Jack the Ripper (1): The Ghost of Death

Jack the Ripper. The ghost of death. We don’t truly know who he was, and perhaps we never will. For centuries to come, people will speculate and wonder about his identity. That was how the documentary Ghost of Death summed him up in a single sentence.

Jack the Ripper. A suspect who would never be caught. The ghost who appeared in nineteenth-century London vanished from history, leaving behind an unsolvable mystery that no one could unravel. Even Conan Doyle, the father of Sherlock Holmes, and Joseph Bell—the man who inspired Holmes—failed to identify him. There had been rumors that DNA testing had finally revealed the killer’s identity, but those claims were never accepted. The DNA in question wasn’t viable evidence, and too much time had passed for the information to be reliable. In the end, Jack the Ripper’s true name remained buried in shadow.

That ghost of death had stepped out of the darkness and revealed itself before me.

“This bread is really delicious!”

She beamed with a bright, genuine smile. Above her gently curved golden eyes, a single line of text floated.

Nineteenth-century London existed on two completely different planes. There was the glittering life of the wealthy in their elegant townhouses, and then there was the view from their terraces down into the slums—the East End.

The East End. London’s dark underbelly where the lower classes had been herded together. Jobs were scarce, so prostitution thrived, and orphans overflowed the streets. It was a slum in every sense of the word.

Vanessa was a seamstress who lived among the orphans there. Her greatest joy was sewing clothes for the children from rags and taking care of them.

“Vanessa! More bread!”

“Sorry, that was the last of it.”

“Aww…”

“The nuns will bring more on the weekend.”

“But that bread tastes bad!”

“Then earn the money and buy it yourself.”

She was the big sister to all of them.

“Thank you for sharing the bread. The children loved it.”

“Oh, it was nothing.”

“I’ll definitely pay you back once I earn some money.”

Her charming golden eyes curved beautifully. She hummed a little tune and returned to her knitting.

…

It was almost impossible to understand how such a bright woman had earned the ominous nickname Jack the Ripper. Vanessa approached everything with relentless positivity. Which made the quest hovering above her even more incomprehensible.

I knew Jack the Ripper had killed prostitutes. The canonical five were well known, but many claimed the true number was higher. Countless prostitutes had died in the East End, after all.

The Whitechapel murders. Modern scholars openly debated whether they were truly the work of a single killer known as Jack the Ripper. The truth, of course, remained elusive. The Ripper himself was a ghost shrouded in veils.

But the Vanessa I observed didn’t seem like a woman who would kill without reason. It was impossible to associate her with the image of a hedonistic murderer. If she truly had been one, the body count would have been far higher.

Jack the Ripper. There had to be a reason she felt compelled to kill. And there had to be a reason the System had given me this quest.

I watched the red-haired woman continue her cheerful knitting in silence.

Life in the slums was brutal. Orphans who couldn’t find work had to rummage through trash or pick pockets just to survive.

“You filthy little rats!”

“You’re dirtying the streets! Get lost!”

To the gentlemen of London, the East End children were objects of disgust. It was common to kick them on sight for no reason at all.

“Oh dear, Allen. You’re hurt again. I told you not to go to the West End. Let me see your arm.”

Vanessa treated the injured children without a word. Her version of treatment was simply washing and wrapping the leftover sewing cloth around their wounds. Medicine was a luxury no one in the East End could afford.

“I’ll heal him.”

Jeanne stepped in to treat the children in Vanessa’s place. Warm light flowed out, closing the wounds. Vanessa’s golden eyes widened.

“…Is that light magic? How incredible.”

After watching the holy power with an entranced gaze, Vanessa asked once the healing was finished, “Could I ever gain an ability like that?”

“Unfortunately, you have no aptitude for light magic, Miss Vanessa.”

“I see. That’s a shame.”

Vanessa sounded genuinely disappointed. When I asked why she wanted it, her answer was unexpected.

“Well… I wanted to become a nun.”

“A nun?”

“Yes! The nuns come every Sunday to hand out bread. I wanted to be like them, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”

She spoke of her shattered dream with a bright smile, as if it didn’t matter. But I could sense the deep regret hidden beneath her words.

Vanessa’s dream had been to become a nun who distributed bread to the hungry.

I stayed by Vanessa’s side for several more days, observing her. I needed to understand how she became Jack the Ripper. In the process, I also came to see the darkest side of the East End.

The prostitutes there shared one distinct feature: a red plum blossom pattern tattooed on parts of their bodies.

“What is that?”

“First time seeing a plum mark, I take it.”

“What’s a plum mark?”

“It’s proof that someone has been working as a prostitute and has been infected with the Plum Blossom Plague. People infected with it don’t feel hunger or thirst, so everyone hopes to catch it.”

…

I was at a loss for words. The Plum Blossom Plague. It was the method the demon Astaroth—one of Solomon’s seventy-two demons—used to increase his followers.

Astaroth, known as the patron saint of prostitutes, infected those who sold their bodies with the Plum Blossom Plague. The infected no longer felt hunger or thirst, but they would eventually transform into monsters. That was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠why the plague was a horrific curse that needed to be purified the moment it appeared.

Yet according to Vanessa, the prostitutes viewed infection as salvation.

The East End gangs managed the infected prostitutes and openly sold the Plum Blossom Plague.

“They’re pitiful people. They don’t even know they’ll turn into monsters if infected.”

“They don’t know?”

“No. No matter how many times I tell them, they think I’m just jealous.”

“How do you know all this, Vanessa?”

“The person who gave birth to me became a monster after contracting the plague. The government exterminated her immediately, of course.”

Her words were dry and emotionless, as if she were simply listing facts. “It would be better to die as a human, even if you have to die.”

“Why is it so quiet when monsters are appearing?”

“Well… this is the East End.”

…

I had known the East End was London’s dark face where the poor were gathered. But this was beyond imagination. The British government knew the Plum Blossom Plague was spreading yet pretended not to notice. When a prostitute turned into a monster, they handled it quietly. It never made the newspapers. The residents of the East End were paupers who could disappear without anyone batting an eye.

The government didn’t have to support them, and the plague conveniently regulated the population. So Britain simply turned a blind eye to the monster phenomenon.

Only now did I begin to understand what that message meant. And why a murderer known as Jack the Ripper had appeared in London.

Jack the Ripper. The ghost of death. It was a monster born from the name of “neglect.”

“Allen dreams of becoming a soldier. Raphael wants to run a bakery when he grows up, Ciel wants to be a jeweler, and Yuri…”

Vanessa looked truly happy as she spoke about the children’s dreams. But both she and I knew how difficult it would be for those dreams to come true. She probably understood it better than anyone.

This place was London’s trash bin.

After listening to her, I spoke carefully.

“Miss Vanessa.”

“Yes?”

“Wouldn’t it be better to send the children to an orphanage?”

…

The scissors in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her hand, which had been cutting fabric, stopped dead. After a moment, the snipping resumed.

“I want to, but the churches won’t take children from the East End.”

“I’ll help.”

I glanced at Jeanne. She nodded quietly from where she stood. With her assistance, I entrusted the children Vanessa cared for to a cathedral orphanage. Money was needed to place them there, but that wasn’t difficult for me.

“Oh, this is a katana!”

The artifacts from my general store were quite valuable in nineteenth-century Britain. When Jeanne also demonstrated her holy power, the London church gladly accepted the orphans. Holy power was practically omnipotent within the Church.

“Big sis! You’ll come visit, right?”

“Of course I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠will.”

“Vanessa! You have to come!”

After saying goodbye to the children, Vanessa turned to me with a bright smile and expressed her gratitude.

“Thank you. I feel so much lighter now.”

She gazed at the church with lingering sorrow. “Ah, I really wanted to become a nun. It’s a shame.”

“You already seem like one.”

“Thank you for saying so.”

Vanessa smiled again. “But I could never be as good a person as you or Miss Jeanne.”

…

After those words, Vanessa disappeared from the East End.

Three days later, the headlines exploded.

The newspapers claimed a war between criminal organizations had broken out, but I knew this wasn’t a conflict between gangs.

They’re pitiful people. They don’t even know they’ll turn into monsters if infected.

It would be better to die as a human, even if you have to die.

Vanessa, at the very least, wanted the prostitutes to keep their human dignity until the end. Rather than being erased from the world as nameless monsters.

…

I had to find Vanessa. But I had no ability to locate someone whose whereabouts were completely unknown. Even searching all of Britain would make it difficult to find anyone who could track her. She was the East End’s ghost, after all.

So I decided to visit the one person who could find her in my stead.

Late at night. A townhouse in West London. The brown-brick building had pictures of a man smoking a pipe hanging everywhere. The house was dark with all the lights out, except for one room on the second floor where a candle burned brightly.

I used Shadow Step to scale the wall and slipped secretly through the lit window.

Inside, a middle-aged gentleman was writing by candlelight.

“Who’s there?”

The man looked up from his fountain pen as the window opened.

If Sherlock Holmes had actually existed, it would probably be me. The person I had come to see was none other than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the father of Sherlock Holmes—Arthur Conan Doyle.

He was the only one who could reach the true form of the ghost.