Chapter 1511: Chapter 1511
Crossing the city under the cover of night, Jenkins arrived with his cat at the entrance of a defunct club in the eastern district of Bel Diran. He glanced up at the sign hanging over the door:
THE DREAM INTERPRETATION CLUB
Clubs were a common sight in large cities, usually operating as little more than hobbyist societies. The average person yearned for the extraordinary, making dream interpretation and divination fashionable pastimes. For bored noblewomen with nothing better to do, and for the roguish youths who had nothing to eat but wanted to devour said noblewomen, these clubs held a special allure.
Although the club was currently closed for business, Jenkins knew from Mr. Hood that it was not as simple as it appeared.
He looked down, checking his attire one last time, then rapped twice on the door.
The moment the knocking ceased, a voice answered from within. Its owner sounded as if they were pressed right against the door. The voice was androgynous and trembled incessantly, enough to send a chill down one’s spine.
“A dream is an unknown adventure.”
It was the password, one that Mr. Hood had paid a handsome price to acquire.
“Dreaming is the key for mortals to touch that strange world.”
“What is the purpose of this key?”
“To let us know we are born extraordinary.”
The door opened silently, just a crack, and Jenkins immediately slipped inside. Though the club had appeared completely dark from the outside, the brilliant glow of gas lamps within nearly brought tears to his eyes as he stepped in from the night.
He fought back the discomfort and looked for the person who had quizzed him, only to find a desiccated corpse leaning against the door. Beyond it stretched a long corridor where people sat or stood, skillfully puffing out clouds of yellow smoke. No one seemed the least bit surprised by the mummy at the entrance.
The corridor was lined with a dense series of rooms. The occupants within had paid more gold and could therefore enjoy superior smoking services. In addition to a wooden chaise lounge, they had their choice of various implements, like hookahs and long-stemmed pipes, to savor the expensive tobacco.
Yellow smoke saturated the club, casting everything in an insane and distorted haze.
Though the silent, endless night lay just outside, the club’s bright lights felt far more terrifying.
The acrid yellow fog in the corridor had already sent Chocolate scrambling into Jenkins’s pocket. Jenkins pressed a hand to his nose, frowning as he surveyed his surroundings. A young man in a white shirt soon approached him.
“First time here, sir? Is there anything I can help you with?”
He was clearly a club attendant. Jenkins, feigning impatience, nodded curtly and pulled a one-gold-pound coin (not pure gold) from his pocket, handing it over.
“This place is worse than I expected. I need a quiet room where I won’t be disturbed. Don’t worry about the money; gold is just a number to me.”
He casually flashed the golden Ouroboros ring on his finger. The ring itself, a symbol of wealth, was alluring enough, but on Jenkins’s hand, it perfectly conveyed the depth of his pockets.
“Of course, sir. Please follow me to the second floor. And how should I address you?”
The young attendant inquired as he led the way.
“Do I need to register my identity here?”
Jenkins asked facetiously.
“Then you can call me Earl Paramount.” ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ NovelHub(.)net
Jenkins said with a dismissive air. The attendant nodded and asked no more questions.
The club had three floors in total. The third was off-limits to patrons, while the left wing of the second floor was a luxurious VIP area. Jenkins had brought a great deal of cash for this venture, and a small display of his wealth was enough to secure him a private room.
The room was fully furnished and even came with a naked woman, but he promptly sent her away.
“I’m here to smoke. Get this damned woman out of here. If I wanted a woman, why would I come to your establishment?”
He grumbled as he shooed the woman from the room, then sat at the table. With a slightly clumsy hand, he used a pair of tweezers to lift some tobacco from a pure silver box and roll it in fine white paper.
Before long, wisps of yellow smoke began to drift from the crack beneath the room’s door.
Jenkins had gone to great lengths to infiltrate this place, and it certainly wasn’t for a bit of tobacco. With his cover established, he finally had a moment to use his Eye of Reality and conduct a thorough scan of the club.
The establishment was undoubtedly owned by a faction of Benefactors. The talking mummy at the door was proof enough, but to operate such a club right under the noses of both the Kingdom and the Church spoke volumes about the power behind it.
The first floor was filled with desperate junkies, lost in the hazy illusions of tobacco and dreams. On the second floor, however, traces of Benefactors were already apparent, like the young attendant who had shown Jenkins to his room.
The third floor housed the club’s core operations—the office area. That was Jenkins’s target. He had come alone, without the Church, precisely because he wanted to uncover more clues from that place.
Leaving the cigarette to burn in the room, he slipped out the window. He climbed the drainpipe on the exterior wall, laboriously making his way to the window of the room directly above his. Closing his eyes, he listened intently. Hearing no breathing or footsteps, he gently tapped the glass twice. The internal latch on the window immediately froze over and shattered.
With a pistol in his right hand, he shoved the window open and tumbled inside, rolling twice across the floor before springing up and aiming his weapon left and right. Seeing that the room was truly empty, he wiped the sweat from his brow and carefully shut the window behind him.
It was an ordinary office, but it contained very few files or materials. A quick search confirmed there were no valuable leads, so he narrowed his eyes and focused on the wall.
On the other side of that wall, a Level 5 Benefactor had been lying down for a very long time. He was either unconscious or sound asleep.
After a moment’s hesitation, Jenkins found a comfortable spot and sat down, leaning against the wall. He instructed the cat in his pocket to watch over his body, then activated [Dream Soul Departure]. His soul slipped free from its physical confines and passed straight through the wall into the adjacent room.
Just as he suspected, the next room was a bedroom, its floor littered with scattered clothes. A male Benefactor was fast asleep on the bed, flanked by two women in deep slumber.
Jenkins’s spirit floated around the room, memorizing the placement of its contents, before turning his attention to the Benefactor’s head. In his soul state, the [Eye of Reality] could perceive far more than it ever could in his physical body.