Exposure

"Clang, clang, clang."

The train started moving.

Finally, there was airflow from the vents, and the smell was much better.

The carriage was heavily armored, and the train wasn't moving fast, Ji Xun estimated about fifty to sixty kilometers per hour.

Jumping off wouldn't kill him.

At this moment, Carriage 15.

It was bustling with people.

For treasure hunters who risked their lives for money, there was no better entertainment than gambling and women.

"Come on, come on, one more spade and I'll have twenty!"

"Bust! Bust! Bust!"

"."

A table was cleared, and dozens of hunters surrounded it, enthusiastically playing poker.

They were playing cards, somewhat similar to Blackjack from his previous life.

Among the gamblers, Ji Xun, wearing a half-face gas mask, was also placing bets.

He cursed loudly when he lost money and his face turned red with excitement when he won.

Whether they knew each other or not, gamblers quickly became familiar when money was involved.

He originally had little interest in this kind of low-level gambling.

His deep involvement was not only to blend in with the crowd but, more importantly, to conceal his lack of a seat and companions, so as not to attract attention.

While playing cards, Ji Xun observed his surroundings and made some precautionary arrangements.

The carriage was very noisy.

Besides dirty jokes, the hunters' conversations also contained a lot of useful information.

Ji Xun listened with great interest.

"Old Chen, I heard you guys found an abandoned warehouse in the eastern suburbs of Demon Cross a few days ago and made a fortune."

"Ah, it's not really a fortune. It's just that this time, I'll have enough money to buy my son a better breathing technique."

"."

"Uncle Dong, have you found the transfer materials for your [Enforcer] sequence yet?"

"I found one piece, and it's quite good. I can transfer once I get back."

"Then congratulations in advance, Uncle Dong, on becoming a Spell Card Master. You'll have to look out for us little guys in the future."

"It's still early. I'll only be officially advancing to Spell Card Master if I can fuse without losing control."

"."

"Scarface, I heard your Iron Axe Gang found a rare black iron quality demon mark in that Alternate Dimension in the east district yesterday?"

"Tsk tsk, you're quite well-informed. [Ace of Hearts - Knight of Light], the mark has an excellent additional stat of 15% flesh and blood growth."

"Whoa, it even has an additional stat? That's amazing."

"It's not that amazing. As soon as we returned to camp, the manager from the Hessen Merchant Guild bought it for a little over a million."

"Holy crap!"

"Hahaha."

"."

These hunters chatted about their exploration experiences in Demon Cross, revealing a large amount of information.

Ji Xun listened silently, his understanding of this world growing with each passing moment.

"How the hell am I supposed to find them!"

Old Dog walked all the way from Carriage 1 to the back, searching and complaining furiously in his mind.

His demon mark was [4 of Spades - Beast Walker], his contract pointed to the great demon Ose, and his professional sequence also had beast transformation abilities.

Although his dog-headed beast transformation form wasn't very imposing, it gave him a sense of smell far superior to humans.

Because of this ability, even though his combat power wasn't strong, he had successfully secured a position with a fixed salary in the Blackwater Mercenary Group.

He usually did reconnaissance and tracking, which wasn't too dangerous.

Old Dog had been content with that.

But this mission was giving him a real headache.

Find one man and one woman among thousands of people on the train?

I'm looking for f***ing what!

The more sensitive his sense of smell was, the more he suffered on this train.

He felt like he was going to pass out from the smell after just checking eight carriages.

Ordinary people would only smell the stench, but after transforming, he could distinguish a hundred different kinds of foul odors within it. Smells like fermented food scraps stuck between teeth, the body odor of someone who hadn't bathed in days, the smell of stepping in feces with his shoes, the smell of rotting from a viral infection...

And the stench was only one aspect.

There were other problems too!

Who in Sinless City didn't have secrets?

There were too many dangerous individuals.

Even though their Blackwater Mercenary Group had some influence, if they really offended those guys, they'd still get beaten.

But fortunately, the only accurate piece of information was that the target was a Card Master Apprentice.

This narrowed down the search considerably.

Old Dog felt like he was being smoked to death.

It had taken him two hours to check these eight carriages. Along the way, he'd encountered several suspicious individuals, but after investigating, none of them were the one.

There were still eight more carriages!

However, his other teammates had also searched the carriages multiple times without any success, and the commander was getting more impatient.

He cursed under his breath but didn't dare complain, continuing his search forward.

Finally, he reached the fifteenth carriage.

Ji Xun was still engrossed in gambling with the crowd, the atmosphere hot and lively.

He had naturally noticed that over the past few hours, several groups of people passing by seemed to be secretly looking for someone.

But without exception, those people had overlooked Ji Xun in the crowd.

The entire train likely had four to five thousand people, and there were many lone individuals. How could it be easy to find him when he had already blended in with the gamblers?

The fact that he hadn't been found yet meant that the other party's intelligence was indeed limited.

It sounded like the train journey would take a total of ten hours. Once they got off in a few more hours, he would be much safer.

Ji Xun also secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

The reason he chose the fifteenth carriage was that it was close to the tail end of the train.

He had observed that if he could get the key from the train conductor, he could open the rear door of the sixteenth carriage, and there was a possibility of jumping off.

The armor of the steam train was very thick, but its locks were not as complex as the doors in the 407 Alternate Dimension he had been in before.

Ji Xun didn't steal the key. He merely glanced at it, and the ability of [Trickster] to remember everything he saw allowed him to easily memorize the exact structure of the key. During a break to use the restroom while gambling, he had already replicated a temporary key.

With multiple plans in motion, he had room to react even if he was discovered.

Ji Xun didn't let his guard down and continued to observe his surroundings.

The carriage was still noisy, but as he listened, he suddenly heard a story that sparked an idea in his mind.

"Hey, have you guys heard? The camp in the [The Ancient Silver Moon Altar] Alternate Dimension had an incident a couple of days ago."

"How could I not have heard? They say the Old Smoker Gang found an altar and discovered some ancient relic. Someone tried to pocket it, and then all thirty-odd people in the entire camp were killed. The Hunter's Guild even offered a reward of 100,000 for clues to the culprit."

"I heard a different version. It seems that person came into contact with the ancient relic, mutated into a monster due to loss of control, and then went on a killing spree. They say the dozens of bodies in the camp were gnawed to pieces. If it wasn't a mutation, why would anyone gnaw on corpses after killing people?"

"So, the Silver Moon Altar really yielded an ancient relic?"

"It seems so."

"Oh my, even a casually obtained Class I relic is worth hundreds of thousands. If you encounter a high-level one, you won't have to worry for the rest of your life. Why don't we have that kind of luck..."

"..."

During his few hours on the train, Ji Xun had already heard several similar stories about teammates in wild adventures betraying each other for equipment or killing for loot.

Such stories happened almost every day, and the hunters didn't consider murder and robbery to be anything unusual.

Survival of the fittest was the foundation of Sinless City.

Even more than how many people died, they were more curious about how much that relic was worth.

Ji Xun gradually began to understand why the governor's Cao Family couldn't even stop a train and why their restraint was so low.

It wasn't a problem with the power structure of this world.

It was a problem with the people of Sinless City.

Others who heard the story just marveled about the relic.

But Ji Xun's mind suddenly caught a keyword: loss of control?

After fusing with [JOKER] previously, he had gained a special ability: he could sense uncontrolled Curse Power in living beings.

The Curse Power of normal people was like body temperature, constant.

It was usually invisible to the naked eye.

Even if someone intentionally displayed it, it would appear as a uniform flame-like pattern.

Just before boarding the train, he had seen an anomaly once.

While observing the nearby carriages, he spotted the individual in carriage 16, the last one. This person was radiating Curse Power erratically, like "octopus tentacles."

Upon seeing this, Ji Xun paid extra attention.

He then confirmed that the person would leak energy irregularly at set intervals.

Ji Xun suspected this might be what they called "Curse Power Out of Control."

Normally, losing control of Curse Power would lead to monstrous mutations.

But strangely, that person hadn't.

This made Ji Xun even more curious, and he paid more attention.

He had previously thought his understanding was insufficient and he had misunderstood what "out of control" meant.

But after hearing the story of murder and robbery from earlier, he felt the person was increasingly suspicious.

Yes, Suspicious!

With this hypothesis and the given conditions, he immediately noticed more problems.

The person's choice to be in carriage 16, the last carriage, initially seemed like an ordinary passenger trying to be inconspicuous.

But now Ji Xun felt that perhaps this person, like himself, intended to jump off the train for convenience.

There was also the fact that the rear of the carriage rarely had people moving around, so anyone who deliberately came there would be easily identified.

And yet, this person had chosen a corner position directly facing the front of the carriage.

Inconspicuous, yet with an extremely wide field of vision, allowing them to see everyone coming and going.

Too many coincidences strung together meant it wasn't just coincidence.

All signs indicated this person possessed strong counter-reconnaissance awareness.

Combined with the story he had just heard.

Although there were thousands of people on the entire train, this was the only one experiencing Curse Power Out of Control.

Ji Xun suddenly put himself in their shoes: Could this person be the one who committed the murder and robbery?

The possibility seemed quite high.

The only way to leave the Demon Cross camp was by train, and there was only one every two days, so encountering them wasn't strange.

At the same time, if both were people on the run, it wasn't strange to meet at the back of the carriage.

Ji Xun thought of this, and his mind instinctively went to other possibilities.

But before he could ponder further, an anomaly occurred.

Suddenly, a tall, thin figure with a hood obscuring their face appeared in his vision.

This person wasn't walking fast, and their hood was shaking slightly, as if facial muscles were moving rhythmically.

Seeing this person, Ji Xun immediately became alert.

Sniffing for scents?

A supernormal with enhanced smell?

However, he remained outwardly calm, continuing to gamble amongst the crowd.

Even if they were looking for someone, they might not be able to find him.

The hooded figure seemed not to have noticed anything and walked straight past.

A short while later, in carriage 13.

The three members of the Blackwater Mercenary Group's four-person reconnaissance team met, all with troubled expressions.

They had been searching for several hours and had found a few potential targets, but upon confirmation, none were the people the group was looking for.

"Boss, could it be that the person isn't on the train?"

"Whether they're on the train or not, we have to search. The Commander just issued a death order; if we don't find them this time, there will be big trouble!"

"How big?"

"We'll be taken to see him, heads on a platter."

"Hiss... what's going on?"

"I'm starting to understand now. It's probably not the Commander who's anxious, but someone else."

"Oh?"

"Who do you think is paying the Blackwater's salaries right now?"

"You mean the Cao Family from the Upper City?"

"..."

The more they talked, the more dire the situation seemed.

And at this moment, the person with the bulbous nose suddenly returned.

The burly man quickly asked, "How is it, Old Dog? Find anything?"

Old Dog took off his hood, revealing a dog's face that was gradually becoming more human-like. He reported, "Boss, I found something! In carriage number 15!"

Upon hearing this, the three men's gazes all shifted in that direction.

Old Dog continued, "When I went over there, I detected a peculiar scent among the crowd. It was the demonic aura left behind by Calamities of B-Class or higher. The scent was faint, suggesting that an Odor-Removing Potion was recently used. However, the stimulating properties of the scent were still present, clearly indicating it was recently acquired, likely from someone who hadn't been out of the Alternate Dimension for long. But carriage 15 is crowded, and the scents are too mixed, so I couldn't be sure which one it was. I just felt it was likely someone from that group playing cards. I was afraid of being discovered and causing trouble, so I came back first."

"Well done."

Hearing this, the burly man and the other two's expressions lit up.

Their intuition told them they might have found a crucial lead.

If it were an ordinary hunter, even one fresh out of the Alternate Dimension, there would be no need to use an Odor-Removing Potion.

Furthermore, B-Class Calamities were rare in the wild, and it just so happened that space 407 had one!

The timing also matched!

Someone in carriage 15 was definitely suspicious!

Without delay, the burly man directly ordered, "Rose, you go take a look. See if you can pinpoint the person using your sixth sense."

The woman in the leather outfit nodded. "I'll try. The carriage is locked, so the target range is smaller. If it's just a Card Master Apprentice, it should be fine."

The burly man said, "Good. Once you confirm, don't alert them. Wait for me to act. Since that guy managed to escape from the Guild Leader and the others, he must have some tricks up his sleeve, so don't underestimate him. Also, try not to cause too much of a commotion; use hypnosis to finish it quickly. If you make a big scene in the carriage, the Hunter's Guild will get involved."

The woman in leather nodded. "Okay."

As soon as he finished speaking, the burly man instructed the scrawny man playing with a dagger, "Xiao Wu, you go to carriage 16 first. Be wary of that guy trying to jump off the back of the train. If you really can't control him, cripple his legs. We just need him alive over there."

The scrawny man frowned upon hearing this. "But boss, is it really okay to draw blood on the train?"

The burly man also seemed a bit helpless. "We can't afford to worry about that now. Let's catch the person first."

He then instructed, "Old Dog, you go last. Don't show yourself yet. That way, the person won't be alerted."

Old Dog replied, "Yes."

As soon as they conferred, the group immediately began their actions.

Meanwhile, Ji Xun watched the cloaked figure wander around and then leave, initially not thinking much of it.

He figured it was like the previous few groups, who left after finding nothing unusual.

However, not long after.

Ji Xun suddenly saw a scrawny man wearing a half-face gas mask walk past.

Although this person seemed to be merely passing by, without any unusual stops in carriage 15, and headed straight for carriage 16, Ji Xun immediately sensed something was wrong.

He now possessed the ability of photographic memory. Although the man was disguised, Ji Xun recognized him at a glance by the black leather dagger sheath on his waist: this guy had been here before!

Previously, this guy had been looking around and stopping everywhere, clearly searching for someone. He was most likely from the Blackwater Mercenary Group.

Now he was back, disguised, and leaving so decisively, which clearly indicated he had a purpose.

"Did they find me after all?"

Ji Xun's gaze sharpened, and he immediately made a judgment in his heart.

He harbored no illusions.

The worst-case scenario had indeed occurred.