"With limitations..."
He mulled over the word, then asked again:
"Was it sealed because it touched the domain of omniscience?"
"Yes. Its soul also underwent a terrifying mutation. Killing it in the material world at that ti could have caused the fragile world to collapse, while pulling it out directly would have resulted in a loss of the world's essence. So, the final decision was to seal it completely and store it in the Astral Plane, the realm closest to the material world, to wait until the material world grew strong enough... which it is now. If you have a way to destroy its soul, then there will be no need to bring it back to the Astral Plane."
Jenkins nodded, finding it hard to imagine just how powerful the soul within the mirror was.
"Oh, omniscience also caused so irreparable problems. It cannot lie."
The Star Spirit added.
This was Rakul's purpose for coming this ti. The eting between them should have concluded here, as the Star Spirit was always reluctant to answer the secrets Jenkins truly cared about. But this ti, Jenkins suddenly realized he had a question that wasn't much of a secret.
"Do the Star Spirits know about the vampire race?"
"The vampire race?"
A flicker of human-like surprise crossed Rakul's face. She adjusted her transparent, light-blue glasses with the hand that wasn't holding a book.
"Great new god, I do indeed know a few things. What aspect would you like to know about?"
A small smile appeared on Jenkins's face. He knew he could get this kind of knowledge here.
"Do vampires have any fatal weaknesses, or is there anything they fear?"
"Vampires, unlike humans, do not have vital organs or parts. They need only blood to survive, regardless of the creature it cos from. Therefore, the best way to kill a vampire is to burn its body to ash."
That was excellent news, as Jenkins had used that thod on his enemies before.
"But achieving that is very difficult. Generally, vampires possess the ability to transform into a swarm of bats, and you must burn every single bat simultaneously to kill one. Thus, in ancient tis, the more common thod used by their enemies was a unique potion called Hemolytic Toxin. Any vampire that cos into contact with this poison will have its blood rapidly evaporate in a short ti, leading to death. I believe even now, the Orthodox Churches of the material world possess the formula for this potion."
"Is there anything else?"
"There is, but it is not practical for the current era. Before a certain point in ti, the intelligent species living in the material world were not as monolithic as they are today. This ant that every race had its own natural enemies, and therefore, each race possessed special abilities to counter them."
"I know about that, like the 'Demon Hunter' series of chained abilities."
"Yes. The adversarial chain of abilities targeting the vampire race is called 'Vampire Hunter.' If you need it, I can tell you all the required learning rituals, but this chain consists of six abilities. I doubt your human incarnation would be interested."
Before she left, the Star Spirit also promised Jenkins that after he found or destroyed the All-knowing Treasure Mirror, she would personally intervene to help him once in the material world. In the past, the Star Spirits had to abide by certain rules and could not easily interfere with the material world, but an entanglent with the fate of a god clearly superseded those rules.
All in all, when Jenkins woke up, he felt a throbbing pain in half his head—a clear sign he hadn't rested well.
After lying in bed for a while, he finally summoned the will to crawl out from under the covers, only to see Chocolate perched energetically on the back of the sofa, watching him.
Chocolate's fur was black and white, and the cushion on the sofa was blue, making the cat stand out starkly against the color.
Below it sat the bowl that had held ice cream last night. The cat's intentions were perfectly clear.
"You can't have ice cream in the morning. You'll get a stomachache."
He warned, clutching his head. "Besides, I only agreed to that one serving last night. Don't push your luck!"
"ow~"
The fog on this weekend morning was particularly thick, a common occurrence in winter. When Jenkins, wearing slippers, opened his front door to bring in the milk and newspaper, he found he couldn't even see the mailbox at the front gate from the entryway.
"Perfect weather for a murder," he muttered under his breath.
There was no ntion of the alley murder in the newspaper; after all, the Church had only discovered it late in the night. By the ti everything was handled and the regular police and reporters were allowed in, it was far too late to make the morning edition of the Nolan Daily. But the evening paper would surely feature it prominently, and perhaps it would even appear in the kingdom's national paper.
Perhaps he had angered the greedy cat, because it gave him the cold shoulder throughout breakfast. Even when Jenkins reached out to stroke its head, the cat would deliberately pull away.
But this standoff lasted only a few minutes before the cat quickly forgave him, even though Jenkins didn't feel he had done anything wrong.
Aside from his daily newspaper reading, he also took the ti during his al to inspect the items he had recently obtained. The Sin Coins went without saying; although he had acquired six, only one remained.
First was the note the elf had discreetly pressed into his hand when they parted. But there wasn't a single word on it.
"Are elves also fond of blank scrolls with hidden ssages?"
He couldn't figure out how to read it and was reluctant to try burning it or soaking it in water. For now, he could only put it away safely and wait until he found a more reliable thod.
Next, he opened the gift box from the Mysterious Realm. The box was ordinary, as was the girlish pink ribbon tied around it. He scanned it with his Eye of Reality first before he and Chocolate peered over the edge and opened it together.
Inside, nestled on a piece of thick, lightweight cardboard covered in red velvet, was a dagger—the very sa one the maid had been holding at the end of the story realm.
As expected, it glowed with a red aura. He tried swinging it a few tis but felt nothing out of the ordinary.
He checked the gift box again and, to his surprise, found a note written in the common tongue:
"Thank you for your help, Mr. Pollo. I have given this dagger the ability to automatically return, to make up for the regret of not killing that ** the first ti."
A word in the middle had been furiously blotted out with the tip of a pen. Jenkins guessed it must have been a very foul word.
"Automatically return?"
He thought for a mont, then infused a small amount of spirit into the dagger and placed it on the dining table. He jogged a few steps into the living room, catching a glimpse of Chocolate in the dining room, looking at him as if he were an idiot.
"To !"
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