I Loaded the Occult Panel

When Sir Muller stood at the front of the stage, even an ordinary person could feel the sheer weight of his presence.

”Everyone.”

”Right now, the Old Continent is at war.”

”This morning, I looked at a casualty list.

There were quite a few names on that list from the front lines—students I once taught.”

”Some might ask: with the outside world tearing itself apart like this, what are we still debating in this hall?”

Sir Muller looked at the spectators packing the hall from all sides.

”Debate is a question asked while standing on a pile of corpses.”

”The blood shed by those children on the front lines needs the living here to speak clearly on their behalf: why did they die? What exactly did they die for?

What should their deaths be called? The words they never got to say—who will say them?””You young people sitting here today.”

His gaze fell upon the surrounding crowd of undergraduates, graduate students, and preparatory students.

”When you step onto this stage today, you are not merely showing off your abilities in your own arena.”

”You stand on this stage to speak for those who can no longer speak.”

”If you speak wrong, they die a second time.”

”Only if you speak right can they rest in peace.”

No one in the hall made a sound.

”Alright.”

The old man paused briefly.

”I have spoken too much. I won’t delay your schedule any longer.”

He gave a slight nod toward the host and walked back to the judges’ seats.

Richard had only one match this morning.

The drawing of lots took place in the side hall on the west side of the lecture hall, where a drawing box had been set up.

The senior student in charge of the draw pulled a slip from the bucket, unrolled it, and read it aloud.

”Richard Williams, Imperial Capital University Preparatory Group.”

”Topic: Are war profiteers the parasites of the nation, or its pillars?”

”Affirmative.”

She immediately pulled out a second slip.

”Sinclair Bolton, Manchester University Preparatory Group.”

”Negative.”

’Good grief, the very first topic is this explosive, and I got stuck on the unfavorable side.’

Over in the outer circle, the undergraduate division had also started their draw.

Richard focused his attention on the graduate division.

Silas Penrose hadn’t arrived yet.

Before the competition, Senior Clara had mentioned that name to him.

He was the Royal Academy’s seeded competitor this year, universally recognized as the heavy favorite to win Debate Week.

Rumor had it he had already touched the threshold of a Practitioner and wasn’t far from Minor Adept.

With the draw concluded, the competitors from the various academies gradually dispersed.

Catherine walked out of the side hall at some point and stopped beside him.

”Your match probably won’t be easy,” she said.

”Why’s that?”

Richard glanced at the red-haired girl.

”Because you’re on the affirmative side for this one. You have to speak up for the war profiteers.”

Catherine analyzed the situation evenly:

”You have to make that whole ’hoarding and cornering the market has its own market logic’ argument sound pretty and logical.”

”I read that article you wrote.”

”Today’s topic must be completely against your conscience, right?”

...

By the time Richard reached his seat, the chairs in the lecture hall were already packed.

Normally, the first match of the Preparatory Group wouldn’t draw such a crowd.

But the topic of war profiteering was a powder keg in the Imperial Capital this early October.

Grain prices changed every week, coal prices doubled in a month, and sugar had practically become a luxury item.

The society wives in the west of the city were begging connections everywhere for black-market coffee, while the working-class families in the east found one less dish on their dinner tables.

Everyone cursed the greedy merchants hoarding goods, yet half the industries owned by the major families in the Imperial Capital were tied to wartime supply.

Richard looked at the audience section.

Several middle-aged men in impeccably tailored suits sat in the very last row.

They were here to listen to this match—and they were exactly the crowd being cursed.

Richard’s gaze returned to the debate stage.

Behind the podium on the opposite side, Sinclair Bolton stood perfectly straight.

His slightly oversized academy robe hung loosely on his frame.

The host walked to the center of the stage.

”Preparatory Group, match one.”

”Six minutes for opening statements. Affirmative side first.”

Silver lines lit up across the lecture hall.

Richard’s heartbeat slowed.

This wasn’t a pure verbal gladiatorial match like the Cicero Cup; this also involved shaping behind the veil...

Richard’s Breathing sank to the low rhythm of Tide-Shifting Breathing.

He raised his head.

”Honorable judges, members of the audience.”

”Today’s topic seems to ask for an ethical judgment.”

”Parasites? Pillars?”

”Both words carry immense weight, but both words are far too broad.”

”So broad that the moment we open our mouths, we take a stance. Before we even begin discussing, we are already either cursing or praising.”

”The affirmative side wishes to do one thing today... to drag this topic away from preconceived stances.”

”To drag it down and discuss it based purely on facts.”

He raised his hand. His words pressed down on the veil, forming an embryonic shape—a pillar.

”Let us first speak of the official statistics.

With the war starting this year, the annual military supplies for two hundred thousand soldiers on the front lines cost eighteen million pounds.

Seventy percent of that money comes from wartime bonds purchased by major commercial firms and private capital—the very people you call ’war profiteers’.”

”On one hand, they hoard goods in the market to reap massive profits;

On the other hand, they convert those massive profits into bonds, funneling them back into the imperial treasury to be turned into combat boots, military blankets, canned food, and horses for the front lines.”

He paused, then began to cite historical precedent.

”You may find this ugly to hear, but such people have also appeared in history.”

”Crassus.”

”He was the wealthiest man in Rome, building his fortune by buying burning houses one by one, and he funded entire legions out of his own pocket.

The Romans cursed him for his insatiable greed... but they also placed him alongside Caesar and Pompey as the First Triumvirate, hailing him as a pillar of the state.”

”If you think his money was dirty...”

A hint of a smile surfaced in Richard’s voice.

”When Emperor Vespasian levied a tax on public urinals, his son complained that the money was filthy.

He held up a gold coin and asked his son: can you smell the stench?”

”Pecunia non olet (money does not stink).”

”The gold coin used to buy those combat boots won’t ask whose hunger it came from.

The soldiers on the front lines only ask one thing: do they have boots to wear tonight.”

Someone in the hall gave a very faint ”Mhm,” and the heads of those commercial firms sat a little straighter.

Yet Richard himself knew perfectly well that the ”pillar” he had constructed had intricate patterns and an imposing aura, but was completely hollow inside.

It was a hollow pillar—all flash and no substance.

Because he didn’t believe a single word of it himself.

Since he lacked belief, he borrowed it.

He borrowed the corpse of Crassus, borrowed Vespasian’s gold coin, and borrowed the weight of a history dead for over a thousand years to hold up this pillar he couldn’t support on his own.

But what is borrowed is never truly one’s own.

It didn’t matter, though—as long as his opponent couldn’t push it over.

”The second fact: ’war profiteers’ are not a monolith.”

”Among them are cold-blooded speculators hoarding grain and coal just to flip them for high prices.

The affirmative concedes that these people are parasites.

But there are also industrialists whose factories have been requisitioned, churning out combat boots and military blankets day and night... without them, the front lines would have no boots.

These people are pillars.”

”Therefore, the affirmative argues that ’war profiteering’ is too broad a term. Lumping parasites and pillars together to condemn them all is wrong.”

”We cannot curse the pillars just because we want to curse the parasites.”

”That concludes the opening statement.”

A round of polite, unenthusiastic applause followed.

Richard stepped back to his podium. The young man across from him furrowed his brows tightly.

With that speech, Richard had deliberately cleaved the parasites and the pillars apart.

”Opening statement, negative side.”

Sinclair Bolton walked up to his podium, speaking with a heavy northern accent.

”The affirmative just gave a very long speech.

Bonds, eighteen million pounds, Crassus, Vespasian’s gold coin... he spoke beautifully.”

”I admit I can’t speak as beautifully as him. My Latin is mediocre at best.”

The young man looked up.

”But I want to talk about something I saw with my own two eyes.”

”My father was a worker at the West Dock in Manchester. Last winter, the dock collapsed, and he was gone.

The night of the collapse, he had just finished his shift. In his pocket was his wage for the week... one pound and six shillings.”

”My mother raised me and my younger sister. She took in embroidery work late into the night, earning two pence for every handkerchief she sewed.”

”As soon as the war broke out, flour went from a penny and a half to three pence. Sugar jumped from two pence to six.”

”My mother skipped a meal to save that portion for my sister. My sister is nine years old this year.”

The lecture hall was so quiet you could hear the wind outside the dome.

”The affirmative said there are both parasites and pillars among war profiteers, and we shouldn’t curse them all together. I agree with that.”

The young man’s gaze fell straight onto the affirmative’s podium.

”But the affirmative missed one thing.

To a worker, parasites and pillars look exactly the same.

They both hoard flour and sugar just the same. They both reap profits they wouldn’t have dared dream of before the war, forcing my mother to skip a meal.”

”The affirmative brought out a Roman who has been dead for over a thousand years.”

”I bring my dead father.”

”He hauled gunny sacks for twenty years. He hauled coal, flour, and our family’s daily bread.”

”When my mother opened the door this morning, she didn’t see Cicero. All she saw was how much a pound of flour cost today.”

”The negative argues that when it comes to ’war profiteering,’ there is no difference between parasites and pillars.

To the son of a dockworker, they are all exactly the same. They are all just the crowd snatching food right out of our mouths.”

”That concludes the opening statement.”

The entire hall was silent.

Applause started from the very front rows of the public seating and spread row by row. It was far more roaring than before.

Only those few men sitting in the back row didn’t clap, their faces full of embarrassment.

Under Richard’s Spirit Vision, that hollow ”pillar” had taken a heavy shove from his opponent and was on the verge of collapse.

His opponent’s words were just too real.

He wasn’t putting on an act on stage; he was talking about his own life... his father’s gunny sacks, his mother’s handkerchiefs, the meal saved for his little sister.

But at the end of the day, it didn’t collapse.

”Cross-examination. Affirmative side to question.”

Richard stepped up to the podium.

”Mr. Bolton, I offer my utmost respect for what your family has gone through.”

”But I want to discuss facts with you.

The Wartime Statistics Bureau’s September report states: of the rising flour prices, forty percent is due to naval routes being cut off, and thirty percent is due to agricultural workers being drafted and a drop in domestic production. Only thirty percent is related to speculation.

Seventy percent of that meal your mother skipped is the fault of the naval blockades and the draft. What are your thoughts on that?”

A few judges gave very faint nods. This boy was simply too smart.

Bolton glanced down at his manuscript paper, then set it aside.

”Mr. Williams, my mother doesn’t know how to calculate percentages.

Whether seventy percent of those three pence is due to naval routes and thirty percent is due to greedy merchants... she doesn’t care.”

”Your statistics are true, but they have nothing to do with the meal my mother didn’t get to eat.”

Richard felt a slight tremor in his chest, but the impact this time was far shallower.

”Second fact,” he pressed on without stopping.

”To date, twenty-one million pounds in wartime bonds have been purchased. Ninety percent came from commercial firms and private capital, and over the next year, it will be converted into front-line supplies.

Your father... if he were still alive, there’s a high probability he would also have been drafted to the front lines.

The boots on his feet would have been bought with money pulled right out of the pockets of greedy merchants. What are your thoughts on that?”

Someone in the hall sucked in a sharp breath. That was a ruthless thrust.

The young man’s pupils shrank.

”You are right. If he were alive and drafted, the boots on his feet might have been bought with a greedy merchant’s money. I concede that.”

”But you missed one thing.

Those boots could have been bought directly through imperial treasury funding.

If wartime taxes were simply raised by thirty percent, it would be enough to buy ten times the combat boots those bonds could buy.

Why doesn’t the Treasury raise taxes? Because if they did, those rich men would refuse to pay.”

”And so the Treasury leaves their taxes alone, turns around, issues bonds, and asks them to buy...

They buy the bonds and earn interest; they hoard goods and reap another massive profit on top of that.”

”When you say ’without this money the front lines wouldn’t have combat boots,’ that statement is true.

But it hides a premise: ’they are too afraid to touch the interests of these rich men’.”

The young man looked up.

”In defending this crowd today, what you are defending is not ’they are pillars’ at all.

What you are defending is ’we don’t dare touch them.’ You have dressed up this ’cowardice’ and called it a ’pillar’.”

A collective gasp swept through the hall.

Behind the podium, Richard nodded.

That blade had pierced right to the root.

Yet the look in the eyes of the workers in the public gallery as they gazed at the young man was now filled with deep approval.

Someone inside the Iliad Hall had finally spoken a word on their behalf.

”Affirmative, continue.”

Richard pursed his lips and stepped forward.

”I accept the charge of ’political weakness’ in your last response.

But I ask you, if the Empire truly levied a thirty percent tax increase on the wealthy, what would they do?

They would transfer their assets to neutral countries. They would shut down domestic factories. They would shatter the supply chains.

When that happens, not a single pair of combat boots will remain. Even more men will die on the front lines, and that one meal your mother skips will turn into two, then three.”

”’The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must’... This is what the Athenians said beneath the walls of Melos.

This is simply how the world works. Don’t you agree?”

With this move, Richard had laid the entire chessboard bare: the world is just like this. Accept it.