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Chapter 119 - Escaping from Arcanum Train (XII)

Editor: Kitty

However, the experience of studying the corpse was very unpleasant because Crow and company were not able to find any information from it. It could be said that the deceased did not even have a penny to his name. But interestingly, when Crow lamented that their study of the corpse was not progressing in a positive direction, Two-headed snake suddenly came over and pulled at the clothes of the skinny corpse to reveal its back.

On the back of the corpse that was dripping with blood and mutilated flesh, there seemed to be carved words, that is, someone had carved the words using a knife. Although most of the corpse’s wounds had healed, one could still imagine the appalling scene when the words were being carved onto the corpse.

On his back, the words read—

[If you are lucky enough to succeed in your attempts to survive when you experience a maelstrom of hunger]

[You must know what it wants most]

“Hunger...” When Owl said this, his hands remained covering his stomach, and he said slowly and leisurely, “If I was so hungry to the point where I was reduced to nothing but a shadow, I’d definitely try to think of ways to eat my fill.”

“So what you meant is that the monster just wants to eat.” Crow frowned, mortified: “But it is dead now.”

Two-headed snake said, “Even if it was still alive, it would not be able to eat its fill. I’ll tell you, before the bunch of you came, there was still a lot of food in this carriage. And now, even if there were apple cores that someone had thrown aside after eating, it’d also be gobbled up by this fool.”

“And where will the key to the carriage be?” Crow fretted, as if to ask others as well as himself: “The monster will give us the key when he is full, but he has not enough to eat, and now he died—how troublesome. We’re now in a deadlock.”

Because they could not find any clues, the few of them began nervously circling around carriage No.9. There was nothing worth mentioning in this carriage. The layout of this carriage was similar to those first few carriages with odd numbers that they saw. Crow and the others dug out all the things that could be found, but even so, nothing substantial was found.

At this time, Mr. Wolf, who had always been a spectator, suddenly said something. He squinted his eyes and looked at all the people present. He said, “There must be something in this car that it hasn’t eaten. As long as it eats that thing, it will give us the key.”

“The whole carriage has been searched thoroughly. Where else could we find food?” Owl felt that Wolf was very unpleasant to his eyes and immediately refuted.

“That’s why I said you are really naive—” Wolf suddenly turned his eyes to look at Two-headed snake in front of him and sneered: “There’s such a big pile of food over here, and all of you just turn a blind eye to it?”

“You mean that Two-headed snake is food?” Crow understood what he meant and glared at Wolf in disbelief.

“Doesn’t he look like food?” Wolf continued to fiercely smile.

Crow was still in a state of shock. He subconsciously moved in front of Two-headed snake and said to Wolf, “He is a human being! How does he look like food?!”

“Haha—” Wolf laughed and looked at Crow sarcastically: “Who said that humans are not food? Have you ever met the poorest people at the bottom rung of society? Those people are as skinny as the corpse in front of you. They are hungry! When they are extremely hungry, they will eat anything.”

Wolf said this as he stretched out his fingers to give them a lick. He seemed to think of something. The smile faded away from his face, and his tone was a little dark: “Since ancient times, it has been common for people to trade their children and eat them because of famine and food shortages...... but I think—I must have experienced this terrifying hunger before.”

Wolf felt that he had really experienced the feeling of extreme starvation. The most vivid description of what he had gone through was that he had been so famished that his chest was stuck to his back. His bones were as thin as firewood, and his body was as thin as a bamboo pole. He struggled incessantly because he wanted to survive and be redeemed. It was a crazy and unbearable period of time for him.

Because of hunger, living creatures possessed the instinct to hunt other animals.

“Who says human beings are not food?” Thereafter, Wolf mocked Crow: “Human beings are just a part of the food chain.”

Wolf’s words made Crow speechless. Crow was silent for a long time and suddenly felt that he had nothing to argue because Wolf was right after all. Human beings could eat other animals, and naturally there would be other animals that could hunt and kill human beings. The weak ate the strong, and the fittest survived; this was life and growth in nature.

But Crow did not shift away from Two-headed snake. He was still standing in front of him, silent but firm. After a long time, he replied, “You can become a beast for the sake of survival. That’s fine too. In any way, you will be able to survive like that.”

“But I can’t.” Crow paused and lowered his head before he continued: “Because when I become a beast, I can’t be human again.”

“Heh... That’s a beautiful thing to say, but this is the truth.” Wolf suddenly stopped laughing, and he reached out to Crow... The angle and distance his hand stretched out appeared like he was trying to choke Crow’s neck. This action looked very abnormal at this point in time and even carried a sense of danger. This made Crow tremble momentarily before he instinctively retreated to avoid the hand.

Wolf no longer pressured him. He slowly took back his hand, and on his face hung a disgusting grin: “I’d like to see how far you can persist in your ideals.”

“Enough! Shut up! You are crazy!” Owl grew more and more dissatisfied with Wolf, and his eyes carried much scorn when he looked at him. Standing at the other side, he interjected: “Even if we really treat Two-headed snake as food, what can we do? The monster is dead; it is lying there now motionlessly! I don’t believe it has the strength to swallow the entirety of Two-headed snake!”

Wolf turned around to eye Owl, and a grim laugh followed: “That’s not necessarily true. Let’s take you as an example. Don’t you have the strength to eat? Maybe you can truly swallow Two-headed snake whole!”

“When will the words you spout be clean? Are you seeking for your death again!?” Owl sounded indignant. Although he looked calm, he began to reachh for a weapon—and it happened to be the broken broomstick left aside by Wolf.

This time, Crow pulled Owl back and said, “Calm down. There are no benefits in fighting him.”

Crow said that but could not help but observe Owl. Owl did not use his hands to cover his abdomen this time, but when Crow carefully studied him, he found that the other had bandaged his own wound at some point. And Owl’s clothes, although they had holes in them, had no traces of blood and appeared very clean.

During the quarrel, Two-headed snake, who was protected from the beginning to the end, did not speak, and Black cat, who followed behind him, did not speak either. He remained quiet for so long that the people around him had just ignored his existence.

However, this conversation ended on a sour note. Wolf continued to squat unhurriedly and carefreely in a corner as he daydreamed while Crow and Owl were unwilling to continue searching around carriage No.9. In the end, they did not have the slightest inkling on how to escape from this carriage, so they could only helplessly watch as minutes and seconds passed by. Owl was the first to find it unbearable.

“We only have six hours on this train, and we don’t know how much time we have squandered away previously!”

“I know...” Crow also felt discouraged and squatted next to the skinny corpse.

Into the silence, Two-headed snake, who had been hanging around them all along, suddenly said, “That guy named Wolf... in fact, I think he’s right.”

“What’s right? You think you’re food?” Owl was not angry at the mention of Wolf, but his face looked disgusted.

“Yes, I should be food.” Two-headed snake said, “Before the bunch of you came to this train car, the monster and I were the only two people in carriage No.9. If it really wanted to eat someone, the one it would eat should be me.”

Hearing this, Owl began to retort: “Come on, that monster was beaten by you to the extent where it’s brains had been dashed out. Could it be that it can still cut you into pieces and feed the pieces of you into its mouth?”

“It’s worth trying.” Just as Owl finished speaking, Crow was struck by inspiration, and he spoke up.

“What? What is worth trying?” Owl suddenly had a bad premonition and hesitantly asked.

“What you just said!” Crow seemed excited and said, “Feed Two-headed snake to the monster.”

“......” Owl was silent for a moment, and his eyes scanned Crow up and down. He cautiously said, “You... have you been brainwashed by that Wolf?”

Crow felt that it was funny. He helplessly said: “I don’t mean that.”

“I’ve been thinking that if the monster ate all the food in the entire carriage and still wasn’t able to eat its fill, it would come up and bite Two-headed snake. So I wondered what’s the limit of the monster’s food intake? Would it be full if it ate Two-headed snake whole, or would it be full if it ate half of Two-headed snake?”

Two-headed snake, who was listening to their conversation at a side, uncomfortably shrugged: “I know my real name is not Two-headed snake, but currently, I’m named that, so don’t let me imagine the scene of being eaten, OK?”

“I know what you are theorizing.” Owl roughly understood what Crow meant: “You want to know how much the monster can eat before it’s full, right?”

“Maybe as long as the monster eats a piece of meat, it will be full.” Crow continued to make assumptions.

“STOP! I don’t want to cut a piece of flesh off my body yet!” Two-headed snake tensed up and touched his bitten arm.

“You don’t have to lose your flesh. How about you give us some blood to experiment with instead?” Owl was also intrigued by this wonderful idea, as he scanned Two-headed snake up and down. He saw that Two-headed snake’s arm sleeves were slightly stained with blood and said, “The blood that’s flowing out of you is lost anyway.”

“The way you put it makes it seem like my blood is worthless!” Two-headed snake felt goosebumps rising.

“Give it a try!” Crow fawned over Two-headed snake: “Just sprinkle a little of your blood around the monster’s mouth to see what reaction it’ll have.”

“What if nothing happens?” Two-headed snake was expressionless.

Crow gave him a smirk: “Let’s try first! Anyway, we have no choice now. You should make a sacrifice, comrade!”

Two-headed snake had to compromise because he had no other solutions either. He could only make a huge sacrifice and give his arm to Crow. Crow took apart the cloth on his arm, found a random bottle, and pressed the blood vessels on the arm, causing the wound that had not healed to spurt out a lot of blood.

“Don’t worry; I won’t let you die of loss of blood.” It was as if Crow was very experienced. As the glass bottle was filled, he applied pressure onto Two-headed snake’s blood vessels and wrapped a new piece of cloth around it.

Then Crow took the bottle of blood and squatted beside the dead body. He opened the bottle to allow the blood to drip and land on the corpse’s dry lips.

Owl, Two-headed snake, and even Black cat all stood around to spectate.

Unexpectedly, a few drops of blood was effective in inducing a response. It was as if the monster had finally tasted his long-awaited sweet dew. Suddenly, its whole body trembled. It opened its mouth and stuck its tongue out, and it greedily licked the blood dripping on its mouth. However, it still looked really weak. A few drops of blood would only cause it to move a little.

“Not enough blood.” The blood in the bottle had all been poured out, and the monster was still lying there with its eyes closed.

Crow hesitated and continued to raise his head to glance at Two-headed snake.

“Don’t even think about it!” Two-headed snake’s face was now similar to the colour of paper. He covered his arm. “If I continue to hardworkingly bleed again, I’ll really die.”

“Indeed, in this case, even if we wrung Two-headed snake dry, it would still not be enough for the monster.” Owl nodded as he deliberated.

“How about we all bleed together?” Crow said suddenly, but as he said this, his eyes were fixed on Owl.

Owl noticed this and raised his head to look at Crow. “Are you sure this will work?”

“We have no other alternatives,” Crow said, “As you can see, the monster only reacts to flesh and blood.”

T/N: This chapter is not edited, and I’ll upload the edited chapter when it is edited. The edited chapter is up!

Thank you for reading !