“Ah! One Swing! It’s been a while! I wasn’t expecting to see you here!” Looking up from her work, the tiny orange-haired woman wiped her black-stained hands against her dirty overalls and shot the approaching swordsman a wide grin. “Well, that would’ve been true if I hadn’t seen that sword of yours the moment you left the city.”
One Swing smirked. “Condie Mints. It is good to see you again.”
It was Condie. The dwarven woman whom One Swing had met in Zwieback and the woman who was attempting to bring length to the world by constructing a railway spanning the length of the land.
“So, you made it to S-Rank yet?” the woman asked, gesturing for the man to follow as she plodded her little boots across the gravel at her feet.
“Not quite,” One Swing replied. “I just recently made it to C-Rank.”
“Oh? That’s not bad! I remember just a few weeks back, you were still sitting at F.”
“How about you? Have you finished construction of the rail engine?”
"Not quite. But… Look!" Stopping in place, Condie spun to face the man and puffed out her small chest, smugly rubbing a smudged thumb against the side of her chin while gesturing behind her. "We just finished laying the tracks last night!"
At her back, a line of gravel stretched off far into the distance, as far as One Swing could see. Atop it was a path of wooden and metal tracks hammered into the ground. Condie’s railway. The railway she had been tirelessly supervising the construction of had finally made its way to the capital of Gran Torte, and had stopped outside the city walls.
One Swing felt a tear roll down his cheek as he admired the sheer length of the wonderful dwarven contraption that stretched far beyond the landscape.
“Truly an impressive sight.” One Swing nodded.
“Right?” Condie gave another smug grin, before nodding to the group behind the man. “So, what do you guys think?”
Behind him, the other members of One Swing’s party had also gathered at the railway. It was the meeting place One Swing had suggested for them to meet at the previous night when he had overheard of its finished construction from some passing labourers.
“Impressive indeed.” Barbacoa nodded, a stern expression on her face. Though she didn’t look it, for her, it was as close to an expression of awe as her rugged and battle-hardened face was able to show.
“Yeah, I can see why that long-haired idiot likes it…” Arrow commented, squinting off into the distance.
“What the hell?” Eye-Licker gave a stunned lick of his eye. “You’re saying this thing goes all the way to Mudkayek?!”
“Haha! Good work, sister!” Grapple beamed back at the small dwarven woman and shot her a short flex of his exposed pecs for some reason, his thick and lengthy moustache now back to its full splendor. “I can’t wait to see what you do with it!”
“Tch. Can we stop wasting time and go kill that fire-breathing loser already?” At the back of the group, a man clicked his tongue behind his hooded cape, his face obscured in darkness. Holstered all across his body and the belt at his hip was a countless number of knives.
“Don’t be like that, Ash.” Barbacoa tutted. “This woman is going to help us do just that. And you shouldn’t even be here. You should be recovering.”
“Don’t call me that!” the man snapped back. “And I don’t need weaklings like you to worry about my health! I’m fine!”
It was Shashlik. Although still injured from his severe burns, the man had followed the group out to the railway with the intention of fighting the dragon just the same.
“And don’t get the wrong idea,” Shashlik continued. “I’m not partying up with you weaklings, all I’m doing is getting revenge on the loser that got a lucky hit on me. Our goals just happen to line up.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Arrow rolled her eyes. “Then why are you following us? There should be plenty of carriages heading out towards Mustarseed. Go take one of those.”
“W-well, it’s just more efficient this way. It looked like you losers have a faster ticket to that shithole and I don’t want you to kill the dragon before I do.”
“I don’t understand you adventurers one bit…” Arrow sighed, rolling her eyes once again.
“So!” Condie clapped her little hands together, gathering everyone’s attention once again. “I’m guessing you’re all here for a reason. What can I help you with?”
The reason One Swing had suggested they meet here was, of course, to use Condie's railway. For reasons One Swing could not discern, horse-drawn carriages would not allow the swordsman to ride them. And so, One Swing's only mode of transportation was his own feet. However, the location of the dragon—according to Queen Kokoro la Peppyseed—was Mustarseed Peak. A volcano located far from the city of Gran Torte. If One Swing were to walk there, even without sleep or rest, it would surely take him weeks, perhaps months of travel to reach it. The One Swing didn’t mind the prospect of such a long trek, One Swing had learned that urgent quests like this were time sensitive, and sometimes it’s not always best to take the long way there.
From what One Swing remembered, Condie’s railway ran all the way from the dwarven city of Mudkayek to the Royal Capital of Gran Torte. And Mudkayek was an underground city built beneath the mountains. The same range of mountains where the party’s destination lay. Mustarseed Peak.
Condie scratched at her chin with a dirty fingernail in thought, a look of light worry on her face after having been caught up on the situation.
“That sounds kinda bad…” she said. “Seems like my home’s in a pretty dangerous spot right now, huh?”
One Swing nodded. “Which is why we’d like to use your railway to get there as quickly as possible.”
Wiping the worry from her face, Condie gave the man a wide grin. “Of course! Since you’ve got a party with you, give me a minute to hook up some of the trolleys and you’ll be all ready to roll out!”
And with that, the small woman rushed away towards the railway track. With the occasional clanking and creaking of metal against metal, she was soon finished, and the party’s transportation had been arranged.
Three rail trolleys—the same kind One Swing had used previously—had been linked together. Each one was able to comfortably fit two people on either side of the lever that sat in the middle of the platform.
Thanking Condie, they all boarded the trolleys atop the rail. Grapple and Eye-Licker had taken the front one, with Barbacoa and Shaslik taking the middle. That left One Swing and Arrow Grain at the back. One Swing had initially tried to board the trolley in the lead, but was soon moved to the back after those riding behind him didn’t seem to appreciate having to duck beneath the one-hundred-and-sixty-four foot blade of his colossal sword trailing fifty meters at his back.
“We just pull this thing to move, huh?" Arrow gave the lever a test tug, which didn't serve to budge the platform one bit. Putting more force into it, she found it still was not movable. "… Huh? It's not moving. I think we're too heavy…"
Ignoring the straining woman, One Swing turned to the dwarf still standing on the gravel below.
“Thank you once again, Condie Mints.” He gave the woman a bow. “I promise to rid the mountains of Cayenne of the Wrathful Flame and Harbinger of Hellfire and Destruction before it wreaks havoc across your home. I swear it.”
“You better! That’s where my workshop is, you know! No workshop means no rail engine!”
And with that, Condie stepped away from the tracks and gave the party of adventurers a farewell wave.
“Seriously, we’re just way too heavy…” Arrow continued to complain, still straining to pull the lever in her hands.
“Oh, and one last thing!” Condie shouted back, a toothy grin spread across her face. “Make sure to come back alive, yeah?”
One Swing smirked. “Of course.”
And then, turning back to face the front—
“Cleave of Fragmented Echoes—!”
—One Swing swung the lever down in front of him.
It instantly jerked forward, pushing all three of the trolleys forward. With each pull of the lever, the trolleys continued to pick up speed as they raced along the track. Soon the landscape around them was a blur of colours.
“… down! Slow down!” Arrow shouted over the deafening winds and screeching metal around them, clinging tightly to the base of the platform as the intense winds threatened to throw her off the trolley.
From up front, Eye-Licker too was struggling to cling to the platform, his forked tongue flapping out across his scaly face. Grapple's thick moustache was flapping around messily in the wind as well, and Shashlik was putting in considerable effort into holding his hood down over his face, even at the risk of falling off the platform. Barbacoa, on the other hand, looked quite fine, having the same stern look on her face that she usually did. Though, it was hard to tell how she was feeling in any given circumstance from her facial expressions alone.
“I said slow down! Slow down, dammit! I’m slipping! I think I’m slipping! I’m definitely slipping!”
One Swing smirked.
“Echo’s Thunderous Stampede—!”
Not slowing down one bit, One Swing continued to swing the lever down in front of him.