice from a distant place wasn't a big deal anymore thanks to the magic tool that enabled long distance communication.
However, suddenly, the train which had been running at constant speed for a while started to accelerate again.
Moreover, the other passengers were starting to become restless as they looked out the windows.
I wondered what in the world they were looking at, so I raised my heavy butt from my seat to take a look at the scenery outside.
「~??!」
What I saw shook me to my very core—the figure of that white-haired undead running parallel with this train, which was already traveling at a terrifying speed.
「S-S-SO HE REALLY IS COMING FOR MY LIFEEEEEE?!」
Moreover, when our eyes met—he flashed that ominous smile at me.
「HIC―」
My fear hit its limit, and I passed out immediately.
On the verge of fainting, I felt another wave of warm liquid flowing down my pants.
◇ ◇ ◇
===A Certain Undead With Communication Disorder===
… Cra*p.
To think that this giant lump of iron was carrying people too.
Well, that might be natural for something of this size.
There was no way this large man-made object would move without any human assistance.
When I increased my speed to reach the head of the lump of iron, I saw burly people shoveling non-stop and sweating like a waterfall for some reason.
They became even more flustered upon seeing me.
That was just natural.
I mean, running at this kind of speed was practically impossible for a normal human.
BWOOOOOOOON!
The head of the iron lump let out another loud, high-pitched sound and accelerated again.
Although I could still run parallel to it with ease, I felt that it would be better to stop doing so, at least for now.
I decreased my running pace.
Then, my appearance caught the attention of the people inside the lump of iron as they showed their faces from those window-like things.
It seemed this lump of iron was some sort of transportation method.
It ran faster than any carriage and could carry so many people at once.
But that was also the reason why so many people saw my inhuman stunt just now.
And all of them, without exception, showed frightened looks on their faces.
「I-I'm not scary, you know?」
Despite my bravest attempt to flash my best smile, the result was the exact opposite of my intention.
「… Uhm, that's? Could it be…」
I discovered a familiar face amongst the people who peeked out from the window.
It was none other than the plump man I met just before.
「I see now. So he was just trying to make it in time to board this lump of iron this morning.」
When I flashed a smile to show my understanding of his situation, for some reason, that plump man fainted immediately.
+++
The giant lump of iron was running on two extremely long iron rods.
Since it was used as a means to transport many people, I should be able to arrive at another city just by following its track.
「Wait a minute… That's a brilliant idea, right?」
I then proceeded along the road to prove my guess.
Naturally, I had long since stopped running in parallel with that giant lump of iron.
Even though I could outrun it with ease, I wasn't in any hurry.
I mean, it was more comfortable for me to sneak into the city under the cover of night.
「But still, not even breathless after such intense running… It seems my stamina has reached an inhuman realm too…」
I kept on walking along the long tracks, which seemed to stretch until the end of the Earth, while marveling about the abnormality of my body again.