On March 28, 1396, two road planning professors from the Salter Federal Steam Engineering Academy visited Roman University in Norin, the royal capital of Lande, at the invitation of the prestigious institution. During their visit, they held four public academic lectures in the House of Lords lecture hall and Rose Square. Before concluding their visit, they were invited to a royal banquet at the Rose Palace, where they proposed a plan to King Rudolph II for a railway connecting the two major northern and southern strongholds.
This was the origin of the Norin-Rhine Railway.
After a year of discussion and evaluation, in May 1397, this railway project—with an initial budget of five hundred thousand pounds and an estimated construction period of three years—was officially approved by both the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and preliminary preparations began. Planning, surveying, designing...
Without a doubt, this was a monumental event capable of shaping Lande's plans for the next century, and the person in overall charge of this project was none other than the future Crown Prince of Lande, Prince William.
At first, everything proceeded normally and made steady progress. However, in August 1397, the second month after Prince William took over as the general director, a shadow fell over the entire project.
At the time, a seminar regarding route planning was being held at Rhine College in Rhine City, bringing together twenty-four master artisans. Prince William did not attend, and Mayor Howard went as the representative instead.
During dinner on August 15, while Master Tal, the geological expert, was reviewing the planning maps as he ate, his body suddenly began to fester extensively for no apparent reason right before the eyes of one hundred and thirty-eight attendees and twelve waiters. Three minutes later, the on-duty personnel from the Church of Suffering arrived. They determined it to be a case of mystical erosion but were powerless to stop it. Five minutes later, he lost all vital signs, and ten minutes later, he was completely reduced to bones.
On August 17, after studying tunnel designs for three hours, Master Saul, the tunnel expert, left his workplace on the pretext of getting some fresh air. He entered a nearby metallurgy laboratory, started up a steam forge, and lay inside. By the time he was discovered, he had already been pounded into a pulp by the forging hammers.
On the night of August 21, after working through the night to plan some of the construction blasting sites, Ms. Kailin, the demolition expert, suddenly went mad on her way home. She rushed into a nearby maternity center run by the Church of Suffering, sliced open the bellies of three pregnant women while they were still alive, and searched inside them to no avail. Then, with a smile on her face, she cut off her own head.
What followed was a long list of accident records detailing all sorts of rational and irrational deaths, numbering over a hundred in total. Although Lynch had heard Archbishop of the Night Trinlais briefly mention this when he first accepted the commission, he hadn't felt much of a direct impact back then. Only now, seeing the detailed records, did Lynch realize that the Archbishop's brief description actually represented over a hundred cold and bizarre deaths.
From his initial shock to subsequent disgust, and finally to sheer numbness, Lynch flipped through the descriptions of the scenes and even the photographs, one by one, feeling a deep chill in his heart.
Every single file represented a life snuffed out and a family torn apart.
Whether they were highly respected academic masters or obscure, ordinary workers, no matter how brilliant their lives had been, their final end was nothing more than a few photographs and a written description.
In the face of bizarre deaths, there was no special treatment.
Sigh. With so many people dead, what on earth was the cause?
For some reason, as Lynch stared at these shocking records of death, he suddenly felt a strong desire to uncover the truth.
Although I have no obligation to do so, I still want to do what I can for these innocent victims within my power. Even if I can't save them, at least I can try my best to prevent such things from happening again, and do everything possible to give the perpetrators behind all this an unforgettable lesson. I really cannot bear to just stand by and watch these people die horrible deaths because of the greed and ambition of a select few.
Lynch closed the files, rubbed his throbbing temples, and closed his eyes as he fell into deep thought.
When he opened his eyes again, a cup of coffee had already been placed in front of him.
That wicked princess really ought to learn what proper noble ladylike manners look like.
The two shared a smile. Inhaling the rich aroma of the coffee, Lynch asked softly, “Diana, what do you think?”
“Hmm?”
“No, it's nothing, just an idle joke. You...”
“Their deaths strongly resemble bizarre deaths caused by being corrupted by filth after coming into contact with the mystery.”
Hearing that Miss Valente had actually answered him, Lynch nodded. He also recalled his experiences when he had first transmigrated—Drunken Peter, Granville from the antique shop, and that detestable Randall had all met similarly bizarre deaths.
“But in truth, they aren't. They only look similar.”
“Huh?” Lynch was taken aback and opened his eyes. Only then did he recall that this girl was an occultist herself, far more professional than his own amateur self-taught methods.
“Over a hundred deaths might seem like a lot, but it is actually very few.”
Lynch furrowed his brows, waiting for Miss Valente to explain.
“The railway project has been underway for over two years, and at least hundreds of thousands of people have been involved. If the project itself were a mystery event, the vast majority of these people would have been drawn into it, and a large percentage would have a strong connection. Many of them are ordinary people, and the event might involve a manifestation grade mystery relic. Being drawn in doesn't mean they would all die, but the mortality rate would definitely not be this low.”
“I see. It is indeed very few compared to a total base of hundreds of thousands, just as you said,” Lynch pondered along this line of thought. “So it must be something more specific—something that kills you only if you touch it or understand it.”
“Yes, that's what I think too. But because of what happened back then, I didn't continue investigating. At the time, I figured that since we were going to oppose the railway project anyway, as long as we stopped it from moving forward, whatever conspiracy lay within would automatically fall apart. But looking at it now, the fact that they would use the termination of the railway project to blackmail Princess Chloe shows that even if the subsequent project is canceled, it won't affect them. This means...”
“The preliminary preparation work itself is their primary goal!” Lynch slapped his palm and exclaimed. “As for whether the subsequent construction can proceed, they don't actually care. Therefore, the mysterious factor that caused over a hundred deaths is hidden within the preliminary preparation work.”
“Surveys, measurements, designs, planning, calculations...” Miss Valente sighed and said with a bitter smile. “There is simply too much preliminary preparation work. Just the resulting documents make up a massive stack.”
“Let's try to find a common thread among the victims,” Lynch said, drawing from his past experience of watching mystery shows. “In all serial killings, even those with random victims, as long as there is a connection between them, there is bound to be a common denominator.”
With that, Lynch opened the files and went through all the cases once more.
“From the designers who planned the routes, to the engineers who designed the tunnels, to the architects who executed the construction, to the archaeologists and geologists who surveyed the environment, to the workers who assisted in building the engineering facilities, to the students who accompanied the professors on surveys, and even two directors of the Rhine section of the preparatory work were replaced.”
He read aloud as he flipped through the pages. By the time he finished reading all of the hundred-plus cases, the two looked at each other in silence.
“Other than their connection to the railway project, there doesn't seem to be any other obvious common ground.” Lynch stared at the files, lost in thought, when a sudden flash of inspiration struck him, and he slapped the desk hard. “No, there is a common thread! Their biggest common denominator is that they all met with accidents after August 15. Or to put it more broadly, it was after that seminar.”
“Oh? A temporal commonality? Actually, that makes sense.” Miss Valente was startled for a moment, then nodded repeatedly. “Everything was fine before then, but accidents started happening frequently afterward. This indicates that the mysterious factor we are looking for is highly likely hidden within the results of that seminar, or at least has some kind of relationship with those results.”
Lynch's breath hitched. Without waiting for Miss Valente to ask, he began rummaging through the documents and pulled out the results of that seminar.
It was the overall plan for the Norin-Rhine Railway, including the planned routes and various parameters.
As he pulled these out, Lynch's eyes suddenly lit up, realizing he might have found the right direction.
Because a portion of these documents bore a striking resemblance to some of the blurry photographs in his memory of Donnie's collection.
Those photographs had been blurry, making it impossible to see the details clearly. But now that he had found the original source and cross-referenced it with the images in his memory, Lynch realized that some of those photos were indeed taken of these seminar results. Thus, the truth was highly likely hidden within these diagrams.
Lynch's heart raced, and his hand trembled slightly as he reached for the documents. Miss Valente also gripped her folding fan tightly, watching tensely as Lynch slowly opened the seminar files.
“Could the target really be hidden in these files?” Miss Valente said uneasily. “I have also gone through these documents carefully. Besides, such an important result must have been reviewed by countless people over the past two years, as all subsequent construction is based on them. That means too many people have seen them. If there really was a problem, is it possible that absolutely no one noticed?”
“Of course they did. That's why they are all dead.”
Just as Lynch was about to take a closer look, a rapid ringing sound suddenly echoed from outside the library.
Lynch was startled and quickly looked up, only to meet Miss Valente's surprised and tense gaze.
“Oh no, that's the fire alarm.”
Rate on N.U.
