Re-entering the Death Train

On the other side, Jizhou.

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

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

This was an exclusive reward for the Teacher class.

This meant that without a Teacher, no matter how many others participated, they wouldn't be able to obtain this clue.

No wonder it was called a multiplayer instance.

"But at other times, it's not impossible for a Con artist to enter this instance!"

"As long as a Con artist inherits the Teacher's side quest, they can obtain this clue after the exploration ends. Could it be that other Con artists were just unlucky and didn't get matched with a Teacher?"

"So they lost this crucial clue?"

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

"Impossible, the Path of the Gods game always maintains a delicate balance. Since this clue was given, someone will definitely be able to obtain it."

"If there's no Teacher in the team, this clue is destined to be unobtainable by anyone. This doesn't align with the game's balance mechanism."

"Moreover, even if the Teacher was eliminated first, other Con artists would still have a chance to obtain this clue!"

"Could it be that when other players entered the [Death Train] instance, the God Slayer found both the Con artist and the Teacher in the first round and decisively eliminated them both?"

Thinking of this, Qin Shang's expression suddenly changed drastically.

Damn it, he'd overlooked a detail...

"Holy crap! The reason I survived was that I didn't reveal my identity as a Con artist in the first round."

"This was under the premise that just as I was about to announce myself, the instance prompt for the game's start happened to occur."

"After that, the Sheriff 'Eagle of Justice,' upon hearing the words 'God Slayer,' immediately clarified the relationship between the Con artist and the God Slayer, and casually let slip that the Con artist was an enemy of all."

"Therefore, I decided to conceal my Character Card class."

"Although I haven't figured out why 'Eagle of Justice' is so hostile towards Con artists yet, perhaps it's because other players, when undertaking the Death Train instance, accidentally revealed their Con artist profession and were thus the first to be eliminated by everyone."

"In the subsequent exploration, the God Slayer and the Accomplice found an opportunity to eliminate the Teacher in the team, causing the entire first round to fall into a vicious cycle."

"If there was a Teacher or a Con artist inheriting the Teacher's task, they could obtain the clue "El's Letter" after the exploration ended."

"But since everyone eliminated the public enemy in the first round, and then the Teacher died, the entire instance naturally fell into an uncompletable state due to the lack of a key clue."

[El's Letter] didn't provide much content, but it gave Qin Shang a vague guess.

"My dearest Wynn, I can hardly believe our train conductor is such a 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 said before."

"Since boarding this train, I haven't had a good night's rest. I always hear footsteps moving in the corridor at night. My dearest Wynn, heavens, how I wish you were by my side. I often suffer from insomnia at night, always dreaming of a red dress swaying before my eyes."

"But I'm too tired, too tired, so tired that I've lost consciousness."

"I don't have a roommate, but every morning I wake up, I find traces of someone having used the bed next to mine. Do you know what that means?"

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

"He wears a red dress and wanders the entire carriage like a ghost at night, finally returning to my bedroom to rest on the bed next to mine."

"Almighty God, this is too terrifying. Yesterday I went to another unoccupied passenger lounge and slept soundly, but Jack ran over this morning and said some strange things."

"He asked about Mary, asked why Mary wasn't in the bedroom."

"Mary? Who is Mary? Heavens, I'm going crazy. There's no one named Mary on the train at all."

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

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

This was the content of the letter, but after seeing it, Qin Shang roughly understood why El was the first person to go missing.

And after El, other passengers successively disappeared.

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

She couldn't distinguish reality from illusion and brought the memories of comrades disappearing after waking up on the battlefield into the train...

Timeline-wise, the entire train should have been peaceful at first.

Jack was unaware that his second personality, named Mary, would awaken at night.

This personality was fond of cross-dressing.

No, that's not right...

This personality was actually a woman, a timid and cowardly female personality.

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

Hmm, for now, let's refer to El's dormitory as the female workers' dormitory!

One day, when the Mary personality returned to the dormitory at night, she suddenly found that her roommate El was gone. This personality then became panicked, believing someone had gone missing.

She had a habit of keeping a diary and recorded this incident.

At the same time, under the panic, the timid personality, Mary, was replaced by the Jack personality.

Jack awoke at night for the first time!

And it's highly likely he had a conversation with El during this process.

Learning that he would cross-dress at night, Jack, who infiltrated the female workers' dormitory, certainly didn't believe it.

This would be absurd for any normal person.

And he firmly believed that the personality Mary was a real person who existed.

The personality setting for Jack was that of a powerful expeditionary warrior, a hero who had been on the battlefield.

He naturally disdained split personalities.

But he discovered that Mary was gone!

One night, perhaps due to previous stimulation, the Mary personality did not awaken.

Then, Jack, who had added patrol duties for himself at night, was surprised to find that Mary, who he thought should be sleeping in this dormitory, was missing.

Previously, the Jack personality and the Mary personality never encountered each other.

After all, one drove during the day, and the other roamed at night.

The connection between the Jack personality and Mary was probably limited to occasionally reading Mary's diary in the morning or writing some current news and leaving it for Mary.

The two personalities might have had ways to communicate with each other.

For example, by leaving sticky notes in specific places...

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

But perhaps the stimulation from El that day prevented the Mary personality from reawakening for a short period.

Thus, Jack decided to visit Mary's dormitory to investigate for the first time!

Seeing only El in the dormitory, the maddened Jack began to question El, and El certainly told him the truth.

It was probably at this moment that another personality in his subconscious was stimulated.

After all, night was usually the time when the Mary personality awakened. Perhaps due to Jack's confused consciousness, the Mary personality awakened, and Mary, with her condition worsening, went completely mad.

She was a timid personality to begin with.

It's like telling a timid person that you sleepwalk at night; that person would want to be tied up at night for fear of doing something shocking.

The Mary personality fell into an uncontrollable state and killed El.

Then she fell unconscious again!

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

And so, the daily knocking on doors began.

The person knocking was Jack.

And most people, seeing someone holding a gun outside their door in the middle of the night, would probably be terrified and scatter.

However, in the eyes of this upright personality, this was a sign of a guilty conscience.

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

Because after she awoke, she was surprised to find that many people were missing.

So she organized all the passengers to enter Carriage Number Three...

"Hmm, this guess does have some merit, but it still seems a bit off."

"In Mary's diary, it says the train conductor Jack disappeared, meaning the extinguished personality was Jack? Not Mary..."

"But the one organizing the trial was clearly Jack, and Mary should have survived until the end!"

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

"Damn, this Baidu AI isn't that good. I input so many clues, and all it came up with was this?"

Qin Shang silently closed the Baidu app.

Actually, it couldn't be blamed on the artificial intelligence. Humans haven't even figured out split personality disorder, so expecting artificial intelligence to explain it clearly was like a fantasy.

The stories in the instance were all old events.

Unless one could travel back in time, they could only be guesses.

Both the Jack and Mary personalities were likely culprits, but their descriptions of Carriage Number Three differed greatly.

This point made Qin Shang feel very confused.

Carriage Number Three was probably the sleeper car, the resting area for the train crew.

The origin of everything in the background story started from there.

For example, the passenger disappearances and colleague disappearances discovered by the Mary personality.

And also, the investigation by the train conductor, Jack's personality.

It's just that... after El's death, the Mary personality should have disappeared for a long time.

Why did I suddenly wake up afterward?

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

That's right, Mary's diary mentioned that Jack had gone missing.

But in the background story, Mary lost an arm to survive and led everyone into carriage number three. However, in the diary, Jack the train conductor's diary also had a passage like this.

It was just that Jack was the one leading everyone.

Personalities in dissociative identity disorder cannot awaken simultaneously.

What exactly is the reason...

And what is "that thing" that Mary mentioned in her diary?

Qin Shang's mind was in turmoil, feeling that his analysis still had some loopholes.

Just then, a series of electronic prompts sounded in his ear.

[Ding! Path of the Gods instance is opening. The instance you are entering this time is the Death Train.]

[Ding! You are currently on the Death Train; the Death Train is a train in mid-19th century London. Passengers boarding this train began to mysteriously disappear one after another, and in the end, no one was spared. Strangely, besides the passengers disappearing, the train continued to travel between its starting point and destination day after day, gradually becoming a well-known ghost train legend.]

[Number; 0927]

[Type; Exploration, Survival]

[Your mission in this round is; to explore the mystery of the passengers' disappearance.]

[Side Mission; Find the God Slayer hidden among the team.]

[Side Mission; Please find the only Team Leader among the six players. As an Assistant, you must help the Team Leader clear this game round and preserve the lives of the passengers as much as possible (this mission comes from the Teacher. In this game round, you will receive the player's professional skills).]

[Current Progress; 50%]

[Night falls; darkness has arrived. All passengers please hide in carriage number three and explore the final instance.]