I Loaded the Occult Panel

Knowing Richard was leaving the Imperial Capital, Phillips had a servant deliver an invitation.

The invitation arrived on fine parchment with gilded edges, but the cursive handwriting was wildly flamboyant.

Richard studied it for a long while before finally decoding the message: the guy was inviting him over to his house.

At the bottom, a single line was tacked on:

“Just bring that silver tongue of yours. You don’t need to bring anything else; my house has everything.”

Richard pocketed the invitation and adjusted his collar in the mirror.

The coachman of the Ashford residence drove him over, as usual.

Upon arriving, Richard immediately got a sense of the neighborhood.

The mansions here stood close together, their porches towering and wide.

Ivy crawled along the wrought-iron fences, its roots likely older than Richard himself.This was not a neighborhood for new money.

The Phillips family residence sat at the end of a street lined with sycamore trees.

It was a four-story, grayish-white stone building.

A broad flight of stone steps led up to the entrance, flanked by two Ionic columns.

A carved stone family crest was embedded above the lintel: a falcon spreading its wings, a broken sword clutched in its talons.

Richard paused briefly beneath the crest.

Whatever was settled beneath those foundations could not hide from his Inspiration.

This building was much, much older than the Ashford residence.

An elderly manservant opened the door for Richard, his demeanor courteous and attentive.

“Mr. Williams, the young master is waiting for you on the fourth floor.”

Richard followed the manservant inside.

Enormous oil paintings lined the walls, hung all the way from the floor to the ceiling.

Most of the portraits featured men in hunting gear, resting their hands on hunting rifles with hounds lying at their feet.

As Richard walked beneath the paintings, his Spirit Vision picked up something entirely different.

Extremely faint traces of ether lingered on the frames of the portraits.

These traces had been left behind bit by bit over generations, accumulating through the years.

Every generation of this family’s ancestors had produced formidable Hunters.

The fourth floor was Phillips’s personal domain.

When the manservant pushed the door open, Richard stared in surprise.

This was no young man’s bedroom; it was practically a warehouse.

An entire row of mahogany glass-fronted cabinets lined the walls, stuffed to the brim.

A brass orrery sat on display, its gears interlocking tightly; next to it lay a pitch-black wooden mask with a grotesquely wide grin; further down was an entire collection of taxidermy birds, ranging from palm-sized hummingbirds to raptors with wingspans half the height of a man, arranged side by side.

“You’re here?”

Phillips poked his head out from behind a pile of clutter.

He had been leaning over a large desk, a disassembled pocket watch spread out before him with its parts scattered all over the surface.

“Are you...” Richard looked around the room. “...opening a museum?”

“Pfft.” Phillips set down his tweezers and stood up.

“It’s a bad habit of my dad’s. Whenever he sees a rare novelty, he just can’t walk away.

“He buys them but doesn’t know what to do with them, so they all just get dumped in here.”

He led Richard past the rows of glass cabinets, winding among the collections.

“Look at this one.” He carefully lifted a mantel clock out of a cabinet. Twelve tiny figurines were set around its face.

“It’s a Helvetian Clock. At the top of the hour, these twelve little guys come out and do a spin, and each one plays a different tune on its horn.

“My dad spent a fortune buying it off a bankrupt earl.”

Richard leaned in for a closer look.

The clock was certainly exquisite, but the paint on the twelve figurines was peeling in several places. It looked like it hadn’t been maintained in years.

“And this one.”

Phillips pulled out a long wooden case. Inside lay a hunting rifle.

The stock was inlaid with silver and engraved with intricate vine patterns.

“My dad’s treasure. Just this one gun is worth ten years of an ordinary family’s living expenses. It can shoot evil creatures.”

He lifted it up to pantomime aiming it, then set it back down.

“Too bad I have absolutely zero interest in hunting. I’d rather stay indoors and read.”

Richard’s gaze shifted away from the silver-inlaid rifle.

In the deepest corner of the room stood a solitary iron cabinet, half the height of a man.

Unlike the glass cabinets meant for display, this iron cabinet was locked.

Under Richard’s Spirit Vision, he could see a dense seal lining the seams of the cabinet’s doors.

Whatever was suppressed beneath that seal made the inverted tree of light just behind his sternum tremble slightly.

“Don’t touch that.”

Phillips followed his gaze, the usual lazy sloppiness fading from his face.

“My dad brought it back.”

“Said it was some dirty item he pulled from a case. He locked it in there and forbade me from touching it.”

“Your dad’s job...” Richard chose his words carefully. “...sounds rather dangerous.”

“Oh, definitely.” Phillips curled his lip.

“His department specifically handles the things others are unwilling and afraid to touch.

“Those who follow evil cults, walk crooked paths, or trade living humans for power... when things go wrong, it’s his people who clean it up.”

Trading living humans for power, transferring the price.

Richard had deduced this very concept in his notebook; he had even seen it with his own eyes at the bottom of the Unresponsive Pit in the Western Suburbs.

“And after they clean up?” Richard asked casually. “Where do they put all the things they pull out?”

“Burn what needs to be burned, seal what needs to be sealed.” Phillips didn’t seem to care.

“Whatever’s left that he thinks still has research value, he brings home.”

He gestured toward the floor below.

“His own study downstairs is way creepier than my room.

“He’s got a whole wall of books, and he won’t even let me through the door.”

Richard gave an “Oh” of acknowledgment and didn’t press further.

They finished their loop around the room, finally stopping in front of a row of bookshelves in the innermost section.

Unlike the flashy collectibles outside, this row of bookshelves felt different.

Rows upon rows of hardcovers filled the shelves, their gilded spines gleaming with a dark, muted light.

“Now this is actually your stuff,” Richard said, looking at the books.

“Yeah.”

For the first time, Phillips’s tone carried a hint of earnestness.

“Virgil, Horace, Catullus...”

Phillips read off the names one by one. “I’ve been collecting this shelf since I was ten.”

“No wonder you didn’t answer a single question for the fellowship exam,” Richard said, looking at him. “All your reading is right here.”

“You really get me.” Phillips slid the book back onto the shelf with a loud laugh.

“That exam is meant for people who want to climb the ladder.

“As for me, with this shelf of books and endless good tea to drink, I’ve got enough for this lifetime.”

He turned to prepare some tea.

Suddenly, the sound of a door opening echoed from downstairs.

It wasn’t the soft click of the elderly manservant opening the door.

This time, the front doors had been forcefully shoved open, hitting the wall with a muffled thud.

Phillips’s hands froze in the middle of preparing the tea.

Richard watched as the lazy demeanor faded from the young man’s face, bit by bit.

“...My mother’s back.”

Footsteps echoed on the stairs.

They were not fast, but every step landed with extreme steadiness, ascending one tread at a time.

Richard looked toward the sound.

A woman stepped onto the fourth floor.

She wore a long, deep purple velvet dress. The material was of the highest quality, but the tailoring was remarkably austere, utterly devoid of any superfluous lace or frills.

Her hair was combed without a single strand out of place, tied back into a tight bun at the nape of her neck.

She entered the room, her gaze sweeping over the chaotic sea of collectibles before finally resting on Phillips.

This woman carried ether upon her.

The ether was restrained incredibly cleanly, but sitting so close, she couldn’t hide it from Richard’s Perception, which had been enhanced by Silent Observation. This was a Practitioner who had crossed the threshold.

“Mother.” Phillips stood up straight. “I have a guest.”

Only then did the woman turn her head to look at Richard.

She looked him over, her gaze lingering on him for a moment.

“And who is this?”

“Richard Williams,”

Phillips introduced. “My classmate during the fellowship classes, and also the runner-up of the exam.”

“The runner-up of the fellowship exam...” The woman’s lips twitched in what could hardly be called a smile.

“I remember now. You’re Mr. Gerard’s grandson, aren’t you? A very promising young man indeed.”

She gave Richard a slight nod.

Richard stood up and returned the greeting in accordance with proper etiquette.

He was a man who knew how to read the room.

The air in the room had already grown thick enough to suffocate a person.

A family drama was clearly about to erupt right here, and as an outsider, he was in the way.

“Phillips.” He nodded to his tea buddy.

“I need to get back to pack my things. I have an early train to catch tomorrow morning, so I’ll be taking my leave now.”

Phillips opened his mouth, clearly wanting to ask him to stay.

But meeting his mother’s eyes, the plea caught in his throat and was never spoken.

“...I’ll walk you down.”

“There’s no need for you to walk him down,” the woman spoke up. “Let the servant see him out. You stay. I have something to say to you.”

Richard followed the manservant downstairs.

Right before he stepped out the door, he faintly heard a sentence drift down from upstairs.

It was the woman’s voice.

It wasn’t loud, but every word was squeezed through clenched teeth, cold and hard.

“...Your father has sat in the position of Chief Inspector of the Imperial Capital for so many years. Do you have any idea how much effort he’s poured into you?”

The door closed.

Standing on the street, Richard glanced back at the grayish-white stone building.

Chief Inspector.

The Chief Inspector of the Imperial Capital was a prominent figure within the entire mystical affairs system of the city.

Those who could secure that seat were generally grand-master Hunters.

The wall of hunting portraits in the foyer, the Purdey Shotgun upstairs, that locked iron cabinet... it all added up.

No wonder Phillips didn’t care whether he failed the exam.

With a family background like his, even if he just scraped by as a lecturer in the future, he would always have a safety net beneath him.

But it was precisely because of this family background that his mother pushed him so hard.

Richard shook his head, turning to walk toward the Ashford carriage.

..................

When the door shut, Phillips knew he was in for a rough time today.

That guy Richard was way too sharp; the moment he sensed the mood shifting, he ran faster than a rabbit.

Phillips silently cursed the opportunist in his head, but he couldn’t really blame him.

If he had been the one caught in someone else’s family drama, he would have bolted as quickly as possible, too.

Only he and his mother were left in the room.

His mother simply stood in the middle of the room, staring at her youngest son.

Phillips shoved his hands into his pockets, then pulled them out again, not knowing what to do with them.

In front of his mother, his usual ability to act like he couldn’t care less even if the sky were falling proved entirely useless.

“The list of passing candidates for the fellowship,” his mother broke the silence. “I’ve seen it.”

“...Yeah.”

“Twenty spots.” His mother’s voice was flat. “You are not on it.”

Phillips said nothing.

His mother enunciated every word.

“Your father tracked down an old acquaintance in the Classical Society and called in favors with two associate professors in the department just to get you the qualification for the fellowship exam.”

“That Ashford kid who was just here, he got in.”

“That redheaded highland girl, whose family is either dead or scattered, without a single backer to her name—she got in.”

“Even the daughter of the man hauling sacks at the mill.” She scrutinized her son. “She got in too.”

“But you didn’t.”

Phillips shoved his hands back into his pockets.

“Mother,” he muttered. “I actually tried on the first two subjects of the exam.”

“The first two. And what about History and Folklore?”

Phillips didn’t answer.

For those two subjects, he had turned in almost entirely blank papers.

He hadn’t touched a single question from the stack of supplementary materials handed out before the exam.

On the day of the exam, he had sat in his testing room, staring at the History paper for a long time.

In the end, he had only written down a verse from his favorite Virgil poem in the corner of the page from memory.

“Let me ask you.” His mother took a step closer. “Can you eat that shelf of books?”

“Your father has sat in the position of Chief Inspector of the Imperial Capital for so many years. Do you have any idea how much effort he’s poured into you?”

Phillips looked up.

“I don’t care.”

A streak of stubbornness bled into his voice:

“The Royal Academy is fine. I’ll coast as a lecturer and read the books I want to read.

“Just living this life comfortably—is that so bad?”

“Comfortably.” The woman laughed.

There was not a shred of warmth in that smile.

“Since he was a boy, your father soaked in ice water and bruised himself against wooden training posts.

“That scar on his left shoulder was torn open by an evil creature; it took seventeen stitches to close.

“He bled and suffered to become a Practitioner, then a Minor Adept, and finally endured to take the seat of Chief Inspector of the Imperial Capital today.”

“Your grandfather, your great-grandfather...”

His mother’s gaze swept toward the foyer, where the wall of hunting portraits hung:

“For hundreds of years in the Phillips family, not a single man has ever lived ’comfortably.’”

“And yet here you are, wanting to live comfortably.”

Pierced by that gaze, Phillips felt an unbearable discomfort wash over his entire body.

The Helvetian Clock struck the hour.

With a clinking chime, the twelve chipped figurines spun out of the clock, marching in a circle while blowing off-key notes on their horns.

Neither mother nor son spared the clock a single glance.

When the horns finished, the figurines spun back inside, and silence fell over the room once more.

“Since you’re a lost cause in this lifetime,”

His mother spoke up.

“Then prepare yourself early.”

“Your father and I have already found a marriage match for you.”

Phillips’s heart sank.

“The daughter of Earl Blackburn. An equal match for our house.”

“Since you can’t achieve anything yourself, you might as well raise the next generation early.”

His mother stared at him.

“Perhaps your child will be stronger than you.”

Phillips felt something tight clogging his chest.

He remembered the day of the tea party, those Blackburn daughters surrounded by crowds of young men.

Sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girls, obediently bowing to people and wearing smiles on their faces that they themselves didn’t even understand the reason for.

“I don’t want to marry someone I don’t know, and I don’t want to have a next generation so soon!”

“I just want to read my books, drink my tea, and live my own life! What is so wrong with that?!”

The woman’s face instantly went white. She raised her hand.

Phillips instinctively squeezed his eyes shut.

But the slap never came.

In the end, she didn’t hit him.

The matriarch of the Phillips household never resorted to physical violence.

She slowly lowered her hand.

But that felt even worse than if she had slapped him.

“Fine.” His mother’s voice trembled slightly. “Just fine!”

“Your father works outside, getting no rest day or night, and you have the nerve to sit at home and tell me you ’want to read your books and drink your tea.’”

“For hundreds of years, the Phillips family’s...”

“...What are we arguing about?”

A voice drifted in from the stairwell.

Mother and son both looked toward the door.

Phillips’s older brother had returned.

He had touched the threshold of Minor Adept two years prior, and now worked in a Branch Office on the outskirts of the Imperial Capital.

He was currently the family’s most presentable hope.

“Mother.” The older brother looked at his younger brother’s reddened eyes. “He’s still young.”

“Still young?” His mother’s fury flared up instantly.

“At his age, your father was already standing on his own!”

The young man walked over, took his mother by the arm, and gently guided her out the door.

“Mother, why don’t you head downstairs first, have some tea, and cool off? I’ll have a proper talk with my little brother about this.”

As he led her to the door, she turned back to look at Phillips one last time.

In that glance, there was disappointment, exhaustion, and something else that Phillips couldn’t quite decipher.

Then, she followed his older brother downstairs.

Phillips was left alone in a room full of collectibles.

..................

After quite a while, his older brother came back upstairs.

He sat across from Phillips, looked at his younger brother, and sighed.

“Don’t take that marriage arrangement to heart.”

“Mother only said that in a fit of anger. Actual marriage talks wouldn’t happen for at least another two years.

“Within those two years, there’s plenty of room to turn things around.”

Phillips stayed silent.

“You know,” his older brother patted his shoulder, “you really shouldn’t always butt heads with Mother.”

“I’ll put in a good word for you with Father too,” he continued.

“There’s no rush to claim a Signature right now. Once you’re settled at the Royal Academy, we can figure things out.”

The young man offered a few more words of comfort, but seeing that his brother wasn’t responding, he realized there was no point in pushing it.

He stood up and left. “I’m heading out. Take some time to calm down and think it over.”

Phillips stood up and lit the candle on his desk.

He walked over to that specific row of bookshelves and took something out from the very bottom shelf.

It was a teapot.

It was nothing crafted by a famous master; its only merit was its considerable age.

But in terms of craftsmanship and value, any random collectible in this room was far more precious.

Yet Phillips had used this teapot for seven or eight years.

Since he was ten years old, whenever he read in this room, the tea he drank was brewed with this very pot.

Pot after pot, year after year.

Virgil, Horace, Catullus... every single book on that shelf had been read page by page, accompanied by the tea from this pot.

This teapot was a supernatural item.

But it was of the most ordinary kind, something his father had bought on a whim years ago.

Great families would never use this kind of supernatural item for their children’s Signature.

Right now, he cradled the teapot in the palms of his hands.

Under his Spirit Vision, this inconspicuous pot locked into perfect alignment with him.

Phillips sat down at his desk.

A wisp of ether flowed down his arm and into his palm.

The teapot he had used for seven or eight years rose to meet it.

Phillips closed his eyes.

The moment that wisp of ether seeped into the pot... the teapot acknowledged him.

An invisible “Declaration” was broadcast behind the veil through this ordinary teapot.

Phillips opened his eyes. He had become a Practitioner.

After acknowledging him as its master, the teapot was aligning itself in a certain direction, bit by bit.

Phillips tilted the pot.

A stream of amber tea flowed from the spout.

It splashed into his cup, steaming hot and brimming with a fragrant aroma.

Phillips picked up the tea that had appeared out of thin air and took a sip.

It was Darjeeling, and it tasted even better than the stuff he usually drank at home.

He leaned back in his chair and slowly finished the cup.

He poured himself another cup. This time, it was Ceylon black tea.

Whatever he wanted to drink, the teapot poured.

Darjeeling, Assam, Ceylon... it had whatever he desired. He could drink from it for a lifetime without ever repeating a cup.

If he used this pot to fight evil creatures, it would likely be completely useless.

But Phillips had never planned on fighting evil creatures anyway.

Other people’s supernatural items were blades, books, weapons to carry as they charged into that hidden world.

His teapot didn’t push him to fight, didn’t urge him to climb higher, and demanded nothing from him.

It merely sat quietly, endlessly refilling cup after cup for him.

This was exactly what he wanted.

Something that let him just stay right where he was, with nowhere he needed to go.

Phillips sank into the back of his chair, sipping the tea slowly.

Downstairs, the voices of his mother and older brother drifted up faintly through the floorboards.

Those voices, that marriage arrangement, those hundreds of years of legacy... they were all outside his door, far away from him.

The door was shut, the curtains were drawn, the candlelight was warm, and the tea was hot.

After finishing one cup, he felt no rush to get up; he just poured himself another.

Outside the window, the sky had turned pitch-black at some unknown point.

The silhouette of the bookshelf faded into darkness bit by bit beyond the reach of the candlelight.

Phillips’s eyelids felt a bit heavy.

He suddenly remembered a line from the Aeneid, the verse he had read the most often.

The gates of the descent stand open day and night.

The hard part is never the going down, but the coming back.

Soaking in this lukewarm comfort, he thought, half-asleep:

What if a person just didn’t want to come back at all?

He held that eternally refilling cup of tea, leaning against the shelf of books he had spent six or seven years collecting.

“I have my books.”

“I have my tea.”

The candle burned quietly.

“For this lifetime... I have enough.”