“Everyone must be loaded with money.”
They bought cake, popped expensive champagne, bossed around the server skeletons like mad… they really heated up the train’s atmosphere like they were living for today only.
“That’s surprising. Guys like that usually die early.”
“Exactly.”
“Hey, FreshKimchiArtisan? You’re a chef, right? Show us your cooking! Feed us something delicious!”
Whether drunk or just obnoxious, a user who had barely even exchanged names kept pestering. Finally, FreshKimchiArtisan, who could bear it no longer, narrowed his eyes and stood up, shouting:
“I’m Fresh Kimchi Artisan, not Kimchi Artisan! Get away from me immediately!”
“Bullshit. Isn’t fresh kimchi still kimchi?”
For someone who had endured countless insults under the name “Kimchi Artisan,” such a seemingly small difference in terminology must have been a sore spot. However, the train was a zone where peace was forcibly maintained.
“Huh? I said, bring the kimchi.”
At that moment, the Fresh Kimchi Artisan’s face darkened, and with a sudden thud, something dropped over the table we were sitting at. It was a soap-bubble-shaped Breath Orb.
Kessler picked it up and slapped it onto my face, then onto his own. Seeing the urgency of that motion, the rest of our group quickly followed suit.
Then, FreshKimchiArtisan began rummaging through his bag.
[SYSTEM] : The smell of Shadow Kimchi from Hell is coming from somewhere. Block your nose quickly!
Thanks to the Breath Orbs, the smell was contained—but even so, the kimchi emitted a stench so pungent, it made scales twitch out of skin. The guy who had been bluffing and spouting nonsense a second ago trembled violently under the stinging, nostril-smashing stink. His eyes looked a bit rolled back—like he was about to faint.
“…Sor…ry…”
He stammered and returned, trembling, to his seat. Even though the kimchi was only briefly pulled out and put back in again until the apology was heard, the train instantly reeked like rotting waste. People screamed with pale faces, shouting to open the windows.
[SYSTEM] : The train senses the danger of the stench and speeds up by 1.7 times.
At least there was one upside—the acceleration made the city of Neo City already come into view.
Before long, the train slowed down. Before it could fully reduce speed, it screeched to a sudden stop, and the doors flung open desperately, vomiting users out like the train itself was about to hurl.
“Uwaaaagh!”
Users were flung out like tossed sacks and sprawled across the platform like corpses. Kessler marched right over them as if stepping across stones in a stream.
Squish! Squiiish!
[SYSTEM] : The Baby Arctic Fox is protected by the Fox Ambassador.
Gracefully stepping on the backs of users, we emerged and lifted our heads to look at the towering buildings. Before our eyes stretched a jungle of skyscrapers, like the very heart of New York had been transplanted here.
“…You bastard! Don’t step on my ass, move!”
Despite the massive buildings and wide streets, not a single living being was in sight. The only sounds came from the users.
“What the hell is this atmosphere?”
One user walking ahead shouted if anyone was there, and the echo triggered fragments to crumble from a building.
“Ahhh! What the hell?!”
[SYSTEM] : ‘Neo City’ is currently dried up. Please supply water to the city.
“How are we supposed to supply water…?”
This type of quest needed to be interpreted intuitively. After scanning the situation, SoftOnion quietly spoke to us.
“Let’s find a waterway.”
Our group, in agreement, discreetly slipped away from the crowd.
It wasn’t hard to find the sewer entrance—but not even the stench of brine was present. Everything had dried and hardened, turned to dust long ago.
Following that path, a massive boulder came into view, completely blocking the waterway. While struggling to push it aside, we discovered dried-up shadow husks piled nearby.
“Ughhh.”
Shivering in the eerie atmosphere, a system window popped up.
!!! You have discovered shadows that died from forced labor.
These are traces of those who died long ago trying to remove the boulder blocking the waterway. They were trapped in this darkness for a very long time. Please console their souls.
At that moment, it hit instinctively.
‘This setup… it’s for me again.’
I closed my eyes, tightened my hind legs and belly, raised my upper body, and brought my front paws together in a prayer-like gesture.
[SYSTEM] : Using skill ‘Comfort the Soul’ to perform a joint funeral ceremony.
A black cloth floated down from somewhere and wrapped around my body. Then, as if walking on air, I began to move gracefully in dance.
Soon after, a spirit stirred and looked at me.
—Was it really you who saved me?
“Yes.”
—Give me the strength to fully become a soul. My body is still incomplete.
“Yes, that’s natural.”
[SYSTEM] : Would you like to use ‘Soul Restoration’ on this soul entity?
“Use it… but—Stop!”
[SYSTEM] : Soul Restoration has been interrupted.
I canceled the restoration midway.
“If you answer my question, I’ll restore your soul completely.”
“Woo-rim, who are you talking to? Is the soul speaking? What happened here?”
Everyone turned toward me, eyes filled with curiosity at my muttering. The half-restored soul must not have been visible to the others yet.
—Very well, little lizard with a fox tail. What do you wish to know? About what happened here—
“How can I find a human body? I don’t need to know the method. Just tell me who I need to find.”
“Woo-rim! Your personal quest is fine, but ask about something else too!”
“I’ll get to that soon.”
—You wish to find a human body… Quite the grand dream for a lizard. But you have a special ability—to restore souls. I’ve never seen a lizard like you before.
<Baby Fox-Lizard, Do You Want to Be Human?> activation conditions fulfilled.
—Revive 100 souls. And obtain fragments of life from them.
You are not content to live as a Baby Fox-Lizard and wish to become human. Fully restore 100 soul entities and gather fragments of humanity. Those will form your body.
—Now, hurry and save me.
“One more thing, please.”
—…
[SYSTEM] : The tattered soul entity ‘Merso’ is displeased. Please keep your promise.
“…Understood.”
Clutching a Resonance Pill, I stood on my hind legs and clumsily hopped in circles, dancing a little grasshopper jig. Kessler, familiar with our rituals, drew a summoning circle beneath my feet. While this was nothing new to us, most of the others had never seen anything like it.
Soon, flesh began to return to the shriveled soul entity, and its face restored. Then arms and legs shot out below it one by one.
—Heheh…
“How did the waterway get blocked?”
SoftOnion, now holding pen and paper, began gathering information about the city. They needed someone to organize what we learned, and Onion handled that role well.
The restored soul turned with a bitter expression to look at the boulder blocking the waterway.
—It isn’t blocked.
“Then?”
—This city has no groundwater. Too many souls were sacrificed to discover that truth. People assumed this boulder was blocking the city’s waterway. But it’s not a boulder. It’s a lump of compressed souls.
“Souls?”
I quickly reached out and touched it.
[SYSTEM] : It contains the power of ancient screams.
He had been right.
—There used to be beings dedicated to carrying fresh water for this city. But one day, those beings vanished. Where they went, no one knows.
“If we find those beings, can we fix it?”
SoftOnion asked like working through a game strategy. But that didn’t seem to be the point; the soul shook its head.
—Those beings will never be found. At some point, all memory of their appearance and origins was carved out of our minds. Even if they stood right before you, you wouldn’t recognize them.
“Then what should we…”
—Find a new water source and restore this city. This is my hometown. When I return from my long journey, I want to see it as it once was…
Ding!
<Restore the City>
Neo City, once always gleaming, has been left with nothing but dry dust since losing its water source. Please open the path for water to flow once more!
Reward: Unknown
—Now I must go.
“Where are we supposed to find water?”
“And that soul just ran off the moment he was revived.”
“Mister Soul! Where are you going!”
While the group huddled in confusion, I watched Kessler’s face. Though he calmly held me and joined the team’s discussion as if nothing were wrong, I noticed it. That flinch—when the soul mentioned the ‘unknown beings.’
I knew too. I knew the true identity of the vanished “unknown beings.”
“No groundwater, huh… Then what are we supposed to do? Woo-rim, Juwon. Any ideas?”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm…”
Back during the beta, the last time I saw this city’s skyline—about a hundred years ago in this world’s time—Neo City had been radiant, dazzlingly beautiful.
And in that hundred-year gap, the one thing that had clearly changed was this:
The children’s souls had disappeared.
Those little souls who used to board and disembark from the trains, traveling between cities endlessly—where had they gotten those pricey tickets?
At first, I thought vaguely that maybe it was free. But this world mirrored modern society’s materialism more closely than expected. It operated by roles, by structure.
It was the children who had carried the water.
The children, who wandered this world searching for their parents, received train tickets in return for delivering water to the cities.
And Kessler had given those children the developers’ will—a coercive and absolute force called ‘Eternal Rest’—and erased them from the world.
Because of that, all beings managed by the system, and the world itself, instantly regarded those children as if they had never existed… But since they were merely deleted, the “important” role they played was never replaced. That created a butterfly effect—leading directly to the current disaster.
