Chapter 2182: Chapter 2182

Rituals for "finding objects and people" were hardly uncommon. Both divination and non-divination methods offered numerous ceremonies of this nature.

Jenkins held no hope for divination; his talent for it was abysmal, and attempting it within a Mysterious Realm usually yielded nothing but absurd conclusions. As for non-divination methods, Papa Oliver had taught him plenty. While they weren't very effective on items imbued with spirit, they were more than sufficient for his current situation.

A ritual for finding an object required a compass or some other guide as its core material; after all, the results of the ceremony had to be displayed somehow.

However, incorporating a numbered compass couldn't be done by simply substituting it into the original ritual. The ceremony itself required modification. And while Jenkins was no expert ritualist like Magic Miss, he wasn't entirely ignorant either.

So, as he rummaged through his backpack for materials, he began mentally outlining how to revise the ritual's steps.

First, he used a piece of chalk to draw a perfect circle freehand on the flat deck. Inside the large circle, he drew four smaller circles, each tangent to the others and to the inner edge of the larger one, all of varying sizes.

Next, he stuffed some dandelion specimens into a wide-mouthed jar, added a bit of vinegar as a solution, and finally mixed in the powdered wings of a lost butterfly and the nail dust of an exotic, treasure-hunting rat. He corked the jar tightly and gave it a few shakes. Uncorking it, he began to stir clockwise with a glass rod while softly chanting a blessing for travelers. Once the potion inside turned a murky brown, he carefully dipped a quill into it and began to inscribe runes in the gaps between the smaller circles.

A wolf-hair brush, especially a white one, would have been ideal here, but Jenkins didn't have one in his backpack, and creating one from scratch would have been too much trouble. A quill was a decent substitute.

Once the runes were complete, he placed an item inside each of the four differently sized circles: the compass, to point toward the target; a flower specimen, to specify the object he was looking for; a small pendant bearing the Sage's Emblem—the pendant itself wasn't important, but the emblem was crucial to prevent the ritual from being mysteriously skewed; and finally, the last circle was left completely empty, symbolizing the item he had not yet obtained.

Only then did Jenkins grip the Star-Forged Magic Sword with both hands. He held it vertically in the air above the compass, counted down from five in his mind, and then plunged the tip toward the device, stopping abruptly just an instant before it could touch the needle.

Although nothing had physically touched the compass, the moment the sword's tip descended, the needle began to turn, slowly and deliberately, rotating about ninety degrees before coming to a stop.

Jenkins glanced toward the broken, overturned cupboard the needle was pointing at, knowing his idea had indeed worked.

The cupboard was wooden and looked as though it had been submerged in water and hacked at with an axe or a similar weapon, yet it still retained its basic shape. The wood on the outside was mostly rotted, but the piece was still quite large, with four distinct layers. Since it was lying face down, Jenkins had no idea it contained so much until he painstakingly heaved it over. Orıginal content can be found at Nov3lFɪre.ɴet

But there was no sign of the fire-breathing rat from earlier. Otherwise, Jenkins would have certainly exacted his revenge.

The cupboard had no glass panes, only elegantly carved wooden doors. Each level's doors were separate. Jenkins couldn't be bothered to skillfully pry open the doors, which were jammed from the cupboard's warping, so he simply smashed through each locked one. Instantly, the stench of decay and rotted wood billowed out.

The first level, the bottommost one, was filled almost entirely with porcelain plates. Though they were all shattered, he could still tell they had once been quite valuable.

The second level held gold and silver forks and knives. Tarnished black and dull from the water and contact with wood dust, and some even bent from being struck, they were still incredibly valuable. With a bit of work from a goldsmith or silversmith, they could be restored.

Even minor nobles would have found it difficult to acquire a complete set of silver dinnerware. Such a collection was often treated as a family heirloom. Adventure novels were full of familiar scenes where a noble family's maid would elope with her lover, stealing the master's silver cutlery to sell and fund their future "happy life."

Upon opening the third level, he finally saw what he was looking for: a toppled flowerpot, its broken shards, and a mound of damp, cracked soil. Still rooted in the largest clump of earth was a daisy, looking a bit withered but alive nonetheless. Its disc was a vibrant yellow, surrounded by petals of pure white.

He could still feel the spark of life within it. The flower had survived.

It was the first piece of good fortune he'd had since boarding this ship. Jenkins carefully touched the soil, casting a simple spell to stabilize it, lest he accidentally damaged the flower when he moved it.

But he was curious about what the fourth level of this kitchen cupboard might hold, so he held off on moving the flower and reached up to break open the topmost door.

The fourth level held no danger, just a messy pile of old books. Due to the water damage and external force, the words and pictures on most of them were illegible, but he could make out that they were mostly chef's recipes with a few ledgers mixed in.

Jenkins leaned in, sifting through the rotten paper for anything of value. Seeing this, the cat immediately perched on his shoulder, stretched its neck out, and twitched its nose before pointing with a small paw at something it had smelled.

It was a fragment of a diary, tucked between some notes on how to prepare beef. The author was clearly not well-educated; in the few sentences he could decipher, there was a spelling error in nearly every third word. The only correctly spelled words were simple prepositions and conjunctions.

Because it was written in the common tongue of the 18th Epoch, he could just barely grasp what the diarist had written. The general gist was that a catastrophe had arrived, transforming humans and other creatures into monsters, and that water was the most effective weapon against them.

"So, that's why these refugees are on a ship?" Jenkins muttered to himself, flipping the pages back and forth, but he couldn't glean any more useful information.

"That means it's temporarily safe here, but there's no guarantee the so-called monsters can't fly... An indescribable entity descends from beyond the sky, corrupting civilization, mutating life, and ultimately ushering in the apocalypse. What a classic trope."

He tucked away the diary pages and then carefully moved the daisy, still in its clump of damp soil, and presented it to the girl.

The girl didn't eat the flower, unlike the man who had devoured the fish. She carefully produced a small metal blade from somewhere, sliced the stem in half, and then pinned the small blossom to her collar. After that, she paid Jenkins no mind, simply lowering her head and giggling foolishly to herself as she toyed with the flower with her right hand.

Jenkins didn't disturb the girl's private amusement; he had known from the start that there wasn't a single sane person on this vessel. He quietly walked away to begin the second ritual.

By now, the faint light from the broken lantern had almost completely died out. The terrifying fog surrounding the ship was beginning to creep back in. The risk of searching for another flower of the same kind was too great; he had no choice but to look for the sunflower. But from its description, that sunflower didn't sound like an ordinary plant, and Jenkins wasn't certain his modified ritual would be effective.

He temporarily set aside the magic sword, and with a wave of his right hand, a flash of fire erupted, and the spiral greatsword appeared in his grasp. This time, he pointed this sword at the compass. Since the sunflower's properties were closer to light and fire, using this blade was more appropriate for the ritual.

The needle spun, pointing to a pile of objects near the ship's rail on his right. It was a stack of three tables, one piled on top of the other. The largest one was about the size of Miss Bevanna's office desk, and while the other two weren't as massive, they were larger than any ordinary school desk or coffee table. The common feature of all three was their abundance of drawers. Because he had to be cautious not to destroy the sunflower that might be hidden inside, it took a great deal of effort for Jenkins to separate the tables with his sword.

The three tables were filled with all sorts of junk. Jenkins even found a half-disintegrated bird's nest with a rotten, unidentifiable egg inside.

Beyond that, he was again assaulted by two cockroaches, each the size of a common rat, which leaped at his face. But he was ready this time, anticipating some kind of surprise before opening the drawers. When the cockroaches lunged, a torrent of fire erupted from his mouth, engulfing both oversized insects.

The consequence of this, however, was an utterly nauseating smell of burnt cockroach that permeated the air. Even with the wind on the deck, the stench refused to dissipate.

What's more, after the cockroaches were incinerated, they left behind a puddle of yellowish-green liquid. That fluid smelled even more foul; Jenkins couldn't compare it to any similar scent in his memory.

If he weren't trapped in this Mysterious Realm, he wouldn't want to spend another second on this ship.

But unfortunately, there was no sunflower in any of the drawers. Unwilling to give up, Jenkins used his sword to break the tables down into small wooden blocks, but all he found in a hidden compartment was a love letter and a pulsating mass of cockroach eggs that looked like black sesame paste.

The feeling of disappointment at not finding the flower was nothing compared to the sheer horror the cockroach eggs instilled in Jenkins. After a final confirmation that the wooden blocks held nothing else, he immediately kicked all the pieces overboard. He even tossed his own boots into the water after them; he would never, ever wear that pair again.

Hearing the final splash as his boots hit the water, the feeling of his skin crawling subsided slightly, but he still felt itchy all over, as if something were creeping up his back.

He stroked Chocolate a few times, which temporarily banished the strange sensation. But the sunflower was still nowhere to be found, and the fog had already closed in around them.