The train stopped with a hard jolt.
Around Hannah and Kazuki, passengers began to rise from their seats with confused and worried faces. Anxious whispers filled the carriage, occasionally interspersed with panicked screams from a distance. An old man with a long silver beard tried pressing the attendant call button repeatedly without success. A young mother held her child tightly, whispering reassuring words despite her own face showing fear.
"Kazuki, what's actually happening?" asked Hannah with a trembling voice.
Kazuki stood from his seat, his sharp eyes scanning the entire carriage with high alertness. Unlike the other passengers who were panicking or confused,
"It seems something terrible is about to happen," Kazuki answered in a low voice.
"What do you mean—" Hannah didn't get to finish her sentence.
A piercing scream split the air. A lavishly dressed woman standing not far from them suddenly fell to her knees, her hands clutching her chest with an expression of extreme pain. Her previously smooth skin began to wrinkle and bubble in unnatural movements, as if something was moving underneath it.
Then, the woman's skin tore. Not like an ordinary wound, but split like an overripe fruit. From beneath it, pink fleshy worm-like things wiggled out, undulating with disgusting movements.
"What's happening?!" shouted a man next to the woman, backing away. But before he could run, his own body began to undergo similar changes. Strange lumps appeared under his skin, moving like waves from his neck to fingertips.
That's when the man's heart exploded from within, spewing a moving mass of flesh that quickly covered his entire body. Blood sprayed in all directions, staining windows, seats, and several nearby passengers with thick red fluid.
And like a horrific domino effect, passengers around them began experiencing the same thing one by one. Screams of pain and terror filled the carriage. People ran aimlessly, trying to save themselves but finding no way out. Some tried breaking windows with chairs or anything they could grab, while others just stood frozen in place, too shocked to move.
In less than a minute, everyone in that carriage had transformed—except Kazuki and Hannah.
The figures that were once human now stood with bodies that were no longer human. They still maintained bipedal posture, but their skin had been replaced by moving masses of what appeared to be living flesh with wet and slimy textures. Faces that once showed expressions of fear were now formless—their eyes had disappeared, replaced by more pulsating moving masses. Their mouths had enlarged unnaturally, filled with irregular rows of sharp teeth. Hands that were once normal had mutated into fleshy claws with pointed tips.
"What's happening...?!" exclaimed Hannah, her voice muffled by her own palm that reflexively covered her mouth at the horrific sight before her. Her body trembled violently, her legs barely able to support her own weight. A strong wave of nausea hit her stomach, making her nearly vomit.
Those creatures, formerly passengers, simultaneously turned toward the two of them. There were no eyes on their faces, but Hannah could feel the hungry stares directed at her. Like predators sniffing prey, those mutated bodies moved with jerky movements toward Hannah and Kazuki.
"This seems to be the work of someone or some creature," said Kazuki in a cold tone Hannah had never heard before.
A moment later, without Kazuki touching or saying anything, the creatures suddenly jumped out through the broken train windows by themselves. Those not near windows began clawing and injuring themselves, their claws piercing deep into the flesh of their own bodies with brutal movements.
Hannah watched with wide eyes, memories of yesterday's incident in the forest suddenly flooding back to her mind. When the snakes suddenly bit themselves.
"Kazuki, is that also part of your power?" she asked, her voice barely audible amid the chaos.
"Yes," Kazuki answered without emotion, his eyes still watching the creatures now attacking each other. "I used my power to make them attack themselves. I'm not particularly interested in killing them with my own hands." He turned to Hannah, his gaze serious. "It seems someone or some creature is making them change like this."
Kazuki extended his hand to Hannah, a protective gesture that needed no explanation. "Let's go forward and find out who's doing all this. "That's an unforgivable act."
Hannah accepted Kazuki's outstretched hand. They began moving forward through the carriage.
From carriage to carriage, the scenes they encountered were the same—similar horrors had occurred throughout the train. Several times they were confronted by remaining mutated humans, but with Kazuki's power, those creatures always ended up attacking themselves or jumping out of the train.
"Does your power have limitations?" asked Hannah during their journey, trying to distract her thoughts from the horrific sights around her.
"I don't know, but for now I think it has its limits," Kazuki replied briefly, his eyes remaining vigilant.
Finally, after passing through six carriages filled with similar horrors, they arrived at the main carriage, the very front of the train. Hannah's heart seemed to stop beating when her eyes caught the sight outside the front window.
"That, what is that...?!" she exclaimed.
Outside the train, blocking the tracks, was an entity almost impossible to describe in words. A massive flesh mass stretched as wide as a soccer field, pulsating like a beating heart. Its surface was uneven, filled with lumps and protrusions that moved as if they had wills of their own.
Across the entire surface of the flesh mass were human bodies—or what remained of them—half-submerged in the pale pink flesh. Some were still moving weakly, their hands reaching futilely into the air seeking help. Others were completely still, their bodies appearing to be slowly digested by the flesh mass.
All over the surface of the mass were holes of various sizes, like craters on the moon's surface. Some holes pulsated, opening and closing like breathing mouths. From these holes flowed thick yellowish-green fluid, emanating a putrid smell that they could smell even from inside the train.
The smell was like a combination of rotting meat, rotten eggs.
"That creature is outside the train window," whispered Hannah, her eyes unable to look away from the horrific sight before her. "It seems like the train ran into this creature."
Indeed, it was clear that the front of the train had crashed into the giant creature. The metal front of the locomotive was dented inward, partly submerged in the constantly moving flesh mass. The creature was so large and dense that it could stop a high-speed train, like a living wall impossible to penetrate.
The giant creature's body continued to vibrate. Each vibration sent waves propagating throughout its flesh mass, making the human bodies trapped inside sway miserably like toys in a giant's grip.
Kazuki observed all this with a sharp gaze, his brain working quickly to analyze the situation.
"It seems this creature's presence is turning the humans on this train into creatures like we've seen," Kazuki finally explained, his voice sounding calm despite their surroundings being far from it.
Hannah turned to him with wide eyes, "What?!" she exclaimed in shock. "But if that's the case, shouldn't we also be like them, turning into strange creatures like them?"
Hannah's question was very logical. If the giant monster's presence caused horrific transformations in all passengers, why weren't she and Kazuki affected? What made them different?
Kazuki was silent for a moment, his eyes quickly scanning Hannah's body, "This creature can turn humans near it into creatures like what we've seen, but why isn't that happening to us?" He raised his own hand, examining his still-normal skin. "It's because my body is immune to all effects like poison and so on. Because you're near me, you're also safe like me."
What Kazuki didn't reveal was that this explanation was only half true. Kazuki's body was indeed immune to all kinds of negative effects—poison, disease, or in this case, the horrific transformation caused by a foreign entity. However, Hannah shouldn't have the same immunity.
The real reason why the girl didn't transform was because of modifications Kazuki made to her body last night—when he used his power to enable Hannah to understand this world's language. Without Hannah's knowledge, Kazuki had also modified her body to be immune to all harmful effects like poison or any supernatural influence. A precautionary measure that now proved to save the girl's life.
"Really?" replied Hannah, still looking doubtful though accepting the explanation. Her eyes returned to the giant monster outside the train.
"Yes," Kazuki answered briefly, not wanting to discuss further the modifications he had made to Hannah's body without permission.
They both fell silent, observing the flesh monster from behind the cracked but not completely broken front glass of the locomotive. Their situation seemed almost impossible—trapped in a damaged train, surrounded by humans who had mutated into monsters, and faced with a terrifying entity whose size might be equivalent to a multi-story building.
"So what should we do?" Hannah finally asked, her voice sounding weak.
"Of course we have to kill it."
Hannah looked at him in disbelief.
"I know that, but how?!!!" Hannah cried out in frustration.