“An aura of fear? That’s quite a rare sight. Not many Enchanters are willing to learn an ability like that these days.”
Magic Miss remarked with so surprise as they left the tavern’s back room. Jenkins, however, kept his head down, focused on the notebook in his hand where he had jotted down Mr. Joyce's words. Mr. Joyce would have to “reside” here for a few more hours, until the huntress notified the Church and had him taken away.
“I didn’t learn it intentionally. It just manifested after I ca into contact with an Abyssal One.”
“An Abyssal One?”
The woman mused, rubbing her chin. “Your life is even more interesting than I imagined.”
After leaving the tavern, the pair returned to the street. The clues Mr. Joyce had provided were enough to point to Queen Isabella as the mastermind. The assassination of the royal heirs had been carried out by Mr. Joyce along with so of the queen's other followers, n he didn't even know. Crucially, Mr. Joyce had kept several letters from Queen Isabella, written in her own hand.
Those letters were enough to complete the chain of evidence. As for why Joyce hadn't destroyed them, his reason was simple: he wanted to keep them as collectibles.
“I don't often get the chance to acquire items belonging to Her Majesty.”
Those were the words of a man utterly broken by terror, his face streaked with tears as he sobbed.
Even so, Jenkins and Magic Miss still had no idea what Queen Isabella's ultimate goal was. Fortunately, they were on the final step. Mr. Joyce had revealed the suspected location of the ritual. As long as an Enchanter's ritual had indeed been perford there, Magic Miss was confident she could deduce its general purpose from the residual traces.
She was suprely confident in her own abilities.
The supposed ritual site was a large warehouse on the city's east side, near the mining district. According to Mr. Joyce, this entire tract of land was royal property, and so of the warehouses had served as transfer points for the queen's... private shipnts ever since they were constructed.
By the ti they reached the warehouse and managed to slip inside, it was already three in the afternoon. The sumr heat was oppressive, and despite having taken a carriage, both Jenkins and Magic Miss were feeling irritable.
As a result, their thod of entry was a bit more aggressive than planned. They didn't kill anyone, of course.
The ritual had been held at midnight two days prior. Now, entering the warehouse, they found only an empty space. The floor was covered in a fine layer of dust, with cargo zones marked out in pencil.
Jenkins pinched so of the dust between his fingers to examine it.
“Looks like flour.”
“It’s fine,” Magic Miss said. “The warehouse is a sealed environnt, and it looks like few people have been inside since the ritual. That's more than enough to preserve traces invisible to the naked eye, as well as the residual Spirit from the ritual itself. Anything mystical leaves a mark. The situation is actually better than I'd hoped.”
Magic Miss declared, then promptly shooed Jenkins out of the warehouse. It wasn't because she needed a lookout. Rather, she considered Jenkins's spiritual presence to be like a great behemoth thrashing about in a calm sea—a disruption that would interfere with the delicate and precise ritual she needed to perform.
Kicked out of the warehouse, Jenkins shot his cat an innocent look. Chocolate, who had been unusually well-behaved all day, was in the middle of a yawn. Noticing Jenkins's gaze, the cat let out a soft “ow~” and rubbed its furry face against his cheek.
“I still haven't properly thanked you for saving from the lake.”
Jenkins stood cooling off in the shade beneath the warehouse eaves. He raised his right hand, curled his index finger, and gently scratched Chocolate under the chin. The cat's eyes imdiately narrowed into slits as it let out an even softer purr.
“Since tomorrow is my birthday, I'll prepare so of your favorite treats.”
He said with a smile, then leaned in to share a secret in a hushed voice:
“To be honest, I don't really care much about the birthday itself. But since they want to celebrate it for , I should take it seriously. I wonder what gifts they'll give . It's not like I need anything...”
“ow~”
Chocolate swayed its tail, pondering whether it should get Jenkins a gift, too.
Outside the warehouse was a yard used for the temporary storage of goods. The yard opened onto a gravel road, flanked on both sides by other warehouses.
As Jenkins was murmuring to his cat, he suddenly looked up. At the far end of the road, a man in a hat was walking toward them.
His footsteps were light, and he seed to lean slightly to his right as he walked. Yet each step landed with precision along a perfectly straight line, like soone with a severe compulsion.
He wore black boots, and his right hand was thrust into his pocket. His expression was grim, his eyes fixed on the stranger standing before the warehouse.
“He's here.”
Jenkins thought. He slowly lifted the cat from his shoulder, setting it gently on the ground. Pushing himself away from the wall, he straightened his back and walked toward the entrance of the yard.
The approaching man's alertness spiked. He didn't slow his pace, but his right hand, buried in his pocket, tightened its grip on whatever was inside. He practically held his breath as he advanced, one step at a ti.
“Who are you? And where is the watchman?”
The man stopped a short distance from the gate, his questioning voice the first to break the silence. It was a neutral tone, but deep and forceful.
“I am the watchman.”
Jenkins said, his gaze shifting to the man's right hand.
“What do you have there?”
At Jenkins's question, the man surprisingly extended his clenched fist.
“Are you sure you want to know what this is?”
His fist remained closed, so Jenkins couldn't see what he held, but the black spiritual aura emanating from it was undeniable. This stranger was only level three—hardly a high-level threat. But on closer inspection, Jenkins could see minuscule, almost imperceptible flickers of spiritual light throughout his body.
“Another one of the Gear Artisans' Association's modified humans? But what does this have to do with you people?”
Before the words were even out of his mouth, the stranger had thrown the object at him.
Jenkins had no intention of catching it. With a wave of his hand, he conjured a sheet of ice from a thin mist. He had ant only to deflect the black-glowing object, but to his surprise, it punched straight through the ice and continued speeding toward his chest.
His eyes narrowed, his motion-sensitive vision capturing the image of a spinning brass gear. As he dodged to the side, he flicked his fingers. A small stone shot from his fingertips, streaking toward the gear. To ensure its hardness, Jenkins had even infused it with tal as he “drew” it into existence.
This ti, he succeeded. The stone struck the gear in mid-air, knocking it aside. But before it could hit the ground, it abruptly shot upward again, homing in on Jenkins like a fly drawn to filth.
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