Chapter 1238: Chapter 1238
Miss Brolignans's words felt as if they were heaping the weight of the entire world onto Jenkins's shoulders, but he didn't believe he was ready to bear such a monumental responsibility.
For now, all he could do was take things one step at a time. Three of the Savior candidates for the end of the 18th Epoch had yet to appear, but by his calculations, everything would likely come to a head before the year was out.
A sense of unreality washed over Jenkins. He still had no idea what the so-called "Final Calamity" actually was, and could only vaguely surmise that it had something to do with the steam industry.
The most likely candidate was the secretive Gear Artisans' Association. Recalling how Magic Miss had repeatedly mentioned that the mining tunnels beneath Nolan were part of a massive seal, Jenkins suspected that whatever the cultists were searching for in the depths was likely the very thing he would have to confront.
The best course of action, for now, was to learn how to consolidate his own divinity before the final day arrived. As long as he possessed enough divine power, Jenkins figured it wouldn't matter what form the calamity took.
The thought of consolidating divinity immediately brought his follower, Fini, to mind. But the girl was at the church, and since Jenkins had returned in secret and didn't want the Church to know of his presence, he couldn't see her.
"But even if I did see Fini, what good would it do? It's not my first day as a deity. In this world, while a god's source of power isn't entirely unrelated to their followers, whether they have any or not doesn't seem to affect their strength... So what's the real purpose of a divine domain in consolidating divinity?"
Fini was an official Enchanter now, and with the little angel Louise by her side, Jenkins really shouldn't have had to worry about her safety.
"It's best to start them young, and these are all very simple rituals."
He remarked, and Miss Audrey was, of course, happy to help.
After their meeting, Miss Brolignans was set to leave Nolan. She said she would be returning to the grand cathedral of the Church of Destiny and Order to search for information that might be of use to Jenkins.
She promised to return to the city before the final day to help Jenkins and the world face the "calamity at the end of the epoch."
"Jenkins, you are the most unique person I've ever met," she told him. "Fate has bestowed upon you both responsibilities and gifts, and you have always faced it with optimism. Don't be overly concerned with what's to come. Though I am a diviner, I urge you to focus on the present, not the future."
At this, she shot an apologetic smile at Audrey, who stood nearby. She had never offered such advice to her own student.
"I depart from Nolan tomorrow. You needn't see me off; this isn't a permanent farewell. I hope that when we meet again, you will be just as healthy and optimistic as you are now."
Custom dictated that Jenkins should present a gift to a friend embarking on a long journey. Having nothing on hand, he improvised, dispatching a phantom he kept in a closet to return home and retrieve a gift Professor Burns had given him long ago: B-06-4-2207, The Loner's Gift Box. He then presented it to Miss Brolignans.
It was a token of gratitude for her earlier advice and a blessing for her safe travels. Miss Brolignans was reluctant to accept at first, but she eventually relented in the face of his insistence.
She, in turn, left gifts for both Jenkins and Audrey. For Audrey, she bestowed the crystal ball she herself most frequently used—one she had inherited from her own teacher. Audrey's previous one, after all, had unexpectedly exploded during a divination lesson with Jenkins some time ago.
The gift she left for Jenkins wasn't a priceless artifact or rare material, but a small parchment booklet filled with names and information. It wasn't an ancient tome, but something Miss Brolignans had written herself.
"I saw your father at Papa Oliver's shop not long ago and realized that we had met many years before. I've always been interested in your family, so I took the liberty of investigating whether you had any relatives outside of Nolan.
"The names in this booklet are people who might be related to your family, discovered through divination. Your bloodline is quite unique; it possesses a powerful resistance to scrying. So even I could only narrow the search down this much."
This was, in fact, an incredible feat. According to Miss Brolignans, she had used a single, simple directive—"find all those with a blood connection to Robert Williams and Jenkins Williams"—to search among every living person in the material world.
If Jenkins possessed such a skill, he'd never have to worry about his cat, Chocolate, suddenly running away from him.
This gift was more precious than any numbered artifact. Jenkins might never learn the secrets of the Williams family from others, but with these three pages in hand, he could at least investigate for himself.
The thick roll of parchment was covered in tiny, dense script. A rough estimate put the number of names and details at six or seven hundred, but even so, the scope of the search had been drastically narrowed.
Jenkins planned to use Dolores's intelligence network to investigate. Since he had addresses down to the very house number, uncovering the ancestry of those six or seven hundred people should only be a matter of time. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ novel★fire.net
This valuable lead put him in such high spirits that not even Miss Audrey's parting warning—a reminder not to forget their divination lessons, accompanied by an assignment of more than a dozen books to finish in Ruen—could dampen his mood.
It was only about four in the afternoon. As Jenkins strolled down the street, he mentally ran through a list of who else he needed to visit. It was the weekend, so the streets were bustling with people. Spring had arrived, and the sky remained bright even at this hour.
The fallen angel incident from earlier in the week hadn't left much of an impression on the city. All the citizens seemed to remember was the torrential downpour on Monday, which had showered the streets with a mysterious deluge of flower petals.
This had led to a spike in hay fever cases this spring, but at least it wasn't a plague.
He made his way to the post office, intending to buy a copy of "Prospects in Tropical Disease Medicine"—the signal to confirm if this month's gathering with Corpse Gentleman was on. When he got there, however, he found the main entrance closed for renovations. A line of people snaked out from the side door, stretching nearly all the way to the street corner..