I Revived My Maid, Now She Hungers for My Blood

As Poppy’s voice rang out, thick with shock and suspicion, everyone present—except for Ophelia Sterling, who remained as nonchalant as ever—snapped their gazes toward the two figures who had just stepped off the train. They stood there, looking every bit the master and servant.

One of them was dressed in a well-tailored crimson maid’s uniform, her glaring silver-white long hair catching the sun. Her eyes seemed to burn with blood-red flames; even in the broad daylight, they sent an inexplicable chill down one’s spine.

And the young girl standing at her side, subtly shielded behind her... her skin was the pale, bloodless white of someone who hadn’t seen the sun in ages, carrying the fragile texture of fine porcelain. Her face was exquisite, bearing an innate, faint nobility, as if she had never been touched by the dust of the world.

The very instant they saw the faces of this master and servant, one of the girls in the six-person squad, standing in the back, trembled almost imperceptibly. Her gaze was entirely different from the vigilance, suspicion, and scrutiny of the other five. It wasn’t doubt, nor was it caution. It was... disbelief.

......

Pandora looked at the eight-person squad before her. The barrage of wary, suspicious, confused, and bewildered stares made her feel a bit peculiar.

Truth be told, she was also completely baffled by her current situation.

For no other reason than this: the place Faye had sent her and Elsa wasn’t some unknown void, nor was it a specific Fragment World. It was a cabin on this very steam train.

She had originally assumed that after being grasped by that hand reaching out from the void, she’d arrive at a strange Fragment World. Or perhaps a trap, or a trial.

The one thing she hadn’t anticipated was that Faye hadn’t sent her directly to her destination, but rather put her on a moving “Train.”

Aside from two train tickets, the other party had left nothing behind, nor had they conversed with her any further.

If one really had to count it, Faye had only left a line of nearly illegible scrawl on one of the tickets...

“Looks like we have a passenger who boarded temporarily! That’s quite rare. However, I must still remind you that no matter how you got on board, you still need a ticket~”

A sudden voice rang out beside Pandora’s ear, interrupting her thoughts. She followed the sound, only to see a figure standing right in front of them, having appeared out of nowhere.

It was the train conductor, dressed in a deep blue uniform with a matching cap. On his face was a pure white ceramic mask—no features, no holes, just a blank expanse of white that gleamed with an eerie luster.

Yet, miraculously, Pandora could distinctly make out a bizarre curve on this “faceless” mask, as if the conductor was smiling at her.

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“Dear passenger,” the voice rang out again, indeed coming from beneath that white ceramic mask, “please present your tickets. A friendly reminder: without a ticket, you won’t be able to get off!”

Without overthinking it, nor attempting to investigate the source of this uncanny vibe, Pandora quickly pulled out the two tickets from the potion pouch Amanda had given her.

The two tickets were nearly identical, save for one of them which faintly bore some blurry handwriting. The moment the tickets appeared, there was a snip sound. The conductor reached out with a white-gloved hand, took the tickets, and expertly punched a hole in them with a ticket clipper.

“Alright, this trip has been confirmed. Round-trip tickets, I see. Please take care of them, as you’ll need them for the return journey.”

“This train is about to depart. Please disembark as soon as possible so as not to delay the journey of other passengers. Have a pleasant trip, thank you~”

The conductor, still holding that eerie smile, bowed elegantly and handed the two punched tickets back to Pandora.

Pandora pocketed the tickets. Before she could even say anything, the conductor’s figure vanished from sight just as abruptly as it had appeared.

Phew... For some reason, Pandora let out a slight sigh of relief. Looking at the two tickets in her hand, she decided not to dwell on it.

“Elsa, let’s get off,” she turned and said to Elsa beside her. The latter nodded obediently, following closely behind Pandora step by step.

The train doors had remained open. They stepped off the train, their feet landing on the hard stone slabs of the platform. The sweltering heat hit them once more.

Meeting Poppy’s suspicious, scrutinizing gaze, Pandora simply gave a slight shrug and spread her hands.

“Sorry,” her voice was calm. “Like the conductor said, we were forced to board temporarily. As for why we got off at the exact same station as you, I honestly couldn’t tell you.”

Pandora’s words did nothing to dispel the suspicion. If anything, Poppy’s doubts about these two sudden “temporary passengers” only deepened.

She recognized the master-servant duo before her. They were from a batch of new Apprentices she had led two years ago—Pandora and Elsa. Their performance back then hadn’t left much of an impression on her; in fact, she hadn’t thought much of them at the time.

However, it was precisely because she recognized them that seeing them appear in such a bizarre manner felt extraordinarily... abnormal.

She had never heard of this “temporary boarding” nonsense. It was common knowledge that the Train operated within the Void. It had fixed routes, fixed anchors, strict schedules, and timetables. The only people who could ride the Train were passengers who had acquired official tickets through proper channels.

And someone who could just “board temporarily” in the middle of the Void... could they possibly be proper passengers? Even though they did have officially verified tickets from the conductor, Poppy remained highly suspicious.

On high alert, Poppy didn’t let her guard down for a second, her hand resting intentionally or otherwise on the hookah at her waist.

Just as the atmosphere was starting to stagnate, an icy voice suddenly rang out, “Pandora Douglas and Elsa, right?”

Although the tone was cold, Poppy, who was familiar with it, caught a hint of... a friendliness that others might not notice? Somewhat surprised, she turned her head to look at the speaker.

Pandora had also heard that trace of “friendliness.” She followed the voice, looking at the young girl whose appearance shared a slight resemblance to her own. The pale skin characteristic of albinism, and that exquisite, strikingly cold face.

Pandora recognized her at first glance. Ophelia Sterling. Or, to use a code name far more familiar to her: “The Snow.”

“Though I have no idea what happened, the fact that the two of you got off at the same station as us could, in a way, be considered lucky,” Ophelia Sterling’s voice was faint. “Even if your experiences leading up to it seem... somewhat unfortunate?”

Pandora nodded, a hint of a smile appearing on her face. “Seeing a familiar face in a strange place is definitely a stroke of luck amidst the misfortune.”