Lord of The Mysterious Realms Chapter 677

A knock at the door on a blizzard-swept night is the stuff of horror stories. As Jenkins led the others to the main entrance, the servants followed close behind, guns in hand.

But it turned out to be the two missing guests. After the scare, the exhausted party spent another hour getting Mr. Garcia and Miss Rick settled before they could finally rest again.

Just as he'd expected, they attributed the pair's return and Miss Mikhail's sudden appearance to the same mysterious cause. No one suspected the young writer's hand in it all.

The manor remained quiet until dawn, but that didn't guarantee the peace would last.

Worried the doctor would cause trouble upon waking, Jenkins slept fitfully, remaining vigilant throughout the night. He opened his eyes again at eight in the morning to find the blizzard still raging outside, showing no sign of letting up.

His friends were still asleep, exhausted from the previous day's ordeal, but the manor's servants were already up and about, seeing to the needs of the vast estate.

Before breakfast, Jenkins checked on Doctor Dekter again. He suspected the man's prolonged unconsciousness was due to the candlestick blow to his head the night before. Jenkins hadn't healed him, merely cleaning and bandaging the wound. From the looks of it, he estimated the doctor would remain unconscious for quite some time.

But that was exactly what Jenkins wanted. For now, the man's only value was in the answers he could provide.

Garcia and Rick woke up at nine. When questioned, they couldn't say who had rescued them. Upon hearing about Quake's death and the other events of the previous night, they fell silent, unsure what to say. They could only hope the blizzard would end soon, allowing everyone to leave.

It was a sensible reaction. The characters in detective novels who wander off alone, knowing a killer is on the loose, were always utterly baffling.

Jenkins hadn't forgotten about the third Enchanter in the manor, either. He still couldn't be sure if Mrs. Hydra was friend or foe, or if she was the one who had saved Miss Mikhail. He had already warned Hathaway and the two other young women he was close with to be cautious.

After lunch, Mr. Garcia and Miss Rick, who had been through the worst of it, returned to their rooms on the second floor to rest. Miss Lawrence and Miss Mikhail stood by a window watching the snow fall, while Jenkins and Hathaway sat at a table, engrossed in a game of chess.

The game was called Knight's Chess, and its rules were similar to standard chess—a game at which Jenkins was notoriously bad.

"Let's recap," she began. "The killer has been caught. We just have to wait for the blizzard to end, and then we can leave this godforsaken place. Until then, we just need to keep a close eye on the doctor."

Hathaway declared, lifting her piece and capturing Jenkins's duke.

"Yes..." he replied, "but I have a bad feeling about this. I don't think it's over. Remember the secret passage we found in the doctor's room? We were too rushed to investigate it yesterday, but I'm sure it connects to other parts of the manor. And the doctor can't be the only one who knows about it. A lot of people in this house have been lying."

He kept his voice low, making sure the young women by the window couldn't overhear.

Chocolate stared intently at the board. When Jenkins made another terrible move, the cat shifted in annoyance, as if it wished it could flick its tail and move the piece for him.

"Are you saying the doctor didn't kill Quake?"

"You saw his file. There was nothing in there about being a master of untraceable killing methods. We still don't even know the true cause of Quake's death." ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novᴇlfire.net

In addition to what they'd found in the cabin, they had also discovered some documents in the doctor's room. It was still unclear who the original owner in Shire City had been, but Doctor Dekter's notes revealed a keen interest in necromancy and biological fusion, accompanied by a trove of experimental data.

The material was highly sensitive; it meant a dangerous, unregistered Enchanter had once lived in that Shire City apartment. Jenkins planned to turn everything over to the Church once he was off the mountain. For one, he had no interest in such knowledge, and for another, he wanted to ensure the city where Old Jack lived remained safe.

For dinner, the cook prepared a meat broth, but the meat had been frozen for so long it had a terrible texture. The blizzard wasn't as ferocious as it had been the night before, but it hadn't stopped, and a renewed sense of anxiety settled over the group.

After dinner, Jenkins sought out the butler to ask about local legends or any major crimes that had occurred in recent years, hoping for a clue. But the area was exceptionally remote. Not even hermits seeking solitude or criminals on the run would venture to such an isolated place. In all his years of service at the manor, the butler had never heard of anything of the sort.

Aside from Mrs. Hydra, a few other servants had grown up in the small town at the foot of the mountain. Only one, a middle-aged maid, shared any legends with Jenkins. Her family, she explained, had moved to the area when the Fidektri Kingdom was first established. Though their standing had since fallen, they were among the original founders of Tobie Town.

"My grandmother once told me that when she was a little girl, she heard old tales about a family that lived here long before Tobie Town was ever founded. They called themselves the guardians of these mountains."

That was all the maid knew, and it was just one peculiar rumor among many. Jenkins filed it away, not yet realizing its significance.

If not for all the recent events, this would have been a perfect vacation spot. Even with the blizzard trapping them indoors, the manor had more than enough amenities to help them pass the time.

That afternoon, Jenkins checked on the doctor again, secretly administering a bit of healing to ensure the man would be conscious enough for questioning before the day was out. But this led to an unexpected turn of events. Just before dinner, while he and the butler were searching the manor's library for information on the secret passages, they heard the frantic pounding of footsteps in the hall.

"Tiras, how many times must I tell you? Absolutely no running in the halls! It gives the guests the impression that our staff is ill-mannered."

The butler admonished, clutching an old photo album.

The young footman, who had a red pimple on the tip of his nose, steadied himself against the doorframe as he stammered his apology. He swallowed hard, then added nervously, "I'm sorry, but... Mr. Dekter is dead."

The unconscious doctor had been confined to a guest room around the corner on the first floor, not far from the lounge and the smoking room. He was under constant guard, with servants taking two-hour shifts. When the pair on the six o'clock shift pushed open the door, they were met with the metallic tang of blood and discovered that all three occupants of the room had stopped breathing.

The faces of the two dead footmen were swollen, their eyelids showing signs of conjunctival hemorrhage. Dark purple lividity was already visible on their skin. Although there had been no autopsy to check for pulmonary or internal bleeding, it was clearly death by asphyxiation.

It looked as if someone had simply snapped their necks, yet there were no finger marks to be found.

As for the unconscious doctor, his throat had been expertly slit with a sharp blade, showing no signs of a struggle. The murder weapon had been tossed aside—it was one of the doctor's own scalpels, but it was supposed to be in his room upstairs.