On March 28, 1396, two professors of road planning from the Salter Federal Steam Engineering Academy accepted an invitation from the prestigious Roman University to conduct an academic visit to Norin, the capital of the Kingdom of Lande. During their stay, they held four public academic lectures at the House of Commons auditorium and Rose Square, and before concluding their visit, they were invited to a royal banquet at Rose Palace. There, they proposed a plan to King Rudolph II to build a railway connecting the two major hubs of the north and south.
This was the origin of the Norin-Rhine Railway.
After a year of discussion and evaluation, in May 1397, the railway project, with an initial budget of 500,000 pounds and an estimated three-year construction period, was officially approved by both houses of parliament, and preliminary preparations began. Planning, exploration, design...
Undoubtedly, this was a major undertaking capable of influencing the entire century-long plan of Lande, and the person in overall charge of this project was none other than the future crown prince of Lande, Prince William.
The initial work proceeded normally and steadily, but from the second month after Prince William took over as the project lead—August 1397—the entire project was shrouded in a haze.
At that time, discussions regarding route planning were being held at Rhine College in Rhine City. Twenty-four master craftsmen had gathered in Rhine. Prince William did not attend, and Mayor Hoffman participated as his representative.
During dinner on August 15, while geological expert Master Tal was reviewing the planning diagrams, his body suddenly suffered from extensive, unexplained festering in front of 138 attendees and 12 servers. Three minutes later, personnel from the Church of Suffering arrived, identified it as mystery erosion but were unable to stop it. Five minutes later, he lost all vital signs, and ten minutes later, he had completely turned to bone.
On August 17, after studying the tunnel designs for three hours, tunnel expert Master Saul left his workstation under the pretext of getting some air, entered a nearby metallurgy laboratory, started the steam forge, and lay inside. When he was discovered, he had already been crushed into pulp by the forge hammer.
On the night of August 21, demolition expert Ms. Kailin completed the planning for several construction blasting points late at night. On her way home, she suddenly went insane, rushed into a nearby maternity center of the Church of Suffering, and after alive-dissecting three pregnant women and rummaging through them to no avail, she laughed and decapitated herself.
What followed was a long list of accident records, a variety of reasonable and unreasonable deaths, totaling over a hundred entries. Although Archbishop Trinlais of the Nightwalker Agency had mentioned it roughly when he accepted the commission, he had no intuitive feeling at the time. Now, seeing the detailed records, Lynch realized that the Archbishop’s few brief descriptions represented hundreds of cold and eerie deaths.
From the initial shock to the subsequent disgust, and finally to numbness, Lynch flipped through the descriptions and even photos of the scenes, feeling only a coldness in his heart.
Every file meant a life lost and a family torn apart.
Whether they were revered academic masters or nameless ordinary workers, no matter how brilliant their lives were, the final outcome was nothing more than a few photos and a report.
In the face of eerie death, there is no special treatment.
Hoo, so many people have died. What is the cause?
For some reason, as Lynch looked at these shocking death records, he suddenly felt an anticipation to uncover the truth.
Although I have no obligation, if I can, I want to do something for these innocent victims. Even if I cannot save them, at least I can try to prevent this from happening again and give those who manufactured all this a lesson they will never forget. Watching these people die miserably because of the desires and ambitions of a few—I really cannot stand it.
Lynch closed the documents, rubbed his throbbing temples, and fell into deep thought with his eyes closed.
When he opened his eyes again, a cup of coffee had already been handed to him.
That vicious princess really should learn what noble lady manners are.
The two looked at each other and smiled. Lynch sniffed the mellow aroma of the coffee and said softly, "Diana, what do you think?"
"Hm?"
"No, nothing, just a joke to amuse myself, you..."
"Their deaths look very much like the eerie deaths encountered after being eroded by filth upon connecting with the mystery."
Hearing Miss Valente’s serious answer, Lynch nodded. He also recalled his experiences when he first crossed over—Drunken Peter, Granville from the antique shop, and that detestable Mr. Randall—all had the same eerie deaths.
"But actually, it is not. It just looks like it."
"Hm?" Lynch was stunned, opened his eyes, and realized that this girl was herself a mystery practitioner, much more professional than the wild path he had explored through practice.
"Over a hundred death incidents seem like a lot, but they are actually very few."
Lynch frowned, waiting for Miss Valente to explain.
"The railway project has been pushed for more than two years, and at least hundreds of thousands of people have been involved. If it were a mystery event itself, the vast majority of these people would have been associated with it, and a large proportion would have a strong association. Many of them are ordinary people, and the event may relate to a manifestation grade mystery relic. Being associated with it does not necessarily mean death, but the death ratio could never be this low."
"I understand. Just as you said, compared to a total base of hundreds of thousands, it is indeed very few." Lynch followed her line of thought, "So it must be something more specific. If you touch it or understand it, you die."
"Right, I thought so too, but I did not continue to investigate because of that incident before. At the time, I thought, since I wanted to oppose the railway plan, as long as I stopped it from continuing, whatever conspiracy was inside would automatically fail. But now it seems, they used the termination of the railway project to threaten Princess Chloe, which means that the subsequent plan termination would not affect them, which means..."
"The preliminary preparation work itself is their fundamental purpose." Lynch slapped his palm and exclaimed, "They do not care whether the subsequent construction can be pushed forward. So the mystery factor that caused hundreds of deaths is hidden in the preliminary preparation work."
"Exploration, measurement, design, planning, calculation..." Miss Valente sighed, smiling bitterly, "The preliminary preparation work is simply too much. The results alone are a huge stack."
"We might as well look for the commonalities of the deceased." Lynch recalled his past experience watching shows, "In all serial murder cases, even those that are random killings, as long as there is a connection between them, there must be commonalities."
As he spoke, Lynch opened the case files and reorganized all the cases.
"From the designer of the planned route, to the engineer who designed the tunnels, the architect who executed the operations, the archaeologists and geologists who explored the environment, the workers who cooperated in building the facilities, the students who followed the professors to survey the environment, even the person in charge of the Rhine section of the preparatory work was changed twice."
He read while flipping through them. Until all hundred plus cases were read, the two looked at each other in dismay.
"Other than all being related to the railway project, there seems to be no other obvious commonality." Lynch stared at the case files, somewhat lost in thought, when suddenly a flash of inspiration hit him, and he slammed the desk hard, "No, there is a commonality. Their biggest commonality is that they all had accidents after August 15, or to be broader, after that seminar."
"Hm? A time commonality? But that is right." Miss Valente was stunned upon hearing this, then nodded repeatedly, "Everything was fine before this, but accidents happened frequently after this, which means the mystery factor we are looking for is likely hidden in the results of that seminar, or at least has some connection to the results."
Lynch’s breathing tightened. Without waiting for Miss Valente to ask, he rummaged through the files 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.
When he pulled these out, Lynch’s eyes suddenly lit up, realizing he might have found the right direction.
Because a part of these materials was very similar to several blurry photos in Donnie’s photos from his memory.
Those photos were taken vaguely, and it was impossible to see the specific content, but now that he had found the original, and cross-referenced it with the photos in his memory, Lynch realized that part of what those photos captured were these seminar results. Therefore, the truth was likely hidden in these diagrams.
Lynch’s heart rate accelerated, and his hand reaching for the materials trembled slightly. Miss Valente also gripped her folding fan tightly, watching nervously as Lynch opened the seminar materials bit by bit.
"Will the target be hidden in these materials?" Miss Valente said uneasily, "I have also carefully read through these materials, and such important results must have been read by countless people over the past two years. All subsequent engineering was based on them, which means too many people have seen them. If there really was a problem, could it be that no one noticed?"
"Of course they did, which is why they all died."
Just as Lynch was about to examine them closely, a rapid ringing sound suddenly came from outside the library.
Lynch was startled, looked up quickly, and saw the surprised and nervous expression in Miss Valente’s eyes:
"Oh no, this is the fire alarm."
Rate on N.U.
