Chapter 2013: Chapter 2013: Drowned
Everyone looked up and saw that translucent object, caught a hurried glimpse, and thought it was like a large rain sheet or a slimy creature like an octopus or jellyfish crawling quickly past. In any case, that thing moved through four train cars in a very short ti, leaving water stains wherever it passed.
"Is it raining outside, or does that thing carry its own rain?" soone asked impatiently, "Has anyone done an instance related to waterways? Can anyone recognize what kind of alien it is?"
"Related to water?" another person interjected, "Could the track be crossing an ocean or lake? That would be a land alien, don’t be misled!"
While so were pulling the others’ thoughts back, other players talked about their instance experiences, concluding that there were too many similar aliens in aquatic areas, impossible to pinpoint.
"The thing that just passed didn’t seem to have claws; there should be more than one type of alien attacking the train. Which car was just attacked, did any player co from the rear?"
No one responded to this question. Earlier, to protect the transition cars, almost all carriage doors were open. Although the front cars weren’t completely emptied, there was indeed so personnel movent, but hurriedly, they couldn’t see exactly which car the person ca from.
"Let’s check the front." A player imdiately walked forward.
Xu Huo lifted three tal boxes and followed.
The scratching sound ca from the second car, so when players from the rear cars arrived, players from the first car had already checked the front.
"All the staff on the train are missing." A female player with a red scarf raised the communicator in her hand, "The worse news is that the people on the train aren’t technically Dinsional Rift employees. Their training manual ntions that they can leave the train during Rank-B and above events."
"What Rank-B event?" soone asked, puzzled, "Last ti I took the train during a Dinsional Storm, the staff didn’t leave, so why leave for a Rank-B event now?"
"Dinsional Storm is different from an alien attack event." The red-scarfed female player said: "The way train staff leave the train is definitely similar to tickets. After a Dinsional Storm, surrounding spaces are unstable, how would they get out? Now the train has been forced to stop, even ga maintenance people would take quite so ti to arrive, you can’t expect them to die with the players."
The words were as they were, but everyone understood, Rank-B in the ga’s usual grading isn’t considered low; the train being forced to stop, staff directly evacuating, this implied a tough fight ahead.
"How did the players in the second car die?" Xu Huo asked after checking.
The window of the second car had a large hole now patched up, apart from scratch marks, there were water stains around the hole, inside and out, next to the bodies of three players, each looking as if they’d soaked in water.
"All three drowned." said the red-scarfed female player, a passenger from the second car, "The window must have been destroyed after the train stopped. So people from the second car went to check the front, leaving five behind, but when we returned, we only saw three corpses."
"Where did the other two go?" The female player from Xu Huo’s car also ca over, pointing to the boxes in Xu Huo’s hand, "Have you seen boxes like these before?"
"Related to the boxes?" asked another male player from the second car with a frown, "Earlier, a pair of twins boarded with identical boxes and got off before midnight. Their boxes were opened by soone, but I don’t know what was inside."
He said this while looking at the others in the sa car.
"Could the boxes be empty?" A curly-haired player hesitantly suggested: "The people who took the boxes were the two who left the car. I happened to see when they opened them. I previously thought they took the contents, but now the boxes are gone... could there be sothing tricky about the boxes?"
Everyone looked at the three identical boxes in Xu Huo’s hands.
"Should we open them?" the male player who spoke earlier suggested.
"Better not." the curly-haired player replied: "What if there’s so special potion inside that attracts aliens? Opening them would only be more troubleso, right?"
"Are you sure the window wasn’t destroyed before the train stopped?" Xu Huo asked.
"Are you implying we’re lying?" the male player responded unpleasantly.
"That’s not what he ans," the red-scarfed female player said: "He wants to determine whether the alien ca from outside or was released from the box."
"That small box can hold such a large thing?" soone found it unbelievable since what they saw nearly wrapped half a train car.
"Don’t rule out the possibility of rapid reproduction." Xu Huo pointed to the hole in the window, "If the alien actively broke into the car and killed these three, it’s more likely to remain in the car, attracted by the crowd. But if it escapes from the box and then leaves the car, it also makes sense. So far, that mass is just circling, not attempting to re-enter and kill, possibly due to its characteristics."
"Could also be a halfti break," remarked the female player behind Xu Huo, making an untily joke, then shrugged under others’ gazes, smilingly adding, "My characteristic can see a bit of people’s luck, rest assured, everyone here likely has a long life."
The others didn’t take her words seriously but split into three groups; one checked the front to see if the train could be restarted, one stayed to watch over the second car, including the opening and three boxes, while a third searched for the two players who left from the second car, preferably retrieving the two boxes they took.
Xu Huo naturally stayed in the second car. He checked the three players’ corpses once more; their stomachs were full of water, forcibly poured as if down their throats. What was more puzzling was the lack of resistance marks on their bodies, without props attached or held. Although the gas inside the boxes had a hypnotic effect, when the train stopped, all players were fully awake, hardly asleep as they drowned, and from the red scarf’s description, they died quickly and quietly.
The alien’s ability to directly breach players’ defense layers was astonishing enough, let alone killing them in such a short ti.
The female player who predicted long life squatted nearby, asking, "Were they poisoned? If the alien carried poison, it would explain a lot."
"Obviously not," the red-scarfed female player said, arms crossed, leaning against the window, "Any poison would leave traces, but they were drowned alive."
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