I Loaded the Occult Panel

The white-haired giant didn’t answer. He opened the book in his hand.

Lillian recognized the binding—The Structure and Evolution of Ancient Gaelic Script. She had seen it in the library.

Naturally, the professor wasn’t here to lecture.

MacFie turned to a specific page and raised his eyes, sweeping his gaze across the six people at the table.

His gaze lingered on Lillian’s face for a fraction of a second—so briefly she thought she had imagined it.

Then he spoke in Gaelic.

The words rolled from his throat like boulders tumbling down a mountain, carrying the weight of a judgment.

Lillian couldn’t understand Gaelic, but Skadi’s False Flame above her head flickered.

”What is he reading?” Freyja set down her plate, shrinking back in tension.

”He’s reading our names.” Hela’s voice wavered.The goddess of death, whose face was half living and half corpse, paled on both sides.

”Not the ones we borrowed, but...”

She didn’t finish.

MacFie finished reading the passage and shut the book.

The hall was so quiet they could hear the soft crackle of the burning False Flames.

Then, the wolf-shaped projection of the divine name above Fenrir’s head fractured, as if scored down the middle by a pen nib.

Fenrir howled.

He lunged at the white-haired giant by the door, the chains on his limbs pulling taut and clanking.

Empowered by the gaze of a Virtuoso, his physical strength was enough to pulverize a concrete wall.

MacFie raised his large hand and traced a feather-light stroke.

Lillian saw that stroke clearly.

It was a character in the ancient Gaelic branch-carved script—a short blade slashing diagonally outward.

Carving this character into stone would require a chisel, but the professor wrote it barehanded in the air. Ether followed the trajectory of his fingertip, condensing into a tangible white scar.

The instant Fenrir hit that white mark, half of his body simply dissipated.

He was still howling, but the sound cut off the moment it left his throat.

”You swallowed the names of the Celtic table.”

MacFie finally spoke in the Albion Language.

”The higher-ups originally didn’t intend to interfere with you.”

”Whatever the figure behind your table wanted to collect, they’d let him collect it. But you little whelps, who haven’t even secured your own seats yet, chose this exact moment to swallow the Empire’s native Celtic table...”

”So someone had to come and teach you a lesson.”

Loki finally stood up, all the drunken languor wiped from his face.

”Old man, you know what I just ate, yet you dare come alone.”

MacFie casually tucked The Structure and Evolution of Ancient Gaelic Script back under his arm.

”Boy.” He looked at Loki, his eyes brimming with contempt.

”Can you even digest what you’ve swallowed?”

Loki’s expression shifted.

”An entire table of names, and you choked them all down.”

MacFie took another step forward. ”Your strength has surged, but you haven’t even tallied exactly what it is you’ve eaten.”

”The things you can’t count, I’ll count for you!”

His hand traced and slashed through the air. Ancient Gaelic characters flowed from his fingertips one after another, their white trails weaving into a web.

Lillian understood.

Those characters were re-indexing the divine names in Loki’s belly—the ones he had just swallowed and hadn’t yet settled.

The name of The Morrigan, the name of Cuchulainn, the name of Lugh... Loki had swallowed them whole, mixing them into a chaotic mass.

As MacFie’s web of text draped over him, it ”read” them back out of Loki’s body, one by one.

The instant they were read out, they no longer belonged to Loki.

”MacFie!” Loki growled.

He mobilized every ounce of the power he had just swallowed. Fire and trickery, chaos and shapeshifting—he hurled it all against that web of text.

All the False Flames in the hall were snuffed out. In the darkness, Lillian could only rely on her Raven Eye to see.

She saw Loki’s bloated, brimming ether being drawn out, character by character.

MacFie held his ground, unmoving.

Scholars of the Moon Hunting Tradition never chased their prey. They laid their traps, recited the names, and then waited.

The moon didn’t need to chase anyone. It only needed to shine, and the shadows would have nowhere to hide.

”Tyr!” Loki shouted.

The one-armed god of war lunged forward, his ether so thick it practically dripped blood.

MacFie stepped sideways, dodging the pounce.

With his empty hand, he added a single rune along the trajectory of Tyr’s leap.

The name Tyr already symbolized a severed hand. With this stroke added, Tyr’s only remaining hand was struck from his name.

The god of war dissipated, taking his borrowed name with him.

Freyja tried to run.

Before her golden-red light could even scatter, she was caught in the ever-expanding web of text.

Hela was already half a corpse. When MacFie’s web of text swept past her, the living half of her face slowly faded away.

Lillian cowered in Skadi’s chair, not daring to move a muscle.

She clutched the needle hidden in her cuff, trembling all over.

Fenrir, the poor bastard, was completely dead. The others had been dispersed; though not dead, they had lost half their lives.

Only Loki and Lillian remained.

Loki was tightly entangled in that web of text. The entire table of names he had swallowed was being gouged out one by one.

He reached out to unleash his power, but what he pulled forth was no longer strength; it was emptiness.

”You thought if others ate their fill, they might spit out some bones for you,” MacFie mocked.

”The moment you sat in that chair, you were already food on someone else’s plate.”

He brought down the final rune.

Loki, along with his ether glutted with divine names, faded into the darkness.

The hall collapsed. The walls, hung with fake fires and empty goblets, all dissolved into mist.

Lillian was thrown from Skadi’s chair.

She fell into a void, surrounded on all sides by dissipating mist.

MacFie’s figure walked toward her through the mist.

Lillian gripped the needle tighter.

This professor had just crossed out an entire table of people blessed by a Virtuoso’s gaze as easily as striking out a line of typos.

She was merely a Practitioner who had only recently taken her seat. She knew she couldn’t escape.

MacFie stopped in front of her.

The white-haired giant looked down at her for a long time.

Lillian waited for that white stroke to fall upon her.

”Skadi,” MacFie said, using her borrowed divine name.

Lillian held her breath.

”Did you claim this name yourself, or did someone force it on you?”

Lillian opened her mouth. In the end, she didn’t lie.

”...Claimed it myself,” her voice was very soft.

MacFie stared at the needle in her cuff, then studied her eyes for a moment.

He had seen the film masking those eyes far too many times.

The sweetness of the abyss always formed exactly this kind of film over a person’s eyes.

”Your mother is in a sanatorium, isn’t she? She looked into that door and couldn’t step back out.”

Lillian jolted, but then she didn’t find it strange.

A professor capable of reading the names of an entire table would hardly need to expend any effort to read a girl’s origins.

”...Yes.”

MacFie sighed softly. That callused hand did not fall.

When Lillian opened her eyes, the void was already receding.

She was buoyed by a force, floating back toward this side of the veil.

In the final moment before she drifted back, she saw MacFie bend down and pick up a few items from the spots where the others had dissipated.

When Lillian woke up, dawn hadn’t yet broken.

The first thing the girl did was reach for the needle.

The needle was still there.

Lillian sat on the cold bedboard and hugged her knees.

She wanted to find someone to talk to.

But who could she say these things to?

She thought of someone.

The boy who had shared a desk with her, who never asked too many questions when they stripped bones together.

No. She had already walked down a different path.

On this path, there was no turning back.

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

Professor Mortimer cupped his chipped teacup, strolling slowly from the end of the corridor, his hat worn askew.

Seeing Richard sitting at the door, he didn’t stop walking.

”You again.”

”Professor.” Richard stood up.

”Your aunt said you’ve been staking me out for two days.” Mortimer pushed open the office door.

Mortimer sat down in his old armchair and refilled his cup with a half measure of pale, colorless tea.

”Speak.” He took a sip.

”You didn’t bring anything for me to dismantle this time, and you look terrible. Seems you’ve run into real trouble?”

Richard closed the door.

He took a stack of things from his coat.

They were the clues he had gathered little by little over the past few days.

After hearing the whole story, the old professor set his teacup down.

”I know a bit about the Ashford family from that generation.”

Mortimer glanced at him.

”Your grandfather should have told you everything.”

Richard nodded.

”He said the Rite of the Counter-Hunt is something only a madman would do. He refused to explain the exact ritual.”

”He was right not to tell you.” Mortimer shook his head. ”That’s a Hunter’s work. You can’t learn it.”

”Professor, what I want to know is... substitution.”

Richard voiced his thoughts.

”The name recorded in that ledger... could I use something else to knock my grandfather’s name off it?”

Mortimer looked at him for a long time.

The feigned cloudy haze was gone from those half-lidded old eyes.

”Richard,” he said. ”Do you know what you’re asking?”

”I do.”

”The path of substitution is viable,” Mortimer said.

Richard held his breath.

”It has an iron rule.” The old professor held up a finger.

”The scales must balance. If you want to knock a name out of the ledger, you have to offer a substitute of equal weight.”

”If the weight isn’t enough, it won’t budge.”

”If the weight is enough, then the substitute must...” Mortimer paused.

”Truly go where that name was supposed to go.”

”I can’t perform this ritual.” The old professor picked up his teacup again.

Richard felt a sudden wave of disappointment.

”I’m just an old bookworm from the Classical Records Tradition.” The old professor sipped his tea.

”I can read it, I can dismantle it, and I can tell you what its skeleton looks like.”

”But for this matter, just reading it isn’t enough.”

”It involves the Wild Hunt, and the Moon Hunting Tradition’s rules of ’the hunter and the hunted’.”

Mortimer stood up.

”For this, you need to find someone who understands Moon-Hunting and is also a Major Adept.”

”Who?”

The old professor was already walking toward the door.

”Perfect timing.” He looked back. ”He also returned to the Imperial Capital today.”

Mortimer led Richard to another office.

There were no notes stuffed in the door crack of this office; people looking for him didn’t dare slide anything through the gap.

Mortimer pushed the door. It was unlocked.

Richard’s Inspiration ran cold. The person inside had just returned and was still radiating a murderous aura.

MacFie sat by the window. On the desk in front of him sat a severed head.

Its eyes were half-open, frozen in the astonishment of being cleaved right down the middle.

The ether clinging to this head, however, gave him a sense of déjà vu.

Mortimer walked in and sat down in the other chair by the window, completely at home.

”Old Mac, you tired?”

”Tired of what?” MacFie finally looked up. ”Just a routine business trip.”

His gaze fell on Richard.

”It’s you. Richard, was it?”

”Hello, Professor.” Richard bowed slightly.

”Haven’t seen you since the last advanced seminar.” MacFie leaned back in his chair.

”You look like you’ve bulked up again. Catherine was saying last time that you can eat more than anyone else in the whole university.”

When he said this, his expression softened noticeably.

”Did you receive that bottle of liquor from Catherine later on?”

Richard used the topic to build rapport.

MacFie let out a hearty laugh.

”I did. The peat flavor was perfectly authentic—not much worse than my own family distillery’s.”

”That girl Catherine doesn’t drink. To pick out a bottle like that, she must have had help.”

”Phillips helped her,” Richard said, not trying to claim the credit for himself.

”He spent ages choosing at the tavern counter, saying Highlanders drink peated liquor.”

”That kid has a sharp nose.” As MacFie said this, his murderous aura completely dissipated.

Mortimer opportunely steered the conversation back.

”Old friend, he’s here on business.”

MacFie murmured in acknowledgment and looked back at Richard.

Mortimer took out Richard’s stack of clues and spread them out on MacFie’s desk.

MacFie’s eyes swept over the rubbings, the hunting schedule, and the antler reins talisman.

He read them quickly, then reached out and pinched the rubbing of the antler reins talisman.

”The Wild Hunt,” he said.

”An old debt of the Ashford family,” Mortimer added.

”His grandfather performed the Rite of the Counter-Hunt in his youth. The debt was passed down to his descendants, and now an invitation has appeared on the doorpost.”

MacFie set the rubbing down and looked at Richard.

”You want to substitute.”

Richard felt a surge of excitement; the man had hit the nail on the head in just one sentence.

”...Yes.”

MacFie fell silent for a long time.

He pushed Fenrir’s head toward Richard.

”You’re in luck.”