Aftershocks and the Railcar Escape

Lin Yu tumbled several times across the ground before finally coming to a halt. Her head buzzed, a louder, more persistent ringing than the artillery shell that had struck that very morning.

Disoriented, she couldn’t even recall her immediate surroundings.

Had the chinstrap not held fast, her helmet would undoubtedly have been flung far away.

Her neatly tied hair had come undone from the violent impact, her dark tresses fanning out like a jellyfish across the crimson earth.

She struggled to sit upright, only to be immediately transfixed by the blaze before her.

A mushroom cloud ascended into the sky, its fiery orb expanding slowly, perhaps reaching the height of a dozen stories.

It was the cataclysmic detonation of thousands of artillery shells, a triumphant symbol of the successful, audacious plan she had executed with that super idiot, Yang Xi.

And miraculously, they had escaped with their lives.

‘It seems there are plenty of reliable delayed fuses in the world after all,’ she mused.

The sudden explosion in the very heart of the camp plunged all the Lanforthians into disarray, their panicked shouts echoing amidst the chaos, as those who had narrowly escaped the ammunition depot scrambled wildly through the camp.

Their discipline severely compromised, the officers and military police were powerless to restore order, let alone apprehend the culprits—the duo of spies who had wrought such devastation.

Seizing the opportunity, they sprinted onward, their desperate rush carrying them to the small train station at the furthest edge of the logistics zone.

“Hey, hey, what’s going on over there?”

The assault troops, temporarily resting near the station, turned to gaze back, their curiosity piqued by the events, even though the mushroom cloud had dissipated minutes ago.

“Don’t know… It’s got nothing to do with our attack, right?”

Not having witnessed the explosion firsthand, these Lanforthian soldiers maintained a higher degree of organization for the moment, gathering in small groups to discuss the earth-shattering commotion.

Lin Yu’s steps grew heavier with each stride.

The previous explosion had seemingly inflicted some unknown injury, and as time wore on, her head felt increasingly muddled, as if she might collapse at any moment.

Thus, by the time they neared the station, she had assumed the role of the injured, limping forward, supported by Yang Xi.

Fortunately, the Lanforthian soldiers’ attention remained fixed on the explosion, allowing the pair to slip into the station’s garage, where they could catch their breath and rest for a moment.

The Diacla forces had retreated with such haste that many items were left behind, and the pursuing Lanforthian troops had no time to systematically seize and sort through the abandoned equipment.

Scattered in the corners were Diacla rifles, Diacla-standard rifle ammunition, and even the bodies of Black-Clad Guard soldiers clad in their dark uniforms.

Lin Yu found an arbitrary corner and crouched down, leaning against the brick wall. “I’m not feeling so well…”

The garage was exceptionally dark, with sunlight streaming through high windows, failing to illuminate the shadowy corners.

With her head still bowed and her helmet obscuring half her face, the already dim light was further obstructed, making it nearly impossible to discern her distressed expression, even for someone crouching directly in front of her.

“Aren’t we leaving? This is still enemy territory, and if we wait much longer, they might start a full-scale search.”

“I… I can barely walk…”

Despite having just escaped the range of thousands of detonating shells, the sensation of cheating death was unexpectedly muted.

Perhaps it was due to the strange malaise currently afflicting her.

Lin Yu felt an immense, unending weariness and drowsiness pressing down on her shoulders.

Her leg muscles ached, a repercussion of the sudden, intense exertion akin to a hundred-meter sprint.

In her previous life, she had experienced something similar: after weeks of holing up in her dorm, her physical education teacher abruptly announced a fitness test, initiating a fifty-meter dash on the spot.

To avoid ridicule, she had pushed herself to the limit, squeezing every ounce of energy from her body, feeling as though she might die after crossing the finish line.

Now, she felt much the same, though the sprint for survival had been far more grueling than the one for pride, and the current aches surpassed anything she had felt before.

More critically, Lin Yu still had nearly a hundred kilometers to trek before reaching home; even if she didn’t head straight there, rejoining the retreating Diacla army would require walking at least several kilometers.

“Perhaps… you should go on ahead,” she suggested, her voice faltering. “I… I can speak Lanforthian. I can handle a simple interrogation…”

She could no longer walk; if he carried her, neither of them would get far. It would be better for her to stay and buy them some time.

“I have another plan.”

‘How did this guy suddenly transform from an idiot into a fount of ideas?’ she thought wryly.

“You’re not planning to blow this place up too, are you?”

Lin Yu painstakingly adjusted her steel helmet, watching his retreating back as he headed towards the tracks inside the garage.

The depot contained only empty carriages, no sign of a locomotive.

Perhaps someone had simply climbed aboard and driven one away during the retreat.

‘Considering these engines don’t burn coal, why do they call them ‘fire-trains’ (TL Note: “火车” (huǒchē) is the Chinese term for ‘train’, literally meaning ‘fire-carriage’ or ‘fire-vehicle’.)?’ she wondered.

But under Lin Yu’s watchful gaze, he somehow produced a railcar, pumping its lever as it creaked and groaned its way out from the depot’s tracks.

“…Where did you find that…?”

Lin Yu forced herself up, leaning on her rifle as she shuffled towards him, but he dismounted first and intercepted her. “I’ll go check the tracks outside. You wait in here for a bit, then I’ll drive us straight out.”

She offered no reply.

Her legs gave out, and she sank back into the corner, landing with a painful thud on her rear.

‘This idiot’s plan is as idiotic as ever,’ she thought. ‘What speed could this rickety handcar lever possibly generate? “Drive out” indeed. We’d probably be riddled with bullets the moment we’re spotted.’

With his rifle slung across his back, he inspected the garage door’s lock.

Only after confirming it could open normally did he slip out through a small side door.

‘Alas, though we miraculously survived detonating the ammunition, the current situation is far from safe.’

‘And why am I so dizzy, my head aching so fiercely, my body so utterly weak?’

‘Did I run too hard earlier? Of course! In that situation, not running for my life would mean losing it. Who knew if those artillery shells had a five-second or a one-minute delay?’

‘More likely, it’s an aftereffect of being caught in the shockwave—a concussion, perhaps.’

‘It’s so uncomfortable. Even thinking is hard, but I can’t fall asleep.’

‘Sleep… Right, did I not get enough sleep? Last night, when the shelling happened… No, I shouldn’t be so delicate. It must be an internal injury.’

Gathering her last shred of consciousness, Lin Yu stammered out a soft incantation, casting a healing spell, then pressed the resulting misty tendrils against her temples.

‘This should alleviate some of the discomfort.’

As she felt the magic seep into her skin, she gradually…

…lapsed into unconsciousness.

An even more irresistible drowsiness caused her to close her eyes completely, her head dropping like the Black-Clad Guard’s corpse a dozen meters away.

Her breathing grew shallow and even, her shoulders showing no discernible rise or fall.

“Rustle…”

“Rustle, rustle…”

She had barely fallen asleep when Lin Yu sensed a peculiar rustling beside her, as if someone was unbuttoning clothes.

‘Were they unbuttoning *my* clothes!?’

She forced her eyes open to a blurry scene, vaguely discerning a Lanforthian soldier bending over, unfastening the buttons on her chest.

The top four buttons of her military coat were undone, and the Lanforthian even tugged the garment open forcefully, revealing her shirt underneath.

The wicked hand then reached for her shirt buttons.

“Stop it—”

Gripping the rifle beside her, she swung the butt in an arc, delivering a sharp blow.

The wooden stock met the steel helmet with a resounding clang.

“What’s wrong!”

The Lanforthian soldier she had expected to be molesting her actually spoke Diacla, causing her to freeze mid-action, her rifle raised and aimed.

Her vision was still hazy.

It took several hard blinks to discern that the figure standing before her was none other than Yang Xi, the idiot gentleman who had helped her escape all the way here.

“You… what are you doing… unbuttoning my clothes…”

“You suddenly passed out, so I figured you might be injured too, and I was trying to find where the wound was.”

“No… I’m not hurt…”

He fell silent for a moment. “Then get on. I’ve switched the points to the correct position; we can leave now.”

‘Haha, is he really going through with this? Competing with bullets using a handcar lever? What an utterly idiotic plan. The last one miraculously succeeded; I hope this one does too.’

Supported by him, Lin Yu climbed onto the railcar, lying flat on the cold, hard metal plate with blurry eyes, gazing up at the garage ceiling.

Sunlight streaming through the high windows illuminated a swirling mass of dust, and the corrugated iron roof, damaged by the shelling, swayed precariously.

A moment later, a clattering sound echoed beside her, like bullets scattering across a metal surface.

“What’s that…?”

“This railcar can be powered by magic stones,” he explained. “I just picked up some bullets and pried out their magic stones for emergency use.”

‘Occasionally, even this idiot can be useful,’ she thought.

Feeling the vibrations from the railcar’s flatbed and the rhythmic clatter of the tracks every few seconds, Lin Yu closed her eyes, feeling a sense of ease.

‘So hard, and a bit cold,’ she mused.

She drifted into an uncomfortable, deep sleep, faintly hearing bullets whistling past her.

‘They must have been discovered by the Lanforthians and shot at all the way,’ she thought. ‘I hope he doesn’t get hit; in my current state, I certainly can’t heal him.’

****

“Did you hear something?”

“What?”

“Sounded like a woman’s voice, from the garage.”

“You’re going crazy from wanting a woman, aren’t you? There are no women here; they’re all in the medical tents further back.”

“Seriously, she sounded like she was saying ‘Stop it’…”

Two Lanforthian soldiers sat chatting under the eaves.

The next second, a railcar burst through the garage doors, leaving the two men sitting there, staring at each other in bewildered silence.