I Loaded the Occult Panel

The room stayed quiet for a long moment.

Mr. Hutton’s speech had smothered the tearoom’s comfortable atmosphere, leaving a heavy silence in its wake.

Maggie finally cleared her throat, clearly feeling the need to break it.

”Speaking of which, do you know how people from the Gaelic Highlands spot an outsider?”

The old gentleman blinked, momentarily thrown, but answered out of politeness. ”How?”

”They watch whether they frown when they drink whiskey.”

”...The ones who frown are the outsiders?” Richard guessed.

”The ones who don’t frown are the outsiders,” Maggie replied with absolute seriousness.

”When we Highlanders drink our home-brewed whiskey, we frown with every sip.

”The deeper the frown, the purer the barrel.”Anyone who doesn’t frown is either used to that watered-down swill from the Midlands, or they’re already so drunk their face has stopped working.”

The interruption worked. Both men relaxed slightly.

”There’s another one.” Seeing the mood lighten, Maggie pressed her advantage.

”When my grandmother was alive, she used to tell us kids the exact same thing every winter.

”’Children, remember this. Three things in the Highlands can freeze you to death: the wind, the snow, and your relatives.’”

”...Relatives?” This time, Richard genuinely had no idea what nonsense she was spinning.

”When a relative visits, they bring a bottle. If you don’t drink it, they won’t leave.

”The more you drink, the hotter you get. Eventually, you decide to lie down in the yard just to cool off for a bit.”

Maggie delivered the punchline. ”By the time someone finds you in the morning, you’re probably still smiling.”

The old man shook his head at the grim, deadpan joke.

He picked up his teacup and glanced at Maggie. ”The Gaels are much better at telling jokes than they are at reciting Spell Formulas.”

”Naturally,” Maggie agreed, entirely earnest. ”If you forget a Spell Formula, it’s just gone. If you ruin a joke, the whole clan shuns you.”

Mr. Hutton gave a soft chuckle and finished his cold tea.

But turning back to the matter at hand, advancing his ’[Learning]’ to level 3 required him to decipher a double-overwritten text...

Richard considered this and decided to try a different angle.

”Then could I learn encryption techniques now?”

Mr. Hutton leaned back in his chair.

”Of course you can. It’s a fundamental skill for Scholars publishing papers. Once the term starts, I can find some time to teach you.

”Or you could just ask your aunt, Associate Professor Isabella. Asking her directly would be the fastest way.”

Richard agreed. If he learned how to encrypt, he could naturally reverse-engineer the process to decipher text. The logic was identical to how he had dismantled the Sphinx’s seal.

Furthermore, both studying encryption and practicing decryption would advance his ’[Learning]’ progress. The two skills went hand in hand.

Mr. Hutton gave him an assessing look.

”By the way, that book on encryption methods you found in the Imperial Capital library...”

”Yes?”

”What was its full title?”

Richard searched his memory.

”On the Construction and Evolution of Ciphertext. The title page marked it as published by the Royal Anthropological Society Affiliated Press. The author just used the initials L.D.V.”

At those initials, a faint flicker of surprise crossed Mr. Hutton’s face.

”Do you know this person, sir?”

The old gentleman did not answer directly.

”Richard, the next time you visit the library, refrain from pulling random books off the shelves.”

...

By the time they left Mr. Hutton’s room, the sky outside had fallen completely dark.

The proprietress was wiping down glasses behind the bar. Seeing the two students come downstairs, she offered a brief greeting.

”Dinner will be ready in about half an hour.”

”Thank you,” Richard replied.

Beside him, Maggie gestured toward the inn’s entrance.

”Want to talk?”

”Sure.”

The wind outside carried a sharper bite than it had in the afternoon.

The night was moonless. The stars were scattered thin across the dark, though a few large, bright ones hung low in the west.

Only a handful of homes in Whitcom Village still had lights shining through their windows.

The two of them strolled down the flagstone path leading away from the inn.

Maggie stopped at the low stone wall marking the edge of the village.

She fished a small tin box out of her pocket.

It held roasted chestnuts she had swiped from the kitchen at noon. She offered a few to Richard.

”Still hot?”

”I buried them in the hearth ashes for a while to warm them up.”

Richard took them. The shells were almost too hot to hold.

He cracked one open and ate it.

The chestnut was sweet, carrying a rich, smoky char.

The two leaned against the stone wall, eating in comfortable silence.

The wind swept in from the moors, tearing the white mist of Richard’s breath to shreds the moment it formed in the freezing air.

Finished with his portion, he kept his tone casual. ”By the way, I wanted to ask you something.”

”Yeah?”

”Last time in the peat bog, that Azure-Green Ring of yours...”

Maggie stopped peeling her chestnut.

Richard continued, ”It makes you look like a tree on the etheric plane. A Swamp Corpse could walk right past without giving you a second glance. That Spell Formula is incredibly practical...”

”Are you asking if I can teach you?” she cut him off.

”If it’s possible,” Richard admitted, dropping the pretense.

”The Scholar path is terribly short on self-defense. Every little bit helps.”

Maggie turned the half-peeled chestnut over in her hands.

”You can’t learn it.”

”...You aren’t allowed to teach outsiders?” Richard asked, unable to hide his disappointment.

Maggie looked at him. ”Even if I taught you, you wouldn’t be able to learn it.”

”Why not?”

”It’s a Spell Formula inherited through our bloodline.”

She finally ate the chestnut, chewing thoughtfully.

”There was a Virtuoso among my ancestors.”

Richard froze.

A Virtuoso. In all the intelligence and literature he currently had access to, records regarding Virtuosos were exceedingly brief, describing entities that seemed to exist in an entirely different world.

”About nine generations back.” Maggie held up a hand, slowly ticking off the generations on her fingers.

”My grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather... someone around that generation.”

”I can’t even remember her exact name.

”Her true name is written on the highest memorial tablet in our ancestral shrine, but that old ancestor... left us more than four hundred years before I was born.”

Richard understood the hesitation.

When someone reached that Rank, their story rarely ended in death.

She likely still existed in some form, just no longer anywhere a shrine’s tablet could reach.

”So this Azure-Green Ring... it was passed down from her?”

”It’s one of the earliest Spell Formulas she created. Rumor has it the Azure-Green Ring back then was completely different from what I use now.”

”Different how?”

”In my grandmother’s exact words...”

Maggie gazed out at the dark, looming ridge in the distance.

”When her mother—my great-grandmother—used the Azure-Green Ring, she could draw the etheric essence of wood and leaves from half a mountain to her side, completely masking the passage of a hundred people.”

”Not only would a Swamp Corpse walk right past them, but even an intermediate-tier evil creature would just see a nice patch of forest.”

”Concealing a hundred people?” Richard tried to picture the scale of it.

If it remained that powerful after several generations, how terrifying would it have been in the hands of the original Virtuoso? Could she have hidden an entire city?

”By my generation... it’s only good enough to fool an Infatuation Lamp. Against a Swamp Corpse, my timing has to be flawless.”

”Tricking a low-tier evil creature for a few seconds is the absolute limit. Forget about the intermediate-tier ones.”

She stated the facts without a trace of regret.

Richard’s mind raced.

Inheriting Spell Formulas through a bloodline... he hadn’t given that mechanism much thought before.

Hunter families relied on bone density, muscle memory, and neural reflexes to pass down their legacies. That was purely physical.

But for a Spell Formula itself to be carved into a bloodline and passed down across centuries?

The only catch was the inevitable dilution; with each passing generation, the mark wore thinner.

”So why does it get weaker?”

”Branching out.”

Maggie spread her hands.

”From my great-grandmother’s line down to my generation, the family tree has spawned cousins of every conceivable degree.

”Everyone gets a tiny share, and each share is smaller than the one before it.”

”It’s like a cask of liquor.” She framed an imaginary barrel in the air.

”There’s only so much to go around. The first generation drinks the pure stuff. The second generation drinks it watered down. The third waters it down again.”

”By the time it reaches my generation, how much bite is left in the cask comes down entirely to luck.”

”My luck held.” She shrugged. ”At least the Spell Formula didn’t shatter completely. I can still force it to work as basic utility.”

”My older cousin only inherited a keen nose. She can scent an evil creature and react a split-second faster than an ordinary person.”

”But she can’t cast the Spell Formula itself. She can’t even condense the shadow of the Azure-Green Ring.”

”And then there are relatives who didn’t even get the sense of smell. Instead, they just grew up exceptionally terrified of the dark.”

Richard understood the mechanics perfectly now.

A bloodline Spell Formula was ancestral wealth, constantly diluted by an expanding roster of heirs.

By the ninth generation, they were drinking spirits that had been watered down nine times.

”Then could someone systematically learn the diluted version—”

”If you aren’t part of the bloodline, you don’t even get the diluted water,” Maggie said, killing the thought.

”I could teach you the chants and the gestures. You could recite them perfectly and mirror my movements, but the ether simply won’t flow that way for you.”

”The Azure-Green Ring only answers to people carrying my great-grandmother’s lineage.”

Maggie went on. ”My mother says that for a Virtuoso, Spell Formulas operate on a completely different framework than they do for a Major Adept.”

”A Virtuoso’s Spell Formula is carved into bone. First into their own, and from there, directly into the bones of their descendants.”

Now that Maggie had started, the words came easily.

”In the Hunter circles of the Gaelic Highlands, my family is considered an ’old house with a history.’”

”The history is real enough, but it’s all resting on the memorial tablets in our shrine.”

”Nowadays, our Hunters are just ordinary Hunters. They earn enough to feed the family, survive their field deployments, and come home to raise their kids. That’s all.”

Richard caught onto a different thread.

”Then can a bloodline Spell Formula be ’re-concentrated’?”

”If a high-ranking practitioner emerges in a later generation, wouldn’t they reinforce the Spell Formula for their own descendants?”

”You’re quick. I was just getting to that,” Maggie said, impressed.

”The records in our shrine note that every time a Minor Adept or someone stronger emerges, the foundation of the bloodline gets a top-up.”

”But you can blame us descendants for being disappointments.” She shrugged.

”Our family has only produced three Minor Adepts in the past century or so. What they replenished couldn’t even outpace the natural dilution of each generation.”

A bitter gust swept between them.

”Richard,” Maggie began, finally steering toward what she really wanted to ask.

”Yeah?”

”What Mr. Hutton said earlier... what do you think about it?”

Richard swallowed his last bite of chestnut and tossed the empty shell into a patch of dead grass at the base of the wall.

”You mean his final metaphor: ’You think you are walking the path, but the path is walking you.’”

Richard looked out over the dark, heavy silhouette of the moors.

”I’ve heard a similar warning before: ’When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.’”

”...Where is that from?”

”Nietzsche. The textbooks don’t cover him much.” Richard brushed past the explanation. ”The two quotes carry the same weight.”

Maggie cracked another chestnut between her teeth.

”So, are you going to listen to him?”

”Of course. Taking good advice is how you survive.”

Richard answered without hesitation.

”At least until I have enough leverage to dictate terms, I won’t willingly walk that path.”

”And what if you gain that leverage in the future?”

Richard saw no point in lying. ”I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

Maggie gave him a knowing look.

”I figured you would say something like that.”

”Why?”

”Because I saw how you were watching him.” Maggie peeled the shell off her second chestnut.

”Earlier, when Mr. Hutton was explaining multiple overwriting... you were completely dialed in. You looked like a student listening to the exam answers. You were practically reaching for a pen to take notes.”

”I was sitting right across from you. I saw the whole thing.”

Richard let out a quiet sigh, conceding the point.

”What about you?” he countered.

”Me?”

”Mr. Hutton’s warning applied just as much to you.”

Maggie ate the peeled chestnut, chewing deliberately.

”We’re a family of Hunters. My father, my brother, my cousins, my aunt, my uncle—they’re all Hunters.

”My mother is the only one who walked the Secret path, but she almost never talks about those things at home.”

”The night before I left for this winter mission... she called me over to the fireplace and gave me a piece of advice.”

”What did she say?” Richard asked, struck by a sudden sense of familiarity.

”She told me that in a Hunter family, it is the Hunters who charge the front lines for generations, while occasionally, a Secret practitioner or a Scholar stays home to guard the rear.

”Guarding the stories, the rules, and the little tunes and booklets passed down from the ancestors.”

”Hunters only face the flesh of an evil creature. Scholars dig up the roots behind it, which is infinitely more dangerous.”

Listening to her, Richard remembered the desperate grip of his own mother’s hand before he boarded the train.

He remembered her exact words: ”In front of the veil, strength is a shield; behind the veil, strength is bait...”

The core of her warning was identical to the one Maggie’s mother had given.

Only people who had stared at the horrors behind the veil, yet willingly chosen to walk away, could possess that kind of clarity.

”So...” Richard said softly. ”You won’t tread that path?”

”I won’t.” This time, Maggie’s answer was even more decisive than Richard’s had been.

”The twenty or thirty pounds my brother brings home every year is already enough for us to live comfortably.

”I’m going to finish my education, find a proper teaching post, and become a guide for the Scholar path, just like Mr. Hutton.

”And when I’m old, I’ll sit by the hearth and tell stories to my grandchildren until they drift off, and I’ll fall asleep right alongside them.”

”That is all I want.”

She looked sideways at Richard. ”What about you? What do you want?”

Richard stalled.

No one had ever asked him the question so bluntly before.

Mr. Hutton preferred to guide him toward his own conclusions.

His mother worried that he already thought too much.

Evelyn only ever thought about snacks and baking workshops.

He stared out at the distant moors.

The stars blanketing the wasteland had grown denser. One blazed exceptionally bright, hanging dead center in his line of sight.

”I want... to make life a little easier for my family.”

Maggie stared at him. ”That’s it?”

”That’s it,” Richard confirmed.

”You’re brilliant, your Inspiration is high, you took second in the Cicero Cup, and Mrs. MacNeil and the others all admire you. And that is all you want?”

”Yeah.” Richard didn’t elaborate. He finally pulled his gaze away from the star.

”My sister is preparing for higher schooling, and my mother’s health is fragile.

”My father struggles to stretch his salary across the whole family. I want them to stop having to count every single penny just to survive.”

”And then what?”

”And then...” Richard mused. ”I want to read more books.”

The wind swept between them again.

Maggie turned to study him.

”’Reading more books’ doesn’t sound like you plan on sitting in a library for the rest of your life.”

Richard offered no reply.

The chestnuts were gone. Maggie closed the empty tin and slipped it back into her pocket.

”Mr. Hutton’s warning was entirely meant for you. I only brought it up as a passing reminder.”

”You have a dangerous drive to dig into the roots of things.”

Without waiting for a response, she turned and headed back toward the warmth of the inn.

Richard lingered at the wall, watching the dark sky for a while longer.

The single brightest star still held its place on the edge of the heavens.