SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant

Trafalgar took the stairs.

The upper floor of the carriage was narrower than the lower passage, built for private rooms and expensive silence. Now it looked like the train had swallowed a battlefield and tried to keep moving.

The first thing he noticed was the blood.

It dragged across the carpet in broken lines, smeared by boots, hands, or bodies that had tried to crawl before the gas finished its work. One passenger lay half inside a private room, one arm stretched toward the hallway, fingers curled around nothing. His chest still moved, faint but present.

Another body did not move at all.

Trafalgar stepped over him without slowing.

The lights flickered above, turning gold to sickly white and back again. Somewhere beneath the floor, the train groaned against the storm, metal and mana formations fighting to keep everything locked together. The windows were white from snow, giving the whole corridor the feeling of moving through a wall that never ended.

A masked attacker lay against the railing, throat crushed inward, probably by someone desperate enough to fight back. Two doors down, a woman in an expensive blue coat had been cut across the side. She was alive, breathing in shallow pulls, but blood had soaked through the fabric beneath her ribs.

Trafalgar checked the hallway quickly.

No enemy movement.

No Selara.

He passed one open compartment. Inside, three students from the academy lay unconscious near the bed, protected behind a faint layer of greenish film spread across the floor and walls. Selara’s work, probably. The gas had reached them, but something had stopped anyone else from dragging them out.

Good.

He kept moving.

The next door was sealed.

Not locked normally. Sealed.

A thin alchemical mark ran around the frame, too clean to be part of the train’s system. Trafalgar reached toward the handle, then stopped just before touching it. The mark shifted when his fingers neared it, but did not attack.

Selara.

He opened the door and stepped inside.

The moment he crossed the threshold, a mana firearm appeared beside his face.

Close enough that if it fired, even Primordial Body would have a very unpleasant time dealing with the result.

A familiar voice spoke from behind him.

”Don’t make a noise. Come inside.”

Trafalgar froze for half a breath.

The room beyond the door was larger than expected, probably one of the private lounges attached to the upper floor. Curtains had been pulled shut over the windows. Tables had been shoved against the walls. Several students lay asleep across couches, rugs, and makeshift bedding made from coats.

Selara had gathered them here.

All of them looked alive.

Trafalgar stepped inside slowly.

The weapon stayed near his head.

Selara stood behind him, out of reach, very much awake and very much in control despite the chaos outside. Trafalgar could not see her face yet, but the steadiness of her voice said enough.

”Tell me what is happening.”

Trafalgar sighed through the mask.

”If you stop pointing that thing at me, Selara, that would be better. You don’t want your favorite assistant to become a widow, do you?”

The weapon did not move for a moment.

Then Selara’s tone changed.

”Trafalgar?”

He turned his head slightly. ”You don’t recognize me just because I have a mask and new clothes? My beautiful face is still the same.”

The mana firearm vanished from beside his cheek.

Selara moved into view, eyes narrowing as she studied him from head to toe. Her refined clothes from earlier were still mostly intact, though one sleeve was scorched and her hair had already begun escaping whatever elegant arrangement she had forced it into that morning.

”Tch. You look terrible.”

”Nice to see you too.”

Trafalgar looked past her toward the students.

”Are they all fine?”

”Yes,” Selara said. ”Sleeping, but alive. The gas reached them before I could block all of it, so I dragged everyone I could into this room and sealed it.”

Her gaze sharpened again as she scanned him properly, searching for blood that might be his. When she found none, her attention snapped to the room behind him.

”Cynthia? Where is Cynthia?”

”Don’t worry,” Trafalgar said. ”She is safe.”

Selara’s shoulders eased, though only slightly.

”Thank the gods.”

”Now that you’re safe too, things are better.”

Selara stared at him as if offended by the implication.

”Did you think I would be dead?” she asked, lifting her chin. ”Trafalgar, you should place me on a pedestal. I am far more incredible than that. I am not called a legendary alchemist for nothing.”

”I was more worried about the students.”

”Rude, but acceptable.”

She crossed her arms, her expression turning serious again.

”Do you know what is happening?”

Trafalgar closed the door behind him before answering.

”Part of it,” he said. ”The train was attacked under cover of the storm. They released sleeping gas through the cars before moving in. The explosion came from the mithril-reinforced cargo wagon, or close to it. They are not here for me, at least not originally.”

Selara’s mouth tightened.

”That makes this a little less annoying and far more insulting.”

”They are after blueprints and a sealed case,” Trafalgar continued. ”That is what one of them told me before he died.”

Selara’s expression changed at once.

”Blueprints?”

”Yes. He did not know what they were for. Only that the main group is in the cargo section. He also mentioned a woman leading them. Human. Black coat. Short red hair. Uses wires and explosives.”

Selara went still.

Trafalgar noticed immediately.

”Her name was Merisse.”

For the first time since he entered the room, Selara looked genuinely displeased.

”Shit...”

That single word told him more than a long explanation would have.

”You know her?”

Selara rubbed two fingers against her temple, then glanced toward the sleeping students as if making sure none of them had woken up at the worst possible time.

”Do I know her? Hell, it would be strange not to. She’s a bitch, a wretch, and a bastard.”