# The Enhanced Translation
From the departure at St. Matilenne in Tilles to the arrival at Pritzenkaya in Krasilov, the express train passes through a total of four military zones.
Once passing through the Tilles 3rd Guards Division, once crossing the northwestern border.
Again, once through the Krasilov Border Defense Division, and once through the Pritzenkaya Defense Headquarters.
Being close to the front lines against the demon race meant an incredibly dense deployment of troops in the area.
Therefore, using the process of elimination, there are only three possible stations where a terrorist attack could occur. Out of the roughly 30 stations this train passes through, only three lack reinforcement troops within a day's distance, have sparse population, and feature difficult terrain.
'One.'
The train carrying Ivan and Isabelle passed the first ambush point.
There were no assailants trying to interfere with the train tracks, no mounted bandits firing magic or artillery.
'Two.'
At the second ambush point, the train continued to speed along the tracks.
Ivan looked out the window, then sighed and sat back in his seat.
A few hours later, in silence, the train passed the third ambush point.
'What's going on...?'
The train had now crossed the Krasilov border. If it continued straight, it would arrive at Pritzenkaya within a day's distance.
Now they just needed to cross the plains and go over one mountain to reach Pritzenkaya. Though they would pass through a forest along the way, an entire division-level military unit was stationed in that area.
This meant that from this point on, it would be impossible to carry out a terrorist attack. Ivan nervously stroked his pistol.
'Was my prediction wrong?'
Wasn't the tutorial supposed to be a unified train terrorist attack?
Was Asidis just extremely unlucky? Or in the "original" game, was the tutorial designed differently for each character?
He had expected that each would progress through their own unique stories, but the initial setup shouldn't be that different. This was supposed to be an "Academy Genre" after all.
It should have been, it really should have been.
Ivan bit his lip. If he had misjudged again, what should he do?
If this wasn't even an academy genre, did this cursed otherworld even have an ending?
Should he commit suicide? Was there any other answer besides suicide? Without being able to predict the genre, he couldn't determine the ending either.
The worst assumption would be...
-The ending belongs only to the protagonist.
If the previous war, the hero's kingdom RPG, was the essence of this otherworld.
The hero's seclusion must be decisive evidence. Why did the hero choose seclusion? Was that man's "ending"?
If so, then what about the otherworld that was left behind?
What about us?
No, what about me?
What should I do?
Ivan's thoughts became increasingly tangled. No, I hate this. I don't want to remain in this godforsaken world any longer.
I want to rest. I want to put everything down and leave. I want to lie in a soft bed in a comfortable house with heating, wrapped in a microfiber blanket, and sleep for a week.
I want to order all the food I crave and eat until my stomach bursts, and talk about games, novels, movies, dramas, and entertainment shows with people who use the Korean language.
I don't want to live any longer in this cursed pre-modern fantasy world where death and poverty, famine and fear are rampant.
Yet the concepts of "welfare" and "leisure" remain vague.
"Hiiik... kkeuk...!"
A man sitting next to him turned pale and let out a choked gasp.
A sticky killing intent was flowing from Ivan's body, spreading like poison. However, Ivan, or rather, Kim Seon-woo, was too preoccupied with his current state to compose himself.
Sharper and sharper, even thick and dense enough to actually harm people.
As Kim Seon-woo's panic grew increasingly intense.
The train, passing through a tunnel beneath the mountain and crossing a bridge over a valley, shook with a boom. It was a precursor.
-KWAAAAAANG!!!
-KEEEEEEEK—!!
-KUGUUUUNG-!!
Not stopping at just blowing up the tracks, the explosion collapsed the entire bridge, causing the train to helplessly slide downward. The body of the train twisted, and carrying its running speed, the entire vehicle spun round and round.
As his body floated and everything turned upside down, Ivan instinctively grabbed the train's shelf tightly to maintain balance, while following his instincts to survey his surroundings.
Between the rapidly flipping space and the sliding scenery outside the window, he assessed the situation precisely.
The train is falling.
The train was passing through the mountain range in western Pritzenkaya.
The train is falling.
A train terrorist attack has occurred.
The tutorial isn't over.
I wasn't wrong.
There's still an ending left.
Inside the falling train car, a smile spread across Ivan's dry face. Slowly. And deeply.
Forcibly shoving the useless, still panicking Kim Seon-woo down into his subconscious. Because now it's time to handle "what needs to be done."
Fear, hatred, and confusion don't help with the mission. People usually say keep your head cold and your heart warm, but that saying is wrong.
In the Annihilation Squad, they teach this: Keep your head, your heart, and your fingertips all cold.
Like Krasilov's bitter winter. Like that long night. Cold, quiet, meticulous.
The Annihilation Squad officer disappeared quietly in the chaotic train car, suppressing his presence.
Stepping on the railing, treading on the shelf, pushing away the tangled piles of luggage, upward, upward, upward.
The last moment Isabelle remembered was a series of fragmented words.
Her body being flung, her vision violently shaking, overwhelming pain surging through her.
Broken windows and soil pouring in.
And the train car being crushed and torn apart.
And one more thing.
"Huk!"
Isabelle woke up in a cold sweat. Darkness enveloped everything around her. The incident had occurred just as she was enjoying the view of Kratzenlorf's coniferous forest in the evening glow.
She rose, feeling a piercing pain.
The compartment was buried in soil. As her eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, she could make out the mound of dirt that had poured in through the broken window.
And, drip, drip, the sound of water droplets falling.
Hwoook, hook. The sound of someone breathing heavily. A faint voice.
"Are you... hwuik... are you conscious... miss?"
"Lord August...?"
A man was standing in front of her.
No. He was pinned in place.
One arm was buried in the soil, and a long iron rod was protruding from his side.
The dripping sound was coming from the blood drops falling from his mouth, nose, and waist.
"Why...?"
He had thrown himself to protect her. He had blocked the rocks that would have poured down on her with his body, and received the falling train fragments on his back.
She looked at the knight with eyes full of shock. The knight was smiling kindly as always.
"Miss. Run... hweek...! You must run... An assassin will come looking. This was aimed at you... hwuik...!"
"Stop, stop! A-answer me! Why...? Why did you do such a thing? Are you really an idiot?"
Isabelle glared at the knight with trembling eyes.
"Do you think my father would be angry if I died? No! That man doesn't care about anyone!!"
"I know."
The knight smiled weakly. Who in Tilles wouldn't know? About that strange man who abandoned his wife and children, secluded himself deep in the mountains, and refused anyone's approach.
At first, people thought he had left to recover from his wounds after killing the Demon King.
Later, they began to whisper that the hero's mind had been twisted by the Demon King.
Before four years had passed, they began to forget the hero.
From the moment he killed the Demon King, or perhaps even before that. Because a hero isn't an individual.
The man named Maximillian faded away under the name of hero, and now only his achievements and myths echo emptily.
"You hate me."
"That's right."
"Then why...?"
"Because you are the hero's daughter."
The man's eyes were shining remarkably clear even as he was dying.
Isabelle laughed incredulously despite the situation.
"So what does that have to do with anything? Do you think my father would spare even a penny's worth of concern for his 'daughter'?"
"No, miss. I never thought about Maximillian's concern."
But, the hero's daughter.
"Because a single individual could plant hope in the hearts of all humanity. Because I spent those times together with him. And... because it means that even such a great man leaves behind descendants and fades away with time as a 'person'."
Maximillian is also human.
A proposition everyone can agree with, but a sentence no one can truly understand.
However, Isabelle is different. She is human.
She gets angry, jealous, sad. She's a young girl suffering from lack of affection.
Therefore, Isabelle's very existence means that the hero is ultimately human.
And conversely. As long as one is human. It means one can become a hero.
That's what he believed. Even if he hated Isabelle as a person, he couldn't help but affirm her existence. She was hope.
The last seed left by the hero, its very germination symbolizes hope. In this era where people left after the last war rebuild their collapsed foundations.
It's a hope that can bloom even in this desolate era.
Not the hope of conscripts fighting against the Demon King, but hope for individuals living day by day.
If the hero himself was called a symbol of victory, the hero's bloodline is a symbol of reconstruction.
A symbol of an era starting anew.
That's why he threw himself to protect her despite hating Isabelle.
Because he was a knight of Tilles. Because he was a man who could sacrifice the individual for the greater cause. Because he too was an ordinary citizen who earnestly desired humanity's reconstruction.
"Impressive."
As his words ended, with a thud, an arm emerged from the pile of soil that had poured into the train window.
The arm fumbled around in the dirt pile for a while before smoothly pulling out.
The cold late winter night air cooled the compartment refreshingly.
Through that open gap, pale blue moonlight seeped in.
"Knight, what is your name?"
"Dian August. And you are?"
"Ivan Petrovich."
The dirt pile collapsed as a man entered the compartment.
With his back to the moonlight, casting a long black shadow.
"Do you want to live?"
"If possible."
"It will hurt."
Ivan opened the cap of the healing potion.