Stigma Effect

Translator: Skye  Editor: thursdays

“Before that, miss, could you hold this?”

“What is this?”

“Hold on to it.”

While heading towards the engine room, the man looked back at Yuriel. He took something out of his pocket and placed it in her hand.

“Not like that, like this. Yes, that’s how you hold it.”

Yuriel became flustered by the object that suddenly came into her possession, and the man repositioned her hand, helping her hold it properly.

It was a heavy, black thing.

Yuriel blinked her eyes absentmindedly as she held onto the heavy object with one hand and supported it with the palm of her other hand.

The man raised an eyebrow at her awkward posture and asked, “Have you never seen one of these before? It’s called a gun.”

“No, this is my first time.”

“Oh, wait, don’t pull that trigger. All you have to do is place your finger over it.”

“Is this the trigger?”

“It seems you really don’t know. Yes, that’s the trigger.”

He pointed the long, round part of the gun at his waist and gave a cryptic smile.

“Even though it hasn’t been long since it started being made, it’s something that everyone in the capital can recognize right away.”

His face looked like he held an ulterior motive, but Yuriel had no choice other than to follow him. She closely trailed behind him while nodding her head.

“I don’t know what this is, but you’re saying all I have to do is hold it like this, right?”

“Yes. Then I can stop the train.”

Soon, the two arrived in front of the engine room after passing by the passenger cars. The man, who had been about to open the door of the engine room, suddenly slammed his head against the door and dropped to his knees in front of Yuriel.

The scene looked as if he had been beaten by her.

Yuriel became flustered by the situation and bent down. She tried to examine his wound, but the man pushed her hand away.

“Wh-what are you doing?! You’re badly injured, we need to stop the bleeding right away…!”

“Shhh. Don’t say anything and stay still.”

The man whispered briskly underneath her when she tried to help him up. When he saw Yuriel’s hardened expression, his lips twisted into a smile as he opened the door.

“Wha-what?!”

“What are you doing, you’re not allowed in here!”

The people in the engine room jumped up in shock at the sight of the man who was bleeding and the woman who was pointing a gun at him.

“...Stop the train right now. The person behind me has a gun.”

“A g-gun?!”

“H-He, you’re Sir Helio, aren’t you?”

“She said she would shoot if I don’t stop this train immediately...Please help me…”

While Yuriel obliviously pointed the gun, the bulky man abruptly fell to the floor pitifully as soon he finished his words. The blood pouring from his head soaked the floor of the engine room ominously.

How hard must he have slammed his head against the door for the blood to show no sign of stopping?

Yuriel got a grasp of the situation once she saw him fall to the ground.

You want me to act out a hostage situation? But wouldn’t it have been better if I was the hostage?-was what she thought because she was significantly smaller than the man who was currently pretending to be down.

Yuriel twisted her lips while glancing at the man who pretended to have collapsed without telling her anything. She swung her gun around awkwardly and shouted, “If y-you don’t stop this train right now, I’ll use this!”

At the sight of the woman who was stammering, holding a gun that she didn’t even know how to use, the engineers exchanged looks with each other. It seemed they thought they could probably overpower and subdue her.

The man who was lying on the floor signaled to Yuriel.

‘Step on me.’

He used his lips, twisting them slightly to point to himself.

‘Step on me and say it again.’

Yuriel followed his lead and shouted again, stomping on his waist with her foot.

“Did you not understand me? I said stop this train right now!”

“Kuk…!”

“S-Sir Helio!”

The man under Yuriel groaned in pain. Even though she hadn’t stepped on him with much force, his groan made it sound like she had broken a bone.

The engineers were frightened out of their wits and stopped protesting.

“W-We understand. We’ll stop the train so please don’t hurt him anymore, please!”

Yuriel tilted her head. They were acting like they knew this man.

Was he someone famous?

When the man let out another groan, the engineers swiftly moved towards the instrument panel and their hands became busy, pulling and pressing things.

Soon, there was a loud whistle-just like when the train first took off-and the train’s speed began to noticeably drop.

“It st-stopped.” The engine manager stammered out, and the man who was on the floor pushed Yuriel’s foot away and got up.

Hope filled the eyes of the engineers who saw him stagger up. It was obvious that they thought the man would save them from this sudden unexpected threat.

Yuriel squinted her eyes and stared at the man’s back.

Who the hell was this guy, and why were those men reacting like that?

Meanwhile, the man who had now risen to his full height turned around and took back the gun he had handed Yuriel.

“Commander Helio! Are you all right? I called for backup as I was stopping the train. If we wait a little while, the support from Albraca…”

Helio? That was a name Yuriel had heard several times before somewhere…

“Helio…?”

Yuriel narrowed her eyes, mumbling to herself as the train slowed down.

Helio, commander... Oh, that’s the name of Albraca’s second commander!

She remembered seeing that name in the newspaper right next to Raphlet’s. Having figured out the man’s identity, Yuriel raised her head with a wide smile. This man in front of her was a colleague of Raphlet!

“Oh, you’re one of the commanders of the Albraca Knights!”

“Cough.”

“Huk!”

As she called out to him, smiling, he moved to knock out the engineers. He struck their heads with the gun before sweeping back his disheveled hair and turned to face her.

His blood-soaked bangs were pushed back neatly.

Wiping his exposed forehead with a handkerchief, he gave her a faint smile.

“Yes, that’s right,” he answered before Yuriel could say anything else, carefully wiping his forehead and staunching the flow. Once he had the bleeding under control, he dropped his handkerchief and lifted the gun with one hand.

Unlike Yuriel, who had barely been able to support the gun with two hands, it was an easy task for him.

“This is a gun. I’m sure you realized how dangerous it is based on the reactions you just saw from these people, miss,” he said, pointing the weapon at her forehead.

“What?”

“Tell me why you tried to stop the train. What do you know?”

Yuriel now realized why the man had so easily cooperated with her without asking any questions.

“The train has been stopped, so I’m sure the primary threat has been eliminated. The engineers must have alerted the knights of an attack and I’m sure they’ll be here soon. I suggest you confess before you get arrested.”

“I thought you were helping me.”

“I’ve done more than enough to help you. I secured your luggage and I’m willing to kindly listen to your explanation before you get arrested. Now, please tell me what you know before you go to prison.”

It was most likely that he hadn’t stopped the train because it seemed like a fun thing to do.

Rather, he just used himself to create a reason to stop the train without any explanation. It wasn’t him being kind to a lady who had just come from the countryside.

It was a cover to reveal unexplained threats.

Yuriel breathed a long, exaggerated sigh, realizing she had no choice. She stretched her hands out meekly.

“If you’re going to arrest me, that’s fine. But I’d like to ask you to evacuate the passengers first. Monsters will soon storm the train.”

The good news was that at least the engineers had called for backup. Yuriel had been able to successfully stop the train, but she wasn’t confident that they would be able to handle the big monsters she had seen in her dream.

The monsters she had foreseen were far larger than the ones she had come across in the Mogris domain. There, the servants combined their strengths to subdue the monsters and call for the knights to finish them off. Here, however, there were no other knights to aid them.

It would have been difficult to subdue them with only the passengers on the train, so it was reassuring that the backup team consisting of knights would arrive soon.

All they had to do was hide and wait for the knights to rescue them before the monsters attacked.

“Oh, and if I’m going to be sent to prison, I’d like to be thrown in a prison that’s under the Albraca Knights’ supervision. It would be even better if the first division commander could be the one to come and interrogate me himself,” Yuriel muttered quickly.

She was anxious that the man would cut her off, so she had poured out what she wanted to say quickly and continued to hold her wrists out in front of her, indicating that she had no intention of resisting.

Helio furrowed his brows, noticing how Yuriel looked visibly relieved to hear that the Albraca Knights would be arriving soon. He sighed as he saw how she did not show a single indication of fear, despite being told she was going to be arrested.

He put away his gun.

“...Can you help me evacuate the passengers?”

“If you allow me to.”

Helio gave her a nod when he looked out the window and noticed the small figure of a monster in the distance. It was as Yuriel said; there were monsters charging towards the train.

“If you can help me, I’ll escort you to Albraca and interrogate you as a guest, not as a prisoner.”

There was no time to waste.

Lifting up the fallen engineers in one single movement, Helio evacuated the passengers to the very last train car. It was the farthest one from the engine room.

“Cover the windows and keep your heads down.”

Helio gave out orders, diligently checked the frantically moving passengers, then turned around to leave the car.

He held the door open and beckoned for Yuriel to follow.

“Follow me, miss.”

“S-Sir Helio! Let me come with you too.”

“Me too!”

“What are the rest of us supposed to do if you only take her with you?”

Several of the passengers got up and tried to follow him, but Helio shook his head resolutely.

“It’s safer here. This lady and I will be luring the monsters away, so you just have to hide until the knights arrive. Well, if you want to be bait for the monsters, you’re more than welcome to follow us.”

Helio calmed down the agitated passengers easily, as if it was second nature to him.

When he asked again if there was anyone willing to act as bait, the raised voices of those who had shouted saying they would follow him subsided.

At the sight of such passengers, Helio covered his face with both of his hands.

A frightening smile appeared on his face for a moment before it was quickly replaced by a calm one as he took his hands off to reassure the passengers.

“Please relax and wait here.”

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