Level 2 Auxiliary Omni-Wheels?

The new term registered in Chen Mang's mind, but he didn't dwell on it. He pressed his body against the cold iron wall of the carriage. No one cared about the lurching of the Train anymore, nor did they notice the foul stench inside.

Every single person was trapped in a state of absolute terror.

Survive.

It was the only thought in anyone's mind.

No!

I can't just sit here and wait to die!

Chen Mang squeezed his eyes shut, his mind racing through possibilities. A moment later, his eyes snapped open. He turned to Lao Zhu and whispered, "This Train has nine carriages."

"Car one is the engine. Seven, eight, and nine are for the slaves."

"You said the Train isn't agile enough, right?"

"What if we find a way to get to the engine, disconnect the rest of the cars, and you drive it? You were a vice-captain—you must know how to operate one."

"Impossible!"

Lao Zhu rejected the idea without a second's thought, his face chalk-white. He shook his head, his voice raspy. "All Trains are bound to their captain. Only the captain has the authority to drive it. Even if we stormed the cockpit, we couldn't take control."

"But…" he added, "your idea is a good one, Boss Mang. If we disconnected from all the other carriages, it would be like giving the engine its own set of omni-wheels. It would be another chance to escape."

"Let's just hope the captain doesn't think of it…"

Their eyes met, and both of their expressions soured.

It was obvious.

If the captain did think of that, they would instantly become dead weight to be cast aside.

Despite this, Chen Mang immediately pushed himself to his feet, ready to head for the sixth carriage. "We still have to get to the front of the Train first," he said, his face grim. "Follow me."

The next instant—

Before either of them could move—

CLANG! CLANG!

A series of metallic collisions echoed from outside. Immediately after, they felt the Train begin to decelerate rapidly.

"Whew…"

Chen Mang took a deep breath. He pulled the last, crumpled cigarette Lao Zhu had given him from his pocket, stood up on the straw mat amidst the chaos, and lit it. He exhaled a long plume of smoke, then picked up his GLS handgun, his face strangely calm as he waited for the verdict.

Death was now a certainty.

They had been abandoned.

He didn't hate the captain for it. After all, if he were in the captain's position, he would have done the same thing. What he hated was the man's sheer incompetence.

While we were stationed at the mine, was the scout sleeping on the job?

How did they only notice the horde after the encirclement was already complete?

How precious could a few resources be? So precious, you wouldn't even spring for a set of Level 2 Auxiliary Omni-Wheels?

Losing this many slaves… isn't that a much bigger loss than the cost of a single upgrade?

Still…

Chen Mang clamped the cigarette between his lips and cocked the handgun. Walking over cowering slaves, he strode to the iron door and yanked down the heavy latch.

The carriage door slammed open.

An icy wind, thick with the stench of decay, flooded the car.

Though their carriage had already lost power, its momentum carried it forward at a considerable speed. But it wouldn't last long. With the door open, they could see that the horde was now practically on top of them.

They were only a few meters away.

He glanced out. There was no end in sight—only the overwhelming, nauseating stench and a dense, writhing mass of snarling zombies throwing themselves at the Train.

"This isn't fair, is it?" Chen Mang muttered, taking in the scene. He'd read apocalypse novels before. The protagonists in those stories usually started against one or two zombies. Why was he thrown into a horde of this magnitude from the get-go? This was completely unsurvivable.

Who could make it out of this alive?

But…

Even if he was going to die, he was taking a few of them with him.

The next second—

BANG!

A single gunshot rang out. A zombie that had been leaping toward Chen Mang suddenly had a gaping hole in its head. Its body crashed to the ground and was instantly trampled and lost beneath the tide of corpses behind it.

That was the first zombie he had ever killed.

It wasn't that he was a good shot—he'd never even used a gun before. But with the barrel practically shoved in the zombie's mouth, anyone could be a sharpshooter.

The zombies didn't seem particularly durable. A single pistol round at close range could take its head clean off. An adult male could probably handle one on their own. If they weren't infectious, he could probably take on three or five without a problem.

The issue was their numbers, as endless as a swarm of locusts.

BANG! BANG!

Gunshots echoed continuously as Chen Mang got the hang of it. He emptied the magazine in moments. He wasn't sure exactly how many he'd killed; it was too chaotic. All he knew was that his bullets were flying into the horde.

By now, the carriage was slowing to a crawl, which meant he didn't have much time left to shoot. Chen Mang quickly ejected the magazine and began stuffing the brass bullets from his pocket into it, one by one.

Before he died, every extra one he took down was a win.

Just then—

A slave scrambled out from the crowd in the carriage, collapsing at Chen Mang's feet. "Brother, please, can you shoot me?" he begged, his voice a choked, crying whisper. "I want a quick death. I don't want to die in their mouths."

"No."

Chen Mang didn't even look at him, his focus entirely on reloading the magazine. "Bullets are limited. It's more worthwhile to kill a few more zombies."

It wasn't just him. He could hear a frantic barrage of gunfire from the next car over. The guards in carriage six had been abandoned too, and were now in their death throes.

"I… I…"

The man kneeling on the floor looked up, his face slowly twisting into a mask of rage. Veins bulged on his neck as he shrieked, "You'll deny me even this one request?!"

"I just want to die without pain! Is that too much to ask?!"

"It's all—"

Halfway through his sentence, the man lunged, reaching for the handgun in Chen Mang's hands.

However—

Chen Mang simply sidestepped the clumsy attack. Seeing the man stumble past him toward the open doorway, off-balance, he didn't hesitate. He drove his foot forward in a powerful kick.

The man tumbled into the horde.

A terrified, piercing scream ripped through the air, only to be abruptly cut short.