Chapter 1616: Chapter 1616

Nolan City was vast. Even accounting only for its densely populated urban areas, its total footprint was no smaller than any city from Jenkins’s home world during the same era.

As a result, he had been wandering aimlessly through the thick fog on the city's outskirts for nearly three hours without getting any closer to the center. It seemed the outer slums were more prone to strange, supernatural occurrences, which drew his steps ever deeper into the labyrinth of interconnected alleys.

This time, he saw no supernatural aura, only the faint sound of sobbing from a nearby house with severely peeling walls. Since it wasn't a supernatural event, Jenkins had no obligation to get involved, but he stopped in his tracks all the same.

"It's probably just a lonely woman thinking of something sad late at night, or a couple having an argument," he thought. "It can't be anything serious."

But as the thought crossed his mind, he worried his judgment was wrong. What if the woman inside was about to take her own life? Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs novᴇlfire.net

"Well, since I've come all this way," he reasoned with himself, "I suppose I should check it out."

He glanced up at the structure of the nearby houses, then expertly scrambled onto a neighbor's roof. From there, he slid down into the alley behind the house and used the light from a rear window to pinpoint the woman's location inside the bedroom. Only then did he carefully use a single finger to push the window open a crack.

The window had no glass, only newspaper pasted over the frame. In truth, Jenkins could have seen inside without opening it.

The rear window looked into the bedroom of this simple, rundown house—or rather, a room that served as a bedroom, living room, and dining room all in one. The family could only be described as destitute; aside from a few essential pieces of furniture, the only other items in the room were sacks piled in a corner.

Jenkins blinked. He saw no unusual colors on the man, which meant the illness was natural. That completely separated the matter from the realm of the supernatural.

"This has nothing to do with me."

He thought this to himself, yet he instinctively pulled on his black robe. He didn't want Pops to think he was just wandering around in the middle of the night for no reason.

He circled back to the front and, this time, knocked properly on the door. The crying inside stopped abruptly. After nearly half a minute, a woman's voice called out:

"I'm here with community aid... that is, may I ask which god you worship?"

Referring to the Righteous God, the Eternal Blazing Sun, in such a way was typical of a casual believer. They truly had faith, but only a little. The main reason they believed was to avoid becoming part of the legendary "Wall of the Faithless" after death—not that Jenkins knew for sure if such a thing existed in this world, but he highly doubted it.

"Yes, I'm from the Church of the Sun God, here to offer you some comfort."

He said this, but of course the woman inside didn't believe him.

Jenkins didn't have much time to waste here, and the situation wasn't dire enough to warrant using his powers of deception to get the door open.

He slid a one-pound note through the crack in the door. A few seconds later, it creaked open.

The man and woman inside were a married couple who had moved from the Nolan countryside to the city about three years ago, hoping to find work and support their family. Since then, the woman had taken a job at a textile mill while the man worked at a machine factory, his sole duty to manage the steam boiler—in other words, to shovel coal.

It was grueling work, of course, but it had provided a steady income. That stability, however, proved fragile. From his daily exposure to coal dust, the man soon contracted a lung disease. The initial symptoms were mild, but as Nolan's air quality steadily worsened, his occupational illness grew far more severe.

Now, he had reached a point where he struggled for breath even in a sealed room. That was why his wife was weeping in the dead of night, overcome with grief for their family's misfortune.

If this was simply a tragic accident, Jenkins was powerless to address the root cause. Even now, while the woman wasn't looking, he had already touched the man's arm, using his healing ability to ease the pressure on his lungs. But the man would inevitably return to the factory, and even a perfectly healthy person would eventually suffer the same fate.

And that wasn't even considering the pollution in Nolan's urban districts. The city was becoming unfit for human life as an unnatural fog steadily encroached upon its spaces. Curing one man's disease or shutting down a single factory was merely a temporary fix. The true problem lay in policy and perception—things Jenkins couldn't change on his own.

He didn't stay long before leaving. The weeping woman seemed to have mistaken him for a clergyman. As he left, she urged the kind "monk" to be careful on the roads at night, mentioning recent rumors of a murderer lurking in Nolan's fog.

Jenkins thanked her for her kindness and continued down the alley, heading deeper into the haze.

Reverting to his own appearance, he soon reached the neighborhood where Miss Audrey lived. This area was quite close to the so-called "inner city," the parts that had not yet been consumed by the fog.

Jenkins hesitated, wondering if he should greet his teacher before leaving. But a glance at his pocket watch showed it was nearly midnight, so he decided against an impromptu visit.

Miss Audrey lived in an upscale residential area, so the surroundings were exceptionally quiet. His presence here at this hour was conspicuous; if a patrolling officer saw him, he would surely be questioned. He quickened his pace, intending to leave, but as he reached the street corner and was about to turn left, he suddenly heard a strange sound nearby.

He turned his head and saw a red ball rolling down the street. It only came to a stop after bumping against the toe of his shoe.

"Why does this feel so familiar?"

The ghost he had encountered in the hospital when he first arrived in this world had appeared in the very same way.

He bent down to pick up the ball, then glanced around to see which unlucky soul had run into him. Just then, a hand tapped his left shoulder. Before he could react, his cat, sensing an invasion of its territory, shot out from his collar in a fury. Jenkins saw a flash of white streak past his face as the cat let out a piercing "Meow!" and pounced at whatever was behind him.

He spun around and caught the cat before it could fall, but there was no ghostly figure to be seen. The whole thing had happened so fast that Jenkins wasn't sure what Chocolate had discovered. He squeezed the red sphere in his hand, which had the strange texture of a ball of flesh, and at his command, orange flames flared to life in his palm.