I Loaded the Occult Panel

After morning classes, the corridor was packed with students heading for the dining hall.

Richard stuffed his textbooks into his bag and stood up from his seat in the third row by the window.

Taking his time, he waited until the crowd had mostly dispersed before walking out of the classroom.

The moment he turned down the corridor, Principal Fletcher approached from the other end.

The principal rarely struck up conversations with students in the halls, but today he stopped right in front of Richard.

”Richard.”

”Mr. Principal.”

Fletcher looked at him, deliberately keeping his gaze level.

”The teachers for every subject have provided feedback on your recent performance.”

As he spoke, he pulled a document from his folder.”We unanimously agree that you are ready for flexible study.”

Richard paused. ”Flexible study?”

”It means you no longer need to sit in a classroom for every lesson.”

”If you feel you’ve already mastered a subject’s material, you can inform the teacher ahead of time and go to the library for self-study.”

He took a fountain pen from his pocket and signed his initials in the blank space at the bottom of the document.

”I will mark your attendance records as ’exempted for self-study.’ It won’t affect your final grades.”

With that, he handed the document over.

Richard took the page and scanned it. It bore the administrative seal of the principal’s office, the red ink not yet fully dry.

”Thank you, Mr. Principal.”

Fletcher gave a brief nod, turned, and continued down the corridor.

Standing in the hall, Richard folded the document and tucked it into the zippered pocket inside his bag.

The privilege of flexible study wasn’t entirely unprecedented in Greenwood’s history.

But it was usually reserved for top students in their final preparatory year, studying for university entrance exams.

It was meant for those who had thoroughly mastered the curriculum and only needed to focus on their final cramming.

Richard hadn’t even entered the preparatory class yet, but he had already received this treatment.

Hoisting his bag higher on his shoulder, he headed toward the dining hall.

At the end of the corridor, Warren poked his head out, holding up a half-eaten chicken leg.

”Hey, why are you still dawdling in the hall? The steak is getting cold.”

”Coming.”

”That was the principal just now, right? What did he want with you?”

”He just had a few words for me.”

Warren stopped chewing his chicken leg.

”...Don’t tell me you got praised again?”

”Pretty much.”

”You’ve been getting praised way too often lately.”

Sighing, Warren tossed the chicken bone into a nearby trash can.

”Keep this up, and it’s going to make Mason and me look like we’re just riding your coattails.”

...

On the second floor of the Cheltenham Ladies’ College library.

In the small reading room at the end of the corridor, Catherine had been sitting at the desk for a long time.

Four books were spread out on the table before her.

The top one was the journal her father had left behind.

The three beneath it were old tomes she had asked her uncle to dig out from the family’s collection.

One was titled Roster of Northern Families and Guild Organizations: Non-Public Edition; another was A Study of the Moon-Hunting Bloodline Branches in the Gaelic Highlands; and the last was a coverless volume called Notes on Black Rituals.

A white paper label was stuck to the front of the Notes on Black Rituals, bearing her uncle’s handwriting: ”Return as soon as possible after reading.”

”Black” didn’t always mean evil; it could simply mean something hidden behind the scenes, unknown to the public.

Catherine had copied a few pages from the Notes on Black Rituals. After deciphering them, she tore the paper to shreds and tossed the scraps into the fireplace.

A hand-drawn relationship chart rested at the corner of the desk.

She had painstakingly built it up, stroke by stroke, over the past few weeks.

She was doing the exact same thing as that boy in Briston.

Taking inventory of her chips, sorting out shareable intelligence, and deducing the true identities of the Theogony Salon members.

But her direction was slightly different from his.

The connections her father had left behind had largely withered away after his death.

His few remaining old partners were scattered across Edinburgh, Newcastle, and York. She wasn’t familiar with them at all and had no way of digging up any useful intelligence from them.

As for the few distant relatives on her mother’s side who were Secret practitioners, most had lost touch. Only one still sent a postcard every Christmas.

Then there were the old matters her uncle refused to speak much about. She had paid out of pocket to buy him drinks and managed to fish out quite a bit, but given that they were drunken ramblings, their authenticity was questionable.

Over the past few days, she had scoured all her available channels.

The tip of her pen paused over the ”Shareable Intelligence” column several times.

Most Cheltenham graduates would eventually become the wives of wealthy merchants, diplomats, or local councilors.

In such circles, there wasn’t much that could be used as a bargaining chip.

The intelligence she had spent a good deal of money to obtain was entirely about which young lady had gotten engaged, or which madam was recently championing which charity foundation.

Placed on the round table of the Theogony Salon, such trivialities wouldn’t even rank at the very bottom.

She was keenly aware of one thing: the Theogony Salon was a heaven-sent opportunity for her.

For an orphaned Hunter girl from a declining family, walking the normal path for another twenty years might not even get her to Minor Adept.

The Moon Hunting Tradition had always been a niche branch within the Empire. Following the cleansing of the Gaelic Highlands, the core figures of the entire tradition had been reduced by more than half.

Her uncle was only a Minor Adept, and the remaining elders hadn’t even approached that Rank.

Going any further up this family line, there was no one left to lean on for support.

After listening to that entire session at the round table, she had finally concluded that this was her shortest path to a higher Rank.

Not the only path, but the shortest one.

If she followed the academy system step-by-step, it would take her at least fifteen years, and she would still get stuck at the threshold of Minor Adept.

If she went through the Civilian Guild to recommend herself, it would take at least twenty years, and she would have to face the lingering hostility of her family’s enemies.

There were quite a few Hunter families in the Gaelic Highlands who held blood feuds with her family, and they were all currently alive and well.

If she took the path of the Theogony Salon, all she needed was to avoid making mistakes at the gatherings and hold out until she secured her first real batch of resources.

Catherine closed the book at her side, picked up her pen, and wrote down three names on the last page of her notebook.

First: Hermes.

Beside it, she added a line of text: ”Might be the second-place winner of the Cicero Cup from Greenwood.”

Her pen paused.

She remembered what he had said during his speech.

”The boundary of civilization lies at the moment you stop questioning.”

That statement had been drawn from a set of very quiet imagery.

A room, walls, water pipes, pipelines, underground rivers... peeled back layer by layer.

Every layer spoke of the most mundane household topics, yet beneath each layer hid a nail capable of tearing up the foundation of the entire house.

Sitting in the audience at the time, she hadn’t realized she had remained completely still until the speech was over.

The way he had wrapped a razor-sharp judgment inside a quote from Cicero, and then wrapped that Cicero quote inside language that sounded like a discussion on architecture...

That kind of composure and the hidden edge beneath his words—he was practically the exact same person as the Hermes at the round table.

Below the line for ”Hermes,” Catherine wrote another note: ”Do not ask.”

Second name: Ares.

Below this line, she wrote: ”Northern Hunters squad, possibly around Northumberland.

The supply chain for the 3rd Circle Enchanted Bullets points to an internal channel within the Northern Legion.”

She wasn’t entirely certain about this one, but she could detect a hint of a northern accent in his voice.

The red copper mask had suppressed most of the resonance, but his sibilants carried the distinct flatness of the Gaelic Highlands.

Among her father’s old partners, at least two of them had spoken with that exact same lisp.

They weren’t necessarily acquaintances, but they definitely hailed from the exact same geographical region.

Third name: Dionysus.