Reentering the Death Train

Meanwhile, in Jizhou.

After reading El's Letter, Qin Shang's expression stiffened.

He suddenly understood why God Slayer had targeted Don't Touch Me, I'll Turn Green first in the first round.

This was the exclusive reward for the teacher role.

In other words, without a teacher, no matter how many people came, they would never obtain this clue.

No wonder it was called a multiplayer dungeon.

"But there might still be a Trickster entering this dungeon at other times!"

"As long as a Trickster inherits the teacher's side quest, they can obtain this clue after the exploration ends. Could it be that the other Tricksters were simply too unlucky and didn't get matched with a teacher?"

"So they lost this crucial clue?"

Qin Shang shook his head and immediately rejected his own guess.

"Impossible. The Divine Path game has always maintained a delicate balance. Since it gave us this questline, someone must be able to obtain this clue."

"If there was no teacher on the team, then this clue was destined to be unobtainable. That wouldn't fit the game's balancing mechanism."

"Besides, even if the teacher was targeted first in the first round, the other Tricksters still had a chance to obtain this clue!"

"Could it be that when other players entered the Death Train dungeon, God Slayer found both the Trickster and the teacher in the first round and decisively took them both out?"

At that thought, Qin Shang's expression suddenly changed drastically.

Damn, I overlooked one detail...

"Holy crap! I survived because I didn't reveal that I was a Trickster in the first round."

"The prerequisite was that just as I was about to introduce myself, the dungeon prompt happened to announce that the game was about to begin."

"After that, the sheriff, Eagle of Justice, heard the words 'God Slayer' and immediately revealed the relationship between the Trickster and God Slayer. He also casually let slip that the Trickster was a public enemy of all."

"That was why I decided to conceal my role from the Character Card."

"Although I still haven't figured out why Eagle of Justice was so hostile toward Tricksters, perhaps when other players played the Death Train dungeon, they accidentally exposed their Trickster role and were therefore the first ones eliminated by everyone."

"During the exploration that followed, God Slayer and the accomplice found an opportunity to eliminate the teacher on the team, and the entire first round fell into a vicious cycle."

"If there was a teacher, or a Trickster who had inherited the teacher's quest, they could obtain the clue 'El's Letter' after the exploration ended."

"But everyone eliminated the public enemy in the first round. Once the teacher died, the entire dungeon naturally entered a state where completion was impossible because one crucial clue was missing."

El's Letter did not provide much information, but it gave Qin Shang a vague conjecture.

"Dear Vien, I really can't believe our conductor is that kind of person. He often wanders around at night wearing a red dress. It's been a month since I last wrote to you. I wonder if you still remember what I told you before."

"Ever since I boarded this train, I haven't had a single good night's sleep. At night, I can always hear footsteps moving through the corridor. Dear Vien, heavens, how I wish you were by my side. I often suffer from insomnia at night, and I always dream of a red dress swaying before my eyes."

"But I was too tired, too tired, so tired that I lost consciousness."

"I don't have a roommate, but every day when I get up, I find traces suggesting that someone has used the bed beside mine. Do you know what that means?"

"Now I finally know the source of the problem. It's Jack, Conductor Jack."

"He wears a red dress and wanders through the entire carriage at night like a ghost. In the end, he returns to my room and rests on the bed beside mine."

"Almighty Lord, this is terrifying. Yesterday, I spent the whole night in another empty passenger lounge and finally got some peaceful sleep. But in the morning, Jack came running over and said some strange things."

"He asked me about Mary. He asked why Mary wasn't in her room."

"Mary? Who is Mary? Heavens, I'm going insane. There isn't anyone on this train named Mary."

"Jack is insane. Jack has gone completely mad. I can't go on like this. After this trip ends, I'm going to confront Conductor Jack. He said he would patrol with a gun tonight. Someone must have kidnapped Mary. Oh no, Almighty Lord."

"I can't take it anymore. Tomorrow—yes, tomorrow—I'm going to confront Conductor Jack..."

That was the contents of the letter. However, after reading it, Qin Shang roughly understood why El had been the first person to disappear.

After El, other passengers disappeared one after another.

Yes, El was the first person to truly disappear. As for the other missing people Mary had mentioned at the beginning, they were all aftereffects of the war.

She couldn't distinguish reality from illusion, and had brought the memories of waking up on the battlefield to find her comrades missing into the train...

According to the timeline, the entire train should initially have been peaceful.

Jack did not know that his second personality, also named Mary, would awaken at night.

This personality was obsessed with cross-dressing.

No, that wasn't right...

This personality itself was a woman—a timid and cowardly female personality.

At night, Mary's personality would awaken and sneak into the female workers' quarters.

Well, for now, let's call El's dormitory the female workers' quarters!

One day, when Mary's personality returned to the dormitory at night, she suddenly discovered that her original roommate, El, was gone. This personality became terrified and assumed that someone had disappeared.

She had a habit of keeping a diary, so she recorded the incident.

At the same time, under the pressure of fear, the cowardly personality, Mary, was replaced by Jack's personality.

Jack awakened at night for the first time!

It was also highly likely that he spoke with El during this process.

After learning that he cross-dressed at night and sneaked into the female workers' quarters, Jack certainly refused to believe it.

To any normal person, that would have been absurd.

He firmly believed that the personality named Mary was a real person who existed.

Jack's personality was that of a powerful expeditionary soldier, a war hero who had fought on the battlefield.

He naturally held personality disorders in contempt.

But then he discovered that Mary was missing!

Perhaps one night, because of some previous stimulus, Mary's personality failed to awaken.

Then Jack, who had given himself patrol duty that night, was shocked to discover that the Mary who should have been sleeping in that dormitory was missing.

Previously, Jack's and Mary's personalities had never encountered each other.

After all, one drove during the day while the other wandered around at night.

The connection between Jack's and Mary's personalities was probably that he would occasionally read Mary's diary each morning, or write some current news for Mary and leave it behind.

The two personalities might have had their own way of communicating.

For example, they might have left sticky notes in designated places...

After that day, Mary's personality vanished without a trace, and Jack began to suspect that Mary's disappearance was related to El.

However, perhaps because of the stimulus El had caused that day, Mary's personality did not awaken again for some time.

So Jack decided for the first time to go to Mary's dormitory and investigate!

When he saw that only El was inside, the deranged Jack began interrogating her. El naturally told him the truth.

That might have been what triggered the other personality hidden in his subconscious.

After all, nighttime had always been when Mary's personality awakened. Perhaps Jack's personality became confused, causing Mary's personality to awaken and worsening the condition until Mary went completely mad.

This had always been a cowardly personality.

It was like telling a timid person that they sleepwalk at night. That person would practically beg to be tied up tightly before bed, terrified of doing something outrageous. The same principle applied here.

Mary's personality fell into an uncontrollable state and killed El.

Then she fell unconscious again!

Jack's personality frantically believed that someone had killed El, that someone had harmed El...

And that was how the daily knocking began.

The person knocking was Jack.

Under normal circumstances, if someone saw a person standing outside their door in the middle of the night holding a gun, eight out of ten would probably flee in terror.

But in the eyes of this upright and uncompromising personality, that was a sign of guilt.

So Jack shot those people dead. Later, perhaps something else stimulated Jack, causing Mary's personality to awaken again. This timid personality then planned an investigation.

After awakening, she was shocked to discover that many people had disappeared.

So she organized all the passengers and had them enter Carriage Three...

"Hmm, this theory does make some sense, but there still seem to be some things that don't fit."

"At the end of Mary's diary, Conductor Jack disappeared. Does that mean it was Jack's personality that was erased, not Mary's...?"

"But it was clearly Jack who organized the trial, and Mary should have survived until the end!"

Qin Shang stared at the story analyzed by artificial intelligence on his phone, his brow furrowing deeply.

"Mad, Baidu's AI really isn't that useful. I gave it so many clues, and this is the nonsense it came up with?"

Qin Shang silently closed the Baidu app.

Actually, this couldn't be blamed on artificial intelligence. Humanity itself had yet to fully understand dissociative identity disorder. Expecting artificial intelligence to explain it clearly was no different from asking for the impossible.

The story in the dungeon had all happened long ago.

Unless he could travel back in time, it could only ever be speculation.

Jack's and Mary's personalities were probably both killers, but their descriptions of Carriage Three were completely different.

That point left Qin Shang deeply puzzled.

Carriage Three was probably the sleeping-car section—in other words, the resting area for the train staff.

Everything involving Background Story had originated there.

For example, the missing passengers and coworkers Mary had discovered.

And then there was Conductor Jack's investigation.

But... after El died, Mary's personality should have disappeared for a long time.

Why had she suddenly awakened afterward?

Comparing the diaries of the two personalities, the one who survived in the end was actually Mary's personality?

That was right. Mary's diary had mentioned that Jack disappeared.

Yet in Background Story, Mary had led everyone into Carriage Three after severing her own arm to survive. However, Conductor Jack's diary also contained a passage like that.

Only Jack had become the one leading everyone.

The personalities of someone with dissociative identity disorder couldn't awaken simultaneously.

What could the reason be...?

Mary's diary had also mentioned 'that thing.' What exactly was she referring to?

Qin Shang's thoughts were in turmoil. He always felt that there were still flaws in his analysis.

Just then, an electronic prompt rang beside his ear.

Ding! The Divine Path dungeon is opening. The dungeon you are entering is the Death Train.

Ding! You are currently in the Death Train. The Death Train was a train running through London, England, in the mid-nineteenth century. Passengers who boarded it began disappearing mysteriously one after another. In the end, no one was spared. Strangely, apart from the missing passengers, the train continued traveling back and forth between its starting point and destination day after day, gradually becoming a famous legend of a ghost train.

ID: 0927

Type: Exploration, Survival

Your task in this round is to investigate the mystery of the passengers' disappearance.

Side quest: Find the God Slayer hidden among the team.

Side quest: Find the only Team Leader among the six players and follow them. As their assistant, you must help the Team Leader clear this round and preserve as many passengers' lives as possible. (This task came from the teacher. In this round, you will obtain that player's role skill.)

Current progress: 50%

Nightfall: Night has arrived. All passengers, hide in Carriage Three and explore the final dungeon.