Its ferocity was laid bare!
Feeling the pull on the gun barrel, Ye Qiyan pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Bang!!
"Roar!"
A severed hand flew away, and the roller shutter burst open. Only then did he finally see that the man behind the door had long since become grotesquely bloated. Only his human face and the arm Ye Qiyan had just shot off still offered some hint of his original appearance.
"You're too late! Too late! Why didn't you come sooner! My daughter only wanted a cake! Why did you useless couriers take so long! Die!"
Stay calm-
Ye Qiyan took a deep breath and kept pulling the trigger as he watched the monster charge at him.
Bang, bang, bang. Three consecutive shots hit their mark.
His aim was terrible, but his opponent was simply too big, and far too close.
Yet even the upgraded rifle lacked the power to penetrate the monster's tough body.
A punch struck Ye Qiyan in the chest and sent him flying.
Ye Qiyan gritted his teeth and got up, feeling his stomach churn.
If his reinforced bulletproof vest hadn't cushioned the blow, that hit probably would have knocked him unconscious.
The monster charged again with a strange cry.
Bang-
Another shot.
"It's useless! I'm not afraid of your bullets!"
More bullets answered him.
Bang-bang-bang-
"Really? Why don't you look down?"
Ye Qiyan chuckled. The monster instinctively lowered his head, only to find his body already riddled with holes.
"How is that possible?!"
"Phew~"
Ye Qiyan blew across the muzzle and stood up, clutching his stomach. The Blacklight Enchanted Pistol in his hand gave off a faint glow.
[Blacklight Enchanted Pistol] Consumes stamina to convert rounds into armor-piercing bullets.
Ye Qiyan walked up to the monster, aimed the dark muzzle at his head, and pulled the trigger.
Bang-
"Phew, no wonder there weren't any signs of monsters here. It must be because this place was a big monster's territory."
After resting for a moment, Ye Qiyan stepped over the monster's corpse and picked up the cake that had been knocked onto the ground. He shook his head regretfully, then put it into his backpack along with the three Train Coins beside it.
"What a waste."
He walked over to the roller shutter and opened it fully. The interior was unexpectedly clean.
"It really is a silverware shop."
Silver crossbow bolts, spearheads, and even crosses lay scattered about.
On a cabinet, Ye Qiyan found a diary.
[March 1: My daughter's birthday is in ten days. I found three coins inside a broken-off locomotive outside town. The old people in town said these coins could get couriers from RUN Company to deliver food beyond our imagination! I'm going to buy my daughter a cake. Once she eats it, her illness will surely be cured, right? After all, it's something beyond our imagination!]
[March 5: My daughter's illness is getting worse... She only wants a piece of cake. Great courier, please come soon!]
[March 9: ...My daughter is really looking forward to tomorrow's cake, but courier, where are you?]
[March 11: ...My daughter died. She never got to eat that cake. Before she died, she asked me what cake tasted like, and I told her it was sweet. Sweet... what does that taste like? I don't actually know either. She's dead. All I could do was bury her in the backyard so she wouldn't become a zombie monster.]
[March 15: Hehehe... Why hasn't the courier come yet? I really want to see it. Hehe... If there's cake...]
The diary stopped there. Everything after that was blood-red gouges and tears.
Clearly, after March 15, this man had gone completely mad and turned into that monster.
Walking to the back door, Ye Qiyan saw a gravestone standing in the yard.
He placed the cake in front of it.
"I suppose that counts as completing the mission."
The mission reward was the three Train Coins in his hand.
That seemed to be all there was to this stop.
But one thing bothered Ye Qiyan.
The broken-off locomotive outside town.
Could it have been left there by a Train Conductor like him?
Or had another Train Conductor once reached this stop too, only to remain here forever?
"Could we not be the first group of survivors?"
Ye Qiyan's mind was full of questions, but no one could answer them for him.
"Could this silverware be for fighting vampires?"
In a corner of the shop, he also found a crossbow.
Ye Qiyan put it into his backpack along with the bolts.
"So heavy."
After one last look at the monster's corpse on the floor, Ye Qiyan set off back.
Departure countdown: [35:33]
Returning to the train took longer than reaching the silverware shop had.
There were more monsters in town than he had imagined.
If the upgrade hadn't given him an extra hour, he probably would have had to force his way through those packs of monsters rather than return safely as he had now.
Zombie dogs, zombie chickens, zombie cats...
The only thing he hadn't seen was a humanoid zombie.
WALL-E wasn't back yet, and Ye Qiyan was in no hurry to leave.
There was still plenty of time, so he sorted through what he had gathered at this stop so far.
[Mithril Crossbow Bolts] (Level 2) [Deals triple damage to vampires] [Mithril Cross] (Level 2) [Pray. Perhaps it will help?] [Mithril Ritual Sword] (Level 2) [Inflicts damage on vampires that cannot be healed]
Apart from these three items, he recycled the remaining odds and ends at the Processing Table, ultimately obtaining 10 kilograms of mithril.
With this much, he could have become a modestly wealthy man in his former world.
Of the three mithril weapons, Ye Qiyan picked up the cross, thought for a moment, and began its ascension.
[Stamina: 55] [Holy Church Mithril Cross] (Level 3) [Can release holy light in darkness, dealing tremendous damage to beings such as vampires/evil spirits/demons.]
As for the other two, to be honest, Ye Qiyan felt that since he couldn't even aim a pistol properly, his aim with this crossbow would probably be even worse. As for fighting vampires in close combat, he knew his limits.
He hung the cross at the front of the train and casually opened the trading platform. To his pleasant surprise, someone had actually accepted the trade he had posted.
"Someone really bought it."
Looking at the shiny Train Coins in his hand, Ye Qiyan grabbed a piece of fruit and opened the chat interface as he ate.
By this time, the other Train Conductors had all left their platforms.
[Chat room] [Members: 7,825/10,000]
More than a thousand people had once again remained at their third stops forever.
And those who survived still had to face the challenges of survival.
Food, water, and medicine.
Only a minority had these necessities, after all.
As for those who wanted to work hard to upgrade their trains, they were an even tinier fraction of that minority.
Before you continue