Chapter 2 - Chapter 2: Land of suffering

Prologue:

People think suffering makes one stronger, but in reality, most are tormented by suffering to the point of disfigurement.

They are weakened, disabled, barely hanging onto life, until they die.

…

“Shh, don’t rush to act yet. Let’s confirm the guard’s patrol route once more.”

In the noisy train, someone was whispering, conspiring about something.

Noland Lee’s vision was pitch black, his eyelids as heavy as if they were filled with lead.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t lift his upper eyelids, let alone open his eyes to see who was murmuring beside him.

What’s going on…

Am I not in my own home?

Why can I hear the sound of the train wheels and strangers talking?

Oh, I remember now.

I stayed up too late last night and fell asleep at the table before closing my computer. The sounds of the train and conversation must be coming from the sound system.

Noland Lee’s senses were slowly recovering.

The pungent smell of cheap tobacco entered his nose, causing it to itch.

However, as his body was unresponsive and he couldn’t move his limbs, Noland Lee could only silently endure the discomfort.

Meanwhile, the swaying sensation of the moving train became much clearer.

Noland Lee could feel the vibrations of the wheels rolling over stones.

The subtle details felt so real that it instantly overturned Noland Lee’s previous assumption.

Am I not at home?!

Noland Lee was shocked.

He tried again to lift his eyelids but still couldn’t open his eyes.

Considering the whispers he heard earlier, a disconcerting thought popped into his head..

Was he kidnapped?

But these days, even buying a ticket for a green-skin train requires an ID. Which kidnapper would abandon a car and transport a person on a train instead?

Wait… what did that guy say earlier?

Confirm the “guard’s” patrol route again?

Shouldn’t it be a service staff or security guard?

Also, this person’s language was unfamiliar, unlike any that Noland Lee knew, yet he could understand it effortlessly.

Noland Lee took a deep breath, had he time-traveled?

“Get ready to act,” the person who had spoken earlier whispered again:

“Watch the guard on the left side. When he passes us, trip him up, and I’ll break the window. Be quick, or we’ll be shot.”

The person speaking was sitting on Noland Lee’s left, next to the window.

As soon as his voice faded, another man’s voice came from Noland’s right hand position by the aisle:

“Bro, wait, this kid’s eyes are moving. He seems to be waking up. Was the drug you gave him enough? Did he hear our plan?”

“Don’t worry about him. He won’t wake up anytime soon. He must be dreaming. I poured all the sleeping powder I brought secretly into his water glass. This dosage will keep him asleep until we reach the Korabo Legion’s base.”

“Korabo Legion… whoever wants to go can go. We brothers won’t. I’d rather jump off the train and die than go to that ghost place… Shh, the guard is coming. Get ready…”

The voices on either side fell silent.

Noland Lee heard their heavy breathing and the increasingly closer footsteps.

With each step the approaching guard took, the wooden floor let out a grating noise that made one’s ears itch.

This noise irritated Noland Lee, so he forced himself to calm down, his mind racing.

What he can confirm now is:

He must have time-traveled, and it was a soul-based travel.

The body he occupies now was right between two people who wanted to jump off the train.

The headache and weakness, the inability to open his eyes, were all caused by the so-called sleeping powder.

The two people who were conspiring apparently drugged someone else on the same train because they didn’t want to go to some Korabo Legion.

Noland Lee could only feel a wave of helplessness.

What should he do now? If these two failed to escape, would he be implicated?

“Sin Soldier Noland Lee Jarvis, lift your head!”

The guard stopped beside Noland Lee’s row of seats, lifting his chin with the iron rod in his hand:

“Sin Soldier Noland Lee Jarvis, did you hear me? Lift your head and open your eyes.”

Noland Lee’s heart raced as he struggled to lift his eyelids, finally peering through a hazy slit to see the scene in front of him.

It was an old, wooden carriage with a cracked surface and heavily peeling dark red paint.

A yellowed, glass-covered chandelier hung from the ceiling, swaying left and right as the carriage trembled.

The dim light barely illuminated the guard’s face in front of him.

It was a typical Western face, not very pleasant-looking. Scruffy beard, yellowish whites of the eyes, a cigarette with glowing embers in his mouth, and yellow-brown teeth exhaling a strong odor of smoke as he spoke.

What did this guy just call me?

Sin Soldier…

Noland Lee’s heart sank; this was not a good title. The body he occupied had seemingly gotten into serious trouble…

“Sin Soldier Noland Lee Jarvis, open your eyes and speak!”

The guard rudely flicked Noland Lee’s eyelids open and examined his eyes under the light.

His eyes were lifeless, reacting weakly to the light, and contracting very little.

“Report! There’s something wrong with Sin Soldier Noland Lee Jarvis!”

The guard shouted towards the front of the carriage:

“There’s unidentified white powder at the corners of his mouth! It looks like he’s been drugged!”

“Clatter, clatter, clatter…” Several footsteps approached from afar as multiple guards hurried from the distant carriages.

The breathing from both sides of Noland Lee suddenly grew several times heavier.

The two would-be escapees simultaneously let out a low cry:

“Now!”

“Crash!” The glass was shattered by a hard object, letting a bone-chilling cold wind into the carriage.

“I’ll take you all on! Aaahhh!” The man near the aisle pushed the guard in front of him, stumbling and shouting:

“You wouldn’t have caught us if it wasn’t for that traitor downstairs! You want to send us to the Korabo Legion to be cannon fodder? Pah! I’ll go back and skin that traitor alive!”

The man began fighting with the guard.

The man who smashed the window urged anxiously:

“The window’s open! Quick, jump off the train!”

The front door of the carriage was kicked open by the incoming guards:

“Don’t run! Lie down! We’ll shoot you right here!”

The man grappling with the guard roared as he rushed to the front of the carriage:

“Bro! You go on! I’ll hold them off! You saved me so many times! Let me save you for once!”

A stifled sob came from the man at the window’s throat.

Just as he was about to crawl out of the window, two gunshots abruptly brought the commotion to a halt.

“Bang!”

“Bang!”

The sudden gunfire made Noland Lee’s brow furrow, and his ears rang incessantly. It seemed some blood droplets splattered onto his face, warm yet chilling with the fading of life.

“Drag these two bastards to the front and search their bodies properly.” The guard who fired the shots spoke indifferently, regarding the lives of sin soldiers as merely pigs or dogs.

“…Chief Officer, what do we do with Sin Soldier Noland Lee Jarvis?” The guard who examined Noland Lee panted.

The guard who fired the shots grabbed Noland Lee’s hair, making him tilt his head back, then pinched his chin, turning his face left and right:

“Such bad luck… The higher-ups will be here to inspect soon…”

The guard let go of Noland Lee, urging:

“Take him to the carriage in the back and find an unoccupied single compartment to put him in. Lock the door and don’t let him out… Oh, if the Chief Officer asks why there’s one less person here, say that Sin Soldier Noland Lee Jarvis got severely carsick, and we moved him to the back so he could throw up without dirtying the carriage.”

“Yes, Chief Officer.”

Noland Lee felt himself being lifted and carried, slowly moving in the swaying carriage.

Muttered curses echoed from behind him:

“Can’t these sin soldiers have some self-awareness? Still trying to run after coming to the Suffering Borderland? Where to? This place is all ruins, with nothing but the Imperial Army and the disgusting ‘Undead’ everywhere! Even if they could run, there’s nowhere to go! Dying on the train would be a mercy for them…”

Noland Lee frowned slightly as he listened.

Suffering Borderland, cannon fodder, Undead… The situation was indeed terrible…