I Loaded the Occult Panel

Catherine’s afternoon debate topic was: ”Can a nation be collectively guilty?”

This topic was even more ruthless than Richard’s.

She had drawn the opposition.

Her opponent was Henry, a preparatory student from that academy in Derbyshire.

Henry had spent a year at Eton before transferring to Derbyshire.

”His family owns major coal mines in Derbyshire.” Montagu seemed to know the guy.

”Though he isn’t from a major aristocratic family, his aunt is the wife of the Empire’s current Minister of Education.

”He transferred from Eton to Derbyshire because he got involved in some incident... I didn’t ask for the details.”

Montagu continued.

”He’s here to get his name in the papers.”Henry stepped up to the podium.

”Honorable judges, I would like to speak about the city of Leuven.

”On August 25, the enemy army burned down the university library in that city.

”Manuscripts dating back nine hundred years to the Carolingian era were reduced to ash overnight.

”That same night, nuns at Saint Peter’s Abbey in the north of the city were violated, and three hundred civilians in the east were herded to the river, lined up, and mowed down by machine guns.

”This was a military order, backed by a killing machine cultivated over forty years of Prussian ’cultural supremacy’.”

”In Book Six of the Iliad, Hector bids farewell to his wife, Andromache.

”Paris abducted Helen, and the entire city had to pay his debt. The sin of one man became the punishment of an entire city.”

A light but exceptionally fervent round of applause rippled through the lecture hall.

The story of Leuven had been on the front page of every newspaper.

Sketches and photographs of the atrocities had brought tears to the eyes of many ladies in the audience.

Richard saw an abbey rise up behind the veil.

Its Gothic spires were charred black, half of its tower had collapsed, and a smoke-stained flag still hung from the ruined walls.

In the square before the abbey, the bodies of several hanged men materialized out of thin air.

Nuns’ white veils lay scattered across the cobblestones, whipped up by the wind and fluttering through the air.

The audience’s grief and indignation poured into the scene.

Richard frowned slightly.

The crowd’s furious emotions would add flesh and blood to the imagery behind the veil.

But why use Troy as an example? Had this guy suddenly lost his mind?

Richard glanced toward the opposition podium.

Catherine stepped up to her lectern.

The moment she spoke, the atmosphere in the hall shifted abruptly.

”Mr. Henry spoke of Leuven with great emotion.

”But Mr. Henry left out Father Pierre Dubois.

”He was a local priest at Saint Peter’s Abbey in Leuven, and he had enemy blood.

”On the night of August 25, he hid eleven nuns in his own cellar.

”When Mr. Henry spoke of the ’hanged men’ just now, Father Dubois was one of them.”

”Mr. Henry borrowed from Book Six of the Iliad.

”But after Hector bade his wife farewell, he rode out of the city to face Achilles, and he died.

”Homer wrote twenty-four books to tell his audience that the ’Parises’ and the ’Hectors’ within the city were not the same kind of people.

”If Homer were advocating for ’collective responsibility,’ he would not have written the old king kneeling before Achilles’ tent to ransom his son’s body.

”In this book, Homer tells future generations: even among blood enemies, one must distinguish who deserves to bear the guilt and who does not.”

”Our side argues today that a collective cannot bear guilt; only specific individuals can.

”Are the priest and the enemy officer who ordered the massacre truly the same kind of people?

”That is all.”

The lecture hall fell dead silent.

Beside the burning abbey behind the veil, the entrance to a cellar materialized out of thin air.

The wooden doors were thrown open, revealing an old priest huddled inside.

The priest already bore the livid marks of a noose around his neck, yet he desperately blocked the cellar entrance, refusing to let the men above drag the nuns out.

The grief and indignation on the audience’s faces grew complicated, churned up by Catherine’s words.

”Cross-examination,” the moderator announced. ”The opposition may question.”

”Mr. Henry, your family owns coal mines in Derbyshire. Can this be verified?”

Henry frowned. ”...It can. What does this have to do with today’s debate topic?”

”According to the September briefing from the Derbyshire Commercial Guild, your family’s net profit over the past two months is 3.4 times what it was before the war.

”Can this be verified?”

Henry’s expression changed. ”...This has nothing to do with today’s debate topic.”

”It does.” Catherine’s voice wasn’t loud. ”You spoke of ’bearing responsibility’ just now...”

”Opposition!” the moderator’s voice rang out sharply.

”Your questioning has strayed from today’s topic. Please return to the debate.”

Catherine shot a fleeting glance toward the moderator.

Holding herself back, she offered him a slight bow. ”Yes, I will return to the topic.”

”On August 25, the Leuven coal mine was blown up by the enemy army, burying the men along with the mine. Over three hundred miners perished there.

”That mine produced hundreds of thousands of tons of coal a year. Someone had to fill the gap left by its loss.”

”I did the math for you. Of your family’s increased production in September, about nine thousand pounds was a ’Leuven dividend’.

”Converting that nine thousand pounds to the human lives in the mine, each soul was worth roughly thirty pounds.”

”Just now on this stage, you spoke of the abbey, the nuns, and the hanged men.

”You didn’t mention that coal mine, nor the income its destruction generated for your family.”

With a loud crash, the burning abbey Henry had manifested collapsed.

Richard frowned deeply.

This was the power of Nemesis.

Several people in the audience quietly stood up and slipped out through the side doors.

”Opposition, please keep your statement brief and return to the topic immediately.”

The moderator spoke, his tone much sterner than before.

”Understood.” Catherine withdrew her gaze.

She wanted to stop, but she couldn’t.

Henry had already fallen, but Catherine had to trample him into the dirt.

”Mr. Henry defends ’collective guilt’ today, but what he truly wishes to raise is a fig leaf scrawled with the ’crimes of the enemy nation’.

”The ones ’bearing responsibility’ are the enemies and priests who died thousands of miles away, while the ones ’counting the money’ are the domestic coal mine owners who jacked up their prices after Leuven burned.”

”The victors tell the defeated, ’The losers deserve it’; but what they should actually say is, ’The perpetrators deserve it’.

”If we fail to distinguish the difference between these two statements today, tomorrow the Empire will brand every ’loser’ as a ’perpetrator’.

”We oppose this, and we will oppose it to the bitter end. That is all.”

Richard clearly saw the form Catherine had manifested behind the veil growing at a terrifying speed.

Henry was pale. His lips moved, but he couldn’t utter a single word.

During the closing phase, Henry managed only one sentence: ”...I stand by our argument.”

He didn’t speak again.

The judging panel deliberated longer than they had for any of the previous rounds—a full twelve minutes.

The moderator announced from the stage:

”Preparatory Group, match three.

”Affirmative, Henry Chesterton. Rhetoric score: 7.2. Declaration score: 6.8.

”Opposition, Catherine Blackwood. Rhetoric score: 8.9. Declaration score: 7.6.

”The opposition leads by a total of 2.5 points and is the victor.”

Catherine’s rhetoric score of 8.9 was nearly the highest in the Preparatory Group that day.

But her declaration score had been ruthlessly knocked down to 7.6.

Applause broke out, tinged with an indescribable hesitation.

Sitting in the audience, Richard slowly closed his eyes.

Catherine had won this match, but her victory was far too brutal.

The judges did not award points for lethality; they only awarded points for ’precision of rhetoric’ and ’stability of declaration’.

Catherine’s declaration had exceeded the scope of today’s debate topic.

Montagu walked over from the other side of the seating area.

”...I have to hand it to her.”

”Yeah.”

”But her future...” Montagu furrowed his brows slightly.

Richard knew what Montagu wanted to say.

The mask of Nemesis had indeed given her an incredibly sharp blade.

But Catherine had offended more than just Henry today.

Henry’s aunt was the wife of the Minister of Education, and his family was a coal mining dynasty in Derbyshire.

Catherine had stripped him bare in public, laying all those vested interests out in the open inside Iliad Hall.

From now on, in academic circles, she would be... ostracized and guarded against.

Catherine stepped down from the stage.

The red-haired girl walked at an unhurried pace, her face entirely devoid of expression.

She descended the stairs and passed Richard’s side.

She didn’t look at Richard, nor did she look at Montagu.

The burning abbey behind the veil still stood alongside Catherine’s cellar, ledgers, and the corpses of the coal miners.

When the next debate was about to begin, the organizers would clear away all the forms within this veil.

But before they were cleared, anyone with Spirit Vision could see them.

Mundus vult decipi (The world wants to be deceived)

But the veil was never deceived.

He watched Catherine walk out through the lecture hall’s archway.

The red-haired girl didn’t look back.

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

During the preparation period for Debate Week, Richard hadn’t forgotten to polish Tide-Shifting Breathing.

At first, his whole body felt awkward, like wearing someone else’s shoes.

His inhalations dragged, his exhalations wouldn’t pull back, and his held breaths caught in the gaps between waves, like stepping on loose cobblestones.

He suffered night sweats, and eating during the day would make him break into a feverish heat.

But the four attributes of his [Body] smoothed out the vast majority of that discomfort.

The rest came down to practice.

He practiced day by day, grinding it out breath by breath.

Now, he no longer needed to deliberately guide his breath with his mind.

The breath knew where to go on its own—how deep to inhale before turning, at which node to pull back on the exhale, and at what position to release during a hold.

Early this morning, Richard sat cross-legged on his bed, performing his daily breathing method routine.

In the past, whenever he reached the third beat, there was always a spot in his chest that caught awkwardly, like a pebble in his shoe.

Today, that pebble was gone.

Richard closed his eyes and ran through a few more complete cycles.

Every cycle was incredibly silky... his body actively cooperated.

The moment it fit perfectly, the corresponding row on his Panel shifted.

[Breathing Lv.3, Progress 100%.]

[Breathing Lv.3 → Lv.4.]

[Advanced breathing method fully mastered — Tide-Shifting Breathing.]

Upgrading to Lv.4 did not consume any points.

The changes rippled outward from within.

The Lv.3 [Healing] was already strong, performing real-time repairs on his body with every breath.

Lv.4 raised that repair precision by another tier. Before, it would sweep over and iron out minor injuries;

now, it seeped inside, dissolving even the tiny blockages deep within old wounds bit by bit.

Richard felt his entire chest cavity become a few degrees clearer.

The Ether drawn in with his breath suffered even less attrition as it flowed through the Seat of the Sun.

Moreover, once Tide-Shifting Breathing linked up with the Lv.4 [Breathing], it produced a bonus he hadn’t anticipated.

Tide-Shifting Breathing’s defining trait was ”adaptability,” automatically adjusting to his physical state.

The Lv.4 [Breathing] skill provided a patch to this adaptability.

During the day, when activity and consumption were high, it automatically drew more Ether from the air to replenish him;

At night, when he was resting and his consumption was low, it automatically stored the excess Ether in his Spiritual Capacity.

After reaching Lv.4, his Spiritual Capacity also recharged much faster.

Richard looked at the next tier up.

[Effect Preview — Breathing: Surging Spring:

Healing enhanced; can store life breath between breaths;

massively accelerates self-recovery when wounded; or can channel breath to heal others.]

That was what he had been waiting a long time for.

Once he obtained [Surging Spring], he would be able to give his mother a true Ether massage.