The ball in his hand must have been part of the creature that had just touched his shoulder. When Jenkins ignited it, a shadow in the depths of the dense fog also caught fire. Jenkins stood his ground, watching as the burning humanoid figure rushed toward him. Timing it perfectly, he lifted his leg and executed a spinning kick. The thing—which resembled a person but was most certainly not—was kicked apart, scattering like burning cotton from a shattered pillow, filling the air with a flurry of drifting embers.
The sight of the sparkling pinpricks of light in the fog was actually quite beautiful.
"What in the world was that?"
Jenkins had initially assud it was another ghost or evil spirit, but now he saw it had a physical body. As he pondered this, other Enchanters erged from the fog. Jenkins imdiately pulled on his black robe and patted the rear of the cat perched on his shoulder.
The cat, having slept in Jenkins's arms all night, let out a massive yawn and transford into the likeness of a white cat nad Vanilla.
"Hmm? Mr. Candle?"
Mr. Hood, holding a compass-like device, materialized from the mist, with Mr. White Cat following close behind.
When Jenkins had first arrived in Bel Diran, he'd had a drink with Mr. Hood, even getting him drunk to pry out clues about the Perfu Appreciation Committee. Jenkins had wanted to apologize later, but Mr. Hood had finished his business in Bel Diran and left, returning to Nolan long before Jenkins did.
"Mr. Hood, Mr. White Cat, good evening."
He tipped his hat and casually tossed the red sphere's remains, now just a pile of ash, onto the ground.
"Did you see... well, of course you saw it."
Mr. Hood glanced at the compass in his hand; its needle was pointing straight at the remnants Jenkins had just discarded.
"It's a good thing you killed it. I thought the two of us would be chasing it all night."
"It was a chance encounter," Jenkins replied. "It seed to be trying to attack . Speaking of which, what exactly was it?"
Mr. Hood and Mr. White Cat explained that they had been hired by a factory owner to investigate a "haunting" at his factory that night. Although Mr. Hood wasn't short on cash, he happened to need so ectoplasmic dust, so he had taken on the investigation tonight.
Like Jenkins, the two had originally thought they were dealing with an evil spirit, only to be startled when they saw it was a monster with a physical body.
"That thing is an expert at hiding. We spent half the night searching for it in that textile factory. I even thought my compass was broken for a mont, but that's impossible. This compass once helped find Sc... ahem. The creature was hiding among a pile of weaving machines. In fact, it looked exactly like a weaving machine."
The three of them walked as they talked, Mr. Hood using his hands to gesture and articulate what he ant.
"It was horrifying. Utterly horrifying. I haven't seen anything that terrifying in a long ti."
Mr. White Cat added his own account.
"We can't quite explain how it was ford, but the monster's true form was indeed a fusion of a human body and a weaving machine. No, it wasn't as simple as a machine for the upper body and a human for the lower. It was more like... Mr. Candle, have you ever done a jigsaw puzzle? It was as if a weaving machine and a human body were cut up like puzzle pieces, then assembled into the rough shape of a loom, with the human fragnts randomly stuffed into the gaps."
Mr. White Cat shuddered as he finished his description.
"My guess is that it might be the soul of a deceased female factory worker that accidentally rged with the machinery. It's not unheard of. Spirits who refuse to move on often like to fuse with objects around them, and a factory is hardly a place filled with positive emotions..."
Mr. Hood shrugged at Jenkins.
"So that's probably what gave rise to this kind of semi-corporeal monster. Mr. Candle, you're lucky you didn't see the thing in its entirety. I'm afraid I won't dare go near a weaving machine alone for a long ti."
"Speaking of which, could this be related to last year's strike?" Jenkins suggested. "We all know that while the strike made the factory owners compromise on the surface and indirectly led to the final approval of the Air Protection Act in parliant, in reality, nothing changed. Perhaps the workers' accumulated resentnt and anger was so great that it gave birth to sothing so bizarre. As we know, this world can be quite idealistic."
Jenkins thought his companions would understand the word "idealistic." As for last year's strike, it had happened around autumn. The strike, which started in Nolan, had spread throughout the country and achieved a series of superficial victories. Of course, there were traces of cult involvent behind it—the Witch's House, the Life Sharing Alliance, and the Gear Artisans' Association—but the participating workers had truly been pushed to their limits.
"You have a point," Mr. Hood said, nodding in agreent with Jenkins's assessnt. "And the fog in Nolan has been getting stranger over the last few months. These things could be connected."
He then added, "Last ti I saw you was in Bel Diran. When did you get back? Have you heard the rumors circulating among the citizens these past few weeks? They say that monsters have been seen roaming the fog around Nolan late at night. The Church has been investigating for a long ti but hasn't found any leads."
"I returned last week, and yes, I've heard about it."
He'd heard it from that crying woman just an hour ago.
"Do you two know what they are?"
He directed the question to them, but both Mr. Hood and Mr. White Cat shook their heads.
Mr. Hood then asked what Jenkins was doing out so late. Jenkins lied, claiming that he had traded with Magic Miss so ti ago and she had given him a clue to a treasure, which he was now searching for. Having nothing else to do, the two n eagerly offered to help him look, but Jenkins politely declined.
His priority tonight wasn't finding so Bestowal; the matter of the Dragon Soul was far more important for now.
After bidding farewell to his two acquaintances and promising to share a drink with them when they had ti, Jenkins continued on his way. Soon, he finally erged from the dense fog. Although the streets were still shrouded in a choking smog, at least it was no longer the terrifying, zero-visibility state from before.
"Where to next?"
He glanced around, trying to catch a glimpse of any unusual spiritual auras. Before long, he spotted a carriage one street over, carrying Alexia and Dolores into the distance. He had no idea what they were doing out so late.
"Strange, so late at night..."
He didn't have a habit of tailing people, but Dolores and Alexia weren't just anyone—they were his people. And so, with a perfectly clear conscience, Jenkins mounted his beloved unicorn and followed them.
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