An Inciting Isekai - Chapter 31 (Patreon)

Those in the train car panicked. They screamed, sprinting to the back of the car. It was chaos. Tristan’s butler used his own body as a shield, prompting the young boy to stay in his seat as the stampede continued. 

More windows smashed. The screams turned wretched as they came from the back of the car. Levi felt his heart in his throat. His head spun, looking for any way out. Outside wasn’t an option. The train was moving too fast, and without the safety of the train, he’d be swarmed in seconds with no way out. 

Gregory, Sera, and Bram were near the front of the cars. Levi didn’t know exactly how many cars separated them, but it was around 20 or so. It was a long distance to travel. Maybe they were already fighting their way towards him. He just had to stay alive until then.

A middle-aged man–a passenger–engaged with the krull that had just killed the soldier. A metal blade emerged from his forearm.

Metal control, Levi thought.

“I’ll help you!” Rowena shouted from her seat. 

“What are you–” Levi wanted to ask, but Rowena’s next actions cut his words short.

Rowena pushed her palm forwards. A musical chime rang out; loud, like she had just clanged a tuning fork. Mana activated from within her container, and a sharpened blast of music pierced into the chitinous shell of the krull.

Using the moment of surprise, the middle-aged man impaled the creature's eyes with his blade, killing it.

But when one died, another replaced it, crawling through the same entrance it had created. Levi heard a sickening crunch come from behind. Whirling around, he noticed that a krull was chopping through the civilians. Lights flashed, abilities were used, but there weren’t many Sway users here. Rowena, the metal controller, and the butler, were the only few that had awakened powers.

Not everyone in this world was as blessed as they were. 

Levi had to make a move. People were dying. He could do something about it. 

Stepping out into the main aisle of the car, Rowena tried to stop him. “Stay here, stay hidden. We just need to wait for the Rail Slayers!” She shouted, but Levi simply shook his head.

“We’ll be dead before then,” he said, walking to where Tristan was. A small fireball emerged from the palm of his hand, but it dwindled in the next second. He was too scared to utilise his mana. 

“Levi, we need to hide!” Tristan said through gritted teeth. When his fireball ran out, he lost all trace of calm he pretended to have.

“What powers do you have?” Levi ignored the young boy and said directly to the butler.

“I am a warrior,” he said, summoning a blade from seemingly nothing. Levi only felt a trace of mana being used.

“I need you to support me,” Levi said.

“But I need to protect–”

“We have no time,” Levi snapped. “Everyones going to die if we don’t do something about it.”

The butler looked at the chaos unfolding at the back of the car. Many of the passengers were trying to make their way back to them. Resolve flashed in his eyes. “Fine, but stay behind me.”

Levi nodded.

The butler rushed ahead, his eyes still remaining on Tristan. However, even with his attention on two things at once, he displayed the skill of a noble family's protector. Moving at high speed, he intercepted a pincer as it was about to chop into a young woman. His sword cleaved through the chitin, severing the beast's arm in half. Blood sprayed. Without one of its weapons, the butler killed it in the next instant with a stab to the skull–blade gliding through its eyes.

Thankfully, the train car wasn’t wide enough for two krull to fit through. It meant he only had to fight one at a time. He bought enough time for the other passengers to make it to where Rowena and Tristan were seated. 

A krull stomped over its fallen comrade, and attacked the butler again. Glass smashed. Another krull was about to crawl in. Tristan screamed, pointing at the monster, eliciting a reaction from Rowena. However, she couldn’t move. She gazed at Levi, who was the closest to the emerging monster.

Rowena screamed, “Levi, get away–”

“I fucking hate bugs,” Levi said, taking command of the mana in his container. In the palm of his hand, fire emerged. At first, it was just a regular fireball, a little larger than what Tristan had displayed. But when he placed more mana into it, it grew into a wildfire. The temperature in the car shot up, turning the metal around him red.

***

Rowena POV.

Rowena was starting to panic as she sent another one of her bullet notes into the krull. 

She tried to stop Levi, but he didn’t listen to her. He seemed so… confident? But how was that possible? He was a child barely 13 years of age. Taller than most, but still a child. What was he thinking?

Rowena shot another bullet at the krull, and the gentleman managed to kill it. But he was growing tired. By her count, he was only a late stage Tier 2. Although these monsters were only juveniles, to anyone below Tier 2, they posed a massive threat. She knew, because she studied them extensively.

“Duck!” Rowena shouted from behind, the gentleman listened. A pincer snapped shut over his head, narrowly escaping death. 

It was clear to Rowena that the man hadn’t seen much combat. The odd low tiered monster, that was all. He wouldn’t last long. But all she could do was offer him support, and hope that the Rail Slayers got here fast enough to save them.

The sound of glass shattering and panicked screams came from behind. Rowena’s heart tightened. Her head snapped around, spotting the young man with bright eyes that his age seemed to betray. A krull was breaking into the car, flanking the Antor family's heir guardian. 

The butler seemed strong enough, but the situation would turn grim fast if he was surrounded.

Her throat lurched when she saw Levi walking forwards, past the rampaging civilians. 

What are you doing?! She wanted to scream in an attempt to persuade the young child to run. Everyone acted differently when death clutched at one's throat. Rowena had acted, attacking when she feared she would be frozen. Others did exactly that, freeze. Levi seemed to be the latter.

A small ball of fire birthed in Levi’s palm. It was nothing special. Was he trying to fight against the krull with only a Tier 1 power?!

However, her mouth gaped open when the flame evolved from a regular fireball, to a raging wildfire; like a spark against oil. The temperature in the entire car rose by multiple notches. Rowena could tell from that moment: Levi wasn’t just a Tier 1.

He was a 13 year old Tier 2.

How was that possible?

Levi threw the fireball at the beast. An enormous explosion rocked the car, shattering, melting the window it was trying to crawl through. The form of the beast flew out of the car. 

***

Levi POV.

Levi didn’t receive a kill notification.

Damn, really? However, now wasn’t the time to admire the monster’s vitality. More of them were coming.

“I’ll protect the others,” Levi shouted to the Anton protector. “You deal with the rest of them.”

The butler nodded in daze, still coming to terms with what Levi had just done. He dodged another pincer and fully focused on his battle.

Levi stayed true to his word. Any krull that attempted to climb through the windows was blasted back out. He felt his mana dwindling, but he could manage—for now. As a precaution, Levi placed a fire trap on the floor of the train car, his trump card for any that managed to break through. It proved useful faster than he expected.

He ejected another krull out of the window in a blaze of flames, but another joined it on the other side. He tried to blat it away, but it only struck the side of the window frame, not leaving. 

Shit, Levi spat. He was about to fire another ball of concentrated fire at it, but he pulled the mana back into his container. 

With mana-imbued words, Levi shouted at the krull, “Face me.”

Shaking its head, the monster turned its focus from the butler, to him. And that meant it was about to step foot into his trap.

The krull, with tentacles swaying from its razor-sharp mouth, scuttled right for Levi–only to step into his trap. In a massive, echoing explosion, the krull was sent flying to the ceiling in a shower of charred flesh and blood. Shards of chitin fell to the floor.

It seemed that the underside of the krull was its weakness, away from its impenetrable armour. 

“How are you doing for mana?!” The butler shouted, dodging out of the way of another set of pincers.

“Just under half!” Levi replied.

“You still have mana left?!” The Antor protector shouted in surprise. He chuckled. “We may make it after all.”

In the end, it got damn close.

Levi, with his traps and the adept use of Incite, corralled whatever monsters that managed to gain access to the car, into their deaths. Level ups filled his vision, and he placed whatever points he had into mana. Without knowing how long rescue was going to take, he was forced to scrape by with whatever mana he could gain.

In the span of only 5 minutes, he had already gained 2 levels. The higher level he grew, the more experience he needed to reach the next one. And ever since he had reached level 20, that gap had widened even further.

Then, silence reigned from the back. All that remained was a car full of krull corpses. The bodyguard hadn’t escaped unscathed. Wounds marred his flesh as red seeped onto his clothes, his shirts white colour stained scarlet.

Smoke filtered through the car, eliciting coughing sounds from behind Levi. But at least he knew they were safe. Fire from his spells had caught on the fabric of the seats, but it seemed that whatever they were made of, they were designed to resist against magic fire. 

He heard the harmonic sounds of death reap from Rowena’s skills–she was still fighting alongside the metal bender. Levi was about to turn around and help them when the entire cat jostled to one side, flinging Levi, and the butler through the air.

Levi thrashed his arms outward, trying to cling onto something–anything. He felt his back touch nothing, which caused his heart to lurch into his throat. Glass sliced up his arm as he found himself dangling out of the window. He could barely hear the sounds of krull burrowing out from the ground, as the harsh wind battered into him. If not for his heightened strength, he wouldn’t be able to hold on.

Forcing himself back into the train, his eyes widened in horror. An enormous pincered arm reached into the train car from above. 

Quest received – Defeat the Krull Bullwark
| Reward: A Common Relic Weapon

Levi wiped the blood from his mouth as he summoned the flames within him. Golden armour emerged from his forearms. 

This was going to hurt…