Volume 1, Chapter 26: A Crucial Lead

Since the elderly priest can use items, his identity as a player is confirmed.
In other words, could the team leader be the elderly priest?
Damn!
If that’s the case, he’s in danger.
If he could deduce that the priest was a player through the use of an item, couldn’t the Sheriff, who is the God-Slayer, do the same!?
But the next moment, Qin Shang heard faint footsteps coming from nearby.
Then, two figures walked into the compartment.
“Come out. We’ll speak quietly; he can’t actually hear us.”
They’re both alive?
What is going on?
How could this be?
If “Cow Grandpa cosplaying a maid to seduce Strong’s mom” is a passenger and the priest is the team leader, then without a doubt, the Sheriff must be the God-Slayer.
Does the God-Slayer not need to attack players during the second round?
If “Eagle of Justice” is the God-Slayer, wasn't that the perfect opportunity to kill the elderly priest just now?
Why didn’t he strike?
“And that red-dressed phantom—there’s something off about that thing, too. Did it come to the front carriages during the first round as well?”
“Then why didn’t it attack the players directly? When I was moving between the first and second carriages, I was making quite a lot of noise!”
“What was preventing it from acting?”
“But that thing still snuck into the second carriage and ate the corpses of ‘Handsome Enough to be Hacked’ and ‘Green Everyone Who Touches Me’!”
Qin Shang felt like his head was about to explode.
However, he still instinctively pulled “Cow Grandpa” out from under the bed.
Outside, the “thump-thump-thump” of footsteps suddenly grew louder again. It seems that once night falls, that ghastly thing patrols and wanders through the third carriage frantically, with knocking sounds and footsteps accompanying it from time to time.
Qin Shang frowned, stopping the Sheriff—who had a look of wanting to say something—with a shushing gesture.
Just then, the elderly priest raised his hand, signaling everyone to look at him.
Then, the priest took out a small fluorescent marker and began writing on the floor.
Immediately, a line of glowing text appeared before everyone’s eyes.
A fluorescent marker?
Qin Shang’s eyes widened; he hadn’t expected the priest to have such a thing!
A large line of text on the floor read…
“Let’s use this pen to communicate!”
The group looked at each other, and Qin Shang nodded slightly.
The Sheriff then took the marker from the priest and wrote a line on the floor.
“Why would a God-Slayer help us?”
As soon as the words were written, the Sheriff’s guarded gaze locked onto Qin Shang, filled with suspicion and threat.
This scene left Qin Shang feeling utterly bewildered.
???

I’m the God-Slayer?
I thought you’d discovered my Trickster profession.
Turns out you’re a real-life version of Kogoro Mouri—you have a brain but choose not to use it, just making wild, baseless deductions, right?
If I were the God-Slayer, I would have killed the little girl long ago while I was walking with Cow Grandpa.
Qin Shang rolled his eyes in annoyance and took the marker from the priest.
The moment his palm touched the pen, a new message popped up on his fluorescent blue attribute panel.
[Item Name: Fluorescent Marker]
[Function: Writing]
[Attributes: None]
[Quality: None]
[Note: A writing pen with a fluorescent function, an interesting little trinket obtained by a priest player while exploring other instances.]
“I am not the God-Slayer. I am a passenger.”
He scribbled rapidly on the floor.
At this point, Qin Shang had figured one thing out.
Clearly, the Sheriff wasn’t the only veteran player in the group; this elderly priest was one too.
Otherwise, how could this old man have so many strange little items when he hadn’t even figured out how his own inventory worked yet?
One moment a cross, the next a fluorescent marker.
Thinking about it, it was easy to judge that he wasn’t a novice.
When the priest first entered the [Death Train] instance, he hadn’t displayed the same anxiety as the middle-aged woman “Green Everyone Who Touches Me” or the hoodlum “Handsome Enough to be Hacked.”
Although calmness is the only rule for survival in such an environment, the priest had adapted far too quickly.
Moreover, he was the first to volunteer his profession skills after the Sheriff demanded everyone report theirs.
In other words, the priest knew how to use his character card without needing the Sheriff’s reminder.
Meanwhile, the little girl “Cow Grandpa cosplaying a maid to seduce Strong’s mom” watched blankly as the others communicated on the floor with the fluorescent marker.
Seeing what Qin Shang had written, the Sheriff’s suspicion only grew.
According to the information he had gathered, there had only been one player who had ever cleared the [Death Train].
The information from Mr. Yin that the person was called “Lick the Cockroach’s Jade Feet” certainly couldn’t be wrong.
That was why he suspected Qin Shang was the God-Slayer, an NPC who had died inside the instance…
But upon closer reflection, the logic didn’t hold up.
Mr. Yin said “Lick the Cockroach’s Jade Feet” was the only person to have cleared the [Death Train] instance, so he couldn’t possibly have died in it.
So the question arises…
Who exactly is this guy in front of me?
According to Mr. Yin, “Lick the Cockroach’s Jade Feet” had already died on the Path of the Gods, so who is this youth claiming to be him?
The next moment, the Sheriff, with a grim face, wrote another line.
“Then how did you know that one shouldn’t speak in this carriage?”
Qin Shang sneered.
Do you guys really treat exploring an instance like a walk in the park?
He took the fluorescent marker.
“The Hello Kitty in the second carriage was a clue; that thing didn’t fit the era of the background setting.”
“It must be a new clue provided by the Path of the Gods after the instance was corrupted, meant to warn players not to make noise in the third carriage.”
“Of course, it was just a guess at first. I just didn’t think there would be useless clues in the game. Since there was a Kitty cat in that carriage, it had to represent something.”
“Sure enough, after entering the third carriage, I made a simple attempt. If you don’t make noise, you won’t attract that thing’s attention.”
“It only hunts players when they move or speak.”
“I found this from the stickers on the window of the second carriage, and clues gathered from the diaries of Miss Mary and Captain Jack…”
Seeing this, the Sheriff and the priest felt their mouths twitch violently.
The Sheriff couldn’t help but sigh inwardly: how does this kid’s brain work?
When they had parted ways, they both thought the youth was scared out of his wits by the eerie instance, but who would have thought that staying in the first and second carriages would allow him to discover so many key clues.
If they had discovered this sooner, maybe “Kind Sister” wouldn’t have died…
Seeing their expressions, Qin Shang knew that the Sheriff and the priest’s exploration had been very basic.
And rightly so—without the Teacher profession’s translation skill, no one could read those diaries on the wall.
Thinking of this, Qin Shang suddenly froze.
Hiss!
I think I’ve figured out why the God-Slayer had to kill the Teacher in the first round!
“Did you guys enter the third carriage at the end of the last round? Did you find anything?”
“These bedrooms have no signs of ever being lived in, as if the train was freshly built and this carriage was immediately abandoned.”
“However, the door to the room at the very front was locked tight. Before that ghastly thing came, we explored the third carriage briefly and found a decaying corpse in the first bedroom.”
“The body was severely decomposed, so the Sheriff couldn’t even tell the gender. The other passengers are still missing. By the way, we found this…”
The elderly priest pulled out a notebook and tossed it to Qin Shang.
A notebook? Another diary?
Qin Shang was truly speechless, but considering it was the 19th century, when real-time communication wasn’t well-developed, it was normal for people of that era to have the habit of keeping diaries.
After all, two hundred years ago, people didn’t have many entertainment options.
When he first started dating Jiang Qiqi, his wife had even said she envied the lovers of that era when communication was underdeveloped.
She said, “Back then, carriages were slow, you could only love one person in a lifetime, and when things broke, they thought about fixing them first instead of just replacing them.”
[Exploration Progress: 75%]
The moment his palm touched the notebook, the electronic notification sounded in Qin Shang’s ears again.
He was stunned for a moment.
This diary increases exploration progress?
In other words, this thing is also a key clue?