Jenkins had no desire to follow the official trial of the pervert from room four, but a piece of information the man revealed demanded attention.
"No, no, gentlen, I really only killed four people. I didn't kill the Leviathan family's child. You see, I have no reason to lie. The child's body was just lying in the hallway. I simply moved it into my room."
That was his confession, and according to the lie detector and divination results, it was the whole truth.
With that, the tragedy at 34 De Gaulle Alley had nearly reached its conclusion. Aside from the cause of death for the little boy in room one who had drawn the strange pictures, and the secret of the killer in room two, there were no other questions left to answer.
Jenkins would keep an eye on the matter, hoping for further news.
But for the writer, many questions still lingered. The most important among them concerned the Mysterious Realms. Every piece of knowledge he had ever acquired indicated that a Mysterious Realm would collapse after it was cleared.
And yet, a strange inspiration today suggested that only so of them collapsed.
Mysterious Realms were fragnts of space, exceedingly small worlds. Even after encountering them multiple tis, Jenkins still felt he didn't understand them.
He had once speculated that they were fragnts broken off from so wondrous otherworlds, and he had also wondered about their relationship with the Masters. He had even pondered the very aning of their existence.
But it was all just guesswork. People were reluctant to speak of the Mysterious Realms, and the few who researched them never published their findings. It was like the secrets surrounding the End of the Epoch: the ignorant remained ignorant, and the knowledgeable could not share.
"If the idea that ca to today is true, does that an Mysterious Realms with broken rules collapse, while those with unbroken rules continue to exist? But I've never heard of two identical Mysterious Realms ever appearing."
He lay on the rug in front of his fireplace, twirling a feather in one hand as he stared up at the ceiling.
The function of this feather was simple: to resurrect a creature that had died before midnight on the "current day," provided more than half of its body remained. This ant that if soone died at 12:01 AM, there was a window of nearly twenty-four hours for resurrection. But if they died at 11:59 PM, Jenkins had to be found within a single minute.
An Enchanter who absorbed the feather into their body, however, would be resurrected the instant they died. But whether resurrecting soone else or oneself, the cause of death could not be natural.
It was a one-ti-use item. Once used, it was gone. Miss Bevanna had instructed Jenkins not to tell anyone about it and to just keep it for himself. Neither of them needed to include the feather in their report on the incident; they would simply act as if it had never existed.
"So, can I tell Old Daddy?"
Jenkins had asked.
"That's for you to decide."
Miss Bevanna had replied nonchalantly.
There were only two known ways to obtain such a precious feather. Besides a gravedigger from the Church of Death and End in the previous epoch who, like Jenkins, had acquired one in a Mysterious Realm, all other records indicated it was a rcy granted by the gods to mortals.
Both Righteous Gods and Pseudo-Gods were docunted as having bestowed C-01-5-8222, the "Angel's Resurrection Feather," upon mortals. But this was exceedingly rare, reserved only for those who had perford truly great deeds for a deity. The diocesan records showed that it had only appeared four tis in the current epoch.
The air on Thursday morning was as awful as ever. While fetching the newspaper, Jenkins ran into his neighbor, Mr. Goodman, who was heading off to work. He seed to be in a good mood. Jenkins wanted to ask about the investnt he had ntioned before, but he felt it was a private matter.
But he figured it must not be a problem; otherwise, the man wouldn't be humming a little tune on his way to work.
Yesterday's debt collection had been a major setback, and he had to continue today. This ti, however, everything went smoothly. Except for one bankrupt rchant who deliberately hid to avoid paynt, every other person settled their debts.
At this rate, all the accounts within Nolan City would be cleared by the end of the week. Jenkins had originally thought there were only a few, but he was surprised to see how many had accumulated over the past year.
When he returned to the antique shop that afternoon, Jenkins was utterly exhausted. He didn't even have the energy to play with the still-vibrant Chocolate. Placing the ledger and the rolls of cash tied with string on the counter, he collapsed into the rocking chair by the fireplace and didn't move a muscle.
Papa Oliver shook his head, slowly flipping through the ledger to check the progress. He then hefted the rolls of cash, estimating the amount by weight, and dropped them into the drawer beneath the counter.
"That tired?"
"It's alright. It's mainly that so of the roads are hard to walk on. Old Daddy, I only just learned today that Nolan City still has completely unpaved dirt roads."
"Of course. Did you think all the roads were paved with large stone slabs like Fifth Queen's Avenue? This isn't even the worst of it. Wait until the rainy season when those dirt roads get soaked. That's when walking on them is a real killer."
As he spoke, he let out a "tsk tsk" and then added:
"That's why you need a good pair of boots."
Papa Oliver was not one to console a weary young man. He had always believed that young people needed to be tempered, no matter the form. He knew a bit of Jenkins's past and was aware that even though he used to drift through the city, he had never been particularly good at communicating with people.
Now it seed it wasn't that he was bad at it, but simply unwilling. Judging by his everyday conduct, aside from being a bit slow on the uptake at tis, he really had no other flaws.
He also made no comnt on yesterday's Mysterious Realm, simply treating it as another one of Jenkins's "misfortunes." But Papa Oliver believed such misfortunes were worthwhile, as the principle of "luck balancing out" was so thoroughly demonstrated in Jenkins's case.
"Oh, Hathaway and Briny ca by earlier. They asked to appraise sothing very interesting..."
Hearing this, Jenkins instinctively turned his head toward the counter. In Papa Oliver's white-gloved hand was a pair of bronze-colored bracelets. Vine-like patterns snaked across them, making them look as if they were twisted from creepers. The bracelets had so rusty spots, making it hard to tell whether they were genuine antiques or just a pair of old junk.
He blinked. They were just ordinary items. Though they certainly looked like antiques, they were, in fact, perfectly ordinary. Jenkins imdiately lost interest in the bracelets and settled back into the rocking chair to rest.
"Oh, one more thing. I was just chatting with them about you..."
Jenkins appeared to be staring at the decorative shield hanging above the fireplace, but his ears pricked up and twitched a few tis.
Papa Oliver noticed his apprentice's subtle movent, and a smile spread across his face.
"It seems you've been getting along well with them lately. The young ladies had nothing but praise for you."
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