Here lies Johnathan Gresley.
You can tell it's him because we put his name on the stone.
The funeral director had insisted—something about "legal requirements" and "proper identification"—but the corpse currently decomposing six feet under was the least of Johnathan Smith's concerns. Mainly because his disembodied consciousness was hovering three inches above his own grave, watching a few middle-aged people in black dresses and suits sob into a handkerchief.
"Damn, I really died like that huh?" Johnathan mused, floating upside-down over the weeping relatives he barely recognized. The priest's droning eulogy about "a life cut tragically short" would've been more convincing if half the attendees weren't checking their phones. His cousin Emma was definitely playing Candy Crush.
A sudden gravitational anomaly (read: goddamn isekai portal) sucked his ghostly form into a kaleidoscopic vortex of screaming colors.
I violently regained consciousness and thought, "Am I in a hospital or something?"
I scanned my surroundings. A dense, dark forest with no life in sight. I looked down, and then suddenly...
I looked down—And I was a locomotive?
I was very fucking confused because... how am I a goddamn locomotive?
HOW AM I FUCKING METAL?!
All of a sudden, a screen appeared.
SYSTEM: welcome to the Trevithick-1804 system, Current operating status = 100%
would you like to see your stats? (Yes/No)
I mentally clicked Yes, what else could I do at this point?
STATUS CHECK:
-------------------------
Name: Johnathan 'Loco' Gresley (???)
Model: LMS Jubilee Class (Not Modified)
Fuel Efficiency: 99% (Current Fuel Source: Laug)
Current Function: Kaikachu Express
Skills:
Make/Destroy Railroad LV. 1
Make new railroads or destroy old ones. Current pace: 14 cm per minute (without destruction of matching amount rail). Max distance away (without destruction of matching amount rail): 1 meter. Max distance away (with destruction of matching amount rail):
Parasight LV. 1
See yourself and anything within 5 miles of you.
Self Repair LV. 1
Regain wear and tear at a fixed rate. Current rate: 0.1% per hour. Warning: Large-scale damage may require external assistance.
Coaches LV. 1
You have a maximum of 5/5 carriages. Current length: 95 meters. Warning: Exceeding capacity may derail you.
Self Driving LV. 1
You don't require a driver or fireman.
Speed LV. 1
You have a top speed of 90 mph (~ 145 km/h)
Telepathy LV. 1
Talk to others mentally. Current max distance: 5 meters
Johnathan looked at the screen in front of him, blinking—or at least, he would've blinked if he still had eyelids. His whistle let out a confused sputter of steam. 'Kaikachu Express? What the hell kind of name is that?' His metallic wheels screeched against phantom tracks as he rolled forward, feeling the unfamiliar weight of several tons of steel beneath him. The forest loomed dark and oppressive, but the SYSTEM's cheery interface refused to acknowledge the existential horror of suddenly being a steam engine in an anime world.
As he was thinking this, he started hearing the sound of crunching snow getting closer rapidly, like someone was running in my direction. Actually, it sounds like several people, and they are running fast.
'Wait, but who are they, what are their goals, and what would they do to me if they find me?! This could turn south very quickly if these people don't mean well!' He panicked internally—though externally, his pistons locked up with a metallic shriek. The SYSTEM screen flickered with new text: [INCOMING CONTACT DETECTED: HUMAN SIGNATURES x3]. Johnathan's boiler rumbled. 'Great. First day as a sentient choo-choo and I'm already a glorified GPS.'
The crunching snow crescendoed into a chaotic symphony of snapping branches and—was that a battle cry? Three figures burst through the treeline: a silver-haired girl wielding a sword twice her size, a twitchy guy with glowing runes carved into his skin, and… an anthropomorphic fox child clinging to the sword-girl's cloak like a frightened caboose. The leader skidded to a halt, kicking up a plume of snow that dusted Johnathan's front coupling. Her eyes widened. "A locomotive?! In the middle of the Snow Crystal Heights?!"
The twitchy guy—now hyperventilating—pointed at Johnathan's smokestack. "Captain, that thing's *gigantic* I've never seen anything like it it's—"
"Or our ticket out of here," the sword-girl interrupted, patting Johnathan's boiler like he was a skittish horse. Her gloves left smudges on his pristine paintwork. "Look at those wheel flanges. Someone *wanted* this here."
Behind her, the fox-eared child peeked out from the cloak's folds, sniffing the air with twitching nostrils. "Smells like laug and… fresh metal?"
"Get in!" He screamed to them, his voice was surprisingly the same as it always was. The girl didn't hesitate, she grabbed the fox-eared child and jumped into the first open carriage behind him, the twitchy guy scrambled aboard as shadows erupted from the treeline—twisted, skeletal figures with hollow sockets where eyes should've been, their jagged fingers scraping against Johnathan's brake pipes with a sound like nails on a chalkboard multiplied by existential dread.
The SYSTEM blared [WARNING: UNDEAD HOSTILES DETECTED. RECOMMENDED ACTION: DEPARTURE]. Johnathan didn't need to be told even once.
His pistons screamed to life, wheels spinning against phantom tracks that materialized beneath him with every forward lurch. "Hold onto something!" he mentally broadcasted, feeling the fox-child's tiny hands clutch his rear coupling like a lifeline. The undead swarmed—gnashing, grasping—but Johnathan's boiler roared like a war drum, belching a thick smokescreen of burning laug.
The scent was acrid, industrial, tinged with desperation. His whistle shrieked a battle cry as he accelerated, the sword-girl bracing against a passenger car's doorway with her blade drawn, its edge glinting against the skeletal fingers clawing at the windows.
"Please go faster," she hissed, her breath frosting in the frigid air. Johnathan didn't need encouragement—his drive wheels were already churning snow into steam, the SYSTEM flashing rapid-fire updates. [FUEL EFFICIENCY DROPPING: 97%...96%...] A skeletal hand latched onto his buffers; he instinctively engaged [MAKE/DESTROY RAILROAD], and destroyed the rail behind me and created the same amount in front of me to the hard left, making the coach whip sideways with a metallic groan. The undead pursuer ragdolled into a pine tree with a crunch that was *almost* satisfying.
Their pursuers were relentless—shambling corpses fused with rusted armor, their hollow ribcages rattling like poorly-maintained boiler tubes. The fox-child yelped as one vaulted onto the roof, its bony fingers scrabbling at the ventilation slits. "Can't outrun these bastards," the twitchy guy muttered, his runes flaring crimson as he pressed a palm to Johnathan's coal tender. "But maybe we can *outsmart* them." The locomotive felt an alien warmth seep into his frame—[WARNING: FOREIGN MAGIC DETECTED. TEMPORARY OVERCLOCK ENABLED].
Johnathan's speedometer needle trembled at the 120 mph mark, his entire frame vibrating with the unnatural hum of the twitchy guy's magic infusion. Steam plumed from his smokebox in erratic bursts—pressure valves screaming warnings he couldn't afford to heed. The skeletal pursuer on his roof gouged claw marks into his paintwork with a screech that set his axle boxes on edge. "Oi, watch the finish!" he mentally broadcasted, swerving hard right just as the sword-girl vaulted onto his coal tender, her oversized blade cleaving through the undead's spine like a hot knife through boilerplate.
The another pair of notifications appeared:
[FIRST KILL: UNDEAD HOSTILE!]
[QUEST: KILL ENOUGH UNDEAD TO CREATE OPTIMAL DRIVER/FIREMAN BODY! PROGRESS 1/1,000]
The notification hovered in Johnathan's vision like an unwanted passenger ticket as bone fragments rained onto his coupling rods. The sword-girl twisted mid-air, her cloak snapping like a flag caught in his slipstream, before landing with a grunt on his running board. "Are you alright down there!?" she shouted toward the cab—which, of course, was empty.
Johnathan internally groaned.
"Focus on the skeletons!" he mentally roared, jolting forward as the SYSTEM updated: [UNDEAD PURSUERS REDUCED BY 12%].
All that and he only got 1 kill so far.
That wasn't good enough.
Not when skeletal hands were gouging rivets from his buffer beam. Not when the twitchy mage's crimson runes flickered dangerously—clearly struggling to maintain whatever speed-boosting witchcraft he'd shoved into Johnathan's cylinders. Worst of all? His passengers still thought he was *the pilot* of himself.
The fox-child clung to his rear coupling with wide-eyed terror, her ears flattened against the wind's roar as she shrieked, "Driver-san, the skeletons are *multiplying!*" Johnathan's boiler nearly ruptured from sheer frustration—he'd have facepalmed if he had hands. Instead, his whistle emitted a shrill, exasperated blast that scattered crows from the pines ahead. The SYSTEM helpfully translated:
[USER EXPRESSED DISBELIEF/IRRITATION. VOLUME: 11/10].
Skeletal warriors poured from the treeline now, their rusted breastplates clanking against femurs polished smooth by centuries of undeath. Johnathan's drive wheels screamed as the twitchy mage's spell redlined his pistons—his entire frame thrumming with unnatural energy. The sword-girl lunged past his cab window, her blade carving a silver arc through the horde's front ranks.
"That's two!" she shouted, kicking a detached skull into the undergrowth.
Johnathan's SYSTEM pinged: [QUEST PROGRESS: 3/1,000].
'Wait, three?!' He scanned his periphery—just in time to see a skeletal archer's arrow ricochet off his smokebox door and impale another undead through its hollow eye socket. The fox-child cheered as the archer collapsed into a pile of femurs and indignity.
"Lucky shot," Johnathan muttered through telepathy, though his whistle betrayed him with a triumphant *toot*.
So that's how he can kill them...
Goood.