Chapter 109 - Escaping from the Arcanum Train (II)
Editor: Kitty
Crow did not understand what Owl had said. He found that this man inexplicably carried himself in an imposing manner. To him, the man’s aura felt terrifying, like he was the train that charged towards the darkness, never to stop.
“It’s almost ti.”
Owl announced as he glanced out of the window of the train carriage with thoughts in his mind.
The train whistled forward, the entire carriage shaking slightly. Outside the window, it was pitch dark. It seed like the train was passing through a tunnel so dark outside the train that one was unable to see their fingers, as if the train was running in the primal chaos of another dinsion. In the dark, the lone train beca the only light source as it travelled.
They could only stay on this train for six hours. However, the train had 13 carriages in total, which ant that they must find a total of 13 keys for all the carriages, open each carriage, and finally reach the head of the train. They could only stop the train when they reached the train cab so that they could avoid the fate of a car crash-like ending.
To find the 13 keys, it would take a long ti, so Crow and Owl quickly reached a consensus and began to search the carriage. After searching, they found so noteworthy places in the carriage.
For example, each train car had a toilet and a crew lounge.
On the wall near the ‘crew’s lounge’ was a number plate with a big ‘13’ written on it. This was the train car number.
Many places in the carriage were vandalized by soone with so inexplicable words in red pen.
There was a large amount of blood on the corner of a table in the carriage. There were several strands of hair on the table as well, and the hair was very short and should belong to a male.
The carriage was full of garbage, lon seeds and peels, and so sticky and overturned soup. However, in the midst of the pile of garbage, there was a square area that was very clean. It was as if a big square object had once been placed there, so everyone else’s trash was sprawled around except in that area. But later, soone removed that object and left a clean and empty square area.
On the top part of the carriage was a steel fra for placing luggages, and it was stuffed with baggage of all sizes. There was not even the slightest empty space available. With the slight shaking of the train, so of the luggage that were placed slightly protruding outwards almost looked like they would fall out any ti.
Moreover, they found nothing unusual in the toilet and crew lounge in this train car. No valuable clues had been found.
“What do you think?” After Owl searched through the carriage, he turned to et Crow and began to exchange their views. Owl started first: “This is the 13th carriage, that is to say, this is the last carriage of the train. There is a door at both ends of the train car. I looked at the door behind . It has no handle, and there is a glass window on the door. Outside the window, everything is pitch black.”
“There’s no handle and no keyhole, right?” Crow asked.
“Yes. Maybe that’s how the ga was designed from the beginning.” Owl spread out his hands.
Crow frowned: “Who would use a train to play a prank on us? This thing is not cheap.”
After he cald down from panicking, Crow began to think and felt that sothing was wrong. Sothing was very wrong with the train.
“Think about it. Where’s the train heading to? It’s almost always dark outside, and there are no sources of light outside at all. Even if the train has been driving through the tunnel all this ti, it shouldn’t take that long. Where on earth would there be such a long tunnel?”
Owl narrowed his eyes and suddenly smiled, “On the contrary, I don’t think the train is in a tunnel. Maybe we are really in a different dinsional space, and this train is running in this dark space.”
Crow felt miserable regarding this mystifying idea of his: “Alright then, you an that we were all captured by aliens, and they were using us to play a ga and left us on a train in an inexplicable space?”
“This is pointless... friend,” Owl said, “We’d better try to stop the train first.”
They went to the tal door located at the corridor connection between the carriages. According to the note, there would be a ssage indicating the location of their key here.
T/N: Corridor connection: A gangway connection (or, more loosely, a corridor connection) is a flexible connector fitted to the end of a railway coach, enabling passengers to move from one coach to another without danger of falling from the train. (Cr: Wikipedia)
The tal door at the corridor connection looked very solid. There was also a glass window on the door, but it was made of frosted glass. Through this glass window, one could see the situation in carriage No.12, but only vague shadows could be seen.
“The note said that five people would be involved in a ga to escape from the secret chamber, but there are only two of us in this train car. Do you think there will be soone in the train car ahead?” Owl stuck onto the door, and his face was almost plastered to the small glass window on it as he tried to observe the situation in carriage No.12 but found nothing.
Crow was in a slightly gloomy mood and replied, “There must be soone there. But I don’t know whether they will be dead or alive—alright, stop looking. There are inscriptions on the door. You’re blocking it.”
Owl moved his body away and found a row of very small inscriptions on the tal door—
[There are actually three people in carriage No.13.]
[One of them was fated to be a victim.]
[The murderer killed him and hid the corpse.]
[The key to the door is in the pocket of the corpse’s pants.]
[Do you want to know where the key is?]
[Ask the murderer.]
These few phrases made the fine hairs of their bodies stand up, and goosebumps covered their bodies.
Almost at the sa ti, they stood up straight and stepped back. They leaned against the wall behind them together and glanced at each other.
Their eyes were full of anxiety and doubt.
Following that, both of them were strangely silent, but the silence lasted only a few minutes. Owl could not help but speak up first, “I don’t want to argue that I’m not the one, but when I woke up, I saw you sitting on the sofa reading a note...”
“Do you think I’m the murderer?” Crow interrupted him.
“But the door hinted to us that there originally should have been three people!”
Crow could hardly help screaming, “I know what you an! There were three people in our carriage. One of them was dead, and his body was hidden! Of course, he didn’t commit suicide and hide his own corpse after killing himself! So it can only be done by one of us! Am I right?”
Owl took a deep breath and said slowly, “I know, I know... I’m doubting you, and you’re... also suspicious of ? Is that right?”
Crow looked at him warily: “I did not notice you after I woke up until you caused so sound, and this is very strange, isn’t it? What’s more, you have said so things that I find inexplicable. You even said that you are not afraid. Which lunatic would not be afraid when his mories have been seized and he’s been thrown on a train with no rhy or reason?”
“That’s because I think it’s just a ga!” Owl growled, took a deep breath again, and swept a sharp gaze at Crow: “Calm down. Now, we have yet to even see the corpse. We don’t know whether the hint written on this damned stupid door is making things up or not!
“Besides, you have to understand that even if you throw three random people into an enclosed room, they will not just casually start to kill each other. There must be a reason, a motive behind the murder!”
Crow’s face was a little pale. He took a deep breath, and he tried to calm his racing heartbeat. Then he said, “I see what you an. Indeed, the hint given by this door may also be false, to let us suspect and even kill each other... Isn’t there always such a plot in suspense novels and movies?”
“And!” Owl added in a loud voice, “Maybe there is a corpse, but soone had just purposely placed it here... Is it possible that those people who cramd us into this train car also hid a corpse sowhere in the train car and inscripted those words on the tal door, just like... how so story settings are deliberately designed.”
“So, don’t think about who the murderer is. Just find the corpse and the key first, right?” Crow said that, but he was still afraid to get closer to Owl. He retreated silently and said, “Then, we can start to think about where the corpse is.”
“You’re standing too far away from .” Owl remained where he stood, staring at Crow in silence.
“So what? I don’t want to stand too close to you.” Crow’s level of vigilance was too high, and any abnormalities of Owl would cause him to retreat and step backwards. He felt that he was like a bird startled by the re twang of a bowstring now, but he was unable to stop this behavior of his because as long as he thought that the man who stood beside him might be a murderer, he would be lying to say that he was not afraid!
“Crow...” When Owl called Crow’s na, it seed that he lowered his tone, and he said softly, “You are too agitated. I won’t hurt you. I’m even thinner and smaller in size than you are, so... don’t move too far away from .”
“I’m not agitated.” Crow looked very calm, but his face had turned white, and he was not breathing properly: “I just think we should keep so distance between us.”
After a mont’s pause, Owl had to compromise: “Okay, we’ll keep so distance.”
Owl did not seem to like keeping a distance. He seed to want to get close to Crow. Maybe he was also afraid of sothing. But Crow did not give him the chance. When they started searching for the hidden corpse in the carriage, Crow would constantly pay close attention to the distance between him and Owl.
In this very tense and suffocating situation, they started a thorough search of the entire carriage No.13. They looked through all the places where soone could hide a corpse but soon found that there were too few places capable of hiding a corpse in this carriage.
The toilet and the crew’s lounge were empty, and the spaces were so narrow that with a re glance, one was able to see their entirety. There was absolutely no place for soone to hide a corpse. As for those sofas in the carriage, they were so densely packed together that only one hand could fit underneath them. Unless the corpse was amputated and its pieces packed separately into bags, there was no room to hide a corpse.
“Where on earth is that body hidden?” Owl looked to be a little irritated. He began to tear off a sofa cover, and the whole white cover was pulled away.
“There’s no place to hide bodies.” Crow sat on a sofa far away and answered him.
“Could it be that the body has been dismbered?” Owl guessed.
But Crow rejected: “I don’t think it’s possible. There would be many traces of bloodstains if the corpse was dismbered, but the toilet is clean and there is no blood on the ground... Well, if one of us is really the so-called murderer, I an, if you’re the murderer...”
“Hey! I said I didn’t kill anyone!” Owl did not like the way the other party constantly looked at him as if he was a murderer.
“Well, if I was the murderer, and I had just killed soone...” Crow had to change the way he phrased his words: “I don’t know whether this person is a man or a woman, whether they are tall or short, but I killed them. I want to hide them in this damned carriage. Where can I hide people here...”
Almost as if he were speaking to himself, Crow raised his head and looked around. Perhaps he had been influenced by Crow’s character, but even Owl began to look around. Then, coincidentally, the two n raised their heads at the sa ti and looked at the strong luggage racks near the top of the carriage.
“Don’t you think that the luggage is too tightly packed?” Owl said as he tilted his head.
“Oh, I think so too actually,” Crow echoed.
T/N: Please note that the author uses ‘train car’ and ‘carriage’ synonymously, so I’ll keep it this way. The words an the sa thing. (Also please note that this chapter is not edited, the edited version will be up tomorrow, because Kitty is busy today.)
Edit [25/9]: The edited version is up.
I would like to thank soapy and Kofi-Supporter for the Kofis!! The two bonus chapters will be up either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Thank y’all for understanding!
Also, thank you guys for the comnts as well, reading comnts from you guys really make my day.
Reviews
All reviews (0)