[You cannot sleep, March 7th is wandering nearby]
March 7th is wandering?
Caelus sat bolt upright in bed. The system prompt was all wrong!
According to the rules of MC, the only things that could interfere with a player's sleep were certain neutral mobs and all hostile mobs active in the player's vicinity.
The problem was, ever since he had joined the Astral Express, everyone on the crew, including March 7th, had switched from yellow (neutral) to green (friendly). They shouldn't be interrupting his sleep.
Caelus opened his mini-map and looked at the room next door. March 7th's light dot was moving around inside her room. Its trajectory was erratic, back and forth, as if she were pacing. But the label next to the dot made his brow furrow.
[March 7th (???)]
The information in the parentheses was completely different from when he had first met her!
Even more critically, the color of her icon had changed. It had reverted from green back to the yellow that represented a neutral status!
Caelus didn't hesitate. He grabbed his baseball bat, got out of bed, and headed for the door.
The mini-map hadn't made a single error since he woke up. Whether it was Kafka and Silver Wolf's identities or the hidden information on Dan Heng and March 7th, every piece of data had been perfectly accurate. The mini-map would never provide him with false information.
Which meant the problem could only be with March 7th!
Possession? A split personality? Someone sneaking onto the train and impersonating her? No matter which it was, it wasn't good news.
Caelus opened his door. The corridor was empty. The lights had switched to night mode, with only a faint row of floor lights along the base of the walls still glowing, casting a dim, orange-tinted light on the metal floor.
March 7th's room was right next door. Caelus walked to her door and stopped, tilting his head. He could faintly hear a soft, rustling sound from inside, as if something was slowly dragging itself across the room.
He raised a hand and knocked twice. The noise inside instantly stopped.
"March?"
There was no answer.
Caelus waited another two seconds. The corridor was silent save for the low hum of the air conditioning. He glanced down at his mini-map. March 7th's dot had stopped moving near her bed, completely still. Her icon was still yellow.
He put the baseball bat back in his inventory, swapped it for the stone pickaxe, and began chiseling at the door. The metal door didn't last three seconds against the pickaxe before it shattered into a droppable item with a loud crack. Caelus bent down, picked it up, stuffed it in his inventory, and stepped into the room.
---o---
The lights weren't on, but he could still vaguely make out the situation inside.
March 7th was sitting on the edge of her bed. The fabric of her pajamas was light, and the airflow from the indoor air conditioner made the hem of her clothes flutter slightly. Her hair was down, pink strands resting on her shoulders and collarbone. Silhouetted by the faint starlight filtering in from the window, her form was barely visible in the darkness.
In the dark, two powder-blue eyes blinked once, then twice.
And then, March 7th's expression switched from dazed to completely freaked out.
She grabbed a pillow from beside her and held it in front of her chest, shrinking back toward the head of the bed.
"Cae-Cae-Caelus! What are you doing barging in here in the middle of the night?! And the door?! What about my door?!"
Caelus didn't answer immediately. He cautiously glanced at his mini-map again. Strangely, March 7th's dot had turned green again, and the text information had reverted back to what it was originally.
[Nameless One · March 7th (Six-Phased Ice)]
Caelus's brow relaxed slightly, but his suspicion grew even stronger. It was yellow before he came back, but the instant he entered, it turned green again. The timing was too perfect.
"What were you just doing?"
March 7th hugged the pillow tighter. The blush on her cheeks was hard to see in the dim light, but the embarrassment in her voice was unmistakable.
"What could I be doing! Sleeping! And then my door suddenly vanished, and there you were!"
Caelus looked at her reaction, then at the mini-map again. Her dot was still green, with no signs of changing.
It really was March 7th herself.
He decided not to mention the mini-map for now. For one, he couldn't be sure what the anomaly was, and for another, telling her might just scare the snake out of the grass.
"Sorry." Caelus put the stone pickaxe back in his inventory, a slightly sheepish expression on his face. "I thought I heard a noise in your room just now. I thought something had happened, so I came over to check."
The aggressive energy in March 7th was visibly extinguished by his words.
She didn't change her pillow-hugging posture, but the annoyance in her eyes faded, replaced by an unreadable emotion as she pouted.
"So you were worried about me..."
Her voice dropped a notch. She looked down at her room and thought for a moment.
"I probably kicked the nightstand when I turned over. I'm not a very still sleeper sometimes. We're on the train, nothing dangerous is going to happen. You can go back to sleep now."
After she finished, she added another sentence.
"And the train is warping tomorrow! The view is amazing, so don't you dare oversleep and miss it!"
Caelus nodded. He took the metal door he'd just mined out of his inventory and placed it back in the doorframe. The door panel clicked neatly back into place.
"Good night."
"Mm, good night!"
---o---
Not long after Caelus left, March 7th, who was sitting on the edge of her bed, blinked her beautiful, powder-blue eyes. In that instant, her re-closed eyes opened again, but this time they had changed to a dull, lifeless crimson.
A faint smile crept onto 'March 7th's' lips.
"March, your new companion isn't so simple."
But in the very next second, the metal door that Caelus had just put back was suddenly shattered again. Caelus stood in the doorway, a torch in one hand and a pickaxe in the other.
This sight scared 'March 7th' so much that her crimson eyes immediately changed back.
The real March 7th was still hugging her pillow. Seeing Caelus appear before her again, she froze for a full two seconds.
"What are you doing here again?!"
"Can't sleep," Caelus said, making up a casual excuse.
Just a moment ago, when he had gone back to his room and tried to sleep again, the system had once again warned him that he couldn't. He had immediately checked the mini-map and, sure enough, March 7th's icon had changed again.
To ensure March 7th's safety, and also to defend his own right to sleep, Caelus had simply mined his own bed and brought it with him to March 7th's room.
He placed the bed down in the doorway, then reached back and reinstalled the metal door from his inventory, blocking the only exit tight.
March 7th watched this seamless series of actions, her brain struggling to keep up.
"What did you bring your bed over for?"
Caelus stuck the torch next to his bed's headboard, the orange-yellow light raising the room's brightness to a level where monsters wouldn't spawn. Then, he simply lay down on the bed, his hands behind his head.
"I don't feel safe sleeping alone."
The corner of March 7th's mouth twitched.
"You? Don't feel safe? You didn't look like you lacked a sense of security when you were soloing the Doomsday Beast today!"
Caelus turned his head to look at her, his expression sincere.
"Fighting and sleeping are different. When I fight, I have my baseball bat with me. When I sleep, it's just me. Miss March 7th, a lively, cute, and beautiful young lady like you, surely you wouldn't refuse to let a helpless, amnesiac, newborn baby who is less than eight hours old, your dear new companion, sleep at your door for one night?"
March 7th opened her mouth.
Each word of that sentence was fine on its own, but strung together like that, it was just so... weird.
"You were pretty cool when you were fighting the Doomsday Beast today, but how did you turn into... this..."
She mumbled, but there was no hint of refusal in her voice.
After all, Caelus was just like her, an amnesiac. The time she had been awake before him wasn't much longer. She had experienced the same unease and confusion during those first few days after she woke up. Back then, she had been so scared she couldn't sleep, and in the end, Himeko had to stay with her for a few nights before she felt better.
As his senior, she hoped she could provide some security to the train's youngest member.
"Fine, but you're not allowed to peek..."
March 7th was just about to lay down some ground rules when she turned her head and saw that Caelus was already fast asleep.
"Weren't you the one who was too scared to sleep?! How did you fall asleep the second your head hit the pillow?!"
PS: The original text for 'Long Night Moon' has been changed to '???'
Author's Note: Clarification on Some Settings
I'm going to try and push for the click rankings today. The update will be at 12:00 AM sharp, with at least five new chapters, starting at 10,000 words. I hope all you dear readers will do me the honor of checking it out. I love you all.
Separately, I'd like to address some setting questions that a few readers have pointed out.
Question 1: The 'Brittle Bone Disease' MOD.
Some readers have mentioned that the 'Brittle Bone Disease' MOD shouldn't be called that directly, as it's the name of the modpack, and the specific mod should be called 'Flesh Reconstitution'. I'd like to explain this for everyone, and also introduce the modpack to those who may not have played it.
'Flesh Reconstitution' is a single mod within the 'Brittle Bone Disease' modpack, made by a different author. It's just one of the possible gameplay routes in the modpack. The most important gameplay content in the 'Brittle Bone Disease' modpack is organ replacement and enhancement.
Besides 'Flesh Reconstitution', there's also the 'Gluttony' route where you replace organs with various food items, and another route that integrates with the 'Create' mod, allowing you to craft organs into mechanical components.
I chose to use 'Brittle Bone Disease' to refer to the mod's name primarily because of the organ-swapping gameplay content within that modpack.
Question 2: The Protagonist's Housing.
The protagonist's room in the game, which is customizable, is something I plan to arrange for later in the plot. The room in the main text right now is just a temporary residence. Please bear with me, dear readers.
If there are any other questions later on, I will pay attention to them and provide explanations. I will also correct any problematic areas as soon as possible.
I hope for everyone's continued support. Thank you, and I love you all!