Chapter 37 (Patreon)

The Montcalm Royal London House Hotel.

Even though a few things had happened on the way here...

You still had to stay in a hotel. It wasn’t like Ragnar Kagenou could just wander the streets all night.

If he really spent one night outside, there was a good chance everything on him would be gone by morning.

You know how it goes—

If nobody steals, it’s not Italy.

If nobody robs, it’s not France.

And in England?

They do both.

Knock. Knock.

Someone knocked on the door.

Ragnar opened it and found a beautiful woman standing outside.

“Excuse me, sir, do you need any assistance?”

She smiled faintly, then lowered her voice.

“For example... helping ease a little of the loneliness in the night.”

“No need.”

The woman leaned against the doorframe, her posture seductive, and then started walking into the room on her own.

“Wait a second, miss, that’s trespassing—”

A beauty really was a beauty.

Even the way she walked carried a strange, almost ethereal charm.

Then Ragnar stepped aside.

“No, forget it. Come in.”

Without another word, the woman entered the room and sat down on the sofa as if the place belonged to her.

Ragnar looked at her.

“Your name?”

“Jill Griffin.”

“Jill?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

Ragnar took a glass of water and set it down on the table in front of her.

“Oh? This is... water?”

“Correct.”

Clearly, she wasn’t very interested in the glass.

“Aren’t we... supposed to start first?”

“No rush. The night’s still long. Drink some water first.”

The woman reached out with her left hand to pick up the glass, her eyes narrowing slightly.

“Is there... something mixed in this?”

Ragnar gestured calmly.

“Go ahead.”

“Fine, then. I’ll drink it.”

The moment she raised the glass and took a sip—

Ragnar spoke.

“I think your name should actually be... Jack.”

A golden ripple spread through the air.

Whoosh!

The glass exploded instantly as a golden Noble Phantasm pierced straight through the sofa.

At the same time, mist surged through the entire room like a flood, swallowing everything in sight and isolating the space completely from the outside world.

Inside the dense white haze, visibility dropped to almost nothing.

The entire room was swallowed by a suffocating pressure, as if even breathing had become dangerous.

Ragnar’s expression turned cold.

“If my guess is right, then you’re the Cursed Spirit... Jack the Ripper.”

As he spoke, two pitch-black knives slowly emerged from the Gate of Babylon and dropped into his hands.

Jack’s voice echoed from somewhere deep inside the mist, drifting through the room like a ghost.

“You want to know the truth? Then let me take a look at your insides first. After that... I might tell you.”

Ragnar stood still at the center of the room, his gaze moving through the mist as he guarded every direction.

“Why target me?”

The only answer was silence.

Then—

A blade lunged soundlessly out of the fog behind him.

Clang!

A sharp metallic sound rang out as Ragnar instantly raised one of the black knives and blocked the strike with perfect timing.

Jack’s cold laughter spread through the mist.

“Hahaha... who can say? Maybe you’re just unlucky.”

Ragnar was about to turn and counterattack, but Jack had already vanished back into the fog.

Holding his knife tightly, Ragnar frowned.

“No. As far as I know, your targets were always women...”

Jack’s voice came again, light and eerie.

“I just wanted to see what it feels like to go after a man for once.”

Ragnar’s eyes narrowed further.

“It’s Kenjaku, isn’t it?”

This time, Jack gave no response.

Ragnar’s voice turned colder.

“Not answering?”

Tap. Tap.

Footsteps began echoing from every direction around him.

Illusions.

Most likely, Jack was using the sound to mislead him, shake his focus, and force an opening.

Ragnar exhaled slowly.

“In that case... just die.”

The black knife in his hand gradually began to glow with a red light.

Then Ragnar spoke in a low voice—

“The Misty City. Our hell begins here.”

Somewhere inside the fog, Jack frowned.

For some reason, Ragnar’s presence was becoming harder and harder to pin down.

“There is no end, no beginning... only the endless repetition of meaningless dismemberment.”

Ragnar didn’t move immediately.

He waited.

He waited for Jack to leave the cover of the mist and commit to the kill.

A moment later—

From deep within the dense fog, Jack launched an assassination from an angle Ragnar should never have been able to detect.

Finally.

Couldn’t hold back anymore, huh?

A faint smile appeared at the corner of Ragnar’s mouth.

“Killed by your own method of murder... that sounds about right.”

A blood-red light flashed across Ragnar’s eyes.

In the next instant, his body seemed to dissolve into a mass of pitch-black Cursed Energy.

Jack immediately tried to retreat back into the mist—

But it was meaningless.

Once it locked onto the target, distance no longer mattered.

This was not a physical strike.

It was a curse.

The pair of black knives, now burning with crimson light, shot forward at terrifying speed.

Jack instinctively raised an arm to block—

But blocking was useless.

Puchi!

Two deep slashes tore straight across Jack’s abdomen, and blood burst out instantly, splattering across the floor.

Before Jack could even react, the glowing black knives curved back in the air like hunting beasts.

Two more wounds ripped open.

Jack staggered, clutching the abdomen desperately, trying to stop the internal organs from spilling out through the grotesque gashes.

Then Ragnar stepped out of the mist and caught both returning knives in his hands.

His eyes were calm.

“Maria the Ripper.”

With Ragnar’s final strike—

Jack’s internal organs were torn out completely, leaving behind a corpse that looked like it had been neatly dissected by a mad anatomist.

Noble Phantasm: Maria the Ripper

Rank: D~B

Type: Anti-Unit Noble Phantasm

Description:

A Noble Phantasm born from the conceptual sublimation of the Jack the Ripper murders.

It recreates the murder process of Jack the Ripper itself.

Three conditions are required for its activation:

[Nighttime]

[Female Target]

[Mist Present]

Gulp.

Ragnar took a glass of red wine from the Gate of Babylon and drank calmly.

Jack’s corpse gradually turned into black ash, then scattered into the air and disappeared.

“Kenjaku, you bastard... you really do have a ridiculous number of cursed spirits under your control.”

Every time Ragnar chased Kenjaku into a new country, Kenjaku somehow managed to throw several strong cursed spirits at him.

Grade 1 and Grade 2 Cursed Spirits were the bare minimum.

And beyond that, Kenjaku had already produced three or four special grade cursed spirits.

If Ragnar still failed to catch him this time, then he would have no choice but to head back.

By his estimate, Yuta Okkotsu and Rika Orimoto were about to enter high school.

And if Rika’s Cursed Energy flared up out of control at the wrong time, those old fossils in the jujutsu world would probably slap a death sentence on her without hesitation.

Knock. Knock.

Someone knocked on the door again.

Ragnar walked over and opened it.

A hotel employee stood outside.

“Sir, we heard some noise from your room just now. May I ask—”

The staff member’s expression suddenly twisted into something eerie.

“Do you need help?”

At the same moment, a sharp blade thrust straight toward Ragnar.

Clang!

Ragnar blocked the strike immediately, his face turning dark.

“Jack the Ripper... you’re still alive?”

The figure spoke in a voice full of malice.

“I am everywhere. I can be anyone. And anyone can be me.”

“Enjoy the slaughter.”

The next second, Jack’s body dissolved into a stream of mist and shot out into the city.