I Loaded the Mysticism Panel

When the morning classes ended, the hallways filled with students heading for the dining hall.

Richard stuffed his textbooks into his schoolbag and stood up from his seat by the window in the third row.

He moved at a leisurely pace, waiting until the crowd had mostly dispersed before heading out of the classroom.

Just as he turned into the hallway, the headmaster, Dr. Fletcher, was walking over from the other end.

Normally, the headmaster rarely stopped to talk to students in the hallway, but today, he stopped in front of Richard.

”Richard.”

”Headmaster.”

Fletcher’s gaze fell on Richard, deliberately keeping his eyes level with the boy’s.

”The teachers of your various subjects have all given me feedback on your recent performance.”

As he spoke, he pulled a document from his folder.

”We’ve all agreed that you’re ready for flexible learning.”

Richard was taken aback for a moment. ”Flexible learning?”

”It means you no longer need to sit in the classroom for every single lesson.”

”If you feel you’ve already mastered the content of a particular class, you can inform the instructor beforehand and go to the library for self-study.”

He took a fountain pen from his pocket and signed his initials in the blank space at the end of the document.

”I’ll mark your attendance record as ’Special Permission for Self-Study,’ so it won’t affect your grade assessment.”

After speaking, he handed the document over.

Richard took it and glanced at it. The paper bore the administrative seal of the headmaster’s office, its red ink not yet completely dry.

”Thank you, Headmaster.”

Fletcher gave a nod, then turned and continued down the hallway.

Richard stood in the hallway, folded the document, and tucked it into a zippered pocket inside his schoolbag.

The privilege of flexible learning was not unheard of in Greenwood’s history.

But it was usually reserved for top students in the final-year preparatory class studying for university entrance exams.

The kind of students who had already thoroughly mastered the curriculum and only needed to focus on their final push before exams.

Richard hadn’t even started the preparatory class, yet he had already received this privilege.

He hitched his schoolbag strap higher on his shoulder and headed toward the dining hall.

At the end of the hallway, Warren poked his head out, a half-eaten chicken leg in his hand.

”Hey, what are you dawdling in the hallway for? The steak is going to get cold.”

”Coming.”

”That was the headmaster, right? What did he want with you?”

”He just said a few words to me.”

Warren paused his chewing.

”...Don’t tell me you got praised again?”

”Something like that.”

”You’ve been getting praised way too often lately.”

Warren sighed and tossed the chicken bone into a trash can by the hallway wall.

”At this rate, it makes it look like Mason and I are just riding your coattails.”

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

「Cheltenham Ladies’ College, Second Floor of the Library.」

In the small reading room at the end of the hall, Catherine had been sitting at her desk for a long time.

Four books were spread out on the desk.

The one on top was a journal left behind by her late father.

Beneath it were three old volumes she had asked her uncle to dig out from the family’s collection.

One was the *Northern Clans and Guilds List - Non-Public Edition*;

another, *A Gaelic Highland Moon-Hunting Bloodline Branch Study*;

and the last, a copy of the *Black Ritual Notes* with its cover fallen off.

A white paper label was stuck to the cover of this last book, the *Black Ritual Notes*. On it, in her uncle’s handwriting, were the words: ”Return as soon as you’re finished.”

’Black doesn’t always represent evil. It can also represent what is hidden behind the curtain, unknown to the world.’

Catherine copied a few pages of notes from the *Black Ritual Notes*. After deciphering them, she tore the paper to shreds and threw it into the fireplace.

A hand-drawn relationship chart lay scattered on a corner of the desk.

It was something she had accumulated, stroke by stroke, over the past few weeks.

She was doing the same thing as that boy from Brighton.

Taking stock of her bargaining chips, organizing shareable intelligence, and speculating on the true identities of the Divine Pantheon Salon’s members.

But her approach was slightly different from a certain someone’s.

More than half of the connections her father had left behind were severed after his death.

The few remaining old partners were scattered across Edinburgh, Newcastle, and York... she didn’t know them at all and couldn’t get any useful information from them.

As for the few distant Secretive One relatives on her mother’s side, she had lost contact with most of them. Only one still sent a postcard every Christmas.

Then there were the old stories her uncle was reluctant to discuss... She had paid for his drinks out of her own pocket and baited out a lot of information, but since it was all said while he was drunk, its authenticity was questionable.

These past few days, she had turned every channel she had upside down.

Her pen tip paused several times over the ”Shareable Intelligence” column.

Most graduates of Cheltenham ended up as the wives of wealthy merchants, diplomats, or local councilmen.

In circles like these, there wasn’t much that could be used as a bargaining chip.

The intelligence she’d spent a good deal of money to acquire was all about which young lady got engaged, or which madam was recently endorsing some charitable foundation.

At the Round Table of the Divine Pantheon Salon, this kind of information wouldn’t even rank at the very bottom.

She was very clear about one thing: the Divine Pantheon Salon was a god-sent opportunity for her.

An orphaned Hunter from a fallen family, following the normal path, might not even reach Minor Mastery in another twenty years.

The Moon-Hunting Tradition had always been a niche branch within the Imperial borders, and after the purge in the Gael Highlands, the tradition’s core members were reduced by more than half.

Her uncle was only at Minor Mastery, and the few remaining elders hadn’t even reached that level.

Further up her family line, there was no one left from whom she could borrow strength.

She had listened through that entire session at the Round Table and concluded that this was her most direct path to a higher Tier.

Not the only path, but the most direct.

If she followed the conventional route through the academy system, it would take her at least fifteen years, and she would still get stuck before the threshold of Minor Mastery.

If she tried to get a recommendation through a civilian Guild, it would take at least twenty years, and she would have to face the hostility of her family’s remaining enemies.

There were many Hunter Clans in the Gael Highlands who had sworn deadly feuds with her family, and they were all still alive and well.

With the Divine Pantheon Salon, what she needed to do was make no mistakes in any of the gatherings and hold on until she could obtain her first real resource.

Catherine closed the book beside her, picked up her pen, and wrote three names on the last page of her notebook.

The first: Hermes.

After it, she added a line of text: ”Possibly the runner-up of the Cicero Cup from Greenwood.”

Her pen paused.

She remembered the words he had spoken on the speech platform.

”The border of civilization is the moment you stop questioning.”

That line was deduced from a set of very quiet images.

A room, walls, water pipes, conduits, an underground river... pushing downward, layer by layer.

Each layer touched upon the most ordinary domestic topic, and beneath each layer hid a Nail capable of ripping out the entire foundation of the house.

She had been sitting in the audience then, and it wasn’t until after the speech ended that she realized she hadn’t moved at all.

The way he had wrapped a sharp judgment inside a Cicero quote, and then wrapped that Cicero quote in language that sounded like it was about architecture.

That composure, and the sharp wit hidden between the lines, made him seem almost identical to the Hermes at the Round Table.

Catherine’s pen wrote another note under the ”Hermes” line: ”Do not ask.”

The second name: Aries.

She wrote underneath this line: ”A northern Hunter squad, possibly from the Northumberland area.

The supply chain for the Three-Ring Enchanted Bullet points to an internal channel within the Northern Legion.”

She wasn’t certain about this one, but she could hear a hint of a northern accent in his voice.

The Red Copper Mask suppressed most of the resonance, but his sibilants had the flat quality characteristic of the Gael Highlands.

Among her father’s old partners, at least two of them had that same sibilant sound.

’Not necessarily an acquaintance, but definitely someone from the same geographical region.’

The third name: Dionysus.

”An Imperial Capital local, has an unresolved relationship with Imperial University.

At the upper limit for a Practitioner or just touching the threshold of Minor Mastery.

Male, between thirty and forty years old. His voice has that middle-aged quality—past the stage of anger, but not yet settled into maturity.”

This was another identification method her father had taught her.

Judging age by vocal quality was far more reliable than judging by content.

A person could disguise their intonation, their accent, and their vocabulary, but it was very difficult to disguise the quality of their voice.

After writing the three names, she added another line at the very bottom.

”Hecate... do not analyze.”

Catherine put down her pen.

It wasn’t that she didn’t think about it. The things she had considered were far more numerous than what she had written down.

When Hecate unveiled the Curtain at the first Round Table meeting, the Ether Flow throughout the entire Divine Hall had come to a brief standstill.

The space itself had yielded to her.

Such deference indicated a Tier high enough to make space itself respond.

That was a characteristic of Grand Mastery, or perhaps an even higher Tier.

She had wondered who Hecate might be.

Of the several possibilities she’d considered, one had lingered the longest.

But in the end, she had discarded that theory, along with the identification she had made in her mind.

It wasn’t because it was unimportant. On the contrary, it was because it was *too* important.

Putting herself in Hecate’s shoes, she knew she wouldn’t tolerate anyone piecing together her true identity.

Catherine closed the notebook and slid it into a hidden compartment beneath the desktop.

Hidden compartments were standard issue in the Cheltenham reading rooms, and the key was held only by the user.

She switched off the desk lamp.

Outside the large window at the end of the hall, the sky over the Imperial Capital was beginning to turn a bluish-gray.

Catherine thought of the boy from Brighton, and the two words she had mouthed to him: Next time.

The girl stood up from her chair and draped her coat over her shoulders.

She casually tucked her red hair behind her ear.

’Hermes.’ She silently repeated the name in her mind.

As she recited the name, she had already completely separated the person from the face of the Cicero Cup runner-up.

From this moment on, they were two different people.

One sat at the anonymous Round Table of the Divine Pantheon Salon; the other was in a classroom at some school in Brighton.

What she had to do was learn how to deal with the former, slowly, at the Round Table.

The road she had to walk at that table was long—long enough that she had no spare energy to waste on things like ”mutually confirming identities.”

If a day ever came when they truly needed to join forces, that day would come on its own.