Chapter 1448: Chapter 1448

The box showed clear signs of being scorched. With just a gentle shake, it disintegrated in Jenkins's hands, and the golden pinecone held within slid into his palm.

Raindrops fell silently on the pinecone's surface. The unique luster of gold and the profound sense of wealth it exuded almost made Jenkins utter the words, "My... precious."

He drew a sharp breath, clenched the pinecone tightly in his hand, and closed his eyes for a few seconds before standing up.

"An interesting Cursed Item."

The pinecone, clasped in his palm, still faintly seeped a black spiritual aura through his fingers. But his long-dormant [Hero (Black Sacred)] ability had already silently activated. Through the contact with his palm, most of the Cursed Item's dissipating aura simply scattered, while a small portion was converted into spirit that Jenkins could absorb.

Without the [Hero] ability, Jenkins would never have dared to touch a Cursed Item of this magnitude with his bare hands. Even so, the situation was far from ideal. Given the abysmal conversion rate, it would take him centuries to fully neutralize it.

According to the *Black Town Secret Records* he had read on his bed, this cursed pinecone, a symbol of wealth, would later cause a massive uproar in the town. Anyone who came to possess it by chance would soon suffer a terrible misfortune, and the bodies and souls of the unlucky would become nourishment for the pinecone, making it even more powerful.

The curse was only broken when a kind-hearted and innocent boy—or rather, a boy too naive to understand anything—found it. After playing with it for a while, he carelessly tossed it away in the woods outside of town.

As a fable meant to warn people against coveting unearned riches, the story was decent enough. But in reality, it was terrifying.

Clutching the golden pinecone, he returned to his room at the inn. Then, taking it and the stone box that had originally held it, he went back into the woods. He placed the pinecone back in the box and reburied it in the deep pit where the woodcutter had found it.

While digging, he found several pages from an old, thread-bound book in the same spot. He paid them no mind, simply stuffing them into his pocket before burying the box and the pinecone deep within the earth.

As he patted down the last handful of dirt, Jenkins thought he heard a faint wail rising from beneath his feet. He shook his head and sat up in bed. The "dream" was over.

"If it curses the greedy humans who take the pinecone, then returning it to its original place should break the curse, right?"

He sighed, intending to look at the pages he had acquired, but he suddenly felt a dampness on his face. He raised a hand to his cheek and, sure enough, found traces of moisture on his left side. He cautiously brought his fingers to his nose and sniffed but detected no scent.

"Chocolate, you didn't spit on my face while I was asleep, did you?"

He posed the question to his cat, only to find the feline curled into a tight ball, its head buried deep in its belly. It had never slept in such a position before, and since he couldn't see its face, Jenkins couldn't be sure if it was truly asleep.

"Chocolate is acting a bit strange."

He muttered to himself, then turned his attention to the pages in his hand, which glowed with a yellow spiritual light. Just like the previous tale, "The Ghoul in the Graveyard," these pages contained a different story from the one in the original book, yet they also bore the handwritten title *Black Town Secret Records* in the header.

He stacked the pages from both stories together. When nothing happened after a moment, he threw on a coat and prepared to go out. He called for his cat one last time before leaving, but Chocolate didn't respond. Assuming it didn't want to go out, Jenkins shrugged and slipped out through the window.

He left the church alone, following the route from his memory to the clearing in the woods. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but the forest has a memory. For Jenkins, especially, getting lost in a forest was an impossibility.

He crouched down and prodded the soil with the tip of his sword. Before long, he uncovered the ancient stone box. He carefully lifted it out, brushed the dirt from its surface, and opened the lid. The golden pinecone was still nestled inside.

"It's truly beautiful."

After so many years buried underground, its power had waned considerably compared to when Jenkins had seen it in the "dream." Holding it in his palm, he no longer felt the bone-chilling cold, but he could still sense the pinecone's inherent temptation.

He chuckled and summoned his golden Ouroboros Ring. Just as he expected, the ring began to hum the moment it appeared, vibrating with a clear desire for the pinecone.

He hadn't used the ring to devour it in the "dream" because the Cursed Item had been far too powerful then. But now, in his own timeline, the pinecone had been "starved" underground for years and no longer possessed the strength to influence his Enchanter's ring.

As one of its own kind was consumed, the Ouroboros on the golden ring seemed to come alive, slithering from his finger to coil around the pinecone. The two seemingly identical golds merged into one. Soon, as the spiritual flow of the destroyed Cursed Item poured into Jenkins's body, the small golden serpent slithered back onto his finger, biting its tail to once again form a ring.

The ring had once drawn wealth to Jenkins, allowing him to amass a fortune in just half a year that most people couldn't accumulate in a lifetime. Now, after devouring the pinecone, it didn't seem to exhibit any new functions.

But Jenkins wasn't greedy. As long as he had destroyed the Cursed Item, he considered it a success.

Pleased with the outcome, he returned to his bedroom in the church. A glance at his pocket watch showed it was only around ten o'clock. Still in his sleepwear, he climbed back into the warm bed and, by the light of the bedside candle, picked up the old book once more.

"Should I read the third story? Everything that's happened so far has been very interesting, but it's definitely not normal." Follow current ɴᴏᴠᴇʟs on noᴠelfire.net

He wanted to get his cat's opinion, but it remained curled in a ball. Chocolate was being a little too well-behaved tonight. Jenkins reached out and stroked its back, relieved to hear it let out a soft cry.

His gaze fell back on the old book's cover, dimly lit by the flickering light. With a shrug, he leaned back against the soft pillows, turned the page, and began the third story.

The third story was titled "The Maiden in the Lake," and it bore a striking resemblance to some of the tales Jenkins had read in his homeland. This one also took place in the forest near Black Town—more specifically, the first scene was set in the very lake where the church's steam-powered airship had made its emergency landing.