While they were talking, the group of acquaintances who had just passed the doorway had already gone. Jenkins stared blankly at the dregs in his cup for a mont before nodding.
“Yes, sir.”
He really had no reason to get involved in soone else's trouble.
They remained in the café until seventeen minutes past eleven, their conversation andering from the origins of coffee and the barriers of the middle class to the developnt of the steam industry and the interplay between royal decrees and the urban environnt.
Noticing Jenkins's surprisingly astute grasp of political matters, Papa Oliver remarked with a hint of a joke:
“Perhaps you’d make a fine king.”
“I have no desire to be a king,” Jenkins retorted. “It’s far too exhausting. How could it possibly be as comfortable as the life I have now?”
Papa Oliver simply smiled, shaking his head without a word. He beckoned a waiter over and ordered so food for them both.
The train's delay was caused by a severe blizzard along its route, which triggered an avalanche that buried the tracks. During the unscheduled stop, a series of horrifying incidents had even broken out in the VIP carriage, involving cultists, illegal organizations, and a few Enchanters who seed to appear out of thin air. Fortunately, a detective who happened to be in the VIP carriage had already resolved the matter.
All this was relayed to them by the Inherited Sage Church team they had seen earlier; Jenkins and Papa Oliver ran into them again while going to pick up the shipnt. The team was there to rendezvous with the advance party and to escort the culprits and any ordinary citizens who were now privy to the incident.
Papa Oliver seed imnsely pleased that things hadn't gone awry, repeatedly telling Jenkins what a good thing it was that he had curbed a certain young man’s curiosity earlier.
“Um... what does this have to do with ?”
Jenkins was completely baffled.
In any case, with those bizarre events resolved, the two still had business to attend to. Papa Oliver's cargo was in the third carriage from the rear. Directing the laborers and finding a cart to haul everything took considerable effort. By the ti all the goods were finally stowed in the warehouse and Jenkins was holding the sealed mahogany case, evening was fast approaching.
The sky was overcast, making it difficult to even see the evening glow on the horizon. Neither he nor Papa Oliver had eaten lunch, and they were so famished they imdiately found a nearby restaurant. Jenkins, carrying his cat, Chocolate, followed a waiter to get a nu. anwhile, Papa Oliver draped his overcoat over the box, asked another passing waiter to keep an eye on it, and then excused himself to use the restaurant's washroom.
Given Papa Oliver’s usual caution, this was sothing he would never have done. But the drink he'd had at the café that morning must have been off; he simply couldn't hold it any longer.
They both returned three minutes later to find the overcoat still there, but the box beneath it had vanished. The waiter they had spoken to was taking another table's order. When he turned and saw, his face instantly went white as a sheet.
“Sir, this...”
This was a rather upscale establishnt, one that was responsible for its patrons' belongings. The waiter was too nervous to speak. Seeing the trouble from across the room, the restaurant manager strode over quickly:
“Gentlen, is there a problem here...?”
“I was near the front door the whole ti. No one walked out. Are there any other exits?”
Jenkins rudely cut off the middle-aged man in the black suit. The young writer's face was flushed crimson—that item absolutely could not be lost. Realizing sothing had been stolen, the manager replied in a rush:
“Yes, there's a back door, but you have to go through the kitchen. Sir, it couldn't possibly be our...”
Before he could finish, Jenkins and Papa Oliver were already dashing toward the kitchen. A cook tried to block their way, but one glare from Jenkins sent a chill down his spine and he nearly yelped in fear.
The kitchen was vast, and the din of cooking could easily mask the sound of footsteps. With a bit of luck, soone could certainly slip through unnoticed.
Jenkins and Papa Oliver pushed through the cooking fus and into the backyard. Kitchen refuse was piled in one corner, while construction debris was stacked neatly against the wall. The back gate was locked tight, so Jenkins deftly used a pile of bricks to vault over the wall.
“Footprints!”
he called out as Papa Oliver scrambled over after him. Behind the restaurant was a narrow alley. So few people ever used it that the snow from a few days prior lay like a smooth, silver blanket. But now, a set of footprints marred that blanket, stretching into the distance before vanishing around a corner.
“Whatever he does, he can’t open it, inside is...”
Jenkins said anxiously, racing ahead with Papa Oliver. They rounded the corner into another deserted alley, where they could faintly make out a figure sprawled on the snow in the distance.
“Oh, he opened it. May the Sage preserve him!”
Papa Oliver exclaid, quickly tracing a holy symbol. Both he and Jenkins covered their eyes and cautiously approached. Following the blurry image they had glimpsed, they carefully placed the strange statue that had fallen in the snow back into its container. Only then did they lower their hands and open their eyes to take in the scene before them.
“No, he saw A-12-2-6083, the Dead Man's Witnessed Statue!”
Jenkins knelt, pressing his fingers to the man’s neck. He let out a mournful sigh.
The Dead Man's Witnessed Statue, A-12-2-6083, was a Cursed Item an acquaintance of Papa Oliver's had accidentally acquired in the Hamparvo Kingdom. The man was an unregistered Enchanter, but he and Papa Oliver were on very good terms. Not knowing how to handle such a dangerous object, he had sold it to him at a reduced price.
As its na implied, the item had a single, deadly function: any living being within a ter who saw more than four-fifths of its surface would die. As long as the case remained shut or it was viewed from a distance, it posed no threat, which was why they had risked transporting it by train. The statue’s effect on Enchanters was limited. Miss Bevanna, for instance, could inspect it with a magnifying glass and be perfectly fine. Enchanters of Jenkins and Papa Oliver's level might feel dizzy for a ti, but a fragile mortal could not withstand it at all.
The statue was said to depict a classic philosopher, a famous subject for sculptures in this epoch, much like 'The Thinker' from Jenkins's own mories. As for why it possessed such a deadly power, no researcher had yet been able to offer a conclusion.
Papa Oliver and Jenkins never imagined that after an entirely uneventful journey, such a tragedy would strike the mont they finally had it in their hands in Nolan.
The dead man was middle-aged, around the sa age as Jenkins’s neighbor, Mr. Goodman. He was dressed in a proper suit and black leather shoes, though his straw-like hair was a ss. His build was sowhat slight, but judging from the calluses on his hands and his overall deanor, he was likely a middle-class man of so ans.
They just couldn’t understand why he would resort to theft in a restaurant, an act that had directly led to this tragedy.
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