As soon as the train doors slid open, the weirdness hit us like a freight train.

Something gray and slimy was crawling around inside.

I glanced at Daniel, and he immediately looked at me like I had all the answers. He was the experienced one here, but I couldn’t shake how quickly he started relying on me. Maybe I wasn’t acting like a rookie.

I mean, he’s not wrong. I wasn’t exactly “normal.” Calm under fire? Check.

Firing shots like it was nothing?

Double-check.

Here I was, nailing headshots on my first live encounter like I’d been doing this for years. I probably looked more like a merc than a cleaner.

Still, the fact that he was looking to me for guidance was… troubling. Dude, you’re the veteran here.

“You good?” Daniel asked, his voice cracking slightly. “Headache? You think you got hit by mental contamination?”

I sighed, running a hand over my helmet. “I’m fine. Just... frustrated.”

He blinked. “Frustrated? With what?”

Oh, nothing major. Just the universe forcing me into a system quest I didn’t ask for. I’d been reborn for ten days, determined to lead a laid-back life and had been actively ignoring this “purify the land” nonsense. The system’s main quest was a giant waste of time.

Now, thanks to this missing last train mess, I was being dragged back into the thick of it.

I asked, “What's the contamination level in there?”

My helmet had a function to read contamination levels, but, uh... I had no idea how to use it. Rookie problem.

Daniel fiddled with his scanner, then read out the numbers. “It’s at 71.”

I stayed quiet, pretending to process it. What the hell does 71 even mean?

Daniel sighed, “It means that this might be a Class D mission.”

He mumbled something about tech screwing up the classification. Clearly, the demon hunters had missed something big. They were supposed to make sure the whole area was clear of contaminants within a kilometer before leaving.

“They didn’t do a clean job,” Daniel muttered, clearly pissed.

I cut through his mumbling, “I’ve got a question.”

“What’s up?” He sounded distracted.

“If the contaminants mess with comms signals, how do demon hunters communicate?”

Good question, right? They’re supposed to kill these things, but if the contamination shuts down communication the moment they step in, how do they pull it off?

Daniel shook his head, “They’ve got better gear than us. Their comms aren’t as affected by the mental contamination.”

Of course, better gear.

“And we don’t have that?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

His voice filled with bitterness. “We get the scraps. Gotta give the best stuff to the hunters, right?”

Well, he’s not wrong. We were bottom of the barrel—underfunded, under-equipped, and, apparently, undervalued. If this job were actually safe, maybe I could accept the imbalance.

But it wasn’t.

Looking at the open train door ahead of us, I asked, “How long does it take for backup to show up?”

Daniel hesitated, then said, “They left a while ago. If they head back, it’ll take at least thirty minutes. Plus, with the contamination spreading, there’s no guarantee they can even get in.”

So, we’re stuck.

“Just us, huh?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

Daniel nodded, looking grim. “Yup. Just us.”

Great.

He glanced at me, curious now. “By the way... how did you sense the contaminant before? You response is nearly a minute ahead of me. You are born an acute instinct or what?”

I shrugged. “Really? Dude, it was loud as hell. You didn’t hear it?”

Daniel looked puzzled. “No?”

I sighed. Of course not.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I didn’t have any supernatural ability, just instincts honed from years of surviving in a zombie apocalypse in the previous life. Ten years of fending off zombies tends to sharpen ones shooting skills and killer instinct. Maybe that’s something tech didn’t have a function for.

In contrast, Daniel was a product of this high-tech world, relying on gadgets and sensors to tell him when something was wrong. Me? I learned to never let my guard down, no matter what.

He probably thought I was some kind of warmhouse flower who lucked into this job.

“You don’t know how lucky you are,” I muttered, looking at him like he was some sheltered kid. He wasn’t built for real danger. Not the kind I grew up with.

Daniel flushed a bit.

“You wanted to be a demon hunter?” I asked.

“How’d you know? ” He was taken by surprise.

I blinked. Seriously, dude? His whole attitude screamed it. I wasn’t exactly Sherlock Holmes here. “Just a guess,” I said.

Daniel beamed, “Wow, you’re smart.”

Gee, thanks. The compliment hit me like a wet blanket. No thanks.

Then Daniel pointed toward the open train door. “So... do we go in?”

We had to survive at least thirty minutes until backup arrived. During that time, we had to avoid getting mentally contaminated.

“Do you want to go in?” I countered, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh...” He swallowed nervously. “Not really.”

Rule No. 3: When encountering a live contamination, stay put and wait for backup.

Well, fuck that.

“I'm going in,” I said, stepping toward the train.

It wasn’t suicide. If the source of the contamination was in there, killing it might be our only shot at surviving this mess.

Besides, I’ve got a side mission to complete.

I didn’t wait for a response. One foot into the train, I vanished into the mess of crawling, writhing gray sludge that covered the floor.

As I was swallowed by the train.

Daniel stood there for a second, staring at me, then glanced back at the still-twitching creature lying on the platform. Screw it.

With a deep breath, he followed me in, muttering something about not wanting to die alone.

----------------------------------------

The moment Daniel stepped into the train, he regretted it.

The carriage was full of black, squirming tendrils that seemed to float through the air.

Visible but intangible.

Since it was the last train, there weren’t many passengers. A few random office workers were scattered throughout the train, sitting far apart from each other.

But as soon as Daniel entered, every single one of them turned their heads toward us in unison.

They were contaminants. Every last one.

Some had fish-like fins growing out of their ears. Others still had human faces, but their skin was covered in slimy scales.

In the middle of the car was a fish, flopping helplessly on the floor, like it didn’t belong anywhere else.

Daniel’s scalp prickled as a wave of nausea hit him. His nose was bleeding from the mental strain, and the sights inside the train only made it worse.

He found me sitting on the left side of the car, helmeted, looking completely out of place in my cleaning suit.

With a whoosh, the doors slid shut behind him.

Daniel had no choice but to sit down next to me.

The train jolted to life, speeding off. Neither of us had any idea where it was headed.

I turned to him, my voice low. “I didn’t see Emma.”

The world outside the train was a blur of blackness. In just a few seconds, we had already passed two kilometers. That should’ve been enough to reach Emma’s location in the sewer, but there was no sign of her.

Daniel groaned, pinching his nose. “Contamination zones have their own timeline. Check your clock.”

I glanced at the internal clock on my helmet. The numbers had frozen the moment we stepped on the train.

Apparently, this zone had its own rules of time.

“How did we even get in here?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

Daniel shrugged. “Demon hunters usually find an entrance. But sometimes, they don’t need to. They can just nuke the place if things get out of hand.”

Of course. If no one was in there, or the situation was beyond saving, they’d just blow it all up.

Typical.

The train picked up speed, the vibration humming through the floor. Faster than any vehicle I’d ever ridden before.

Ding.

“Next stop: Lily Garden,” the automated voice announced.

I tensed up immediately. None of the passengers got off, though. They just sat there, still staring.

I gripped my gun tighter, eyes locked on the train doors as they slid open. My hand hovered near the trigger. If I didn’t have to shoot, I wouldn’t, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

A new passenger stepped inside, and the doors closed behind them.

I squinted, and my heart sank.

It was the fish-headed guy. The same one we’d shot up earlier, now standing there like nothing had happened.

His body was riddled with holes, his leg still half-ruined, dragging behind him as he limped toward us.

Without a word, he grabbed onto one of the hanging straps, standing directly in front of me and Daniel. Just... standing there. Not moving.

Daniel and I didn’t speak. Our guns were both raised, aimed right at his head. One wrong move and we’d fill him with holes again.

But he didn’t move.

Five minutes passed. Then ten.

Nothing.

He just stood there, like some kind of broken mannequin, blood still seeping from his battered body. Through the holes in his torso, I could literally see the empty seats behind him.

Daniel whispered, “Why the hell is he standing here? There are, like, a million other empty spots.”

He was right. The carriage was mostly empty. The fish-headed guy could’ve stood anywhere.

“Is he here for revenge?” Daniel muttered nervously, eyes darting around.

“I don’t know,” I said, not taking my eyes off the fish-headed guy. “But I’m starting to wonder what would’ve happened if you’d stayed on the platform.”

Daniel’s face went pale. “I’d rather die.”

That wasn’t an exaggeration. There was something horribly wrong about the way the fish-headed guy stood there. He wasn’t attacking us, but he wasn’t not a threat, either.

“This is weird,” I muttered. “You notice something?”

Daniel’s voice was tense. “What?”

“We’re being watched.”

Daniel stiffened. The other “passengers” were still staring, heads turned toward us in eerie unison.

But none of them moved.

“Next stop: Sunshine Kindergarten.”

A bright orange light blinked, and I felt my stomach twist.

Another stop, another passenger.

Another fish-headed guy.

This one was identical to the first—same injuries, same fish head, same dead eyes.

He did exactly the same thing as the first: walked over, grabbed the strap, and just stood there.

By the third stop, I was seriously starting to lose it.

“Next stop: Green Ditch.”

A third fish-headed guy, same routine.

What the hell is happening?

By the time we reached the fifth station, Mechanical University, there were twenty-five identical fish-headed guys in total, all standing silently in front of us.

All of them were riddled with holes, their bodies practically rotting in front of us.

The blood in the air was so thick that even my helmet’s filtration system couldn’t block it out.

But the worst part?

They just stood there, heads down, silently staring at us.

No expression, no movement. Just watching.

Is this what mental contamination feels like?