Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 861: The Chef’s Gift

Chapter 861: Chapter 861: The Chef’s Gift

Excessive blood loss.

This player had no visible external injuries, and judging from the traces of blood flow, it would have taken at least five to ten minutes for a player to die from blood loss. Such a long time usually couldn’t be achieved with props and characteristics unless someone was continuously restraining the player. However, if that were the case, not everyone in the carriage should have been annihilated; there should have been at least one survivor, otherwise the player wouldn’t have died from excessive blood loss.

But the person did die.

His mouth was clean, whereas the mouth of the player who had been skinned had traces of blood and human tissue.

Xu Huo tried using the Appraisal Fork on this player and concluded that he had not been poisoned and there were no anesthetic components in his body.

"The Cannibal Player actually died from overeating!" another female player declared as she ripped open a corpse’s clothes, "For a moment I thought she was pregnant."

The others found her actions somewhat revolting and quickly averted their eyes.

Xu Huo walked over and saw two teeth inside the ruptured stomach.

Now the situation was quite clear.

"Were they killed by someone from the front carriage?" Xiao Xianglin pointed at the bodies, "None got away."

"It doesn’t look like it," Xu Jinfeng remarked, "Wasn’t someone killed by overeating? How could a normal person not know when to stop eating? Most likely, they were trapped in hallucinations and kept eating, ultimately bursting themselves."

"You’re not suggesting it was me, right?" the female player flicked her hair.

Xu Jinfeng looked at her with suspicion but did not advance any further; instead, he stepped back to maintain some distance.

The female player snorted in disdain, seemingly unconcerned about the others, and turned back to rest in her carriage.

"This section had no one coming in or out last night," declared a player arriving from the front, pausing before adding, "Be careful, everyone."

Watching him return to his own carriage, Xu Huo then spoke, "What should we do? Should we divide into two carriages? Since there’s no one here."

"I’d rather go back!" Xiao Xianglin waved his hands immediately, "Everything’s fine in the other carriages, only this one is completely wiped out, you can tell it’s bad luck!"

The remaining players didn’t voice their opinions, but after inspecting this carriage, they all left.

Xiao Xianglin lingered behind last, fumbling around the bodies, and eventually spoke with a grim tone, "So many dead and not even a prop to scavenge!"

Xu Huo glanced at him and was the last to step out of the blood-smeared carriage, casually closing the door behind him without securing it.

After leaving, he washed his hands in the restroom, then went to the attendant’s corridor and asked if the restaurant was open today.

"Of course, sir, would you like to book a meal for lunch?"

"Do you still have the same set menu from the day before yesterday?" Xu Huo inquired.

"No," the attendant replied, "That was a special dish for the chef’s birthday, not usually sold."

"I thought it tasted quite good. Do you have anything similar you’d recommend?" Xu Huo handed over a thick stack of White Notes.

This time, the attendant didn’t accept the money but instead said, "I can ask the chef for you."

"Thank you."

Xu Huo returned to his carriage, closed his eyes to rest for a while, and waited until noon. The attendant didn’t show up again, and he knew there would be no follow-up.

The events on this train were chaotic.

First, there were the players’ inexplicable stupors, followed by the beheadings in three carriages that occurred after the comas.

Secondly, the collective hallucinations of players, what he had seen on the first night must have been a hallucination, and right after hearing a ghost story last night, Xu Jinfeng immediately experienced a corresponding hallucination, as well as all the players in the previous carriage dying.

Just looking at the comas and beheadings, the perpetrator could be someone from the last three carriages.

But Xu Huo saw human figures, felt a shadow-like sense of crisis during the second day, and though Xu Jinfeng’s vision of hallucinations is uncertain yet, at least two people in the front carriage died because of hallucinations.

There was no trouble the night before last, but last night it was a total wipe out.

On one hand, it might be due to the deepening hallucinations, and on the other hand, it could very well be a food-related issue.

After boarding the train, the players ate mostly the same things, and yesterday Xiao Xianglin and the others concluded that the killings of the blonde female player and the old man were not related to whether they bought the set meal or not. The biggest difference in the players’ meals on the train wasn’t the set meal but the complimentary pudding received.

Most people had ordered the set meal, but only those who were given a gift received pudding.

Meal trays had already been collected, and he couldn’t confirm whether any passengers in the front carriage ate the pudding, but considering the situation between the front and rear carriages, his carriage was faring the best.

If the train hadn’t provided special food, then the existing circumstances might have been caused by an Advanced Player, covering such a large area with props or characteristics wouldn’t be a problem.

And if the pudding indeed was a "gift" from the chef, then the occurrences on the train could have other reasons besides the infighting among players, possibly a grand external factor causing everyone to fall into "sleep" or "hallucinations" simultaneously.

This isn’t hard to understand, like being in a special magnetic field where one might see images from the past or hear sounds; if the train was passing through a similar place, the situation would only be worse than merely seeing or hearing, thus scenarios of "overeating to death" and "bleeding to death" are also not impossible.

However, this latter speculation didn’t have much basis, and it was becoming difficult to talk to the attendants, so Xu Huo leaned towards the former explanation.

Assuming there indeed was such a person on the train, whether the opponent used props or characteristics to make players kill each other or did the deeds themselves, both earlier and later scenarios were probable and the best current course of action would be to distance oneself from the crowd.

Likewise, if such a player didn’t exist, then being alone was relatively safe.

Of course, the worst scenario would be a combination of both, with an Advanced Player committing murder on board while a special situation only known to the train staff was occurring.

The danger level of having ten or more Level-D players, possibly even Rank-C players, mercilessly killing each other until death without coming to their senses already exceeded that of jumping from a train with an Alien aboard.

Xu Huo made his way through the empty carriage to the fourth carriage.

Just looking through the window, it was obvious this carriage had sustained minimal casualties; Xiao Xianglin once mentioned after going out to market on the first day that there were not few people on this train, the fourth carriage showed light signs of struggle, and the number of people exceeded half of the seat capacity.

His appearance at the door caught the attention of several players, but just then, the player he had seen before stood up; after he walked out, the other players withdrew their gazes.

Xu Huo raised an eyebrow and stepped back.

The male player who had sat cross-legged meditating at the station emerged from his door, inquiring in a friendly tone, "How was the situation in the back carriage?"

"People died," Xu Huo replied, "This place seems fine."

The man shook his head, "The fifth carriage almost had an incident last night too, but thankfully people were calm and nothing irreparable occurred."

Finding him easy to talk to, Xu Huo asked, "Did anyone in your carriage eat the pudding on the first day?"