Chapter 1781: Chapter 1781

Ever since Jenkins and Miss Windsor began their conversation, Magic Miss, sharing the carriage with them, had maintained a professional silence.

"Could you tell me more about the resurrection you mentioned?"

But when Jenkins brought up the matter concerning Tackwen, she couldn't contain her curiosity and suddenly asked. Jenkins obliged, briefly recounting the "clues the Church had discovered." Upon hearing his explanation, Magic Miss gave a slight nod.

"I've heard of the Cursed Item known as Soul Echo," she said. "It's a truly malevolent artifact used to manipulate souls. I don't know what they were planning, but stopping them was undoubtedly for the best."

Since the topic of rituals had come up, Jenkins went on to explain the connection between the great fire in the south and Tackwen. The part that stood out to Miss Windsor was that Tackwen had sacrificed his own people, an act she found utterly abhorrent. Magic Miss, however, focused on the occult implications and couldn't help but interject again, which surprised Miss Windsor. In her experience, her consultant on mystical affairs was a taciturn woman who rarely spoke more than a few words a day.

"After that terrible Monday night, I discussed the Children of the Mist with some... friends who came from out of town," Magic Miss began. "It's a creature of extreme adaptability and mutability. Because it was born in Nolan, it possesses metallic and resentful properties in addition to its natural mist-like traits. And because it was born in a burning forest, it also has characteristics of fire and wood. Are they trying to cultivate and accelerate the growth of the Children of the Mist?"

"The Church has a similar theory," Jenkins confirmed. "And they must have been planning this since last year."

"They understood the Children of the Mist even before the Church did?"

Magic Miss's brow furrowed.

Jenkins shifted his leg, tapping it against the carriage floor, which earned a disgruntled meow from the cat resting on his lap.

Miss Windsor was completely lost, but Magic Miss understood perfectly. She nodded again, unable to suppress a sigh.

"In that case... don't tell me that organization, the Tree House, is trying to catalyze the apocalypse and bring it about prematurely?"

A smile touched Jenkins's lips. Magic Miss had arrived at the same conclusion.

"That's what I was thinking as well," he said. "It seems you're quite knowledgeable about this."

"No, I'm just making a logical deduction. The implications of those rituals are quite clear. Of course, I'm not the only one who's reached this conclusion. My friends are flocking to Nolan from all over the world. Everyone wants to bear witness to this era."

Magic Miss was referring to her fellow believers, followers of the God of Rituals. The previous month, when Jenkins, in his guise as Candle Mr, had proposed a collaboration, she had mentioned that her brethren were also converging on Nolan.

"Then, regarding what I proposed..."

"They thought it was an excellent proposal. However, they want to meet 'that gentleman' in person before deciding whether to cooperate."

Jenkins didn't reply, merely nodding slightly. Magic Miss took the hint and dropped the subject, aware that it was best not to discuss such matters in front of outsiders.

Miss Windsor had intended to see Jenkins home before returning to her own, but Jenkins insisted it was too dangerous for her to travel "alone." He directed the coachman to proceed directly to the Windsor residence in the city. After bidding Miss Windsor farewell and watching her enter the courtyard with a look of disappointment, he finally turned to leave.

Instead of hailing another carriage, however, Jenkins began to walk alone through the gray, fog-shrouded city night. He deliberately slowed his pace, and after about ten minutes, he heard the sound of a woman's footsteps hurrying after him.

He remarked, glancing at his pocket watch.

"It's only been ten minutes. Did you already find an excuse to leave Miss Windsor?"

"I'm not by her side twenty-four-seven," she replied. "Besides, it's after my working hours."

Magic Miss answered, her breathing slightly uneven, a clear sign she had hurried to catch up.

"Did you really think an Enchanter of my caliber would provide round-the-clock protection for an ordinary person just for money? No, I have far more important things to do."

Jenkins waited for her to catch up, and once she was beside him, they began to walk side by side.

"No round-the-clock protection," he mused. "I imagine that's only because Miss Windsor isn't paying for it."

he said. Magic Miss considered this for a moment before nodding.

"Yes, you have a point."

Neither of them brought up why they were acting so familiar, given Jenkins's public persona. They both tacitly skipped over the subject. After all, they weren't walking through the fog this late at night just to discuss social pleasantries.

"So, Silver Flute Miss isn't with you tonight," Jenkins observed. "Did Mr. Black Cat run into some serious trouble?"

Jenkins asked, though it sounded more like a statement.

"To be more precise, Mr. Black Cat and Mr. Hood have run into serious trouble together. You know about the recent business with the tulips, don't you? Oh, of course you do."

Being by Miss Windsor's side, even with the attempts at concealment, it was impossible for Magic Miss to be completely unaware of the connection between a certain group of people and tulips.

"Mr. Hood wanted to make a fortune on tulips; he believes their value is about to skyrocket. Mr. Black Cat just got back from Dullin with a fair bit of capital, so the two of them decided to go into business together..."

She hesitated for a moment, then voiced a question that had been on her mind for some time. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ novel~fire~net

"There's real money to be made in these flowers, isn't there?"

"The prerequisite is that you have to run fast."

Jenkins said, seeing from the look on her face that she hadn't understood at all. He didn't bother to explain and instead continued with his questions.

"What kind of trouble could they get into with a business like that? Don't tell me they also got mixed up with loan sharks?"

This was a reference to the trouble with Newman's fiancée's family, the very reason Jenkins had postponed bringing the girls and Sigrid home.

"Loan sharks? Nothing like that. Mr. Black Cat and Mr. Hood figured that while the local suppliers had high-quality tulips and bulbs—excellent patterns and colors—the prices were just too steep. So they planned to bring in a whole train car full of them from out of town. They thought one big score could set them up for life. But the out-of-town contact who claimed to have the goods was a con artist. When they realized something was wrong and went to get their money back, they found him dead."

It was a truly complicated and twisted tale.

"So Mr. Hood and Mr. Black Cat got scammed?"

Jenkins sounded surprised.

"Those two always struck me as clever and resourceful. Who was this person? Was it a Follower of the God of Li... ahem, what sort of methods did he use?"

"The man's credentials seemed impeccable."

she said, turning right at the corner with Jenkins.

"Normally, the death of some random person wouldn't be an issue. They'd just find their money and leave. But this man's identity is the problem."

Seeing a trio of police officers on their night patrol approaching, she seamlessly shifted the conversation to the price of vegetables. Only when the officers were out of earshot did she continue.

"The dead man's name is Horas Luther. You should know who that is—he's a potential rival of yours, after all. It was because he used his noble title as collateral that our friends trusted him so easily. I mean, who would expect someone like that to be a swindler?

"Now he's dead in his hotel room, and Mr. Hood and Mr. Black Cat—who had a grudge against him over a large sum of gold pounds—were the first to find the body. You can imagine how that looks. What's more, everyone in Nolan is looking for him. His connection to the death of the southern king still hasn't been cleared up. No matter how you slice it, Mr. Hood and Mr. Black Cat are now inextricably linked to this mess."

Horas Luther had numerous connections to Jenkins as well. If not for the emergence of the Williamette family, he would have been first in line for the Fidektri throne. And because an investigation had linked him to the cook who poisoned King Tackwen, the Nolan police, the Cheslan delegation, and the Church were all searching for him. No one ever imagined he would be the one to run into Mr. Hood and Mr. Black Cat.

Luther's body had only been discovered this evening. Silver Flute Miss had gone to help them deal with the corpse. Magic Miss's first instinct had been to tell Miss Windsor and ask for her assistance, but on second thought, she decided against it. There was no need to expose the identities of Mr. Hood and Mr. Black Cat, and asking Candle Mr for help would be far more convenient.

As they spoke, they made their way directly to the scene of Luther's death. On Magic Miss's suggestion, Jenkins adopted his identity as Candle Mr and had his black-and-white cat, Chocolate, assume the form of a white cat named Vanilla.

It was only upon entering the room that Jenkins understood what "dealing with the corpse" truly meant. In the center of the spacious room, Horas Luther was bound to a chair with thick rope. The chair itself was suspended in mid-air by five more ropes, one of which was cinched tightly around his neck. Luther's body was a festering horror. His skin was flaking away into metallic scales, and his teeth had burst from his gums, intermingled with threaded screw rods. A coiled spring protruded from one of his eye sockets, wobbling erratically. As a harsh, metallic screeching sound erupted from his mouth, puffs of white steam billowed out.

The man was undoubtedly dead. He looked like a corpse reanimated by some necromantic spell, but the undead didn't typically install metal parts in themselves.

When the door opened to reveal a man with a white cat, Mr. Hood, Mr. Black Cat, and Silver Flute Miss greeted him immediately. It seemed almost everyone from Mr. Hood's little gathering was present—everyone except for Skylark Miss and Mr. White Cat.

Jenkins gave a slight nod in greeting before asking, his voice tinged with hesitation.

"Is he some kind of mechanically augmented human? No, that doesn't seem right."

The flesh-and-machine hybrids he'd seen before were nothing . Those were merely disgusting; Mr. Luther's current state was genuinely horrifying.

"It's not what you're thinking," Mr. Hood clarified. "We've already examined him. Before he died, at least, he was completely and unquestionably human. This seems to be some kind of curse, similar to a necromantic plague that reanimates the dead. Only, instead of rising as a typical zombie, the corpse ends up... ."