Tracking Squad

Ji Xun's professional acting skills easily fooled the searching eyes.

But he did not rush to board the train. Instead, he deliberately walked around the carriages.

He wanted to inspect the train.

If something unexpected happened, how would he escape after getting on?

But after making a full circuit, Ji Xun realized this train was unusual.

It was a sixteen-car steam train. The carriages were far wider than trains from his previous life, like a plump Ironclad Beetle.

Even more exaggeratedly, the locomotive had a metal ram shaped like a demon's head, and every carriage was fitted with heavy steel armor plates secured by thick rivets. There were not even any windows, only ventilation openings covered with iron sheets. Even the tanks from his previous life probably did not have defenses this outrageous.

From the looks of it, it was naturally built to guard against monsters.

After all, the armored plates still bore claw marks left by some unknown creature, along with dried, blackened bloodstains.

It was safe, but it was not ideal for Ji Xun.

Getting on it would be like crawling into an iron barrel. It seemed there would be nowhere to run.

For a moment, Ji Xun hesitated. Was the risk of leaving by train too great?

"Huh? Was that Extraordinary Trait surging from that guy just now? Living people can have that stuff too?"

Ji Xun did not know whether his eyes had deceived him. While observing the train, he seemed to glimpse an irregular Extraordinary Trait rising briefly from someone boarding amid the crowd.

It looked like they had lost control?

But it vanished in an instant.

He did not know whether he had seen it wrong.

By coincidence, as Ji Xun inspected the train, he overheard two people arguing nearby.

One seemed to be a station administrator, while the other was a man in a trench coat and hat who was trying hard to persuade him of something.

"Delay the train's departure? Why?"

"An order from Upper City? Oh, looks like some Great Figure has arrived at our Demon Cross camp."

"Heh. If your Blackwater Mercenary Group wants to kiss the asses of those noble lords in Upper City, go ahead. Our Hunter's Guild isn't interested. If there's something going on, say it plainly. Stop fucking hiding things. A 'Great Figure,' my ass. That doesn't work here! Unless monsters attack the camp, no one gets to stop the train!"

Ji Xun had only caught fragments of the conversation, but he understood the situation.

The man in the hat wanted the train staff to delay departure, but the station administrator mocked him relentlessly.

Ji Xun found it strange. "Isn't the Cao Family the governor of Sinless City? They don't even have the authority to stop a train?"

This had been his greatest concern.

He had feared that the Cao Family's young master would use his authority to seal off the entire camp and search everyone one by one. If that happened, he would be a turtle trapped in a jar.

But now, it seemed the governor's influence was not that great after all.

The hunters of Sinless City had some backbone.

No wonder Ninth had told him to leave by train. She must have known long ago that the Cao Family could not stop it.

"Woo... woo..."

Just then, the train whistle sounded.

"Board now! We're leaving!"

The hunters still smoking, chatting, and fooling around beneath the carriages heard the whistle and began calling to one another as they boarded.

Seeing that, Ji Xun stopped hesitating and squeezed onto the train amid the crowd.

The moment he entered the carriage, Ji Xun frowned.

A train without windows smelled overwhelmingly bad.

The hunters probably found it difficult to bathe while out in the wild. Sweat, feet, smoke, corpse blood, and all kinds of strange odors were mixed together. Hot air rushed into his face, making the carriage feel like a stuffy, reeking sauna.

Yet the hunters inside were clearly used to it. Some wore Gas Masks meant for expeditions to filter the odors, while others continued eating and drinking as usual, looking completely immune to poison.

But after seeing that, Ji Xun thought the environment was actually advantageous.

Ninth had used an Odor-Removing Potion earlier because she was afraid someone might track them by scent.

That meant this world definitely possessed Extraordinary Powers that enhanced the sense of smell.

So, in Ji Xun's eyes, the Odor-Removing Potion itself was a flaw.

Using it earlier had been fine.

But if someone truly came after them now and found one person who smelled unusually clean amid a crowd of smelly people, suspicion would immediately arise.

The foul smell inside the carriage happened to conceal that flaw.

Each carriage was packed with roughly two or three hundred people, without even seats. All the smells had already blended together.

More people continued squeezing aboard, and Ji Xun followed the crowd deeper into the carriage.

Just as Ji Xun boarded, several groups also hurried onto the train.

The Cao Family's influence had failed to make the Hunter's Guild halt departure, so the Blackwater Mercenaries had no choice but to board as well and see whether they could find the targets.

Just as Ji Xun had predicted, even if the Cao Family's young master knew that the "T-Class Cataclysm Source" in the Alternate Dimension had been taken, he would not publicize it.

After all, if only he knew about it, then even if it had been lost, he could slowly find a way to recover it.

But if the news spread, far more people would covet that thing.

No matter whose hands it fell into, it would become harder to retrieve.

So he could only send people to search in secret.

In Carriage One, an elite four-man reconnaissance squad hurried over and boarded the train.

There was a crew-cut burly man in a military-green vest, a Brown-haired woman in black leather who still possessed considerable charm, a skinny man playing with a dagger, and finally a sleazy man with a red nose.

"Boss, what kind of mission is this? Why were we summoned so urgently?"

"An emergency assignment from above. We have to find two people on this train."

"Who?"

"A man and a woman."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Fuck, everyone on this train is either a man or a woman. We can't possibly arrest them all, can we?"

After discussing it, all of them felt a headache coming on.

But that was all the intelligence their leader had provided.

"I do know one clue. Someone from the group sent word just now—the Alternate Dimension at 407 has disappeared."

"What dimension?"

"407."

"No way. Someone cleared that place? I heard about it from the others. There were several B-Class Calamities inside. Even we might not be able to handle them, and there was an entry-level restriction. Card Master Apprentices could never clear it!"

"The news hasn't spread yet. But that is the truth."

"Oh? Wasn't that Alternate Dimension guarded by our people? So the leader got fooled, and it wasn't our people who cleared it?"

At that, the four of them all understood roughly whom they were looking for.

Anomaly 407 Containment Facility had been discovered first by the Blackwater Mercenaries. It was practically their private property.

In their eyes, outsiders had taken treasure that should have belonged to their group. Naturally, they could not let them go.

"The leader gave a death order. We must find those two. I'm guessing something extremely important was lost."

"That Alternate Dimension produced plenty of rare materials and even Silver Cards. If it was truly cleared, it might have produced a Gold Quality Demon Mark. We definitely can't let them escape."

"Yeah. Someone stole our things, so the leader is probably furious. No wonder this mission is so urgent. I was hunting Mutated Monsters in the ruins just now and got recalled immediately."

"The situation might be worse than we thought. The leader said to spare no expense! This concerns the life and death of the Blackwater Mercenaries!"

"Huh? Life and death? Is it really that serious?"

The group immediately realized the severity of the matter and vaguely guessed something.

But urgent or not, there were thousands of people on the train. Finding one man and one woman sounded like a complete fantasy.

"With so little information, how the fuck are we supposed to find them?"

"Old Dog, stop complaining. Besides, we don't have no clues. First, they only left the Alternate Dimension half an hour ago. They may still carry a special scent, and they boarded within the last half hour, so pay attention to those without seats. Second, Card Master Apprentices. Third, height. Fourth, they may be alone or traveling in pairs. If we look carefully, that's enough to find them."

"Boss, you're making this too hard for me. The smell in this carriage is so bad my nose is about to pass out, and you still want me to find people?"

"The higher-ups gave a death order. Use that Ultimate Card."

"Really? If I use it, my nose will be useless for months. And that card wasn't easy to get."

"Use it!"

Hearing the captain's words, the red-nosed man reluctantly took out a card with a hunting dog drawn on it.

He pursed his lips and shouted softly, "Release!"

The Hexagram Formation on the back of the card lit up with blue light. The contained Extraordinary Power fused into his body, and the red-nosed man immediately began to change.

A series of cracking sounds came from his growing bones as the red-nosed man suddenly grew a foot taller. Even stranger, his face slowly protruded outward and turned into a long-nosed dog's face.

At a glance, the red-nosed man now resembled a lean hunting dog standing on two legs.

Old Dog reluctantly pulled up his hood to cover his face and muttered, "Boss, I'll take a walk through the carriages first."

Meanwhile, Ji Xun was playing cards with the hunters in the carriage.