Chapter 219: Fifty-Eighth Floor, Celestial Train (2)

Hmm.

Upon further reflection, I realized that it would have been strange if we had easily found evidence. No one had detected the deception in Ha Hee-Jeong’s previous life, after all.

Moreover, none of us had spent much time investigating the issue. Ha Hee-Jeong had estimated that the train would reach the first waypoint after fifteen minutes, which gave us plenty of time.

I turned my attention back to Doppy and Yoonie. “No, there has to be something here. Let's ponder a bit more. Wait, actually, we need to search more thoroughly.”

“Understood, Su-Hyeok!”

Unlike the compliant Yoonie, Doppy acted somewhat defiantly, even raising his chin slightly. “I didn’t sense anything, though!”

This little guy has grown up enough to start talking back, huh?

Still, I was asking for his help, leaving me no choice but to relent.

I shook my head. “Please. If we concentrate a bit more, we may discover something.”

“Okay! Got it!”

Doppy scrutinized the interior of the compartment while Yoonie fluttered about and inspected various spots.

Instead of idling around, I began examining the ceiling. However, I only scanned it since becoming too engrossed in the search could lead us to missing a clue.

Hmm.

Nothing conspicuous caught my eye.

The compartment only contained two small chairs. There were no cabinets or even sufficient space to move about and search. Again, I wasn’t surprised our search had proven fruitless so far.

Since some climbers had shared the hidden missions that they had found, the others had begun seeking the missions even more fiercely. Even now, they were probably scouring their compartments just like me.

Is there a concealed space?

It did seem possible.

I pressed my hand against the wall and expanded my senses. Tapping lightly, I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Repeating this process on the floor and ceiling yielded the same result. Hence, I decided to shift my approach.

If the train is moving backward, would fully extending my senses make it obvious?

I closed my eyes and focused on the train's movement. The subtle vibrations and swaying that other climbers likely wouldn’t notice became distinct to me.

Ah, shit.

Unfortunately, I still couldn’t tell that the train was reversing. I sighed and opened my eyes.

“Su-Yeok! I can’t feel anything. Sorry!”

“Me neither. I can’t find anything. I apologize.”

Having witnessed my earnest, almost desperate, efforts, my companions now looked less cheerful than before.

Since they appeared overly apologetic, I forced a small smile. “What’s there to be sorry about? It’s not your fault.”

Shall I just claim that my intuition alerted me to the deception, or should I concoct an excuse? Oh, I could say that I observed the train going backward on a previous floor.

Overall, the second excuse seemed slightly better, but it wouldn’t be very convincing since many climbers would likely want to confirm it for themselves. At the very least, I hoped my reputation would lend me some credibility.

“Let's just rest for now.”

“Alright!”

Doppy and I sat in the chairs, while Yoonie perched on my head, fluttering her wings. Truth be told, the sensation didn’t feel as unpleasant as I had expected. Perhaps because Yoonie’s skin felt cool, it was quite refreshing.

I leaned back and gazed out the window, hoping for something, anything. Of course, the view outside offered no clues. A frozen image of space was all I could see, providing us just as much information on the direction the train was heading as the compartment.

A fleeting thought crossed my mind.

Wait. Even though space is mostly empty, it still contains small particles. Some sort of barrier is probably protecting the train, so maybe I can detect how the particles are impacting it.

I scrutinized the view more closely. Unfortunately, my hypothesis turned up nothing. It was slightly disappointing, albeit expected.

The very concept of a train running through space is, in itself, nonsensical in the first place.

At that moment, it occurred to me that I could potentially triangulate the train’s direction through the distant planets. After staring intensely at two planetary bodies that seemed relatively close, I realized that they were too far away for me to infer anything.

Well, there was nothing else to be done.

The lie I had come up with earlier seemed more and more appealing by the second. I sighed, taking solace in the fact that the view was at least enjoyable.

Space is certainly beautiful.

I continued to look beyond the panoramic glass. While none of the stars or planets were even remotely close to the train, the black backdrop was littered with countless lights.

The distant stars twinkled, their beauty almost taking my breath away. I momentarily lost myself as I stared blankly into the vast, dark cosmos.

Then, a subtle dissonance in the scenery caught my attention. I scooted forward, adjusting my posture so that my face was practically pressed against the window.

There is something there.

Some strange sense had alerted me to a piece of evidence. To dismiss it as merely a strange sensation would be to underestimate my intuition, especially under these circumstances. I focused intensely on the starscape ahead, repeating what I wanted to find in my head.

The train is moving backward. The train is moving backward. It is not progressing.

Yet, apart from the dissonance, I sensed nothing.

My concentration was heightened to its limits. Time seemed to be stretching endlessly, making me feel as if I could even see the distant stars move.

Eventually, out of the thousands, no, tens of thousands of shining dots, I spotted them—a few isolated and stationary stars.

Stationary?

Something clicked in my mind.

I relaxed my gaze, trying to view the stationary stars not as part of the scenery, but as a picture. Soon, my vision blurred, and my mind gradually formed invisible lines between the stationary stars. I sprang to my feet.

Yoonie, who had been resting on my head, slid off in surprise and soared into the air.

I found it.

This was definitive proof that the train was moving backward. The stationary stars formed arrows that pointed left, while the train was allegedly heading in the opposite direction.

Now I understood why no one had discovered this before. Without knowing what to look for ahead of time, even if the climbers spotted the stationary stars, they would seem meaningless.

Two steps are necessary.

First, the climbers needed some way to perceive the stationary stars—superhuman vision in my case. It felt somewhat like a Magic Eye image. Without the awareness to unfocus, it would be impossible to recognize this trick. Perhaps the stars forming the arrow were just an illusion that the tower had superimposed on the original background.

Second, they had to be aware that the train was moving backward—a ridiculous assumption that seemed almost impossible to fulfill.

Still reveling in my discovery, I opened the chat.

- Rank 73,218 Matsuhi Ren: So, why should we disembark according to ranking? Survival is a personal decision. Since the tower recognizes the rankings, why are you trying to enforce your own?

- Rank 3,891 Calypso Sagnix: Seriously, you have no conscience. Of course, it wouldn’t happen, but just imagine if Kwon Su-Hyeok was the first to disembark. Lower ranks would freak out, wouldn’t they?

- Rank 7,721 Joanna Carey: Won’t it be simplest to just disembark according to rank? Low ranks leave first, etc. Plus, do you think you are guaranteed to survive if you clear the fifty-ninth floor?

- Rank 81,248 Fen Anax: I agree. Choosing the disembark order by rank will be fairest.

- Rank 73,218 Matsuhi Ren: Yeah, I don't know. I’m going to disembark at an easy stop.

The chat continued to scroll by rapidly, ablaze with climbers' conflicting opinions. This same argument had occurred during Ha Hee-Jeong’s previous life.

I could understand why this was such a heated discussion; everyone who had made it this far treasured their own life, after all. Without knowing what lay ahead, people would naturally prefer that which had been promised would be easier.

Of course, this argument was moot now because I was in control.

- Rank 23,138 Nguyen Tuan: But the tower also granted higher-ranking climbers priority on the quotas. Shouldn’t it be left to personal choice?

- Rank 42,178 Park Tae-Sung: Wow, are you insane? So you're saying the top-rankers should disembark first and let the low-rank climbers just die? 😂

Deciding it was time to intervene, I made my entrance.

- Rank 1 Kwon Su-Hyeok: Hello all.

The message was overwhelmingly large with bolded text. Although the chat moved at an incredible pace, my message was so large that everyone could see it.

- Rank 3,891 Calypso Sagnix: Kwon Su-Hyeok has arrived! Please help us sort this out!

- Rank 3 Alexei Braham: Finally, he speaks.

Doing my best to interrupt the ongoing chats, I broached the topic of the deception that I had spent so much effort discovering.

- Rank 1 Kwon Su-Hyeok: I'm aware there’s a lot of discussion going on, but there's something more important. The train is moving backward.

- Rank 3 Alexei Braham: ?

- Rank 79,712 Anton Chase: What?

- Rank 178, Ivo Andrich: ?????

- Rank 41,769 Shahrukh Khan: What are you talking about???

A flood of question marks followed. Hence, I gave them an explanation about the stationary stars that were hidden in plain sight, causing them to respond explosively.

- Rank 3 Alexei Braham: Wow, what the fuck?? It is a pair of arrows pointing to the left, right?

- Rank 41,769 Shahrukh Khan: Uh, Su-Hyeok, I can’t see it???

- Rank 28,397 Kim Ho-Jeong: Dang, that is insane! How did you find this?

- Rank 48 Kelly Jon: Ooooooh!!

- Rank 81,248 Fen Anax: Am I the only one who can’t see it?

- Rank 412 Park Sang-Hyuk: Kwon Su-Hyeok! Kwon Su-Hyeok! Kwon Su-Hyeok! Kwon Su-Hyeok! Kwon Su-Hyeok! Kwon Su-Hyeok!

However, some still couldn’t see it, so I drafted another message.

- Rank 1 Kwon Su-Hyeok: I'm aware that there is some controversy surrounding who will disembark first. I've never imposed on or pressured you all before, but today, I have one request.

I deliberately left a pause between messages to give the climbers time to focus.

The chat, which had been moving quickly, began to slow as climbers hesitated. Soon, it stopped updating altogether. Silence descended upon the chat containing eighty thousand climbers.

- Rank 1 Kwon Su-Hyeok: The tower stated that the number of climbers disembarking at each stopover is predetermined. Please disembark according to your ranking, starting with the top-rankers. For instance, the first stop only allows one climber to disembark, and I will be going first.

Silence continued to reign supreme in the chat.

- Rank 1 Kwon Su-Hyeok: I know many of you will have complaints. Some of you may want to attempt harder trials, while others would prefer to undergo an easier one. Some of you may even try and arrange a switch-up.

Although climbers could argue that they had reached an agreement with another climber, I wouldn’t permit such an excuse. After all, who knew if that agreement had been set between a party leader and a member of the party, or if they had been coerced?

- Rank 1 Kwon Su-Hyeok: For everyone’s sake, I will not permit it. Like someone said earlier, just getting through this floor will not guarantee your survival. Not every floor presents the same challenges to everyone. I hope you will disembark on the platform that matches your ranking.

Though I wasn’t facing them directly, I was still confronting eighty thousand climbers.

- Rank 1 Kwon Su-Hyeok: Of course, since I'll be getting off first, I won’t be able to monitor each and every one of you. Nevertheless, everyone has eyes and ears. If any climber misuses the ranking system to endanger lower-ranking climbers...

I sighed softly and continued typing.

- Rank 1 Kwon Su-Hyeok: Don't expect to survive the next time we meet during a trial.

Just as I had sent my final message, a new notification appeared. The timing was unintentional but impeccable.

[The train will arrive at the first stop in five minutes. Disembarkment quota: 1.]

[If you wish to disembark at the first platform, please state 'disembark.']

[If the number of climbers wishing to disembark exceeds the quota, climbers toward the top of the Leaderboard will be given priority.]

[Additionally, if the quota is not met, the train will halt.]

I stared into the void of space before declaring, “Disembark.”

[Current applications to disembark: 1.]

[Rank 1 Kwon Su-Hyeok.]

***

「Invisible message: Challenger Kwon Su-Hyeok has discovered the Celestial Train’s secret, completing the hidden mission 'I Want to Go Back.' All stats increased by 2.」

「Invisible message: Challenger Kwon Su-Hyeok has displayed tremendous insight! His skill has leveled up. Illusion Resistance is now lvl 7.」