I Loaded the Occult Panel

The newcomer wore an old-fashioned short cloak and a broad-brimmed hat.

Two small wings flanked the brim, folded flat against the edge.

His boots were winged as well. He held a Caduceus in his right hand and a coin pouch in his left.

He looked across the entire battlefield toward Greece.

Richard’s grip on his staff slowly tightened.

Mercury also raised his own Caduceus.

”Lord Hermes, I have a staff just like yours.”

He lifted a foot. ”I also have the shoes you wear. You know Ferrying, and so do I. But there is one thing you likely don’t have yet.”

He tossed the coin pouch and caught it. As it landed back in his palm, it jingled. Gold thudded and copper rattled, but only silver striking silver produced such a crisp clink.

”Therefore, I might be far more suited to play the envoy than you.”Richard firmly planted his Caduceus.

”Care to try?”

Ether surged down to Mercury’s ankles. The two small wings flat against his boots snapped upright, and he shot forward.

Mercury smiled. ”You can fly quite far.”

A single stride carried him twice the distance Richard had just covered. He landed atop the half-collapsed row of pillars on the second hill and turned back to look at him.

”Unfortunately, this city only recognizes me.”

Richard leveled his staff horizontally, and Mercury mirrored the gesture.

”You see, with the two of us together, nothing can get done.”

”There is a door, I admit,” Mercury said. ”When Romulus drove his plow here, he lifted it twice. Only envoys are permitted to pass where the plow was lifted.”

That forgettable face beneath the wide brim smiled.

”Between the two of us, who do you think the veil recognizes?”

Richard stood his ground, caught his breath, and reached into his inner pocket. His fingertips first brushed the ice-cold Reed Pen before slipping deeper to touch the antler fragment wrapped in reins. Its tip dug into his palm.

If he simply untied those reins, the scent of that night on the mudflats would come surging back. Frozen earth, horse sweat, green grass trampled to muck by tens of thousands of hooves... It didn’t matter if this city recognized him; that endless procession did.

His fingers lingered on the reins for a moment before he pulled his hand out empty.

”Gentlemen.” Mercury put his hat back on. ”Two envoys is the same as none. There is only room for one in this position. A moment ago, Lord Hermes occupied this spot.”

He tipped his chin at Richard. ”Now it’s my turn to step up.”

In the distance, Minerva rose to her feet.

”Hermes, you said something when you arrived tonight.”

Richard gripped his staff in silence.

Minerva smiled. She had been preparing for this for a long time.

”’Envoys don’t go on the roster.’ I remembered that. That sentence shielded you from my Star Map, but it also locked you out.”

She raised her eyes. ”Rome has only one old rule for the unregistered: sell them across the Tiber.”

The paving stone beneath Richard’s feet sank. The city had been asking who he was ever since he entered the field. It had asked all night without getting an answer, and now it had stopped asking.

”Rome’s envoy,” Minerva enunciated word by word. She was in terrible condition, stubbornly holding on by her last breath, ”...is Mercury!”

Mercury took off his broad-brimmed hat and offered a slight bow toward the head seat.

The City of Seven Hills’ Ether field rolled over.

The Caduceus in Richard’s hand stopped obeying him; its two golden snakes slithered down past his palm. He stood dead center in the city, yet not a single brick beneath his feet belonged to him anymore.

”This gentleman vouched for four people tonight,” Mercury noted. ”Now that the guarantor has fallen, the vouchers are rendered void on the spot.”

The Great Club in Hercules’ hand smashed heavily into the paving stones.

Nemesis’ scales hung crookedly above her head.

She unwound the Whip from her forearm and cracked it once. The tip extended through the air, but just as it lashed out toward him, it lost its momentum on its own.

Richard slipped his hand into his inner pocket and touched the Reed Pen, finding it completely cold.

”Only one envoy can remain. I accept this rule. But as for this position...”

He firmly planted the Caduceus again, and the two golden snakes finally stopped sliding down.

”I intend to fight Lord Mercury for it.”

”Sir.” Mercury sighed. ”I’ve been a middleman for half my life, and what I hate most is watching someone blindly sink money into a doomed deal. Let me make you an offer.”

He tucked the staff under his left arm to free his hand.

”If you step down now, I will handle three things for you. Tonight, your group can walk out on your own; I won’t stop you. Furthermore, I have a full chest of high-purity stabilizers that will be delivered to any Harbor you name tomorrow. Finally, regarding that esteemed guest from the Deep Realm in your hands—we will all pretend nothing ever happened.”

The implication was clear: both sides would take a step back, call a truce, and simply walk away.

Below the Seven Hills, no one spoke. Bacchus smacked his lips, about to speak, but a glare from the large man nearby forced him back. Though the brute seemed to only know how to charge blindly, he actually possessed a sense of judgment of his own.

Across the field, Mars kept his spear raised. Minerva and Fortuna refused to look in their direction, and the rest of them showed no signs of accepting a truce.

Mercury said, ”Consider it, sir. A businessman never forces a sale.”

”No need.”

”Why is that?”

”Because if I accepted the terms, I’d completely lose the chance to be the envoy.”

From the corner of his eye, Richard noticed a cobblestone near his feet shaking its head frantically. It was Matthew, reminding him as well.

Mercury also shook his head. ”A pity. You really should have joined our trade, sir.”

It was right at that moment that someone off the field made their move.

Minerva had retracted her Star Map in too much of a hurry. One star had fallen behind, tumbling continuously along the third section of the paved road until it rolled right up to Richard’s feet.

Richard glanced down. It was an eye. The eyelid was thin, and the pupil was sunken inward—so deep it looked bottomless.

Naturally, Richard wasn’t stupid enough to reach for it.

That eye reminded him of Mrs. MacNeil’s encounter in the morgue that year. After the Unresponsive Pit incident, she had tried to divine the Chief Responder. As a result, a pupilless eye had stared right back at her. If Madam Marie hadn’t rushed to the rescue, they would have been doomed then and there.

Ever since then, he knew the rule: whoever took the initiative to look would be looked back at in return.

Even though he stood perfectly still, the eye moved on its own.

The broken pillars of the City of Seven Hills and the mangled paving stones beneath his feet all retreated far away.

First, he smelled honey. A pot of water was simmering on the stove in the kitchen of the seventh house in Slag Alley. Outside the window, a woven straw beehive in the plum tree buzzed.

Evelyn turned away from the stove, her apron covered in flour, holding up a baking tray. The Gingerbread Rabbits on it were arranged in neat rows, their hats perfectly straight and both ears intact.

”Brother, this batch is a huge success!”

Richard felt a sudden warmth in his chest; he startled even himself.

The vision flipped. The eye considerately showed Richard what he could achieve just by extending his hand.

He saw himself pressing a hand against that rolling object. The next moment, the sky above the City of Seven Hills split open, and hundreds, thousands of open-eyed stars rained down.

This time, he dictated the direction they fell.

On the second hill, Mars couldn’t even let out a roar; Mercury was melted entirely, reverting into that clinking coin pouch that Richard casually pocketed; the Roman table was utterly wiped out, swallowed up without a single survivor, and ultimately all fell into his grasp.

And further on... He saw himself standing before Hecate’s high chair, staring coldly down at the woman. Bacchus and Hercules had become his lackeys, flanking her left and right as they violently tossed the former chief aside.

Matthew stood nearby, clapping happily, as if saying: Richard, congratulations on taking the throne!

Further still, his mother’s circuit lit up from end to end, glowing as brightly as it did when she was twenty-six. His sister opened her own shop in the Imperial Capital’s West District, the signboard displaying a rabbit in a scholar’s hat.

His grandfather sat in the backyard next to a row of holly. A small trowel was stabbed into the dirt by his feet, and he was still cursing the butler for overwatering.

These scenes flashed past one by one, giving him time to calculate exactly how much money each would cost, how many years it would take, or how many people would have to die.

The eye even did the math for him. The data it yielded was perfectly clean, ensuring Richard would feel no unease of conscience.

Richard stood in that sweetness for a moment.

Right at that moment, the surface of water deep within his chest stirred on its own.

Still Water never asked what he wanted to see; it merely reflected.

Richard lowered his head and glanced into that water. There was nothing on it.

His mother cast no reflection. Nor did his sister. The shop in the West District, the high chair he sat upon... none of it fell into the water.

A mirror reflects the present, and the present held none of these things.

[Speculation; Inner Awakening] flared to life at that very instant.

He shifted his gaze back to the baking tray.

The Gingerbread Rabbits in the tray all wore perfectly straight hats and possessed two complete ears; there wasn’t a single reject among them.

Evelyn’s parting words from Christmas returned to his ears.

”This one is the ugliest. I saved it specifically for you.”

”The ugly ones are the limited editions. Anyone can make the pretty ones.”

Richard laughed.

Once his laughter subsided, [Perception; Reflex] shot the invading gaze right back.

Upon seeing that it had read into a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old prep student—one who had only recently reached Signature, possessed an utterly average foundation, and hadn’t slept well in two days—the eyelid froze on the spot.

Richard opened his eyes. The broken pillars and the mangled road beneath his feet all returned.

Several years had passed within the vision, but in reality, it seemed only three or four seconds had ticked by.

In those three or four seconds, the high-tier puppet had already moved between him and the object. It knelt on one leg, using its remaining arm to brace itself in front of Richard, completely blocking the eyeball’s line of sight.

”Prometheus?”

”I thought you were going to reach for it,” the craftsman said with lingering fear.

”My willpower isn’t that fragile.”

”That’s good,” the man breathed out.

”It’s not good,” Richard said.

”Why?”

”Your Ether has nearly bottomed out.”

Mercury walked over, first casting a glance at the kneeling puppet.

”This machine is truly well-built. Craftsmanship from north of the Alps. I wanted to buy one too, but regrettably, the master wasn’t willing to sell.”

Prometheus didn’t reply.

”Sir, let us begin.”

Mercury turned back to him, flawlessly polite.