Just as Papa Oliver had said, the Sage Church, in a complete break from their usual stance, adamantly insisted that Jenkins Williams, the "World Tree Seedling," take on this critical role. The other churches worried that if anything happened to Jenkins in Bigges Hospital, the upcoming negotiations with the Believers of Lies would also be jeopardized.
But no matter how others tried to persuade them, and even knowing how suspicious their actions appeared, the Church remained firm, insisting on Jenkins's participation. They even had Old Jack, who had also attended the eting, enurate the reasons why Jenkins's presence in the hospital was essential.
In the end, everyone could only reluctantly agree. But Jenkins could sense that, aside from the few who knew the full story, even mbers of the Sage Church itself were baffled by their own church's attitude today.
He had only one chance. If he failed to acquire the potential divinity that might be there, even if he managed to escape the hospital before the ti loop ended, the Church wouldn't be able to find a good excuse to send him in again. Therefore, Jenkins had to act with extre caution.
The other churches' objective was to prematurely banish A-07-2-3926 [Bigges Hospital] to prevent it from affecting the city. According to the data and the case files from Papa Oliver and Old Jack's mission years ago, the plan formulated after the eting was for the operative entering the hospital to reach the main building's rooftop before the tenth minute of the ti loop, stop the person from jumping, and then inscribe an important ritual array on the rooftop.
The ritual was called "Still Water" and could be used to purify impurities from stagnant water sources. It was a very basic ritual that low-level Benefactors from the Church of All Things and Nature used for practice, but it was surprisingly effective against this particular Cursed Item.
Fulfilling three conditions simultaneously—stopping the man on the rooftop from falling, drawing and activating the [Still Water] ritual, and letting the ti loop proceed past the ten-minute mark—would banish [Bigges Hospital]. This would free everyone who had beco trapped within it since its latest appearance.
This was the official plan—the one Papa Oliver had told Jenkins he didn't have to follow. The mission paraters the Church had Papa Oliver secretly relay to Jenkins were different: reach the basent entrance before the ten-minute mark, enter the basent at ten minutes and thirty-one seconds to search for any suspicious items, and regardless of whether he found anything, he had to leave the hospital before eleven minutes and fifty-three seconds had passed. Otherwise, he too would be caught in the ti loop.
The Cursed Item that the Twelve Churches had agreed to use for this mission could only affect one person, which was why Jenkins was the sole operative. It was A-06-1-0064 [The Stillness Doll], an object resembling a handmade straw doll used in traditional voodoo rituals.
Although humanoid in shape, the item possessed no sentience. It was another artifact capable of interfering with ti. Anyone who wore [The Stillness Doll] on their chest would gain the ability to "steal" ti from any living being through touch. The victim would jump directly to the mont the stolen ti had passed, making it seem as though they had simply lost a period of mory.
The wearer would absorb the stolen, excess ti, gradually accumulating it to gain anywhere from three to five different ti-related abilities. Eventually, they would transform into a terrifying aberrant creature known as a "Stillness."
This creature could steal ti rely by looking at soone and possessed the ability to travel through ti itself. However, a "Stillness" would not cause a large-scale disaster, because according to Church records, there was a type of humanoid being active in the cracks of ti that enjoyed hunting them. Although the Church didn't specify what these humanoid beings were, Jenkins suspected they were the "Ti Paradoxers" who served the master of the [Closed Loop].
When [The Stillness Doll] entered [Bigges Hospital], its ti-stealing ability would be restricted, and the hospital's ti loop would temporarily stagnate under the doll's influence, extending this particular cycle. The Church's experints in past epochs had verified these results, but that didn't an the thod was one hundred percent safe. After all, this was a case of fighting a Cursed Item with another Cursed Item—an act akin to striking a match on the sole of your shoe while searching for a leak in a septic tank.
Before the operation began, various people repeatedly impressed upon Jenkins the dangers of the mission and the details he needed to be aware of. Miss Audrey, who was not officially involved, made a special trip to see him. She was naturally suspicious of the Sage Church's strange behavior, but after confirming that Jenkins was undertaking this of his own free will, she quietly slipped sothing into his hand inside the briefing tent:
"Items like B-11-5-2305 [The Ticket Ho] or A-11-5-2071 [Mr. Prankster's Toy Ticket] don't work in ti-reversal events. Their resistance to temporal forces is very low. Take this. Even if you're unfortunate enough to be swept into the torrent of ti, it will at least keep you from losing your way."
It was a card—one of the [All-Seeing Cards], as expected. Jenkins glanced at it discreetly. It was [The All-Seeing Card - The World].
"Miss Brolignans is already in Nolan?"
he asked, surprised. Not long ago, Miss Audrey had ntioned that Miss Brolignans would be arriving in Nolan with this very card.
"No, my teacher is in the south helping to deal with the great fire. She'll probably be a few days late. She mailed this ahead of ti..."
"Mailed?"
"The ownership of the All-Seeing Cards is tied to fate. You don't need to worry about them getting lost; they always end up in the hands of those who are ant to possess them. In any case, while our church's research on [The World] is still rudintary, we have evidence that it can counteract temporal anomalies. Jenkins, be careful with everything."
"I understand. Please, don't worry."
Jenkins carefully put the card away. After a mont's thought, he lifted the cat from his shoulder and placed it on the table next to Miss Audrey.
"Please look after Chocolate for . [The Stillness Doll] only works on a single target, so he can't go into the hospital with ."
Miss Audrey glanced down at the cat, which was now sitting on the table with its head drooping, looking rather dejected.
"Of course."
There was no ti to waste. Once the plan was finalized and Jenkins had confird for the third ti that he understood all the intricate details of the hospital's interior, the operation officially comnced.
[The Stillness Doll] was handed to Jenkins in a cloth pouch secured with a drawstring. As he fastened it to his chest with a pin, he felt an inexplicable drop in his body temperature, and even the rhythm of his heartbeat was affected. Fortunately, the item's malice toward its user wasn't overwhelming, and after the awakening process of the World Tree Seedling, Jenkins's physical body was no longer as fragile as it once was.
It was unsettling, but not entirely unbearable. He patted the straw doll, took a few deep breaths, and looked at the group of people from the temporary encampnt standing before him, watching.
"Have you morized the hospital map and the mission plan, down to the second?" Papa Oliver asked.
"morized."
"Are you sure you have the synchronized pocket watch with you?" Old Jack asked, running a worried hand through his hair.
"I'm sure. I brought two, in fact."
"Is the talisman for your final failsafe hidden securely?" Miss Bevanna inquired, flipping through the papers in her hand.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Are you certain your cat won't follow you?" Miss Audrey asked, eyeing Jenkins's shoulder. Jenkins then plucked Chocolate, who had sohow climbed back onto his shoulder, off again.
"Wait for to co back, and be good," he told his cat. Chocolate looked up at him, its amber eyes filled with a pitiful expression.
"Everything has been arranged perfectly. And even if I'm unfortunate enough not to make it out on ti, I trust soone will co into the hospital to rescue . Don't worry, I will succeed."
He didn't linger any longer. After one last check to make sure Chocolate hadn't followed, he lit the torch provided by the Church and approached the edge of the thick fog.
With each step, the visibility around him dropped lower and lower, until even the torchlight could no longer pierce the dense mist. But once the fog's concentration reached a critical point, it began to thin out again, little by little, until Jenkins could see the shadowy outlines of a complex of buildings beyond it. He quickened his pace for a few more steps and finally saw it: a hospital nestled in a forest, standing on a pitch-black plain.
Among the dense, leafy trees of the forest, there were, bizarrely, patches of farmland interspersed throughout. This was an effect of spatial overlap, where one space simultaneously displayed the scenery of two different locations. The parts that were lost in the process were now adrift in the gaps between spaces, never to return.
Because [Bigges Hospital] had a tendency to draw in outsiders, the Church had established its base outside the zone of spatial anomaly rather than in the imdiate vicinity of the hospital. A rusty wire-sh fence surrounded the building complex. Judging by the orientation of the buildings, Jenkins determined he had appeared behind the hospital. He looked up at the top floor of the main building and caught a fleeting glimpse of a figure on the rooftop—that must be the falling man ntioned in the briefing.
His eyes fixed on the courtyard inside the fence as he quickly circled the hospital's periter. He soon arrived at the main entrance, where a large sign bearing the hospital's na, written in an ancient common tongue, hung above a barred gate.
This place didn't look like a proper hospital. It was more like a substandard sanatorium in so remote countryside, the kind of place where ntal patients were traditionally left to fend for themselves.
Jenkins didn't enter imdiately. Instead, he looked up at the hospital roof. The mont the falling body appeared, he gripped his pocket watch and started the tir, but the body vanished before it hit the ground. Jenkins didn't see any sign of the so-called malevolent spirit.
"Vanished in midair? It seems the next cycle is just beginning," he thought. "I just don't know if this next one will even last long enough for the body to fall."
He decided not to wait. Seizing the opportunity as the new cycle had just begun, he reached out and pushed open the barred gate, which offered almost no resistance.
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