Chapter 294: Chapter 294

Looking back, he could no longer see the girl's silhouette. Only then did Jenkins slow his pace, a warm feeling spreading through his chest. Of course, he mused, that could just be Chocolate squirming against him.

Parting with that money felt like a good deed. He just hoped that after taking it, the girl wouldn't sell flowers here anymore.

Chocolate let out a soft cry.

If Jenkins could understand the language of cats, he would have realized that Chocolate was saying this was the first step for a pseudo-god to gain a nascent believer, the beginning of a journey to gather faith.

Jenkins didn't head home right away. Instead, he first went to the location he had arranged with Magic Miss to see if she had completed the ritual.

Thanks to their chance encounter a few days ago, he now knew her real name was Agnes Howard, and the chosen transaction spot was quite a distance from the Howard Detective Agency. It was also far from his own residence, but not so far that he couldn't walk there in a reasonable amount of time.

His destination was a two-story Western-style house fronting the street, its exterior adorned with two rows of brass pipes. On the second floor was an open-air balcony. Pretending to be a passerby, he glanced up. The number of flowerpots on the balcony was three—an odd number, which meant Magic Miss's work was not yet finished.

He sighed, rounded the corner at the intersection ahead, and turned to leave.

A middle-aged gentleman in a long coat and hat, leaning on a walking stick, brushed past Jenkins at the street corner. The man turned down the street to the east, while Jenkins continued on his way.

"Male, a level-five Enchanter. His left eye is a demonic eye."

His expression unchanging, he kept walking forward, then abruptly ducked into an alley. Feigning interest in the graffiti on the wall, he blinked, and his Eye of Reality allowed him to see the man's aura right through the brickwork. The man was still moving forward. Based on Jenkins's knowledge of the area, the man must have also left the main road and entered the narrow lanes.

He stood his ground for a few minutes, confirming the middle-aged gentleman had no intention of heading his way, then pursued him without a moment's hesitation. Seeing that no one was around, he drew his pistol, flicked off the safety, and aimed it ahead.

A man with a demonic eye wasn't necessarily a cultist, but it was always better to be sure. Since he had run into him, he shouldn't just retreat. He had already decided, however, that he would absolutely avoid a direct confrontation. Tailing him from a distance to find out what he was up to would be enough. Follow current novᴇls on novel fire.net

Even knowing that these small alleys were synonymous with garbage-strewn streets, the state of this one was particularly egregious. Jenkins had to use his free left hand to cover his nose. Because his eyes were fixed on the points of light, he had no idea what the soft, squishy thing his foot had just landed on was.

The Sage preserve him, he didn't want to know either.

The man was clearly unfamiliar with the local terrain, making constant turns in the alleyways but not actually covering much distance in a straight line. Jenkins followed close behind, reminding himself to be extremely careful.

The points of light representing the man's demonic eye and abilities suddenly stopped, then shot upward in a rapid spiral. Jenkins pressed his left arm against the brick wall, taking a couple of deep breaths of the cold air. The sharp, biting air made his lungs burn, but his mind grew even more focused.

The instant he counted to three in his mind, he peeked his head out and just as quickly pulled it back.

"Right. An unfinished four-story building."

Indeed, the man was climbing the stairs of an unfinished building, not even glancing down.

Jenkins couldn't figure it out. Even if he was trying to escape, that was hardly the place to run. The surrounding area was filled with low, single-story houses. If he was attempting to lose a pursuer by jumping across rooftops, he should have made his move at a comparable height. But he was already past the third floor, two-thirds of the way up the building's frame.

In other words, the man had a specific purpose for heading to that location.

At that moment, how he wished he possessed the power of divination, to know in advance whether his next move would land him in serious trouble.

But fantasy was useless. Gritting his teeth, Jenkins crouched low and dashed out. No bullets rained down from above as he'd feared. He reached the exterior iron staircase of the unadorned building.

The man had stopped moving. Jenkins looked up and saw him standing at the very top of the structure, where even the scaffolding hadn't been removed.

"Don't make a sound!"

Jenkins first whispered to his chest, and after feeling a蠕动, he stealthily began to climb the exterior iron staircase of the unfinished four-story building.

If it weren't absolutely necessary, Jenkins would never have set foot on such a dangerously rust-eaten structure. He felt it could very well collapse in the next second.

Fortunately, from the man's position on the roof, unless he leaned over the railing to look straight down, he couldn't see Jenkins climbing. He was now at the midway point of the second floor, crouched in the corner of the landing platform, shielded by the rusty iron treads.

"Oh? Two demonic eyes?"

Observing again yielded a new discovery. A thick wall, which must have been blocking his view as he moved, had finally been circumvented. Jenkins saw that below the middle-aged gentleman, near his feet, there was another aura shaped like a demonic eye—and this one was pitch black!

He froze in terror, his left hand gripping the cold,刺手的 iron railing. He shot half his body out from the edge of the stairs for a split second, then yanked himself back again.

Through a thin haze of smog, he saw the grim sky. A man was lying on the ground at the middle-aged gentleman's feet. Due to the angle, Jenkins could only see a pair of gleaming leather shoes and the lower half of his legs. The man was motionless, and it was impossible to tell if he was unconscious or already dead.

Jenkins swallowed hard, thinking that this was the sort of thing he should report directly to the Church. After all, Miss Bevanna had arrived in Nolan this morning.

But before he could act, he saw a walnut-sized object suddenly drop from the building, followed by the voice of the man on the roof:

"I know you're awake, Mr. Stuart. This game is pointless. I have certain... unusual abilities. Right now, my eyes can not only see you, but they can also monitor the street below. No police will come to save you. And even if they did, it would be useless."