Lord of The Mysterious Realms Chapter 966

"No, you didn't get the time wrong. I just had something to take care of," Jenkins explained hurriedly. "There's a corpse and an unconscious person in the carriage I just brought back. Please handle them first, I'm late for class. And this..."

Jenkins placed the envelope from Pops, which contained a report and a small box, on Miss Bevanna's desk. "Please have this sent to the Special Items Handling Office. It's something the antique shop acquired today!"

With that, he hugged his notebook, with his cat tucked under his arm, and dashed off toward the classroom, leaving Miss Bevanna to stare down at the crumpled file folder.

Early spring was an excellent season for learning, at least in Jenkins's opinion. While nature's awakening meant the poor could find more work in this city shrouded by steam and fog, believers hungry for knowledge would never miss the church's night classes.

Compared to the cat, who enjoyed napping in the front row, Fini, sitting beside it, was far more attentive. An entire winter had passed, and the once-scrawny little girl now looked the picture of health.

The church didn't assign the children much work during the winter, so Fini had used most of her time to study. Although she still hadn't fully mastered the art of writing, she could at least take simple notes in class without a problem.

The heating for the winter season was still running. Seated near a radiator, Fini didn't feel the slightest chill in her thin sweater. The church's heating system had its own steam equipment, separate from the city's main grid, which meant the warmth it provided was always more than sufficient.

Jenkins wore a thin sweater Mary had knitted for him under a jacket. He explained his lesson in a loud, clear voice as he wrote on the blackboard with a piece of chalk.

He occasionally glanced out at his audience, only to find that a small handful wore expressions of dawning comprehension. A third of them looked completely lost, while the rest simply stared blankly, notebooks empty, their gazes alternating between the blackboard and Jenkins himself.

This steadfastness was one of the reasons Jenkins had earned the Sage's favor. Though he considered himself an unqualified believer, his own principles, beliefs, and actions aligned perfectly with the Sage's doctrines. The source of this content ɪs NoveI~Fire.net

He'd noticed Fini's rapid progress over his visits. After a full winter of classes, she had become remarkably adept at the arithmetic he taught.

This was an extraordinary achievement for a girl who could barely write a complete word. Her attitude was far more earnest than most of the other believers attending the night class.

The rest of the lesson passed uneventfully. Chocolate woke up three times: once to simply shift position before dozing off again, once to gaze out the window for exactly twelve seconds, and once to stroll over to Fini and inspect her notes.

But throughout the entire class, the cat never once looked at its owner or the blackboard. This deeply pained Jenkins, who knew the feline possessed a certain level of intelligence.

"Chocolate is not a cat that enjoys learning."

Jenkins came to this conclusion as he left the classroom with his notebook and the cat, only to be accidentally scratched by Chocolate a moment later.

Fini bid Jenkins farewell in her sweet voice before hurrying back to her dormitory. The children in the choir followed a strict and precise schedule, and it was almost time for the church matron to make her rounds.

Jenkins took care of some personal business in the public washroom, then went straight to Miss Bevanna's office.

Fortunately, she was there, accompanied by a Miss Pomfrey, the director of the Exotic Species Handling Office, and her deputy.

After knocking and receiving permission, Jenkins pushed the door open. The three people inside immediately paused their work. They had been standing before the desk, each holding a file, which they now set down.

"Jenkins, please wait a moment," Bevanna said. "We're still dealing with the Balrog corpse you brought back."

"Oh, of course. No rush," he replied.

He nodded and made himself comfortable on the sofa. While Chocolate stared intently at the bowl of fruit on the coffee table—which was more decorative than edible—Jenkins took out the fountain pen clipped to his notebook and began to write his report on the evening's events.

The whole incident had been a bolt from the blue, and there was nothing that needed to be concealed. He dutifully recorded the process, then used his [Psychography] in conjunction with the [Book of Memories] to create two images of the scene. He glued them to the final page of the report as a summary.

By the time Jenkins had finished, Chocolate had nearly devoured half a red apple. Hearing the clink of the fountain pen on the coffee table, the cat immediately flicked its little paw, knocking the rest of the apple off the table. It then pretended as if nothing had happened. Jenkins caught the apple just before it hit the floor.

"We don't throw things on the floor."

He warned in a low voice. The cat meowed softly, then hopped obediently onto the sofa and settled into Jenkins's lap, feigning sleep.

Miss Bevanna and the others quickly finished their discussion. Their main concerns were how to dispose of the Balrog's corpse and how to trace its origins.

They ultimately decided to cremate the body immediately without any further study. After the recent incident with the Skull Sword, it wasn't worth the risk of keeping such a suspicious corpse. Tracing the Balrog's origins, however, would be extremely difficult. Miss Pomfrey stated that they had received no prior intelligence about a Balrog coming to Nolan, let alone its purpose.

"Balrogs aren't a species that travels in groups," she noted. "At least we don't have to worry about a large number of its kin showing up."

That was her assessment, and Miss Bevanna agreed.

As for the tattoo on the coachman who had called the Balrog "Master," it had been confirmed as the unique mark of the Dead Man's Whip, a cult subordinate to the evil god, the Lord of Slaughter. This was relatively good news; tracking a group of mortals with varying levels of strength was much easier than tracking a powerful, unknown evil creature.

The catalyst for the green-flamed Balrog's discovery—and by extension, Jenkins's terrible luck that evening—was the "nut" acquired by Pops' Antique Shop. That very item had since been identified and cataloged as B-11-2-3381, the Ring of Molten Fire.

In truth, despite its shape, it wasn't a nut at all, but a bracelet that could change size at will once activated. The bracelet caused its wearer's physical body to slowly and irreversibly transform into a fire elemental. Legend claimed that the artifact's origins were closely tied to the Balrogs.

"So that's how it was able to track the bracelet's location."

Miss Bevanna spoke, gesturing for Jenkins to pull up a chair and sit beside her desk. She then handed him the unsealed file folder.