31st December 1931 Evening

Gazing at the corpses lying by the railway tracks, the man gave a sigh of annoyance.

"Aaahh... I'd be much happier if they'd been all collected in the same place."

"You're being ridiculous."

Two men conversed in the light snowfall.

They were investigators working for the Department of Investigation of the United States of America, Bill Sullivan and Edward Noah. The two were dealing with the aftermath following a certain freakish incident that had occured at the end of the year.

Though of course, they were carrying out an investigation concurrently with the aftermath cleanup. Before the corpses scattered alongside the railway tracks, a great number of police officers were carrying out their duties separately. The corpses were spaced out far apart, each tens or hundreds of meters away from the next. However, these corpses were all, without a doubt, linked to the very same event.

Because these corpses were all once people aboard the same train.

"Ngh... Please don't be so uptight."

"More importantly, I have a question."

Facing Bill, who was scratching his head, Edward asked seriously,

"Why were we called here? This is supposed to be the job of the folks in the other departments, is it not?"

Edward and Bill were working in a slightly special department, even within the "Department of Investigation". On the face of it, it didn't operate independently, but there was a tacit agreement within the department there would be some people who would work special jobs in between the regular ones. Bill and Edward were amongst those who carried out these special missions.

"Um... Well, I'll give a quick overview. They were there in the train's passenger list. We discovered them at the Chicago station."

"By 'they', you mean... The 'immortals'?"

Immortals. This is the most inappropriate word to be using at a scene where bodies littered the railtracks. It wouldn't be strange for the coroners working nearby to laugh if they had overheard the conversation.

No, not just coroners, even ordinary people would burst out in laughter if they heard it. Because the nation's proud investigators were discussing the myth of 'immortality' with perfectly straight faces.

However, these two people knew that it was no fairy tale.

Over two hundred years ago, some alchemists sailed to this continent. During their sea journey, they summoned a demon and obtained it. Obtained 'indestructable flesh'. This hackneyed story is rarely seen by virtue of its corniness, even in fairy tales, but there was nothing to do about it- it was the truth. Because the proof was right there, in the form of their immediate superior, one of those 'immortals'.

In other words, they monitored as well as guarded against the 'immortals' scattered across America. Naturally, though, immortal beings were not acknowledged officially. Also, they would never allow for such a thing to be made known to the public.

"Er... Do you remember the special characteristics of immortals?"

"Yes. One, 'they don't age, and they'll regenerate fully no matter how much damage they take, starting from their head'. Two, "the only exception is that immortals can be killed by fellow immortals, whereby one places his hand on another's head and wishes to eat him, and victim will meet his death after getting sucked into his right hand'. Three, 'the absorber will gain all the knowledge possessed by the victim'. Four, 'they cannot use a false name when speaking to fellow immortals, or when registering their name in society'. That is all."

T/N: had to use 'victim' here to make it more obvious who's doing what. Strictly speaking, it's 'the other person'

"Ahh... You didn't have to parrot it out word for word. Well, that's why, it's because of that that they absolutely have to write down their real names on the passenger list... Right?" T/N: he's longwinded, yes

Bill replied, half-dazed, and Edward showered yet more questions on the poor man.

"So, what happened to those immortals? Are they related to this incident at all?"

"Hm... Donald's checking whether they weathered through it without any problems or not at the moment. We didn't discover this until too late, so we're lagging behind."

In the course of their conversation, the body bags behind them increased by one.

Seeing that, Edward clenched his fist.

---Just, what on earth happened there?

The special express trans-continental railway. The "Flying Pussyfoot" that travelled to New York via Chicago.

Just what kind of tragedy played out on that train---?