Chapter 451: Chapter 451
Unfortunately, on this matter at least, Miss Stuart had overestimated the wisdom of both Jenkins and Miss Miller.
One after the other, they arrived within the glow of the oil lamp. Chocolate was still dutifully guarding Jenkins’s physical body. He scrambled to his feet and glanced at the pocket watch cradled in his palm.
“About five minutes left.”
As the air rippled, Miss Miller’s form gradually materialized from illusion to reality. It was worth noting that Jenkins’s feet were sunk deep in the snow, while Miss Miller, like Chocolate, stood lightly on its surface.
Based on what Jenkins knew of her, she likely possessed no abilities that specifically targeted spiritual entities, but she was an absolute expert when it came to calculating probabilities out of thin air.
She stared at the man and woman for two minutes, then extended a pale finger and pointed at the one on the left.
“This one is an evil spirit!”
“Yes, I told you! She’s really dead,”
“This one is an evil spirit, too!”
she declared, pointing to the other figure.
The color instantly drained from the man’s face.
Her two verdicts seemed to flip a switch. The figures, who had just been wailing miserably, immediately fell silent. The wind and snow whipped around Jenkins, and as the pair stared straight at him, he felt a shiver run down his spine.
“If you’ve made your determination, why hasn’t A-11-02-3046 vanished?”
Jenkins asked in a low voice.
“You left before Miss Stuart could finish her story that day. To completely dispel A-11-02-3046, you must escape from an extremely perilous environment, just as the evil spirits did in their final moments.”
Jenkins followed Miss Miller’s pointed finger and saw the steam train he had come from. Between where he stood and the train, a narrow path shimmering with white light was slowly appearing in the pitch-black surroundings, as if beckoning for him to step onto it.
“I’ll be brief. Once that path fully materializes, you need to escape as fast as you can. As long as you get out of this area, you’ll have succeeded. I have to go back now and deal with Miss Stuart. They should have heard me deliberately say the name ‘Jenkins’.”
“Um... aren’t you going to stay and give me a hand?”
Hearing his question, Miss Miller couldn’t help but chuckle softly.
“Do you need my help?”
“Oh. Right. I don’t.”
“In that case, I wish you a safe journey...”
She was about to leave when another thought occurred to her. “Since such dangerous things are always happening around you, don’t risk traveling to Ruen before you return to Nolan City. It’s not a good idea to leave your body alone in an unfamiliar place.”
Jenkins nodded. “Then I’ll return to Nolan on Wednesday. I’ll come find you once I’m settled. You can handle Miss Stuart, right?”
“Of course, that’s no problem. But I think you should be more concerned about Julia. Miss Stuart obviously trusts you a great deal...”
She didn’t wait for his response, her body slowly fading into the swirling snow.
Jenkins scratched his head, only to get a handful of ice crystals. He quickly scooped up his cat, fumbled with his collar to retrieve the bone whistle, and blew it with all his might.
He glanced back one more time. The bodies of the man and woman in the snow were rapidly decaying, and from the darkness behind them, those shriveled arms were reaching out once more.
“Chocolate, stay still!”
he shouted, then laboriously climbed onto the horse's back. He quickly jumped down again to retrieve the oil lamp before clambering back on. With a sharp flick of the reins, the skeletal warhorse charged toward the path filled with light.
Behind him, countless evil spirits crawled out from the depths of the darkness, swamping the two kneeling spirits in the snow like a tide before surging onto the luminous path.
he roared. At his shout, a figure wreathed in black smoke leaped backward from the warhorse, followed by a massive explosion. But when the spirits at the forefront of the tide were blown apart, what was revealed behind them was not the army of souls he expected, but a dead, silent, and utterly frozen wasteland.
Chocolate climbed out from inside Jenkins’s coat and, ignoring his protests, poked its head out over his shoulder. The cat’s face wore a comical, mocking expression as it regarded the frozen world.
The escape was simple, especially since Jenkins’s mount was so powerful. When he reached the end of the path, a flash of white light instantly consumed his entire field of vision.
As the brilliance gradually faded, the glow from the train car cast a long shadow at Jenkins’s feet. Official source ıs novel•fire.net
He shook his head dazedly, blew the bone whistle to recall the skeletal warhorse, and then forcibly stuffed the unruly Chocolate back into his collar.
“That just now... it wasn’t a hallucination, was it?”
He walked a few steps forward from memory and, sure enough, found Mr. Alexander’s footprints in the snow. But there was no sign of the man anywhere.
“I really do always run into things ...”
he muttered under his breath. He looked around blankly, shrugged, and took his cat back to the steam train.
Perhaps his encounter with A-11-02-3046 and Mr. Alexander had completely exhausted his bad luck. Not only did the steam train depart smoothly, but the weather remained clear for the rest of the journey.
Jenkins followed Miss Miller’s advice and spent the rest of his time traveling on the train. He occasionally wondered how she would explain their identities to Miss Stuart, but he figured that the ever-resourceful woman would surely handle the situation without a hitch.
In between reading and playing with his cat, Jenkins would also talk with a Mr. Adams Nelly. While continuing their discussion of detective novels, Jenkins jokingly brought up “Murder on the Orient Express,” a story he had told many people before.
Mr. Nelly’s insomnia was even cured by the story.
“Mr. Williams, have you ever considered adapting this story into an opera? To meet you on this train journey, and for you to also happen to know Mr. Pisco—this must be fate!”
He grabbed Jenkins’s hand with a fanatical fervor, nearly tearing a button from Jenkins’s cuff. Jenkins, for his part, couldn’t tell if the man genuinely admired his plagiarized work or was just desperate to save his opera troupe by banking on the fame of a Ritter Prize winner.
But in the end, Jenkins agreed, because Mr. Nelly promised him a two percent stake in the opera troupe.