Players, Please Board the Train

Although three carriages had been lost, the train’s operation was not greatly affected. As it continued steadily onward, players in the other carriages began to stir.

The player in the room opposite Xu Huo came out.

This player hadn’t shown his face all day. After coming out, he spent a while in the living room, then walked over to the short-haired female player’s door and stood there for about half a minute.

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After half a minute, he turned and left, coming to a stop two paces from One-Eye’s door. He clearly intended to stand there as before, but One-Eye wasn’t about to let him. The instant the room door opened without a sound, the player was sent flying into the room behind him. The power of an item then pinned him against the wall, where he couldn’t get down.

He couldn’t get down, and neither could One-Eye get out. An invisible force blocked One-Eye inside the room. After testing it with his dagger and discovering that he couldn’t break through, he quickly changed tactics and used an item to melt a large hole in the room’s wall.

“You think you can trap me like this?” One-Eye sneered. But the moment he stepped outside, he covered his mouth and nose and immediately retreated into his room. Unfortunately, the room had been damaged and could no longer be used, so it couldn’t possibly keep the air out. He put on a protective face shield, leaped out of the room, and immediately paid to open the room next door.

But as soon as the door opened, the player pinned against the room flew toward One-Eye’s back like a magnet. He spread his arms and clasped One-Eye, and the two of them instantly stiffened like conjoined twins. More accurately, it was One-Eye who had stiffened. When he turned around, an item fell to the floor, and a powerful invisible force shoved the player behind him away.

However, the two of them had already entered the room by the time the player latched onto him. So even though the item separated them, the player only hit the room door, which had just closed.

With their view of the inside cut off, all that could be heard was a continuous series of sounds from a fight. At last, someone let out a scream, and then everything fell silent.

A few seconds later, the sounds of chewing and swallowing came from inside the room.

Daybreak came quickly.

The people staying in the rooms went out one after another. The signs of the fight were still there, and the short-haired female player called a train attendant to clean up. No one mentioned what had happened last night. Just as during the day yesterday, the female player sat in the middle, while the player with the mechanical dog went to the window to admire the scenery again.

The train attendant soon came to collect the two pieces of broken furniture, but turned a blind eye to the hole and the two rooms whose doorways were covered in blood.

One-Eye had died last night. Shangguan Xi couldn’t hold back any longer and finally opened that room, only to shut it again two seconds later.

“Damn, there’s nothing left except the parts you can’t eat.” He walked over to Xu Huo and lowered his voice. “What do you think he was doing, standing outside the door for a while last night?”

“Maybe he was fishing,” Xu Huo replied. “Waiting to see who was stupid enough to come out.”

At that, all three players present turned to look at him.

Xu Huo simply said, “It’s safest to stay in your room at night.”

That was what he said, but who knew what kind of item that Player-Eater had? Staying in a room might not be safe either.

“Will he come out again tonight?” Shangguan Xi asked quietly.

“Maybe he was full after last night.” Xu Huo planned to go to the dining car for breakfast and asked if he wanted to come along.

Shangguan Xi glanced warily at the Player-Eater’s tightly shut door, then followed him. Once they had left the carriage, he said, “Should we switch carriages? A Player-Eater who’s made it to C-grade must have some powerful items.”

“Switching wouldn’t necessarily be safer,” Xu Huo said. “There’s only one Player-Eater in Carriage Sixteen. The other carriages are anyone’s guess.”

They happened to pass Carriage Seventeen. Everything in the carriage that could be smashed had been smashed. Bloodstains were scattered everywhere across the floor, and there were even things that looked suspiciously like internal organs lying around. It wasn’t clear how many players were still alive there, but two of them clearly had no interest in the food provided by the train. They sat on a sofa, with a row of crystal glasses set on a table smeared with blood. Each glass was filled with a scarlet liquid.

When they saw the two, one of them raised his glass in greeting and drained it in a single gulp. His greedy, frantic manner made the liquid spill over, dripping from the corners of his mouth onto his clothes.

It wasn’t a pleasant sight.

Xu Huo ignored their hungry, almost threatening stares and walked into the dining car behind them as usual.

Shangguan Xi looked uneasy. Only after sitting down did he say, “We should eat in the carriage from now on.”

There was no one in the three carriages behind Carriage Nineteen, so only Carriage Eighteen and the two carriages ahead of it used this dining car.

Yesterday, Xu Huo had seen four people in the dining car. Today, the pair of players who looked like a couple were absent. The female player who was reading and the bandaged male player were still in their usual seats, and two more injured people had appeared. It wasn’t clear whether they had come from Carriage Eighteen or Carriage Seventeen.

Things weren’t much better in Carriage Eighteen, where only two people were still alive.

As players’ levels rose, the infighting among them had clearly become more intense.

By the time the train attendant had passed through the carriage and brought breakfast to the dining car, the two Player-Eaters from Carriage Seventeen had also arrived. They sat at Xu Huo and Shangguan Xi’s table, one on either side, and stared at them.

Almost as soon as they sat down, Shangguan Xi tensed up involuntarily and entered a state of readiness. The cutlery in his hands had also been replaced with an item.

That made the two Player-Eaters laugh. The short-haired man on the left stood up and started moving toward them. Just then, Xu Huo lightly tapped his plate and looked up, meeting the man’s gaze. “I think you’d better not disturb us while we’re eating. What do you think?”

The short-haired man let out a “Ha” and turned to speak, but the dining table that had been right in front of him suddenly seemed to slide farther away. He and the table appeared to be at opposite ends of a tug-of-war. Xu Huo and Shangguan Xi, seated beside it, were instantly pulled backward, and he himself was forced to retreat as well!

“Thud!” The short-haired man staggered two steps and crashed into the table behind him. When he looked at Xu Huo again, his expression shifted. He glared at Xu Huo through clenched teeth for two seconds, then turned and went back to his carriage.

His companion didn’t understand what had happened, but had enough sense to know better. He gave Xu Huo a wary look, then left as well.

The mental interference lasted only a few seconds. Shangguan Xi didn’t understand what had happened either. He looked back and forth, his face full of questions, as though he wanted to ask something. But just then, the female player sitting behind them came over. “Can I sit here?”

Xu Huo glanced at the book in her hand. She understood his meaning and put it away before sitting down. She glanced at the table, then said, “There’s a fish dish among the breakfasts provided by the train. It tastes pretty good. Why don’t I treat you two to some?”

Xu Huo said nothing, so Shangguan Xi replied, “No, no, we ordered enough for ourselves.”

The female player giggled. “How am I supposed to keep the conversation going if you say that? Now I feel awkward sitting here.”

She had a uniquely warm and approachable air about her, and Shangguan Xi smiled too.