The man rubbed his close-cropped hair and said with a grin, "Well, nothing we can do about that. We'll just have to wait and see—and hope the Stellar Group has some human nature left."
Just as the man had said, after they counted everyone in each carriage, they still couldn't find the two Players missing from Carriage Two. Three more Players had disappeared, though no one knew whether they'd vanished before the train stopped or during the recent chaos.
This put the Players under considerable psychological pressure. The chances of anyone getting off here were slim. If no one had silently killed the passengers aboard the train, then there was only one other possibility.
Once the Players who had considered taking the initiative and venturing out thought of that possibility, they fell silent. People tended to fear what they didn't understand. Some Players might have spent time near the tracks before, but no one could say what lay a hundred meters beyond them—or what might be there.
So even though the train's systems hadn't completely broken down, they didn't dare turn on the lights. They could only use night-vision items or abilities to make out the people and things around them. With visibility so poor, anything lurking in the dark seemed like it could become a threat.
Under these circumstances, the Players also had to avoid fighting each other, lest they damage the train. So the investigation into the missing passengers from Carriage Two came to nothing.
Time passed second by second in silence. At first, everyone tried to keep quiet, but gradually some began talking. Quite a few even took off their Protective Suits to get some air.
Most of their talk was about how to escape. Everyone had given up on "going out to scout" and instead tried