Chapter 305: Chapter 305
Jenkins heard a commotion in the distance. He glanced back to see bobbing lights at the mouth of the alley—people were running toward them with paraffin lamps.
Having dealt with the skull tattoo, Magic Miss gave Jenkins a nod, and the two of them immediately sprinted deeper into the alley.
This Enchanter's robe had the ability to resist divination, especially after absorbing another black robe in front of the Gate of All Things. Jenkins had only recently figured out its new function: when someone performed a divination targeting a specific point in time, the identity they would perceive would only be the identity Jenkins himself had assumed at that moment.
Take what had just happened, for instance. Even if a powerful diviner managed to struggle through the confusing omens and symbols to glimpse the truth, all they would see was a "Mr. Candle" with no background information—not the black-robed man who collected Cursed Items, nor the ruthless Twin Demons.
The two of them ran through the alley with a practiced understanding. Magic Miss had specifically scouted the nearby terrain, so she expertly avoided the people drawn to the scene from all directions.
They eventually ended up back on the pebbled riverbank, but it wasn't the same bridge as before.
"The operation was a success. Thank you for your help, Mr. Candle."
The woman's voice was cheerful. She turned and handed Jenkins an oil-paper package. Inside were five spiritual lodestones, each about the size of a piece of flint.
"I didn't really do much."
"No need to be so modest. Whether it was deducing that the ghost's hair was hidden in its teeth or effortlessly subduing it in the end, the credit is all yours."
She paused for a moment, then pulled the parchment with the skull tattoo from her sleeve once more.
"I suppose I can tell you what this is. It's not particularly important, but please, keep it a secret."
"Mr. Candle, have you ever heard of A-12-1-0044?"
The number sounded extremely familiar. Jenkins thought for a moment before it clicked. "The Cursed Sword of the Departed Soul?" he asked, his eyes widening slightly.
"So you know of it. That saves me a lengthy explanation... And please, don't look at me like that. I'm not some maniac trying to unleash another undead plague."
It was no wonder Jenkins thought so. The incident thirty years ago hadn't spiraled into a major catastrophe on its own, but the corpse plague it spawned had become the most severe continent-wide epidemic of the entire epoch.
"Thirty years ago, the Orthodox Church cornered the wielder of the Skull Sword and his army in a small town. But after the legion of the dead was annihilated, the sword itself was nowhere to be found. Then, ten years ago, a rumor surfaced from somewhere that A-12-1-0044 had vanished long before its owner was exposed. The only way to find it is through its scattered marks. They say there are over a thousand marks in total, but only one of them is the real key." ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novel⚑fire.net
"Yes, this is one of the marks. The whole story is riddled with inconsistencies, of course, like where these marks even came from. But my objective isn't to find the sword. I'm not willing to gamble on one-in-a-thousand odds..."
Jenkins nodded, his gaze fixed on the design on the parchment, committing it to memory. The twin red and blue moons cast their light upon the skull, and instead of making it look horrifying, it gave the image an almost sacred quality.
He didn't know much about the events of thirty years ago, but the danger of that Cursed Item was self-evident. Jenkins wouldn't take Magic Miss's word at face value. Nolan City was already brimming with malevolence; it didn't need an army of the dead and a plague reminiscent of the Black Death. He would look into this pattern himself and hope things were truly as she claimed.
Although Magic Miss had hired Jenkins, the rules dictated that aside from the item she was seeking, all other spoils were to be split evenly. Hoover Pithill's poverty had exceeded both their expectations—a common affliction among pirates, it seemed. The total value of all the currency on him was less than ten shillings. The ghost's hair, however, was a numbered item, and a precious one with offensive capabilities at that, making it quite valuable.
"You can have it appraised," Jenkins offered. "Just pay me my share in gold pounds at the next gathering."
He chose not to keep the item himself, as he didn't have enough savings to pay Magic Miss for her half. Fortunately, the item was rather grotesque, which gave him a convenient excuse to console himself:
"It's not that I can't afford it, it's that I simply don't want to own it."
The thought made him feel much better.
"You trust me that much? Just handing it over to me?"
Magic Miss asked with a hint of a smile. Tonight's haul had met her expectations, and with no other trouble stirred up, she was beginning to wonder if the side effects of the Unfortunate Wishing Tree were just a myth.
"I trust you very much. Yes, I rarely doubt my friends."
Jenkins said with a pleasant smile to the woman whose real name, Agnes Howard, and address he had already uncovered.
Magic Miss hadn't been lying. The information she provided about the skull tattoo matched Papa Oliver's account exactly. Jenkins had broached the subject circuitously, starting with the Gear Germs, then shifting to this autumn's influenza, which led to a discussion of the terrible epidemic thirty years ago, before finally, after a long detour, arriving at the matter of the Skull Sword.
Papa Oliver's knowledge of the incident surpassed even Miss Audrey's; it was as if he had experienced it firsthand. He also agreed that the origin of the tattoos was highly unusual, but since it wasn't a permanent supernatural item, its potential for harm was significantly lower.
Still, he warned Jenkins. While the tattoo would only affect the bearer's mind for a limited time, its effect on the body was permanent. If someone were to die with one of those tattoos on their skin, there was a fifty percent chance their corpse would reanimate as a low-level undead creature.
He likely assumed Jenkins had acquired such an item from somewhere, an assumption Jenkins did not correct. He could hardly admit that he was the Enchanter who had "righteously" fought a pirate in an alley the previous night.
The Church of Ocean and Exploration had also taken over that case. However, since the deceased was a wanted criminal of both the Church and the Kingdom, with enough blood on his hands to be hanged a hundred times over, the pursuit of his killer would exist, but it wouldn't last long. The Orthodox Church's peculiar attitude toward unregistered Enchanters needed no further explanation; as long as they didn't go out of their way to break the law, they wouldn't be specifically targeted.