Volume 1, Chapter 27: The Truth

Qin Shang couldn't wait to unfold the diary.

[May 6th: It has been a long time since Elle sent me a telegram. I want to go to where she works. Priests of the Holy Church are not allowed to leave their posts easily. I escaped; from now on, I can only be a wandering priest.]

"A priest?"

Qin Shang instinctively glanced at the old man, "Buddha Favors the Destined," only to find both him and the sheriff staring at him with strange expressions.

He realized then that these two likely didn't understand English. Even though they had obtained this notebook first, they hadn't been able to decipher its contents.

Qin Shang’s mouth twitched.

Damn it, it feels like the skills of the "Teacher" profession are woven throughout this entire dungeon! And to think, the "Fraudster" is a profession naturally suited for clearing these instances. If "Don't Green Me" hadn't died, she would likely be the one with the most clues by now. After all, whether it was the diary of the personality-disordered Conductor Jack on the wall or the notebook the old priest found in another bedroom, everything was written in pure English. Unless one was a professional English student, it would be impossible to understand what these foreigners wrote without the [Decipher] skill.

The next moment, Qin Shang refocused his attention on the diary.

[May 8th: I have arrived on this train. There is a freak on board who calls himself Mary, yet he is clearly a man who spends his days wearing a red dress and playing the role of a flight attendant. The passengers seem to have become accustomed to it.]

[May 9th: I discovered something strange. I have not seen Elle. I have not seen her among the staff. Over these two days, I have walked through every carriage, and I have not seen her.]

[May 10th: Carriage Three! This train has a secret hidden in Carriage Three.]

[Elle once told me her break area was in Carriage Three, but I found that Carriage Three is not open. I asked the freak about it; he claimed ignorance, but his words were filled with fear. I believe Elle’s disappearance has everything to do with Carriage Three.]

[May 11th: I told the freak my identity and that Elle was missing. I think the freak might know some clues because the way he looks at me is filled with such terror, as if I were some kind of monster, but I cannot communicate with him.]

[May 13th: I found a diary on the train that records the freak’s identity. This guy is actually the captain of this train...]

A diary... Could it be the things he saw in carriages one and two? If one saw those, it would be easy to deduce that Mary and Jack were the same person. After all, the paper on the back was Jack’s psychological evaluation, and there was no attendant named Mary on the train at all; figuring that out wasn't difficult.

[May 14th: This is the first time since I boarded that I have seen the freak acting at night. He changed into men’s clothes, but took a shotgun and began wandering around the cabins. Is he patrolling?]

[May 15th: Someone has gone missing. If I am not mistaken, the freak did it. This lunatic hunts down anyone he sees moving in the corridor at night. He is completely mentally unstable...]

[May 16th: Someone else has gone missing—a child. I heard it happened when the train entered a tunnel. The freak spends more and more time in men’s clothes; does this mean his mental state is becoming increasingly unstable?]

[Although he cannot communicate when dressed as a woman, at least he does not commit the insane act of killing people with a shotgun.]

[May 17th: Taking advantage of the freak’s nightly patrol, I entered his lounge. Elle... Elle is dead. I saw Elle’s corpse. The murderer is that madman in the red dress. The freak is the one who killed Elle. I found the letter Elle wrote to me!]

The letter Elle wrote to me!?

Qin Shang’s heart trembled. Vane—this guy is the Vane from the letter prop of Elle!

[May 19th: Almighty Lord, please forgive my selfishness. Ignorant as I am, I still cannot fathom the truth. I don’t understand why that freak would hurt my Elle. I am going to conduct a trial. I am going to curse this train.]

A curse!? Reading between the lines, Qin Shang felt a bone-chilling hatred.

[May 20th: Legend has it that the Fallen Curse of the Holy See can resurrect a lover if offered enough blood. I cannot bear the sorrow of Elle’s departure. The silence of these passengers regarding Elle fills me with pain.]

[That madman showed signs of mental instability long ago, yet they did not pass a single word to the outside world. I will sacrifice them all!]

[May 21st: I succeeded. Elle has been resurrected, but she has become a half-human, half-ghost bloodthirsty wraith. She can only move within Carriage Three and craves blood.]

[Thus, I cast a curse: as long as anyone steps onto the journey of the Death Train, companions will keep disappearing around them.]

[May 22nd: I do not intend to kill Jack for revenge. I have roughly figured out the sequence of events. I curse his two personalities to be forever trapped in this place, going through an endless cycle, trapped for all eternity in endless fear.]

[Every beginning starts with Elle’s disappearance, followed by the awakening of the Mary personality, living in a world of terror.]

[Breaking the curse is simple: uncover the truth about the freak and stop the train from moving. As long as someone discovers the freak’s secret and breaks the cycle, the outcome of every passenger on the Death Train being wiped out can be prevented.]

[Please forgive my selfishness, Master of the Holy Church. I am not worthy to be a priest. I am a fallen one. The thing I regret most in this life is the cultivation the Holy Church invested in me. I am going to another world...]

The letter was signed by Vane.

At this moment, Qin Shang’s pupils constricted. Resurrection!? Did a priest from two hundred years ago have this kind of ability? He didn't know if the Death Train was a real occurrence or a fabrication of the dungeon. But if the priest in the background had this ability, did it mean that high-level player "Priests" could obtain this skill? Resurrection was truly an exaggeration, but recalling the [Decipher] and [Inheritance] skills he had used, Qin Shang felt his ability to accept supernatural phenomena had skyrocketed. Perhaps high-level "Priest" players really did have a resurrection skill.

He had no time to ponder this; a series of complex thoughts flashed through his mind like lightning.

I understand! I understand everything.

The next moment, Qin Shang pressed his lips together and stood up, walking straight out of the cabin. The old priest and the sheriff were both shocked. They tried to hold the young man back to prevent his impulsive behavior, but Qin Shang ignored them as if they didn't exist.

*Thump, thump, thump—*

At the same time, just as Qin Shang stepped out of the bedroom, a ghostly shadow stomped toward him with heavy footsteps.

Qin Shang stared coldly at the phantom until it was right in front of him. He suddenly sneered and said:

"I know the mystery behind the disappearance of the Death Train passengers!"

"It’s Elle. Every time passengers disappear, it’s because as they approach the destination, Jack falls into fear, begins his own 'trial,' and leads all the passengers into Carriage Three."

"The unjustly killed Elle, the undead resurrected by her boyfriend, is right here, waiting to judge these cold-blooded, heartless squires."

"In the eyes of Elle’s boyfriend, it was the inaction and silence of these people that indulged the freak, Jack."

"That is why every time the train departs, Jack and Mary’s two personalities essentially enter a cycle. No matter how the surrounding passengers change, the content of Mary’s diary never changes."

"That is why she wrote so many identical diaries day after day. The same goes for Jack."

"The memory of the Mary personality stays at the first few days of boarding. Once awakened, she returns to the day she first discovered Elle’s disappearance, realizes her colleague Elle is missing, and then, in a loop, reports it to the Jack personality."

"After that, the Jack personality, who gave himself the identity of a heroic dispatched soldier, begins patrolling and hunting innocent passengers at night, leading to the gradual loss of passengers."

"During the day, Mary wakes up, discovers the passengers are missing, and her fear deepens."

"Both personalities fall back into madness until, finally, following the priest’s curse, they begin to judge those cold-blooded, heartless passengers."

"As long as no passenger discovers the freak and steps forward to stop the train before he acts, the cycle of the Death Train cannot be broken."

"That is why every group of passengers is sent into Carriage Three at the end to face Elle’s massacre."

"No, to be precise, it’s not just Elle. As time passed, the Conductor Jack personality also developed issues."

"Perhaps this is the source of the contamination, causing Conductor Jack, the Mary personality, and Elle’s wraith to merge into a new creature."

"No, a monster!"