The cat stared at the man, who in turn stared at the dust on the floor. Jenkins frowned; he'd recently encountered another incident involving an infant.
“Could the man who attacked at the pool in the Evergreen Forest have also been a follower of the Prince of Lies?” he mused. “I rember that sound he used before he died—a baby's cry. Even I could barely stand it.”
For now, there was no answer to that question. It was clear that only two fraudsters had died here.
The third séance that followed once again summoned the wrong target. To his surprise, Jenkins recognized this one too—he’d seen the man’s obituary in the newspaper.
“Shelley Howell? Damn it, just how many people have died in this hotel?”
The soul he’d summoned this ti was the forr director of the Silver Jasmine Opera Troupe—the very sa master thief who had terrorized the continent for decades before disappearing without a trace.
“So the primary cri scene was here! This is... excellent! Who killed you?”
A grin spread across his face; this man’s spirit could be incredibly useful.
The answer: he didn't know.
“The dagger you always carried—what was its designation?”
The answer ca: B-02-2-9032, the Dissector’s Scalpel. This confird the Church’s investigation was on the right track.
He ntally reached out to [The Unknown Path], but there was no response. It seed his understanding of the matter was still too shallow.
He took a deep breath. The next question was the crucial one.
“All those years ago, where did you hide all the treasures and special items you stole?”
The answer: hidden in his personal treasury.
Jenkins and Chocolate both leaned forward in unison. The man took deep, gulping breaths to calm his racing heart, sweat beading on his back. The cat swallowed hard, its amber eyes glued to the spirit.
“The location of the treasury! No, wait!”
He quickly summoned the golden ring from his spirit, twirled it twice on his finger, and raised it to his lips for a kiss. Finally, he devoutly traced the holy symbol of the Sage across his chest.
“Praise the Sage. May your light illuminate the path before !”
His prayer complete, he asked the question, his voice trembling with anticipation:
“Tell , where is your treasury?”
Fortune finally smiled upon Jenkins Williams. As the planchette glided across the board, the locations of the thief’s three largest treasure troves on the continent were revealed.
Two of the locations were a great distance from Nolan City: one in a small, obscure coastal kingdom on the far side of the continent, the other on a remote, uninhabited island that could only be reached during the monsoon season. The final trove, however, was right here in the Fidektri Kingdom, not far from the royal capital of Bel Diran, hidden deep within a small mountain.
Although the Bel Diran cache contained only mundane treasures, the sheer volu was staggering.
It took a great deal of effort for him to pull himself out of his ecstatic haze. With a swing of his Spirit Striking Cane, he dispersed Shelley Howell’s spirit.
“Chocolate, we’re going to be rich!” he exclaid. “I need to plan this carefully. I’ll have to find a legitimate reason to go to Bel Diran, and then, when no one is paying attention, I'll retrieve our fortune!”
But that would have to wait. He had no imdiate reason to act on these plans, and the location was perfectly secure. Without knowing all the traps and chanisms as Jenkins now did, no one could take a single copper coin, even if they found the entrance. For now, the priority remained solving Mr. Nelly’s problem.
Jenkins's lucky streak continued. The fourth séance went off without a hitch, and in a rush of howling wind, his true target finally appeared. The power of the spirit board suppressed the specter’s own malevolent energy, allowing her to regain a asure of sanity. Still, Jenkins knew that a single question would be enough to shatter her fragile composure.
But he had no intention of asking a question. Instead, he rose from the desk and, cane in hand, walked over to the spirit. Two silver bands of light swirled around his body, flowing and converging. One belonged to the original Jenkin, the other to the transmigrated Jenkins. The point where they t belonged to the Jenkins of the last six months.
“You want to see a brilliant new opera, don't you?”
he asked softly.
The impoverished Jenkin of his past life had never seen an opera, and the body’s original owner had disliked the art form. But that didn’t matter. At least the Jenkin from Earth had seen movie musicals, so of which were tiless classics.
“Then, prepare for a cultural baptism from another world!”
As he spoke, he flicked a finger against the bands of light, sending three shimring, uneven shards flying into the specter’s body.
She shuddered. Before his eyes, her tattered clothes and spectral form began to nd, shifting back into a normal human appearance. Beneath the horrifying visage was a young, brown-haired woman in a sapphire dress. Tears stread from the corners of her eyes, solidifying into pearl-like beads as they fell onto the carpet.
Trembling, she clasped her hands together and bowed her head to Jenkins. A few seconds later, an ethereal song seed to fill the air. As it swelled, her body dissolved into motes of golden light that drifted up through the ceiling and vanished into the distant sky.
The diamond earring that had reappeared on her ear as she transford clattered to the floor after she vanished. It gradually solidified from an ethereal glimr into a tangible object, and a surging, yellow spiritual aura erupted from its surface like a tidal wave.
Outside, the sky, which had been shrouded in a dense fog, began to clear. A small opening parted the clouds, slowly but surely, and a single ray of sunlight pierced through. It stread through the hotel window, past the fluttering curtains, and ford a pillar of light that perfectly enveloped the earring.
The diamond caught the sunlight, refracting it into a dazzling, multifaceted glare that filled the room.
Jenkins was stunned. This was the second ti a special item had been created right before his eyes. Was it because of the girl’s obsession with opera? Or was it because of the otherworldly cultural knowledge he’d shared?
He didn’t know the answer. For a long mont, he simply stared at the earring lying on the carpet, bathed in sunlight. It wasn’t until he noticed Chocolate furtively gobbling up the spirit’s tears that he snapped back to reality.
“Don’t eat that!”
Too late. The cat had already swallowed three of them. If Jenkins hadn't lunged forward, the three remaining pearl-like beads would have t the sa fate. Even after being scooped up, Chocolate struggled desperately in his arms. It was only when Jenkins plugged its mouth with the Life Pearl that the cat montarily ceased its squirming, giving him just enough ti to retrieve the remaining items. What the creature might have done otherwise was hard to imagine.
And just like that, the specter tornting Mr. Nelly was gone. Though the manner of her departure was unlike anything Jenkins had ever seen, she had vanished all the sa.
“Good deeds are rewarded,” he mused. “I guess I really am a good person!”
He was glad he hadn’t resorted to brute force and simply destroyed the specter. If he had, he never would have reaped such a reward.
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